Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller, Mort Castle (Ed) Page A

like a douche bag but kept it anyway.
    “What’s your name?” asked Candace Courington, returning to the room and handing me the glass of water.
    “I’m Josh. Josh Dieboldt.”
    “What do you do, Josh? Besides deliver flowers, I mean?” She sat down next to me. We were both sunk so low, it felt like we were sitting on the floor.
    “I’m studying English lit at Rock River College.”
    “What do you want to do with that?”
    “Be a writer, maybe.” I shrugged and picked up the water glass but didn’t drink it.
    Candace Courington stared at the ragged brown carpeting. “Catherine was a reader. That girl always had a book in her hands. Ever since she was little.”
    She looked up.
    “So what story were you going to tell me? How did you two meet?”
    Across the street, a car engine growled—an eight-cylinder Godzilla. The guy in the driveway had started his El Camino.
    “We just met on the street one afternoon. May,” I said. “It smelled like flowers and garbage, because they stack the trash bags up into little mountains on the sidewalks in New York.”
    God, what a bullshitter.
    “Catherine loved the city.”
    “I know. She did. And I loved that about her. But, anyway, I just saw her one afternoon on a street corner in Soho, and introduced myself. I’d never done that before, but there was something about her. Something familiar and, for me, predestined. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I know this is weird, Mrs. Courington, but it was like I knew your daughter the minute I saw her. It was déjà vu, fate, astral influence, two trains on opposite tracks passing each other in the night and two passengers peering out windows and spotting each other, just for a moment.”
    As I said these words, I knew that in truth, two trains had indeed passed each other, but only one passenger was looking.
    “You are a writer,” she said, almost smiling. “What did Catherine say about all this talk of fate?”
    “I didn’t want to scare her or freak her out, so I never told her. I wish I had the chance now. God, how I wish I could tell her. I hope this doesn’t scare you, but every atom in my being believes we were soul mates.”
    Mrs. Courington shook her head. “You should have told her. She believed in all of that, you know, fate. She loved stories where things worked out differently. Alternate realities, she called it. It’s funny. She always had the sense that she’d find her one true love right here in Sterling Springs.”
    I was silent. I was that true love .
    “I don’t mean to pry,” I said finally, “but can I ask what happened? I was just so shocked when I heard the news.”
    She looked at me, startled. She put her hand over her mouth.
    “You don’t know?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    She looked devastated, and really old. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk about it right now. It’s just too much. I’m afraid you have to leave.”
    “Sure,” I said, not wanting to leave, but standing up anyway.
    “Thanks for the flowers. That was very thoughtful. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
    I stepped out into the hot afternoon sunlight, and the door closed behind me. The guy across the street turned and looked at me again. I felt insanely frustrated.
    Crossing the street, I approached him.
    “Hi,” I said. He wore a muscle T-shirt with the words ALL WOUND UP on it. His goatee was uneven; he had shaved too close on the right side, and it had left a big gouge where the hair used to be. The unevenness was distracting.
    “Yeah?”
    “I was just wondering,” I said, “How well do you know Mrs. Courington across the street?”
    “Well enough,” he said, wiping his greasy hands on his jeans.
    “Do you know what happened to her daughter?”
    “She’s dead.”
    “I know. But how did she die?”
    The guy’s eyes grew skinny.
    “What business is it of yours, peckerwood?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Why don’t you go askin’ her mother? What you askin’ me for?”
    “Never mind,” I said, turning back to