“Use your words,” I said, finally managing to make myself presentable. I stepped out of the stall and around a departed homeless woman who was busy trying to get a paper towel out of the dispenser. Her hand kept slipping through. That had to be frustrating.
“Charley, you can’t just threaten the Heavenly Father.”
“Can, too.” Yes. I was seven.
“Charley,” she said, appalled.
When she didn’t follow up, I said, “I know. I get it. But I was just really mad at the time.”
“At the Almighty?”
“At the almighty jerk who stole my memories and tried to put my husband in a hell dimension for all eternity.”
I was pretty sure she didn’t hear a thing I’d said. The moment the word jerk left my mouth, she gasped. Loud and long. For, like, sixty seconds. Girl had a set of lungs.
“I’m sorry.” I looked up and said it again. “I’m sorry. I get it. Threatening the Big Kahuna is a bad idea, but He started it.”
“This isn’t the third grade, Charley. And even if it were, you don’t pick a fight with the principal.”
“No, but I did pick a fight with my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Hickman. That woman was bat shit.”
We hung up a couple of minutes later, once I convinced her that even if I did threaten Him, what could I do? For reals?
After drying my own hands, I took a paper towel and handed it to the homeless woman. It slipped through her fingers to the floor, but it seemed to satisfy her nonetheless.
Homeless departed, by and large, rarely wanted to cross. And when they did, it was disorienting, their mental illness often putting the whammy on me for days. So I didn’t offer, though she could have crossed at any time. I had little say in the matter.
She noticed me at last. Flashed a gap-filled grimace. Leaned closer. “The Jell-O didn’t set. It’ll never work now.”
I looked up to where heaven supposedly resided. “Don’t I know it.”
I called Cookie, my “best friend slash receptionist slash research assistant slash shoulder on which to cry,” on the way to the parking lot, ignoring the angel perched atop a minivan, watching me with hawklike eyes.
Angels had a way of setting me on edge. They were all business. And terribly perceptive when it came to said business. They had a mission, and they would not be swayed. I’d tried. A couple of days ago, I’d offered one a C-note to scram. He didn’t bite. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even look at the hundred I’d waved at him. Steel resolve if I ever saw one.
And angels were unreadable when they wanted to be. They had the best poker faces this side of Vegas, and their emotions were impenetrable unless I was really close. And close was not a place I wanted to be. Their power felt like an electrical current rushing over my skin. It was unsettling and breathtaking at once.
As far as looks, they hardly resembled the pictures in the Bible. No curly hair or golden crowns or togas. Nope. This was one area where Hollywood nailed it. Angels wore long dark jackets that flared out at the shoulders, like the riding coats of yore, or perhaps dusters. Their wings arched behind them and folded in at their backs and down their legs, reaching to the bends at the knees. The vision was one of such majesty, such splendor, it was hard to see them as my adversaries. But adversaries they were. At least for the time being.
The angel staring me down from above had short black hair, eyes just as dark, and mocha-colored skin. And he was stunning. Like all angels, I’d come to realize. They were nothing if not heartbreakingly beautiful.
Cookie finally picked up on the twelve-hundredth ring, panting and out of breath.
“Are you getting a quickie at the office again?” I asked, climbing into Misery, my cherry-red Jeep Wrangler.
“No, Charley, I have never gotten a quickie at the office. I was trying to put paper in the copier.”
I did not even want to know why that would have her so out of breath.
“It’s acting up again.”
I turned Misery’s engine over, put her in reverse, and sped out of there, all the while keeping an eye on the celestial being keeping an eye on me. It was all very cyclical.
“Did you check the carburetor?”
“I don’t think copiers have carburetors.”
“Did you check to see if it had one? Maybe you need to be on top of these things instead of judging others.”
“You’re absolutely right. I apologize.”
She didn’t mean it. I could tell.
Once out of his sight, the tension in my lungs eased, though just barely. “So, I have bad news.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I’m going to have to let you go.”
“Did we lose money on a case again?”
“This one was not my fault. I was attacked. And I hate cheap toothpaste, so it’s either let you go or buy cheap toothpaste. Sorry, hon.”
“That’s okay.”
“Of course, at the rate I’m going, I might need to find a new job as well. Or go back to my old one. My former pimp said he’d hold my corner for me should I ever go back to him.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet.”
“Actually, I think his exact words were, ‘If you ever come crawling back to me like the ungrateful bitch you are.’”
“Well, still, it’s the thought that counts.”
“Right?”
“So?” she asked.
“So?” I asked back.
“How’d it go?”
“Not horridly, if that’s what you’re implying. But I didn’t get to say good-bye to Alexander Skarsgård.”