Shower Of Stars

by Nancy Herkness

  She almost tripped over the dog in her haste to exit.

  Charlie went to the refrigerator for a bottle of white wine; a little alcohol might make the upcoming discussion less awkward. She had two glasses poured and a tray of cheese and fruit laid out when Jack came into the kitchen. He had changed into jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. “That looks mighty tempting, but I have to go.”

  “Go? We have to talk about the adoption!”

  “I'm sorry, sugar, but I have an appointment tonight. I'll stop by on Sunday.”

  “I thought you'd at least spend the night, get familiar with the house, start filling out the adoption forms.” Charlie realized tears were about to spill down her cheeks and she turned her back.

  “Damnation,” he muttered, having noticed the telltale glitter in her eyes. “Fine, come with me. We can talk while we're driving.”

  “To New York?” Charlie surreptitiously wiped her tears and grabbed a glass of wine.

  “I'm not going to New York. I'm going to the Poconos.”

  “You have an appointment in the Poconos?”

  “I'll explain on the way. Just pack warm pajamas and hiking clothes.” He checked his watch. “We need to get going in a half an hour.”

  Charlie took a sip of the wine, and debated for a second. They needed to spend enough time together to pretend to be a couple, and here was a good chance. “I have to see if Isabelle can take care of the animals.”

  “I'll wait in the living room.” He picked up the tray of food, and carried it with him.

  When Charlie peeked in after her phone call, he was sitting on the couch with Twinkle draped across his lap. Major sat watching intently as Jack cut a piece of cheese and tossed it to him. She smiled. He already looked at home. She raced back to her bedroom and stripped out of her wedding attire. As she was pulling on a pair of jeans, her wedding ring caught the light, and she paused a moment to examine it closely under the lamp. It had seemed to be a simple, wide band of highly polished silver when Jack had slipped it on her finger. Now she moved her hand and a web of tiny, straight lines crisscrossed over the surface.

  “Widmannstatten structures,” she gasped.

  She knew from her research that only iron meteorites formed in the core of a large asteroid or planet exhibited the distinctive geometric pattern she saw on the ring. It was created when the nickel-iron alloy at the center of the parent body cooled very slowly, and the atoms of the two metals separated.

  The man had given her a ring made from a meteorite!

  She slipped a soft, cream-colored turtleneck over her head and walked out to face Jack in the living room.

  “Ready?” he asked, carefully moving the cat off his lap.

  “Not quite.” She held up her left hand. “I can't believe you gave me a ring made from a meteorite.”

  “Glad you like it.”

  “It’s…” Charlie searched for the right word, “extraordinary. I'll return it to you when the divorce goes through, of course, but in the meantime, I'm honored to be entrusted with it.”

  “It's nothing special; just a bit of an iron with nothing to recommend it but the Widmannstatten pattern. You can keep it even after the divorce. Something to remember me by.”

  “No, no, I can't. It wouldn't be right,” but she turned her left hand to admire the pattern again. It was too ridiculous to say what she really felt: she was touched to be given something that was unique and important to him.

  “Did Miguel make it?” she asked.

  “Everyone seems to think I'm incapable of working my own damned meteorites,” he said. “No, I made it.”

  “I'd better pack,” Charlie mumbled and returned to the bedroom.

  She hurled clothes into a duffle bag, stopping every few seconds to look at the ring her new husband had made for her with his own hands. Soon her duffle was stowed in the Land Rover, and they were on their way. Charlie directed him through a few back roads to the highway.

  “Okay, why are we going to the Poconos?” she asked. Suddenly, the aptness of their destination hit her. “Does the hotel have a heart-shaped bed? Or a bathtub like a giant champagne glass?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A mirror on the ceiling?” Charlie was grinning widely. “A white fur bedspread?”

  “We're going to a very simple cabin which has nothing but a couple of regular mattresses and box springs and a pull-out sofabed.” He was starting to sound annoyed.

  “Don't you get it? People go to the Poconos for their honeymoons.”

  His chuckle from the darkness sounded like Twinkle's purr, smooth and deep and relaxed. “Oh yeah. 'Heir-conditioned.' I've seen the billboards. Well, we're not going anywhere near those places. There's too much light.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “To Miguel's cabin out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “And what appointment do you have there?”

  “It's not exactly an appointment. It's more in the nature of a pilgrimage.”

  Charlie waited.

  “I hate reporters,” he muttered but he continued. “We're going to watch the Lyrid meteor shower. It reaches its peak tonight and tomorrow night.”

  “‘Lyrid.’ That means it looks like it's coming from the constellation Lyra?” More useful facts from her research.

  “Actually on the border of Lyra and Hercules, and it's produced by Comet Thatcher. The Lyrids are one of the oldest meteor showers on record. Chinese astronomers mentioned them in 687 B.C.”

  “What's the ZHR?” Charlie was having fun showing off her newly acquired knowledge. ZHR stood for “zenithal hourly rate” which basically meant how many meteors you could expect to see in an hour.

  He raised an eyebrow. “The norm is twenty but it can get up to over a hundred. And sometimes you get fireballs.”

  “I'd love to see a fireball. Why is this a pilgrimage?”

  He gave a long-suffering sigh. “A long, long time ago—”

  “In a galaxy far, far away…” she interjected.

  “When I was a kid, about fourteen,” he went on as if she hadn't spoken, “I couldn't sleep one night. So I lay just staring out the window, and suddenly the sky exploded. Stars were shooting everywhere.”

  He stopped.

  “And?” she prodded.

  “I thought the world was coming to an end, and I dove under the bed. But nothing happened. There was no noise, no explosion, no earthquake. So I crawled out from under the bed and lay down again and watched. I was going through a rough patch just then, and somehow this silent fireworks display put on by Mother Nature seemed to be a sign. Of what, I had no idea. I went to the library the next day and looked up everything I could find about space. That library wasn't exactly up-to-date so I didn't find much. But I was hooked. And I've been hooked ever since,” he finished.

  “So every year, you go somewhere to watch the Lyrids?” Charlie prompted.

  He shrugged. “I do my best. It's my offering to the gods of outer space.”

  She let him lapse into the silence he obviously preferred. It was soothing to sit next to him in the soft glow of the dashboard instruments. He drove the way he did everything else: with effortless competence. She tilted her seat back slightly as she watched his long fingers flex and relax on the steering wheel. Her eyelids drifted closed as she thought what a marvelous opening his story would make for the book she wouldn't get to write.

  ***

  Jack glanced over at the woman beside him. Her breathing was deep and even, her legs sprawled in the relaxation of sleep. Wearing worn jeans and a simple turtleneck she still managed to look like an advertisement for Ralph Lauren. He contemplated brushing his fingers up the inside of one of those deliriously long thighs…. It was a funny thing about lust. You had no control over it. One minute the woman was a major thorn in his side. Then a gust of sea wind blew off the channel, pressing the thin silk of her wedding dress tightly against her breasts, hips and legs, and he wanted nothing more than to be between those th
ighs.

  The cake cutting ceremony had been a particular pleasure. Standing with his arms around her waist and his hands holding hers on the knife handle, he'd been able to pull her against him from shoulder to ankle. He tightened his grasp on the steering wheel to counteract the stirring in his crotch. Why shouldn't he take his hand off the wheel and see what happened, he thought irritably. There was no real reason not to...

  Except his gut was sending danger signals to his brain.

  He started to reach across the space between them. Then he remembered her friends. At the phony reception, every one of them had cornered him and sung Charlie's praises while probing his character and background. He had circumvented their questions without a twinge of conscience. All three of them had ended with a warning—some more direct than others—not to hurt her.

  He frowned.

  Why were they so damned protective?

  He looked over at his new wife. Even asleep, she radiated strength and independence. She obviously could take care of herself. He shook his head again.

  Maybe her friends sensed something in him that worried them.

  ***

  Charlie's head banged against the car window.

  “Ouch!” she said groggily, as she straightened up and rubbed the sore spot.

  “Sorry. Miguel discourages visitors by leaving the road unpaved,” Jack said, shifting into a lower gear.

  “You mean I slept the whole way?” she asked in dismay.

  “I understand wedding days are exhausting for the bride.”

  “And wedding nights are exhausting for the groom,” Charlie quipped without thinking. She regretted it when he took his eyes off the road and gave her a look that—even in the dim glow of the dashboard lights—seared deep into the inner space low in her belly. “Oof!” she grunted as the big Land Rover bounced over a frost heave.

  She used the rough road as an excuse to turn and grab a handhold on the door.

  The skittering headlights suddenly flashed on the windows of a building. Jack pulled up beside it, and Charlie slid out of the car and stretched as she examined Miguel's country home. It was a handsome wooden cabin. A long porch well-stocked with rocking chairs stretched across the front. The windows were tall and multi-paned. The porch itself was built of stone, as were the chimneys at each end of the house. Charlie walked back around the Land Rover to help Jack unload. He had pulled a set of keys out of his jacket pocket and stood weighing them in his hand.

  “You know, sugar,” he said with a deep drawl, “talk about mirrors on the ceiling and white fur bedspreads can put ideas into a man's head. Ideas which have nothing to do with a business partnership.”

  Charlie discovered she had to clear her constricted throat. Before she could get a word out, Jack continued.

  “So let's get back on the proper footing.” The drawl had all but disappeared. “You need me to adopt a baby. I need you to stay out of my private affairs. That's why we're here.”

  “My footing is perfectly stable,” Charlie said. “I'm here to make up some stories to tell Rhonda Brown, and to watch rocks fall out of the sky.”

  He handed her the keys; this time she was prepared for the heat they emitted.

  “Good. Then we're straight. The big silver key opens the front door. I'll bring in the gear,” he said, hefting two duffle bags out of the car.

  “I can help carry,” she said.

  He laughed. “You could probably carry the whole load, but I'll handle it.”

  Charlie led the way up the steps and onto the porch. The key turned easily in the lock. She heard the click of switches behind her as she walked inside and blinked in the flood of light.

  She stood in a large room that was open all the way up to the rafters. To her right, stairs led up to a sort of gallery offering access to several doors. To her left, she looked over a high eating bar into the kitchen. In front of her was a male fantasy of a hunting lodge. Big overstuffed chairs and sofas in subdued plaids crouched around the two fireplaces and an enormous television set. A locked gun rack stood against one wall. The chandelier was made of antlers.

  “This is real guy territory,” Charlie chuckled.

  “Paradise,” Jack agreed, dropping the duffels by a table made of tree branches with the bark still on them. He checked his watch and headed for the kitchen. “Ten o'clock. We have time. Let's see what supplies the caretaker laid in for us.”

  Charlie volunteered to make sandwiches while Jack went in search of the equipment they would need for a night of meteor-watching. As she slathered Dijon mustard on whole wheat bread, she contemplated Jack's statement about being on the “proper footing.” He started this little flirtation, and now he claims he wants to end it. The more she considered it, the more she thought he found her a bit harder to handle than he expected. A smug smile curved her lips; there was something very satisfying about rattling a man like Jack Lanett.

  Appearing totally unruffled at the moment, he walked into the kitchen with two loaded backpacks and an insulated bag for the food. He was also wearing a shoulder harness with a pistol in it. Charlie felt a twinge of unease as Isabelle's speculation about Jack's secret flitted across her mind.

  “Is it that dangerous up here?”

  He shrugged. “Just an occasional garbage-raiding bear.”

  “I don't see any bearskin rugs scattered around.”

  “The only animals I've ever actually aimed at were two drunken hunters who wouldn't get off the front porch.”

  “Did you shoot them?” she asked hopefully.

  “Bloodthirsty, aren't you? No, but I was tempted.” He made a long slow survey of her from head to toe but this time his gaze was flatly analytical. “The sneakers and jeans are good. Do you have a warm jacket, gloves and a hat?”

  “The jacket, yes. Gloves and hat, no.”

  A trip to the coat closet unearthed a plaid hunting cap and a pair of too-large ski mittens that engulfed Charlie's hands.

  “You won't need your hands except to eat so they'll do,” Jack assured her.

  He, of course, looked every inch the fashionable explorer with a black leather jacket and gloves, and a gray fedora.

  She caught the grin he couldn't quite repress when she fitted the ridiculous hat on over her elegant chignon. “Don't say a word,” she warned.

  He appeared to debate a moment before saying, “Let's go.”

  “Wise man.”

  He helped her on with her backpack and handed her a flashlight. Turning off all the cabin's lights and locking the door, they set off into the woods on a path that Jack followed with the silent surefootedness of a deer. About fifteen minutes later, they emerged from the trees. Charlie swept the area with her flashlight, discovering a large field where flat expanses of stone alternated with dried brown meadow grass. Her companion headed for the center of the open space and swung his backpack onto the ground. Charlie helped him unroll thick egg-crate foam pads over the grass and cover them with insulated blankets and sleeping bags; then he raided her backpack for pillows and binoculars, and positioned a thermos of coffee within easy reach.

  “No counters and no logbook,” he said almost to himself.

  Charlie assumed he was referring to the usual practice of counting the rate of meteors observed and recording them for scientific purposes. “This is a sacred, not a scientific vigil?” she asked.

  “You got it.” He flipped a corner of a sleeping bag back. “Your observation lounge awaits you.”

  Charlie smiled and slid into the makeshift bed. Jack switched off his flashlight so Charlie heard rather than saw him settle into his cocoon. She lay back on her pillow, and all thought of the man lying so close beside her flew out of her head. With no artificial lights and no moon to overpower them, the stars powdered the sky like sparkling grains of sand. Actually, she thought, it was more as though a safe filled with the most brilliant diamonds of all sizes had spilled its contents across incomprehensible miles of deep blue velvet.

  “Wow!” she breathed.

&
nbsp; Jack's chuckle was pure satisfaction. He began pointing out constellations, and for the first time, Charlie could really trace the outlines of the mythical creatures they were named for.

  “Almost straight up is the Great Bear, Ursa Major, which is most famous for the seven stars that form the Big Dipper.”

  “I see the Big Dipper.”

  “All right. Follow the line of the two stars which make the end of the dipper and you'll see the North Star which is part of Ursa Minor.”

  “I just hope all those bears stay up there.”

  “Once the ancient gods put them in the sky, they aren't inclined to come back to earth,” her companion said with surprising whimsy. “Curling around the Little Bear is Draco, the dragon guarding the North Star. One of its stars was actually the North Star about 5,000 years ago. See that bright star near the Dragon's head? That's Vega, the alpha star of Lyra, our meteor shower's radiant constellation. Vega is one of three bright stars that make up the Summer Triangle. The other two are still too low to see but they're Deneb in Cygnus and Altair in Aquila.”

  “The swan and the eagle. Birds of a feather. How did a lyre get mixed in?”

  “Pure magnitude. Vega's the fifth brightest star in the sky, partly because it's only about 27 light-years away and partly because it’s fifty times as bright as our sun.”

  “It's sort of bluish though.”

  “You have good eyes.”

  “Not good enough to find Orion,” she said, tilting her head to search the sky. “He's the only constellation I can usually recognize.”

  “Orion set about an hour ago.”

  “He should be your patron saint.”

  Jack was silent.

  “He's a hunter, just like you,” Charlie persisted.