Ed Martin nodded again.
“And I thought, maybe, you could help me get started—or something.” She gazed at him with open-eyed trust, as if she expected him with a word to solve her undefined problem.
“Get started?—at writing, you mean?”
Oh, how wonderfully Ed Martin understood!
He shuffled some papers on his desk. “Just what do you want to write, Missy?”
“I don't know, exactly. When I can, I'd like to write something sort of political—or cosmic.”
“Oh,” said Ed Martin, nodding. He shuffled the papers some more. Then: “Well, when that kind of a germ gets into the system, I guess the best thing to do is to get it out before it causes mischief. If it coagulates in the system, it can cause a lot of mischief.”
Just what did he mean?
“Yes, a devil of a lot of mischief,” he went on. “But the trouble is, Missy, we haven't got any job on politics or—or the cosmos open just now. But—”
He paused, gazing over her head. Missy felt her heart pause, too.