Storyletter 2

Dear reader,

I ran competitively as a teenager and became fast enough to run 5K in under 17 minutes. October was always a favorite time of year for me because every weekend was a cross-country race, and every weekday was either racing practice or long mileage in the cool of the morning.

I discovered that Oklahoma in the Fall is the perfect condition for running.

Now, graduated from running into taking long walks and climbing mountains, I’ve discovered that October in Oklahoma is also the perfect condition for writing and applying my novel to literary agencies.

It’s something about the quiet, the coolness, and the still, leaf-laden scent of the air.

JOURNEY JOURNAL

As of today, I have sent query letters to 60 literary agents from California to the Big Apple (mostly the Big Apple; that city appears to be the Big Cheese among Big Publishing. Big Surprise).

No offers to represent me yet. They appear to be being coy…

STORY SNACK

HILLTOP

Part 2 of 3

Whirling, Cole stared at the man standing barely a meter away, leaning against the side of the stone he had fallen asleep against.

“Jesus,” Cole hissed, blinking hard and taking a step back. “Where the hell did you come from?”

Raising his hands apologetically, the stranger ruined this pose by grinning. “Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

“Yeah, well, points for the effort,” Cole said shortly, massaging his chest. 

Shrugging with the air of ‘you win some, you lose some’, the man said nothing, just looked at him.

Breathing deeply, Cole took in the stranger’s appearance.

Beneath a ragged pair of jeans and a rumpled button down, the man was tall and spare, his shadowy, unshaven face haloed by the last red rays of sunset like a dying coal. From the gloom beneath a nest of dark auburn hair shone a pair of pale blue eyes.

Cole stiffened, recognition banishing every last vestige of his grogginess.

With another grin, the man gave a casual, two-fingered salute. “Hey, Cole. Long time, no see.”

Making a conscious effort to breathe slowly, Cole nodded. “Hello, Peter.”

Peter slid his legs over until he was sitting on the protruding stone. Crossing his legs, he made a rueful face.

“Loosen up, Hot Cole, I’m not gonna bite. You get any more tense, you're going to start shitting diamonds.”

“Don’t call me that,” Cole snapped, the childhood nickname knocking him further off balance.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not ten years old anymore.”

Peter nodded. “But you still stand like you have a poker up your ass. Some things never change.”

Shifting his feet, Cole shook his head, then took a deep breath. “Why are you so late? It’s almost half past.”

The shrug that his brother gave was so nonchalant that Cole wanted to hit him.

“We haven’t seen each other in six years…I didn’t think being a few minutes late would hurt. What’s half an hour between brothers?”

“That depends on the brothers.”

Peter, who didn’t appear to hear the reply, was looking around the darkening hilltop. 

“Son of a bitch,” he murmured with dawning excitement, hopping off the stone and looking from Cole to their surroundings. “This was our spot, wasn’t it?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t recognize it,” Cole said cooly.

“Give me a break, man, I hardly recognized you,” scoffed Peter, looking around with hungry eyes. “Yeah, this was the place! Ha, we used to do everything up here. Picnics, birthdays, sleepovers—hey, didn’t you lose your virginity up here?”

“That was you,” Cole corrected, unable to repress a slight snort. “Remember, you called to tell me at 2AM.”

With a bark of laughter, Peter nodded, rubbing his stubbly face. “Yeah. That was a good night—nice girl too. Surprised I could get phone reception up here. You’re not still a virgin, are you?”

“You were at my wedding.” Irritation burned away Cole’s mild amusement; he couldn’t allow his brother to control their conversation. Not this time.

“Just checking,” Peter chuckled, returning to his stone seat. Lacing his fingers behind his head, he grinned at Cole. “I wondered why you asked me to meet you here, but now I get it. No better place for a family reunion, right?”

Cole shrugged, appraising his brother.

Besides the ratty clothes and the five o’clock shadow, Peter Eden looked exactly as his younger brother remembered him when last they were together, more than half a decade ago. Same body language, same voice, same eyes so similar and yet so different from his own.

People told Cole his eyes blazed, while Peter’s eyes engulfed you in his personality. 

“You’ve grown, haven’t you?” said Peter, his grin a sash of white in the smoldering gloom. “And look at that suit! You’re a real man now, aren’t you?” 

“I was a man before you left,” said Cole reactively. 

He twisted inwardly at how childish he sounded. His brother had always known what to say to unbalance Cole, make him act without thinking.

“I suppose you were,” Peter allowed softly, his grin shrinking into a mock serious expression. “Well, man to man, six years apart makes me think a handshake’s in order.” He put out a hand, still seated. “Put her there.” 

Cole didn’t move forward to take the hand. His arms remained by his side, heart pounding inside his chest. Not this time. 

Peter raised his eyebrows, empty hand still preferred, staring expectantly out of his wide, blue eyes.

“I didn’t ask you here to shake hands,” Cole said slowly and carefully, taking out his American Spirits for something to do with his hands. 

“It–” He balked, gripping the cigarette carton tightly in one hand. His eyes flicking from his brother’s face to the ground and back, he tried again. “We have a lot to talk about, and none of it’s about picnics up here when we were teenagers. I came here to talk. Really talk.”

The taller man shrugged. “I thought we were talking,” he said mildly, dropping his hand and settling his feet on the ground before his stone. The last red glow of day bled over both men, trickling down into the grass as darkness descended.

“You’re confusing talking with chatting,” Cole said, speaking like his words were climbing a slippery rockface, slow and precise.

Peter crossed his arms. “All right, what d’you want to talk about?”

Taken aback by the unexpected cooperation, Cole paused. He hadn’t expected his brother to really come. All this was surreal, otherworldly. Everything he had wanted to say seemed ridiculous now, or impossible to speak aloud. 

Angrily, he crumpled the carton of cigarettes in one hand, banishing his reservations.

‘For a start, where did you go? Since that…since I last saw you, you’ve been a total ghost.”

“And yet, you were able to call me,” Peter said, smoothly avoiding the question. 

“I didn’t think you’d answer,” Cole said, knowing he should pursue the question, but unable to help himself. “Your number’s still in my phone.”

“But here I am,” his brother said, extending his arms to each side. “Miracles really do happen.” He grinned at Cole, who frowned back.

“All right, I’ve been abroad, that’s about all I can tell you,” Peter relented, shrugging. “Far away, but not so far away that you couldn’t reach me.”

“Where abroad?”

“Sorry, little bro, that’s my business.”

With no warning, a pyre of bitter rage burned through Cole at his brother’s maddening casual air. He took a half step forward, opening his mouth to shout. Tamping down the blaze, he closed his mouth. He was now nearly within arm’s reach of his brother.

“Fair enough,” he said stiffly. Charcoal night was enclosing the hilltop, a fraying scarlet thread along the horizon all that was left of the sun. “How about we go somewhere better lit to talk?”

“No, thanks,” said Peter, lounging on the stone. “I don’t need much light to talk.”

And you don’t want to get any nearer to home. Cole kept this thought to himself. For all his bravado, he remembered Peter having great difficulty dealing with certain truths. This was Cole’s only chance to talk to his brother before he disappeared for even longer. If not forever. If his brother hadn’t changed, then he was on a hair-trigger to walk away without a word if Cole mentioned any subject too sore.

Tread carefully.

With some difficulty, Cole pulled an American Spirit from the crumpled package in his hand. Rolling it between his fingers, he looked at his brother, who was regarding him silently.

“You know,” Cole said slowly, “you don’t look very different from when I saw you last.”

In fact, beneath the scrub beard and old clothes, his brother looked precisely as Cole remembered him from all that time ago. It was unsettling. 

Same chiseled jaw, same color auburn hair, same rake-like physique. There was no more or less weight to the face, no added lines, nothing to illustrate the passage of six years.

With a grin, Peter shrugged, then raised one finger to point at Cole. “That makes one of us.”

Cole felt a stab of pleasure at this. Running a hand through his hair unnecessarily, he adjusted his suit jacket minutely.

“Did you expect me to stay like I was at eighteen?” 

“Nope,” said Peter easily. “But I didn’t expect you to come in a suit, I feel like I’m at my own funeral.”

Annoyance returned to tinge his momentary superior feeling, and Cole unbuttoned his jacket self consciously. Seeing this, Peter grinned, shaking his head.

“Calm down, I’m kidding.” He shook his head again, this time slower. “You still care so much what people think about you.” 

“No, I don’t,” said Cole automatically.

His brother raised his eyebrows again, eyes sardonic and unbelieving. 

“Well, of course I care how I’m seen,” Cole said. What he hoped would sound casual came out defensive. How the hell does he do this to me?

“You shouldn’t,” Peter said, legs splayed where he sat on the stone. “Worrying about other people’s thoughts’ll just slow you down…trust me.”

The fact that Peter was daring to give Cole advice almost made him laugh. Distrusting his speaking faculties for the moment, he just shrugged. Craving nicotine, he lit the Spirit he held, took a deep drag and blew out smoke in a sigh of relief.

“Smoking too, now? Wonders never cease.” Peter’s grin flashed. Darkness was almost complete now, leaving the lit end of Cole’s cigarette the brightest light in sight.

“A lot can happen in six years,” Cole said softly, his agitation leavened by smoke. Even through the gloom, he could see his brother’s features clearly. 

For a moment he was sure they were full of a sudden and terrible sadness, but then the grin returned, the mask refitted. 

“Yes it can, but it doesn’t have to if you don’t want it to. Case in point,” Peter thumped his chest proudly. 

Attempting a humorless laugh mid-drag, Cole coughed up a mouthful of smoke.

“Careful.”

Eyes streaming, Cole coughed for a few seconds before regaining his breath. He was getting tired of his long-absent brother’s bravado. More tired. 

“So, you’re happy you haven’t changed?” 

Darkness fell fully, daylight dying without a sound as the horizon’s glow was swallowed whole.

“All right.”

The two syllables were weary, tinged with anger.

“All right, what?” Cole said, skin suddenly tingling.

“All right, let’s get to it.” The brothers’ eyes locked, blue flame and stained glass burning into each other. “Why are we here, Cole.”