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I bring a fist to my mouth. To say that everything is not ok would be the understatement of the year. So I say nothing.
“’S fine,” I fumble for words. “She’s just… young? I guess? I’m just wondering why you picked her.”
“She has won five poetry awards. Including the National.”
I almost stumble, impressed. She has won what?
“Oh,” I say lamely.
“Yeah. Only the best of the best for you,” he goes on, oblivious to my nearly choking to death. “But I did not actually choose her. It was Theo.”
“Teddy?” I echo. Teddy exerted himself enough to choose a poet for me? I find it hard to wrap my mind around the idea. “What on earth does he have to do with this?”
“He read one of her poems,” Spence replies. “He said…” He has to stop and clear his throat. “He says it made him live.”
“It made him want to live?”
“I thought that was what he said at first too,” he chuckles wryly. “But no. He said it made himlive.”
“What the heck does that mean?”
“He is fighting his own demons,” Spence says, his brow furrowing. “I don’t know the kind of struggle he’s going through… When your own self is the thing trying to destroy you, how do you fight it? But maybe Theo thought that if Eden Elliot could be so brave, like the poem she wrote, then he could be too.”
I am more confused than ever. Brave like the poem? What on earthisthat poem about?
Ok, I need to get my hands on Eden’s poetry yesterday.
Eden’s. Poetry.
It sounds surreal. I mean, I told her she’s a writer from the first day I met her, but the National? Wow. Wow wow wow. I feel right aboutthis smallcompared to her talent—then again, I always have. Nothing new here.
She always wrote poetry and stories, but she got her poetry published. And it’s not just any poetry. It’s poetry that made Teddy live.
Aka, poetry that makes miracles happen. That’s the kind of poetry Eden writes.
“After that,” he goes on, “I had my team approach her and ask her if she would be interested in working with a singer. She asked who the singer was, and when they told her, she…”
“She what?” I am not breathing.
“My publicist said she nearly started crying, but I’m sure she imagined it.” Spencer is dismissive, but I know it’s probably what happened exactly. “When we asked her to go to your Christmas concert to see if she could work with you, she said she couldn’t afford the ticket. So I gifted her one. And then I placed her in my Youth Outreach program. I mean, if a human being ever deserved a second or third of millionth chance at life, it’s her.”
I’m flabbergasted.
“Don’t you agree?”
“She…” My voice comes out all wrong. Choked. Strangled. “I agree. She is really something.”
Spencer smiles.
“Sweet,” he says.
“Thanks, man.”
“My pleasure. Enjoy,” he says and ends the call.
‘Enjoy.’
Enjoy burning in hell is what he means.
