"James Patrick Kelly - The Edge of Nowhere" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

Rain would have liked to deny it, but she could feel the insult sticking to her. "How do you know he's
writing a novel?"

"I supply the paper, Rain. Reams and reams of it. Besides, this may be hell, as Father Samsa insists, but
it's also a small town. We meddle in each other's business, what else is there to do?" His voice softened;
Rain thought that if Chance ever did take a lover, this would be how he might speak to her. "Is the book
any good? Because if it is, I'd like to read it."

"I don't know." At that moment, Rain felt a drop of something cold hit the back of her hand. There was a
dot the color of sky on her knuckle. She looked up at the spider hanging from the ceiling on an azure
thread. "He doesn't show it to me. Your toy is dripping."

"Really?" Chance came around the desk. "A woman of your considerable charms is taking no for an
answer?" He reached up and cradled the spider into his arms. "Go get him, Rain. You don't want to keep
your mouse waiting." He carried it to the teak cabinet.

Rain rubbed at the blue spot on her hand but the stain had penetrated her skin. She couldn't even smudge
it.




But Will wasn't waiting, at least not for Rain. She stopped by their apartment but he wasn't there and he
hadn't left a note. Neither was he at the Button Factory nor Queequeg's Kava Cave. She looked in at the
Laughing Cookie just as Fast Eddie was locking up. No Will. She finally tracked Will down at the
overlook, by the blue picnic table under the chestnut trees.

Normally they came here for the view, which was spectacular. A field of wildflowers, tidy-tips and
mullein and tickseed and bindweed, sloped steeply down to the edge of the mesa. But Will was paying
no attention to the scenery. He had scattered a stack of five looseleaf binders across the table; the whole
of The Great American Novel or The Last President or whatever the hell it was called. Three of the
binders were open. He was reading -- but apparently not writing in -- a fourth. A No. 2 pencil was
tucked behind his ear. Something about Will's body language disturbed Rain. He usually sprawled
awkwardly wherever he came to rest, a giraffe trying to settle on a hammock. Now he was gathered into
himself, hunched over the binder like an old man. Rain came up behind him and kneaded his shoulders
for a moment.

He leaned back and sighed.

"Sorry about this afternoon." She bent to nibble his ear. "Have you eaten?"

"No." He kissed the air in front of him but did not look at her.

She peeked at the looseleaf page in front of him and tried to decipher the handwriting, which was not
quite as legible as an EEG chart. ... knelt before the coffin, her eyes wide in the dim holy light of the
cathedral. His face was wavy ... No, thought Rain straightening up before he suspected that she was
reading. Not wavy. Waxy. "Beautiful evening," she said.

Will shut the binder he had been reading and gazed distractedly toward the horizon.