When Stars Collide

by Sara Furlong-Burr

  “Yes, that.” Luke cast a smile at Elle, finishing his thought. “Jackson has his mom’s genes to counteract Monroe’s less than palatable ones.”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?” Peter interceded.

  “The right one.” I shared a half smile with Luke, whose frustration was still evident despite how much he tried to hide it. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting him,” I added. “I even bought him one of those bank robber turtle things. You know, the ones that wear those different colored masks.”

  “A Ninja Turtle?” Elle asked, amused.

  “Sure. Wait, where the hell would a turtle learn to become a ninja?”

  “The same place one would learn how to rob a bank,” Peter chimed in with his two cents as he took a sip of his beer. “In any event, I’m sure Jackson will love it.”

  “Bribery, it gets you everywhere.” I raised my glass to Peter, clinking it against his.

  “And that’s why you’re going to be an excellent mother one day.” Peter smirked.

  It was an innocuous statement, one that if made under normal circumstances, wouldn’t have caused me to so much as bat an eye. But this wasn’t even any semblance of a normal circumstance. This was reality, and as excited as I was at the prospect of having a family of my own someday down the road, the thought of being someone’s mother also terrified me. And with the way Elle was looking at me, abject terror must have been written all over my face.

  “So,” she began, blessedly changing the subject, “just the other day, I was thinking how I should get a start on some of the planning for the wedding, and I happened upon this bad boy at a cozy little card shop downtown.”

  My eyes widened when Elle reached inside of her purse and pulled out a notebook the size of one of those five-subject monstrosities my mother used to buy for me every school year. Even today, whenever I had the slightest twinge of back pain, I blamed it on the backpack loaded with all the supplies she forced me to carry around like a porter to a palanquin chair. Creating the thud heard around the world—or at the very least, Charlie’s—Elle plunked the notebook down on our table. Unfazed by my lack of shared excitement, she flipped through its pages with a level of giddiness I was certain I would never be able to replicate in my lifetime.

  “In the front of the planner, there’s space for you to make a to-do list, which I’ve already started.” She held up the planner, pleased with herself.

  “Of course you have.”

  “Oh, and the best part, in the back there’s this handy timeline with suggested deadlines for completion of certain tasks based on how far out your wedding date is.”

  “A to-do list and a timeline,” I said, stealing a glance at Peter.

  “You know,” he began, “Mena was just telling me how pumped she is to get started on everything. She wants to be involved in the entire process and can be at your beck and call morning, noon, and ni—” A sudden meeting of my heeled shoe with his big toe cut his commentary short.

  “I’ll bet she was telling you just that,” Luke chimed in, laughing as Peter grimaced in pain.

  Blissfully unaware, Elle continued to flip through the pages of what I was positive was her newest prized possession. “According to this timeline, we should start shopping for bridesmaid dresses soon. When you’re back in town, I’ll have to arrange for you to meet Violet and Kirsten at La Bella.”

  “I’m sorry, who and who at where?”

  “My other bridesmaids. Violet is Luke’s cousin, and Kirsten is a friend of mine I met at work.”

  “And La Bella is one of those swanky bridal shops where we all sip champagne while we’re paraded around in expensive dresses, tasked to choose between which ones don’t make our butts look big, but do perfectly accentuate our boobs?”

  “You’ve heard of it, then?”

  “Sounds fantastic.” I picked apart the remnants of my salad, secretly wishing that I was taking part in Peter and Luke’s conversation centered around Doctor Who. Not that I would be able to add anything. The only things I knew about Doctor Who were the small tidbits I’d picked up here and there from Peter. Sighing, I looked up at Elle, noticing the transparent look of wonderment in her eyes, and I told myself I would do whatever I could to keep it there. Damn it.

  “Do you have any idea what kind of frilly, puffy-sleeved abomination you’re going to strap to my body? Or better yet, what shade of blush, rose, fuchsia, or, God forbid, bubblegum, it’s going to be?” I asked, cringing a little more with every shade.

  Elle smiled, closing her planner. “If it puts your mind at ease, pink isn’t even one of our colors. And I would prefer the dresses be more 2019 than 1980.”

  “Good. I’m not going to have to quit your wedding now.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Nice to have you on board. Incidentally, we decided our colors are going to be some combination of tangerine, orange, and yellow, if you’re curious.”

  “That’s … actually not that bad. Kind of like a flame.”

  “Our thoughts exactly.” Elle elbowed Luke. “See, Mena gets it.”

  “There’s a first time for everything.” Luke winked at me.

  “Oh, burn! Just like your wedding colors.”

  “And a urinary tract infection,” Peter added.

  “Seriously, man?” Luke shook his head.

  “What? I thought we were all chiming in with our contributions to the things that burn category.”

  “Anyway,” Elle stowed the notebook back inside of her purse, ending the impromptu wedding planning session for the day, “we wanted to pick colors that would pop in our wedding photos, and noticed that the three-color combination thing was popular, so we just kind of ran with it.”

  “I was skeptical at first, but the more I saw the three of those colors together, the more I began to appreciate the, ah … the a …” Luke moved his hand in hurried circles as the wheels in his head turned to try to come up with the word that, once upon a time, would have come to him just as naturally as breathing. Now, in the present time, his frustration was building with each passing second his brain failed to produce the word he was searching for. “Excuse me.” Exasperated, Luke stood up from the booth and headed in the direction of the door.

  “Luke, wait.” Elle made a move to go after him but was stopped short by Peter.

  “I’ll go,” Peter offered, standing up. “Stay here with Mena.”

  Despite her best efforts to hide it, Elle dabbed a tear from the corner of her eye with a tissue she’d managed to inconspicuously pull out of her purse, staring off into an invisible void.

  “Hey,” I began, bringing her back to our booth, “talk to me.”

  “I wish I could just wave a magic wand and make him whole again.” She spoke so softly I wasn’t sure whether I was meant to hear it.

  “In a way, you already have. Elle, when you left your entire life behind, including Eric, to stay by Luke’s side, you saved him. Without you, he wouldn’t have made nearly the gains he has today.”

  “I wish I could say that my rushing to Luke’s side wasn’t entirely selfish on my part. When I left Eric, my intentions were genuinely to help Luke and return home to Indiana. However, there was also a part of me that knew deep down that my marriage was over. In the back of my mind, I knew Luke was always the one for me and that going back to Roanoke was my last chance at happiness.”

  “No one forced into your position would blame you for making the decisions you made. Hell, every now and then, I still find myself pouring a celebratory glass of wine in honor of you dumping that steaming, hot pile of human garbage. Of course, if you hadn’t kicked him to the curb, I’d probably still find a reason to drink. Either way, there’s always room for wine.”

  Elle leaned back against the red vinyl padding that covered the seating in our booth, appearing a touch more at ease. “Puts new meaning to seeing the world with a glass-half-full perspective.”

  “Half-full, half-empty, I don’t care just as long as there’s always something in the glass.”


  “Luke has made some great strides in his recovery. Returning to his work with Parkinson’s patients has helped him tremendously. It’s been therapeutic for him. He has some good days; days where I think to myself that his symptoms have abated, and we can put this all behind us after the lawsuit against the driver who hit him is resolved. But then he has a bad day. A day where he has difficulty finding the words he’s looking for, where he becomes overwhelmed when he’s given one too many tasks, or when there’s too many people in the room, or the room is too loud and the lights, too bright. People don’t understand that he’s still recovering, because outwardly he looks fine, just like the accident never happened. Inwardly, it’s a different story. His brain is still trying to reboot itself and recover the files it lost in the accident.”

  “But he will recover them, won’t he?”

  “That remains to be seen. He’s managed to recover many of the ten years’ worth of memories he lost, so we’re hopeful.”

  “Well, if anyone can do it, it’s Luke.” Just then, the door opened, and Peter and Luke re-emerged. “Just don’t tell him I said that. I’d like to maintain our current level of barb-trading without getting all emotional and shit.”

  “Noted. Absolutely no one will ever know that Mena Straszewski, in fact, actually does have a fuck to give.”

  “Shh. Don’t say it out loud.”

  A sudden ping alerted Elle to pick up her phone as Luke and Peter returned to the table. His talk with Peter must have helped. Luke’s face was no longer flushed, and the stress that lined his features had dissipated.

  “That’s weird,” Elle said, still staring at her phone.

  “What?” Luke asked, leaning over her shoulder.

  “Some guy from Indiana just sent me a friend request with a message asking me if I was Betsy Sloan’s daughter.”

  “Be careful consorting with strange men on the internet,” I added. “It’s all fun and games until a dick pic ends up in your DMs.”

  Peter stirred in his seat next to me, turning to face me. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

  “I’m a woman with an online social media presence. There are very few of us who haven’t received an unsolicited picture of some random guy’s penis at one point.”

  “What should I tell him?” Elle asked, still clutching the phone in her hands. “My mom’s been gone for over ten years now, and considering her sketchy past, who knows how this man may know her.”

  “True,” Luke agreed. “Or maybe it was someone who knew her before she ran off the rails. Someone who could tell you something positive about your mom for a change.”

  “Or someone she owed money to.”

  Elle’s gaze wandered between Luke and me. “I’m going to have to agree with Mena on this one. You met my mom; you know what the more likely scenario is.”

  Luke shuddered, almost certainly remembering his one and only encounter with Betsy Sloan. “One thing’s for certain. Unless you answer him, you’ll never know.”

  “Fine.” Elle’s fingers tapped her phone’s touchscreen, typing her reply message. “Here goes nothing.”

  “You’ve done it now. Be prepared to receive all the penises.” I gestured across the width of the table with both arms.

  “Nah, that’s most likely the end of it.” Elle set her phone down. “He probably just went to school with her or something and wants to reconnect. I told him I’m her daughter and that she passed away. That should take care of tha—” Elle’s notifications on her phone went off, interrupting her mid-sentence.

  “Someone’s a little eager.” Peter draped his arm around my shoulders, drawing me into him as Luke hovered protectively over Elle, just as anxious to see what this guy wanted as much as she was.

  Exhausted from a day of work and travel, I let out a yawn and was on the verge of suggesting to Peter that we grab the bill and get out of here, when Elle’s sudden gasp served as an auditory bucket of water, extinguishing my fatigue. All color had drained from her face and her hand trembled just enough to rock the phone back and forth.

  “Crap, I was just joking about the penises, too.”

  “It’s … it’s not that.”

  “Sloan, what is it? You’re scaring me.” Luke strained to catch a better glance of the phone.

  “What’s going on, Elle?” Peter joined in, uncharacteristically concerned.

  Elle tried to talk, but no words would come out at first. “Th-This man. H-He thinks he m-may be my father.”

  *****

  It would have been classic Betsy Sloan to know who Elle’s father was but not tell her out of spite. Elle never knew her father, and her mother’s story often varied with respect to who he was, how they met, and how she came into this world. The popular theory was that he had been just another stranger her mother had met in a bar and had taken home after one of her innumerable alcohol-filled binges. In hindsight, it was a miracle that Elle was an only child—and also that she was a normal, functioning adult.

  We stayed up with Elle back at the apartment she and Luke shared well into the wee hours of the morning … well after her last message to Mark Damsky had been sent and responded to. They’d met in Alcoholics Anonymous, Mark and Betsy. A surprise to Elle, considering her mother had never once acknowledged ever having had an alcohol problem, even while she was on her death bed dying from cirrhosis of the liver. Mark had been a recovering alcoholic and had led the group, having recently celebrated ten years of sobriety. He’d been Betsy’s mentor before becoming her lover, and by all appearances, things had been going great, until Betsy pulled a Betsy and bailed. He’d tried contacting her—calls going unanswered, meetings going unattended. He’d assumed she’d fallen off the wagon again.

  Elle read Mark Damsky’s messages with Luke by her side, asking questions to fill in some of the blanks his story left behind and answering the few that Mark posed to her. For some reason even he was entirely uncertain of, he’d been thinking about Betsy and decided to try to find her online. Although married—happily, he’d assured Elle—he couldn’t quite shake his curiosity, wondering whatever had become of the woman he’d fallen for so many years ago; the woman he wanted so desperately to help. And it was during his internet search that he happened upon Betsy’s obituary. And Elle.

  When he found Elle’s social media account, all he wanted to do was send her a message to give her his condolences and share with her his story of his time with her mom. But then he saw her. He noticed that her nose was his nose, and her jawline was his jawline. Elle looked a great deal like Betsy to anyone who saw them together, but as much as she resembled her mother, she also bore a striking resemblance to Mark Damsky … and Mark Damsky’s daughter. Some light internet stalking later, Mark had been able to discover that Betsy Sloan’s daughter had turned thirty-three this year—the same number of years it had been since he last saw Betsy Sloan.

  “We’ll need … to do a … paternity test,” Elle said, after several minutes of confoundment.

  Luke rubbed her shoulders, equally as dumbfounded. “I’ll try to get something arranged through the hospital. We’ll need a third party to control the testing. He’ll submit his swab and you submit your swab and then we’ll know.”

  Elle nodded. “And then we’ll know.”

  “Or, and hear me out on this,” I interjected, “we could all go on the Maury-You-Are-The-Father-Povich Show.”

  “Then, after the results come in, we could head on over to the Jerry Springer set and throw some chairs around; you know, pending the outcome and all,” Peter added.

  “See, Peter agrees. And then later, we can drive back to New York and crash at my place. Really make a day of it. Hell, you could even bring maybe-your-father with you.”

  With the way Elle and Luke were staring at us in total silence, I knew they were nowhere near in the mood for our lighthearted commentary.

  “Or we could try it your way, party poopers.”

  *****

  I was thankful for the events of the ni
ght before because they kept me too preoccupied to think about how nervous I was to be heading to the fair with Peter to meet Jackson. It felt silly to me, to be nervous to make the acquaintance of a second grader, yet here I was. My hands were clammy, my shoulders so tense they ached. Peter was a regular Chatty Cathy on the ride over, which I took as a clear sign his nerves were presenting themselves.

  “Jackson has been pumped for this fair. It’s all he’s been talking about for the last week. He’s been bouncing off the walls. He’s seriously so geeked he’s been driving me crazy.”

  “Peter?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think Jackson is excited for the fair?”

  “I thought I just …” Peter snorted as he caught on to the joke. “It doesn’t happen very often, but I tend to ramble when I’m—”

  “Nervous?”

  “I prefer the term grossly excited.”

  “I’ll see your ramblings of excitement and I’ll raise you an embarrassingly gross amount of perspiration.” I wiped my clammy hands on the hem of my shorts for at least the fifth time that afternoon.

  We pulled into the gates that led to an otherwise barren field, presently being used as the parking lot for the county fair. When we reached the front of the line, Peter paid the attendant for our parking and turned into the improvised parking lot.

  “Amanda said to meet her by the merry-go-round,” he said as we walked hand in hand into the depths of the fair on our way to the children’s rides, dodging said children and errant 4-H animals while also simultaneously avoiding their droppings—the animals’, not the children’s, hopefully.

  I’d never met Amanda, and the mention of her name shouldn’t have had any effect on me. She and Peter had ended their relationship almost as soon as it began several years ago. Still, she was his ex, and the mother of his child, which I hated to admit intimidated me a little. A part of them would always be tied to each other, while I was the outsider, hoping to one day fit in and add another link to their chain.

  “Wait here,” Peter instructed, letting go of my hand and kissing me on my forehead. “It looks like Jackson is just getting off the ride now, but I need to talk to Amanda first, and I kind of want to introduce you to him without Amanda butting in—which she would probably try to do, otherwise.”