I said something that might have been yes and might have been no. It never took me too long to lose whatever self-confidence I had, whatever altitude I’d gained, and crash into the glass roof below. I wanted to get to that elevator and get myself out of there. But Doug reached into the bookcase and handed me three or four issues. “Here. Promise me you won’t sell them on eBay. They’re worth some real money.”

I took them without examining them. “Sure. Thanks.”

“Read them. Keep them as long as you need. What I’m trying to do, Carla? Build on the glory days. Bring Compass Points into the present. Keep the tradition but make it contemporary. Give it that edgy vibe. You follow?”

“Sure,” I said again. I was pretty certain I wasn’t the least bit edgy.

“Take this one, too.” He reached for another issue. “It’s from sixty-nine. One of Mathias’s first published poems.”

That name again. By now I knew a little of Mathias, that meteor of a poet. A streak across the sky. Famous at twenty-five, dead by thirty-five. Everything he touched, he scorched. “Wow. Thanks.”

“One of two surviving copies. The other’s in a safe deposit box. A poet like him doesn’t come along very often. There weren’t that many of his poems to begin with, so they’re especially valuable.” He fixed me with a serious look. “He killed himself, you know.”

I tried to give the magazine back to him.

“No,” he said, “you hang on to it. Please. Show it to Viridian. I expect she’s mentioned him to you?”

Had Mathias been a friend? Lover? I remembered a picture of him in one of the anthologies. His wild black hair, his smudged, desperate eyes. Doug made it sound like suicide had been a good career move.

“She hasn’t said anything to me,” I told him, and Doug nodded and repeated that I should show it to her, he knew she’d get a kick out of it. He thanked me for being here and helping, he could tell I was a quick study, and I should come again because it only got more interesting as the deadlines approached, as well as a little crazier, and it wasn’t all work around here. There were parties from time to time, maybe Aaron and I would come?

Seeing his face this close was a little unsettling. You wouldn’t have guessed he used to be pretty.