Star-Crossed

by Minnie Darke

  The silver dress was laid out on Justine’s bed, along with silver tights, silver ankle boots and the newly silvered Statue of Liberty headdress, and in the bathroom was a shopping bag full of all the other things Justine needed to complete her look.

  First, she painted her face a matte silver and applied highlights of glitter on her lips, cheeks and brow. She fixed stick-on stars in haphazard constellations at the corners of her eyes. Next, she sprayed her hair silver and scattered a palm-full of glitter over her head before the spray dried out, all the while pondering the reality that there would most likely be glitter on her bathroom floor and all over the vanity unit for years to come. She had just put on her clothes and fixed the headdress in place, when she heard her phone announce an incoming message.

  It was from Nick. Are you home?

  With glittery fingers, Justine tapped back a message: Somewhat.

  Nick: How can you be somewhat at home?

  Justine: I mean that it’s somewhat me.

  Nick: Mysterious. Can you come out to the balcony?

  Justine looked in the mirror at her painted face. Nick had to call her…now? This was a classic case of Murphy’s law if there ever was one.

  “Murphy,” she whispered, “you truly are an arsehole.”

  Over on his balcony, Nick was looking perfectly normal in jeans and a T-shirt. Justine cloaked her be-silvered awkwardness by being excessively awkward. That is, she struck a gawky ta da kind of pose.

  Nick raised his eyebrows. “In honor of Halloween, I take it?”

  “Twinkle, twinkle.”

  “So, you’re…a star?”

  “Almost.”

  Justine went inside and came back with her bow and arrow set.

  Nick scrunched his eyebrows together before the lightbulb moment hit. “A shooting star. Even better. Hey, have you got any Tabasco sauce?”

  “Bloody Marys, huh?”

  Nick nodded. “It is Halloween.”

  “Hang on.”

  Justine found a bottle of Tabasco at the back of her fridge and sent it in the basket over to Nick’s side of the gap.

  “I could make a Bloody Mary for you?” Nick suggested.

  “I think I’ll be pretty well catered for where I’m going, actually.”

  “Which is?”

  “A party. I have a colleague who is very into Halloween,” Justine said. “What about you? You’re not trick-or-treating?”

  “We were going to a thing. But Laura’s away, and there was a mix-up with her plane booking and now she’s not going to make it home until tomorrow. I could go on my own, I suppose, but I wouldn’t really know anyone. So, alas, my fabulous costume will have to remain unseen.”

  That gave Justine an idea, one that got out of her mouth before she had taken the time to fully consider its ramifications.

  “Unless, of course, you were to come to the party with me?”

  * * *

  At Austinmer Street, Justine and Nick were met by Gloria, who’d been brought out of storage and propped up by the mailbox. She was a full-sized skeleton, and this year she was accessorized with a tatty blonde wig and a red rose between her teeth. In the back courtyard, Barbel approached with a tray of cocktail glasses. Her normally smooth platinum blonde hair was teased out into a fright and streaked with purple and green, and her Day of the Dead makeup was immaculate.

  “Oh, my,” she said, “if it isn’t a little shooting star! You look gorgeous, sweetheart. And this is?”

  Justine introduced Nick to Barbel, who looked him up and down, frowning. “Blue. Very blue. But you might need to explain.”

  Nick was indeed blue. He wore a sleek blue wig, a deep blue shirt spotted with tiny silver stars, and his face and neck were covered in swirls of blue body paint. When he turned around and bent over a little, it was evident that he had cut two ovals out of the seat of his pants, one for each buttock. Each visible bum cheek was painted blue. Barbel threw back her wild head of hair and laughed hysterically.

  “A blue moon! I love it! Now, a cocktail?”

  Half the drinks on her tray were black and smelled strongly of aniseed, and the other half were a sunrise of yellow through orange with a small plastic eyeball floating in red syrup at the top.

  “Sting in the Tail?” Barbel asked, pointing. “Or Zombie Apocalypse?”

  Justine chose the Sting in the Tail; Nick the Zombie Apocalypse.

  “I’m so glad you could come,” Barbel said. “Make yourselves at home, won’t you?”

  Justine saw that Radoslaw was there, and Anwen, too. Jeremy and his husband, Graeme, were sitting together on a love seat in their matching cowboy outfits, and Glynn was standing at the outdoor barbecue wearing a rubber apron with internal body parts mapped out in relief. It made him look as if he’d been in the middle of his own autopsy before being asked to flip the halloumi.

  Justine and Nick were several drinks into the celebration by the time Daniel arrived. He was wearing a suit and tie, and to Justine’s eye the only thing about him that looked unusual was that his thick hair was sharply parted and slicked back with some kind of product. But as he approached, she could see that there was a small metal badge on the lapel of his suit jacket. 007.

  “Ah,” Justine said, understanding. She raised her glass to him. “Greetings, Mr. Bond. Nick, this is Daniel Griffin, editor of the Star. Daniel, you remember my friend Nick? Nick Jordan.”

  “The last time I saw you, you were Romeo,” said Daniel. “I have to say you look a little different…blue.”

  There followed an explication of Nick’s costume, and Justine’s, during which Daniel reached over to adjust a strand of Justine’s silver hair. This was a breach, albeit very slight, of the “work is work” agreement, and Justine wondered whether it had been truly absentminded or whether Daniel had been making a point to Nick.

  “You’d know Nick’s girlfriend, too,” Justine said. “Or should I say, fiancée? At least, you’d have seen her.”

  Daniel looked unconvinced. “I would?”

  “She’s a model. The one in the Waterlily advertisement.”

  Justine observed the disbelieving up and down look that Daniel gave Nick, the one that clearly said: How does a guy like you get a woman like that?

  “So, you’re the new editor?” Nick said.

  “Yeah. Since August. We’ve had a lot of changes at the Star this year. Probably more than in the magazine’s whole twenty-five years.”

  “Leo predicted it, of course,” Nick said, in that self-mocking way that also contained a degree of seriousness.

  Brain: Uh-oh.

  “Leo Thornbury?” Daniel said. “Our eminent stargazer?”

  “Yeah, he called it earlier in the year,” Nick said. “Justine admits it now, that he was right, but she didn’t believe it at the time.”

  “She didn’t? But she takes such a keen interest in the stars.” And with this, Daniel gave Justine a gentle nudge: the evening’s second breach of the “work is work” policy.

  Nick made an expression of incredulity. “Interest in the stars? Justine? This Justine?”

  Brain: Danger! Danger! Avert conversational trajectory! Now!

  Justine said, “Are either of you hungry?”

  But neither Nick, nor Daniel, appeared to hear her.

  “You know, it took me the longest time to figure out Justine’s star sign,” Daniel said. “But I got there eventually.”

  “Really?” Nick asked. “I’d have thought she was just about a perfect type. You know—curious about everything. Never sitting still. Honest.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “To a fault, sometimes.”

  Justine: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. In a minute, someone is going to say Aquarius, or Sagittarius, for that matter. And then I’m totally fucked.

  Brain: You’re going to have to do a better job at distracting t
hem.

  Justine: How?

  Brain: Just say something!

  “Erklärungsnot!” said Justine loudly.

  “What?” said Nick.

  “Do you need a tissue?” Daniel asked.

  “No, no. I was just thinking, the other day, you know, about those great German words that have no translation.”

  “And what was that one?” Nick asked, his eyes looking extra bewildered inside their rims of blue paint.

  “Erklärungsnot. It means something like ‘explanation emergency.’ Like when you’ve got caught out lying, and you don’t know how you’re going to get out of it.”

  “O…kay,” Nick said, and took a long sip of his Zombie Apocalypse.

  “What’s your cocktail like?” Daniel asked, nodding toward Nick’s drink and swirling around the black dregs of his own.

  “Totally foul, but very alcoholic,” Nick admitted.

  “Same,” said Daniel.

  Nick said, “Would you rather have some wine? I know I would. I saw some inside.”

  “Please,” said Daniel.

  “Justine?” Nick asked.

  “I’m okay,” said Justine, wishing her pulse would slow down. She had slipped out from under the prongs of a closing portcullis. But only just. And Nick’s words were echoing in her mind.

  Honest. To a fault.

  * * *

  Leo Thornbury—Sagittarius, octogenarian, stargazer and famously reclusive astrologer, best friend to an elderly Portuguese water dog called Venus, beachcomber and habitual drinker of a refreshing four o’clock Tom Collins—made only one concession to the fact that it was Halloween. Instead of making his daily cocktail with Bombay Sapphire, he dipped in to his supply of special-occasion gin, which was distilled in the Black Forest region of Germany, and cost a fortune to have freighted to his extremely remote address.

  Leo had lived these last twenty years far from the madding crowd on an island off an island, which was itself, technically speaking, off an island. He chose the location for the clarity of its air and the blackness of its night sky, and he’d had built for himself a house whose centerpiece was an octagonal pavilion with a glass ceiling. Leo’s large, bespoke desk was also octagonal, and it was placed so that its midpoint perfectly aligned with that of the ceiling. The desk was topped with midnight-blue leather and also with a fine dusting of the white beach sand that seemed to get into everything, here at the seaside edge of the world.

  The sun had set and the sky above Leo’s octagonal ceiling was darkening its canvas in readiness for the night. Leo threaded a sheet of paper into his Remington typewriter. Aries, he typed. Then he sat back in his leather chair, pressed the knuckles of one hand against his lips, and thought. Surrounding his typewriter were several astrological ephemerides, both open and closed, a number of star maps, rolled and unrolled, well-thumbed reference books, handwritten notes, various drafting dividers and compasses, rulers and #2 pencils.

  It was something of a chore, these days, to magic up the horoscopes for the Alexandria Park Star, month in, month out. Sometimes Leo idly muttered to himself that he wondered why he did it. But, in truth, he knew. He wrote for the Star because he was an admirer of Jeremy Byrne’s, and also because Jem was a shameless and highly effective flatterer. It was hard to imagine that young Jem was now of retirement age.

  Leo had, for a time, provided his astrological services to Jem’s mother, Winifred, a flamboyant Leo, with Aries rising. She had been quite a woman, Leo remembered, and found himself needing to mop a sudden sheen of sweat on his brow. After tucking away his handkerchief, Leo set his fingers to the typewriter keys. He crafted a paragraph of prediction and advice for Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo and Libra. By the time he completed Scorpio, darkness had arrived in its fullness. Glancing upward, Leo was gratified to see a night sky copiously freckled with silver. Like this, by starlight, was Leo’s favorite way to write his horoscopes, though it must be admitted that he also had help from the low, pearly light that shone from a small electric lamp on his desktop.

  Sagittarius, Leo typed. By reflex, he consulted the handwritten notes that he had earlier compiled. But in truth, he had no need to do so. He knew their troubling contents only too well.

  “Come on, Leo,” he encouraged himself, and set his fingers to the typewriter keys.

  But still, deep inside himself, he balked. He never particularly liked writing the horoscope for his own sign, but this night he wanted to do it even less than usual. He stared at the word Sagittarius until it started to lose its meaning. Then, with a heavy sigh, he scrolled down and left a blank space on the page. He would have to come back to it later. For now, he would go on to Capricorn.

  So Leo completed the horoscope for the goat people, and then found himself at Aquarius. He took off his spectacles, rubbed his eyes, replaced his spectacles and hunted about his desk for the right scrap of paper.

  “Aquarius, Aquarius,” he mumbled. “Where are you, my little water bearers? Ah. There you are.”

  Leo read over his notes, and thought for a time, his brow furrowed in concentration. He was fond of Aquarians, those free spirits, those passionate doers. They were not, perhaps, as emotionally evolved as Pisceans; Aquarians, in Leo’s experience, tended toward odd blind spots when it came to love and even friendship. But who could fail to enjoy their courage and original thinking? Jules Verne had been an Aquarian, and Virginia Woolf, too. Thomas Edison, Lord Byron, Mozart and Lewis Carroll. Charles Darwin—now, there was an Aquarian for you.

  Aquarius: “It’s a rare gift,” wrote Ursula K. Le Guin, “to know where you need to be, before you’ve been to all the places you don’t need to be.” And though few of us possess this rare gift, there is no need, Aquarius, to search quite so hard as you have been in the fruitless corners of your reality. This month’s stars urge you to stop seeking, but instead to simply see. To stop weaving, and learn what pattern might appear of its own accord.

  Leo finished typing and looked back over his words with some satisfaction.

  “Yes,” he whispered to himself. “Yes, that is right.”

  Without strain, Leo completed his horoscope for Pisces. Then he scrolled the paper in his typewriter back up to the blank space he had left beside the word Sagittarius. But before Leo even began to summon his courage, he caught sight of the brown and imploring eyes of Venus. Though she lay quite still on the floor, her body was tightly sprung, her muscles poised to respond to the slightest word or gesture that might herald a walk on the beach.

  “One more sign to go,” Leo told her. “Just the archers, my girl. And then I’ll be done.”

  Venus made a small noise of protest, somewhere between a yawn and a whimper, and Leo’s resolve melted to nothingness.

  “My girl,” Leo said, “my dear old girl. As you well know, I can deny you nothing. Come on, then. Let’s go.”

  Venus was on her feet in half a heartbeat, and they set off, out through the glass doors of the pavilion and into the salt-smelling night. The rickety old dog led the way along a well-worn path in the light of a full moon night. As bracken gave way to dune grass, Leo’s ears tuned in to the rhythmic lift and collapse of the waves, and the moment the pair reached the edge of the white sand, Venus dashed into the water. This was her element, and the years fell away from her aching limbs. She gave a joyful doggy smile that showed off the worn and stumpy teeth that studded her bottom jaw.

  Leo looked up to the stars. The beautiful stars. The divine stars. But troubling stars, too. Something is coming to an end for you, Sagittarius, the heavens whispered to Leo, and he knew that when he returned to his desk to complete his horoscope for Sagittarius, those were the words that he ought to type out, there in the blank space he had left on his page. Something is coming to an end.

  Perhaps, Leo thought hopefully, it was nothing more than his eighty-second year that was reaching its conclusion. But, no.
He knew better. He looked to his dog, who stood in the shallows, lime-bright fronds of phosphorescence making whorls around her legs. But please, he wished in the general direction of the stars, not Venus. Not yet.

  Venus’s canine senses registered Leo’s sudden onset of sadness like a drop in barometric pressure, and she came trotting out of the water toward him to investigate. Perhaps it was the clown in her that made her decide to shake, flinging a fine shower of water and sand over Leo’s legs. He laughed, and she widened her doggy grin, and the old man lowered himself down to the sand and sat beside her, scratching her damp ears.

  Something is coming to an end, he thought again.

  “Well, I’m not going to write those words,” he told her, and she tilted her head to listen. “I won’t.”

  * * *

  On the stroke of midnight, on the night of Halloween, a shooting star and a blue moon were making their way through Alexandria Park. The shooting star walked barefoot and carried a pair of silver ankle boots over her shoulder by their laces, while the blue moon appeared to be melting a little in the uncommonly warm night air. Both of them were carrying toffee apples—purchased from some costumed street vendors who’d set up a late-night Halloween food stall near the main junction of the park’s many paths—and from time to time, they took sticky bites as they walked.

  Although he was sweating beneath his body paint, and although toffee apples can be frustrating things to bite into, Nick Jordan knew that he was inside a moment that he was likely to remember. He had learned to recognize these moments: the ones in which time seemed to slow and his senses became acute, in which he wasn’t wanting anything or rushing anywhere, or thinking forward or backward. He was simply in the moment, and the moment was good. This had something to do with the warm wind that was blowing through the park, and something to do with the zydeco music from the buskers in the bandstand, and quite a bit to do with Justine. In a truly perfect world, he realized, what he would do right now would be to take her hand.