“I’ve decided not to write trash, Eddie, my Edward.”
“Call me Eddie,” he repeated. She never listened. Much like “cousin” Tessa to Edward, the *real* Edward.
So many faux cousin/lover pairings in this novel already, and we’re not even halfway through quite yet. First there was Eddie and Edward, the faux being affixed to the lover part in that case. Then Tessa and Edward, cousin linked with faux in that example. And now supposed cousins Serenity Lane and Shelley Lane (Struthers). Let’s just have Marsha “Pink” Krakow bring up the last pairing to Edward as they’re laying in bed in their 2n1 trailer, wishing to have their cake and eat it too again.
“Edward?” she said after thinking some of these things herself, mirroring the actual author (me) once more.
“Yes?” he relented, not bothering to correct her now.
“As I was saying…”
“Oz. I know. Rock told me all about it. And Gill. What do you call him? Vain and Artery Boyy, right. And the child as well.”
“Toddles,” she said to this. To please a child, she thought.
“All 3 approached me, Rock and Toddles and then Vain and Artery Boyy separate from them. Told me how much they enjoyed the new novel and the switch of genres and how they hoped you keep it up.”
“Oh. Wonderful! I wonder why they didn’t tell me themselves?”
“Probably…” he shifts his weight in the bed, assuming a more upright position, “because you were visiting that large prison complex over in Rockaway Beach. I myself didn’t have time to tell you until now. Had to keep reinforcing to you that it’s all right, and the, ahem, tour will be over soon.”
“Took some time to get from top to bottom, yeah,” she admitted. She got pretty scared about halfway down, even though the internal bowling alley reassured her that TILE was there, even amongst all this negativity. The light shines through.
Eddie, her Edward, was with her after that — called him over. “So. Are you going to go in that direction, go back to Meat City? Or stay here in Big Sandy?”
Was that the ultimate question? Past Broadwater, the grid took over, Utah to Omega link locked in again until it bent away on the other side of town. She saw this now. She *had* to see.
“Let’s give it a couple more posts,” which is probably what I would have said in her shoes. She decided not to bring up that Serenity Lane wasn’t Shelley’s cousin but her ex-lover, her ex-wife in fact. And now since Shelley was out of the picture she apparently has designs on the “replacement”. Drugged back to Meat City against her will! Prison of all places. She could have spent one day there, she could have spent a lifetime there. Big. Practically Big Sandy big sitting up there wide and long and thick in the sky.
Back to the sand the way she knew how. With Edward.
Sunklands 