The A-Word

by Joy Preble

  “You? On the road?”

  “Drive better than you.”

  Casey shrugged. He’d been letting me circle the Merc around the mall parking lot on Sunday mornings when it was empty. I’d been overjoyed until that stupid niggling voice in my head asked if maybe he was rushing things so that if he got yanked away by Management, I’d be ahead of the game.

  “Where were you?” I asked again. “Talking with Amber, right?”

  Sometimes he went other places, I knew. Spring Creek was a rumor mill like that. I tried to ignore it, but still in the hallways I’d hear how crazy Casey Samuels was driving that POS Merc like it was a race car down the feeder road till it almost shimmied in half. Or that they had seen someone who looked like him standing on top of the water tower by the high school, and how the hell did he get up there?

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “And?”

  “And I was with Amber.” He stepped back into his room, hand on the door. He did not often elaborate about what he and his angel boss/still-EMT-as-her-cover-job discussed when I wasn’t around. My birthday was no exception. It was three in the morning and the fifth slice of pineapple pizza was too big in my gut, but I was a tough girl. I waited.

  Eventually he said, “That little pissant Sloboda better be nice to you.”

  “Like you were nice to Donny?”

  We gave each other a prolonged stink eye.

  “I got you a birthday present,” Casey said then. “You want it now?”

  “Hell yeah.”

  He disappeared into his room again and returned with a pink gift bag. I could tell he’d done it up himself: the tissue was randomly stuffed inside and the ribbons tied on the handle were drooping straight, not curling. I dug in.

  It was one of those makeup combination kits from Sephora. This one had like a zillion eye shadow colors and lip glosses and a bunch of brushes, including a pointy one that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with.

  “The lady said this would be good for someone fifteen,” he said. “ ’Course she doesn’t know you, but … if you don’t like it, we can go back there. Pick out better colors or something. But I showed her a picture and she said these would be good with your complexion …” He’d clearly used up his knowledge about feminine beauty products.

  I didn’t know much more, myself. Except I knew this: my brother had gone to Sephora in the mall to buy me a gift. I hugged him hard. “I love it,” I said.

  “Me, too,” he whispered.

  We stood together in the dark hallway like that. Here is what I wondered: Did all angels have the same adjustment issues? Or was it just Casey? I hurried back to bed and tried to fall asleep, Maggie snoring next to me. The Bible thumpers all talked about that Better Place. But my brother, although he was acting like a dick these days, had been brought back to save me. Now he was stuck until Management saw fit to move him. And worse, I knew he liked it here.

  I bet the thumpers never would have predicted that.

  Then again, I liked this world, too. I liked Casey in it. Taking him away from me was no one’s reward.

  “You think they’re done yet?” I peered through the foggy glass on the oven door. I had given up on signature outfits for today and was wearing navy athletic shorts and my pink This Ain’t My First Rodeo T-shirt, the one I’d loaned to Amber once in an emergency back when I had just discovered that she was more than the EMT who’d pulled us from our wreck of a Prius.

  Also, I was wearing flip-flops because the temperature had shot up outside. It was pushing over eighty already at just after nine in the morning. My hair, which I’d been growing out some, was in a French braid. On my eyelids I’d swiped plum shadow from my new kit. Also black mascara on my lashes.

  Maggie was in cutoffs and a tank top and an ancient pair of black sparkly Ugg boots. She called them her “concession to popular fashion trends.” Maggie can be quite intellectual when she wants to be.

  We were making kolaches. Attempting to, anyway.

  Mom had left early for the weekend shift at Texas Children’s, but her birthday gift to me was on the kitchen table: a note that said Happy Birthday and an IOU for dinner out at the new sushi place near the mall. Also a gift card to Forever 21 with another note that said: I don’t know what you like these days. Get yourself something fun. xoxo Mom

  Casey was gone again. No great surprise there.

  “What’s that smell?” Amber Velasco sashayed through the kitchen door, a sizeable box wrapped in Happy Birthday paper in her hands. Amber did not believe in knocking.

  My brother stomped in behind her lugging a plastic grocery sack.

  “Are those kolaches?” Amber set the box on the kitchen table and strode over to where Maggie was hauling the tray out of the oven. Amber was wearing jeans with bling on the ass and one of those black button-downs that she favored. The jeans looked good on her, I had to admit. Even though she still wore her EMT outfit much of the time, Amber had definitely nailed her own signature outfits. My brother (since I am listing everyone’s clothing) was wearing jeans and a tidy-looking black polo shirt. His skin looked smooth and tan like it always did now.

  I eyeballed the birthday gift box. I couldn’t quite believe it.

  Amber peered at the kolaches.

  “Pretty impressive, right?” Maggie looked proud, even though all we’d done was pop open a can of Pillsbury and unwrap some generic mini-sausages from H-E-B.

  Amber snagged one, holding it between her thumb and forefinger while she nibbled. “If you really want to make some good ones, then you need to mix your own yeast dough from scratch. You know the German immigrant bakers, they’d call these pigs in blankets. But the ones with cheese and fruit filling, now those are the ones that—”

  My brother flicked the rest of the kolache out of her hand. “Let her have her damn breakfast.”

  For a few seconds, all four of us were silent. The bitten kolache oozed sausage grease on the floor.

  Maybe last night he’d been all angel-generous with that touchdown assistance. Today he was in a mood. I waited. One. Two. Three.

  The arguing began full steam. With shouting. And references to Management. And in front of Mags. That was what froze me up, especially when Amber said to Casey: “I never should have fought for them to send you back. You’ve been trouble since the second they slapped those wings on you.”

  So much for opening my present.

  Here were my options:

  1. I could let the two of them throw down right here in the kitchen while Maggie and I took bets as to who would win. In which case I would have to explain why they were fighting and about what. Which I’d have to do, anyway.

  2. I could fake death. Unfortunately, Amber and Casey would probably revive me. In which case I would still have to explain. (See #1 again.)

  3. I could ruin my birthday and tell Maggie I felt a stomach virus coming on, whisper to my brother that he should put a hand on her shoulder and switch on the happy calm angel vibe, shove her to the door, and tell her that it was only a half-mile walk home.

  While I was deciding, my cell phone started vibrating. I should have ignored it. But I was new to phone ownership. It was still like crack to me. I peeked at the caller ID while Maggie nattered something about wings and what the hell was going on. Ryan! He had kept his promise! I clicked TALK.

  “Hello,” I said in my quiet, peaceful ladylike voice.

  “Jenna?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can barely hear you,” Ryan said.

  I grabbed Maggie by the arm and hustled us out to the backyard. “That better?”

  It was. Except that Maggie’s eyes were popping out of her head, and I could see she had a million questions, none of which I was prepared to answer.

  “Happy birthday,” Ryan told me. His voice made my insides liquefy like a smoothie. “You still want me to come over, right?” Here his voiced kind of squeaked. “I’ve got a present for you. Okay?”

  Okay? Of course it was okay. I told him so. “But later
,” I had to clarify. “Like tonight, maybe? Before dinner? Unless you have plans.” I was not one to babble, but there I was. Babbling.

  Ryan didn’t seem to notice. We established that five o’clock would be fine. I figured I could solve my domestic issues by then, or at least figure out a way to fake solving them.

  “Seriously, Jenna, what is with your brother and the EMT girl?” Maggie’s hands were planted on her hips. “Why does she talk about his wings? Is that a drug metaphor?”

  “Maybe.” I wondered what the thumpers would have to say about that little lie.

  SOMEHOW IN THE next fifteen minutes, I managed to get her packed up. “Casey can drive you,” I said, knowing she’d refuse. Maggie did not like yelling. Neither did I, but that wasn’t the point right now.

  Casey rested a hand on Maggie’s arm. “Sorry we’re so rambunctious today,” he said. “Birthdays bring out the worst in us. You have a good one, Mags.”

  It took a minute—Maggie is not an easily suggestible girl—but all at once, there she was, smiling big as day and telling him that it was fine. She’d talk to me later. And for once, I was relieved that Casey could do whatever it is he could do.

  “Thanks for sleeping over,” I told her. “And for the kolaches.”

  She dug into her messenger bag. “Almost forgot.” She handed me a small square package wrapped in brown paper with little red berries stamped on it. If you have ever wondered who makes their own wrapping paper with ink pad stamps and butcher paper, Maggie is your girl.

  I unwrapped it. It was a little silver charm on a thin chain—a mustang head on which she’d put a hot pink Sharpied 76—Ryan’s number.

  “For luck,” Maggie said. “You and Sloboda—I think it could be the real thing. Just don’t show it to him until it is. Otherwise you look like a desperate stalker chick.”

  “Got it,” I told her. I wanted to hug her. I would have, if I could tell her the truth. So I didn’t.

  “I hope you two are satisfied,” I said to Amber and Casey once Maggie was out of earshot. I flopped into a kitchen chair, the silver mustang charm still clutched in my sweaty hand.

  Neither of them apologized.

  Amber’s gift sat at my elbow. I ignored it. Mostly.

  Casey said, “I’ll make you some breakfast tacos. You like those.” He opened the drawer under the oven and pulled out a frying pan.

  He extracted flour tortillas, eggs, salsa, onion, and a bell pepper from the grocery sack—even a couple of potatoes that he began chopping efficiently with one of our kitchen knives.

  I was pissed off, but I watched his hands as he cut and chopped and sectioned everything out on the cutting board: neat little piles of taco ingredients. When he was done, he cracked five eggs in a bowl and whisked them around with a fork, then swished some oil in the pan and started it to heating and added the chopped-up onion and pepper and potato. The light from the kitchen window angled against his face as he worked.

  I slumped at the kitchen table with Amber and thought: I am the only one in this room who actually has to eat. I am the only one in this room who actually has to sleep. I am the only who has an actual birthday anymore. Not that it was going so well.

  “I’m sorry,” Casey said, but not to me. “I guess I’ve been thinking that there’s some other way. I know that’s stupid. I know it. But I have.”

  Amber pursed her lips.

  My stomach went knotty. Something was about to happen. I could feel it in every molecule of my body. Like last year, just before I seized up and Casey raced me to the hospital and we crashed. I knew something was very wrong. Of course I never could have predicted that my passing out would domino into everything that had happened to Casey since.

  He turned the flame off under the frying pan. “I just keep thinking that we can’t be the only ones. Only then I tell myself that I’d know by now, wouldn’t I? I mean if someone else had the answers: why we’re stuck here and if there’s a loophole for this whole grounding business and what it is I’m supposed to do next—you’d have told me by now. But you haven’t. So the way I figure it, you don’t know any more than I do. Just like it’s been since I … well, you know.”

  Amber’s gaze locked on mine. I stared back. She knew that I felt something was wrong, and she looked like she felt it, too.

  Casey laughed—a harsh ha ha sound. “Management must be having a good chuckle, huh? Waiting for me to realize that this is it. My fate. My place in the big scheme of things. The guardian angel who worked at BJ’s BBQ for eternity and drove his little sister to school.”

  “Least till they notice you keep looking the same,” I said and then felt bad I’d thrown that in there. “Plus I’m getting my permit. Another year and I’ll drive myself. Unless you want to let me get my hardship license. ’Cause that would speed things up.” I felt bad about saying that, too, but it slipped out.

  “What I mean is, it can’t be just you and me that this ever happened to,” Casey said to Amber, ignoring my comments. “Guess I was wrong about that, too.”

  He dumped the fried stuff in a bowl and then scraped the beaten eggs in the pan and turned the flame back on, stirring with the whisk. I noticed for the millionth time how capable his hands looked. How even if he was confused as all get out, he was something more than he had ever been. Something I could count on.

  Amber cleared her throat. “You weren’t wrong.”

  If the clock over our stove wasn’t already broken, it would have stopped ticking.

  “We’re not the only ones,” she said.

  That was when Amber said a name. Bo Shivers.

  How many other angels were hanging around that we didn’t know about? Was Houston a hot spot for this kind of thing? It was possible, I supposed. Low cost of living. Good housing market. Maybe the Realtors were in on it. Maybe all those new downtown condos were filled with heavenly beings wanting access to good restaurants and major sporting events.

  “You knew this and didn’t tell me?” Casey shoved his hands through his hair. Of course it didn’t stay mussed up, but he did add a slight sheen of frying pan grease to his bangs. “Why? Who is this Bo person, anyway? Besides one of us? What’s he got on you that you wouldn’t tell me? Incriminating photos or something?”

  I had to give it to my brother. His brain was calculating this news in a more logical way than mine.

  “No.” Amber paused. Blew out a breath. “Bo’s not … well, Bo’s difficult.”

  “Hell.” Casey glowered at her. “I’m difficult. You’re difficult. My damn sister’s difficult. That’s no excuse.”

  Maybe to distract him, Amber shoved the gift box at me. “Open it.”

  Casey scowled, but I was not one to look a gift angel in the mouth. So to speak.

  Here is what Amber gave me: a pair of jeans a lot like hers—the nice, fancy dark wash ones with embroidered leather and crystal crosses on the back pockets. Also, a white long-sleeve, fitted button-down with slick-looking pearl snaps.

  “This,” Amber said with a toss of her ponytail, “is a signature outfit.”

  My pulse ticked in surprise.

  “I pay attention,” she said. “It’ll go with your boots.”

  “You’re an advanced heavenly creature,” my brother grumped. “You need to be using your superpowers to help the universe, not getting boys to look at my sister’s ass.”

  “That,” said Amber Velasco, flashing a mischievous grin, “is exactly the point.”

  A BRIEF DISCUSSION later and it was settled. We were going to Houston. Midtown. To meet this Bo Shivers, whomever he was. Casey said he’d drive and Amber told him no, she’d take us in her Camaro, but she gave in quickly. I suspected this was to distract my brother. When he was driving the Merc, he was in charge—whether that was actually true or not.

  Our neighbors the Gilroys were putting up Halloween decorations as we backed out of the driveway. This was new for them. In the past, they’d concentrated on Christmas. But now they were doing it up with spiderwebs and gravestone
s and black cats and the like. Plus orange lights wrapped around the trunks of their pine trees.

  “Hey y’all,” Mrs. Gilroy waved. She was spray painting an epitaph on one of the tombstones. REST IN PEA was as far as she had gotten. I wished she’d leave it that way.

  “Snazzy graveyard,” I called to her. Her cheeks pinked at the compliment.

  “I’m giving out Hershey bars this year,” she hollered back.

  “Y’all be sure to stop by.”

  Mrs. Gilroy was pleasant like that.

  “SO HERE’S WHAT else I need to tell you,” Amber said. She was riding shotgun like usual, and I was lounging in the backseat. Also like usual.

  “I need to be back before five,” I interrupted. “Ryan is coming over with a birthday present.”

  “Pissant will probably get you something lame,” muttered my brother.

  “Jealous.” That was Amber’s observation. A lowdown one. I knew she did not mean that Casey was jealous of Ryan, but that Casey was jealous I had a significant other and that this was no longer an option for him. Amber could be a jerk like that. But instead of calling her on it, the word made my brain fire this: I have a boyfriend! At least that’s what it looked like.

  Amber heaved a sigh. “Like I was saying. I might have put off going to Bo for longer, but, well, I’ve been sensing something lately. Even just now, at y’all’s house. Something’s coming. Something’s here, maybe.”

  I admit, it was nice to hear that it wasn’t my imagination. She and I were on the same page with that one.

  “And Bo?” Casey’s tone darkened. He was still looking at the highway.

  She blushed. Light red, then deeper. “Bo is my boss.”

  “Boss?” my brother and I squawked in unison.

  “Yeah. Not that he … I told you,” Amber stammered, maybe for the first time ever. “Bo is difficult. You’ll see for yourself soon enough.” She sounded … nervous. Except Amber was not the nervous type. More the nerves-of-steel, pull-you-from-a-crashed-Prius-EMT type. Either way, why keep him a secret?