The A-Word

by Joy Preble

  My mouth was hanging open now. Full-on fly-catching jaw drop.

  Helping Donny Sneed win the football game was one thing. A funny thing—sort of. This was … My pulse slammed, my skin was prickled, and I thought: I am stupid. I am stupid. How did I not know? Casey was helping Mrs. Gilroy stand now and then patting her back, a there, there kind of pat.

  “I’ll take him,” she said, her voice thin but determined. “You’re right. You’re right. He’s been taking those Claritin. You can buy them over the counter now, did you know? But he’s so tired. And I thought it was his hip. But you’re right.”

  “Take him tonight, Betsy. You promise you’ll take him tonight? Now?”

  Mrs. Gilroy nodded again. “Let me walk you inside,” Casey said. “I’ll be in the Merc,” I said, more to myself than anybody else. I climbed into the passenger seat, cut the engine because the car was still running, and sat and thought. Ryan’s fabulous lips didn’t even enter the picture. Which was a shame.

  Less than a minute later, my brother reappeared.

  “You painted her fake tombstones?” He stared at me hard, like this was a crime.

  I shrugged. “Me and Amber.” I stared right back. “You’re an angel,” I said. Which sounded stupid, but that’s how it came out.

  “Amber? When the hell was Amber here?”

  “Last night. And don’t change the topic.”

  “Jenna,” Casey said and then sighed. “You know what I am.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t. Not like this.”

  My brother said nothing.

  “It’s that Spidey sense thing, isn’t it?” I asked when the silence got boring, and Casey had begun fiddling with the car keys and peeking at his cell phone which was blinking like crazy because he was running late to wherever he was going.

  “But you can’t read people’s minds, right?” I said, having the conversation with myself. “Y’all keep telling me it doesn’t work like that.”

  Another sigh. His cell rang, loudly, even though I could see he had it on silent. After like ten rings it stopped.

  I tried to collect my thoughts. “You toke up still. You bitch and moan over Lanie. You—”

  “I don’t … I don’t need the full replay.” Casey sounded peeved. Somehow this made me perkier. He brushed a hand over my shoulder and I scooted away.

  “Explain,” I said.

  He pursed his lips. Turned the key and revved up the Merc but did not shove it in gear. “It’s you,” he said. “At least mostly.”

  Something hard lodged in my throat. “What?” I tried to swallow around the boulder or whatever it was, but my mouth was too dry. MSG in the fried rice, probably.

  “I’m your guardian, Jenna. You care about Mrs. Gilroy. And don’t deny it. You painted her damn fake tombstones. I think … no, I don’t think. I know. Amber says it comes from that. Bo agrees with her, I think, although right now … I don’t understand the physics exactly, but that’s the short of it. I can read her, sort of, because of you.”

  He looked at me even harder, serious as I’d ever seen him. Plus he’d referenced physics, which was freaking me out. Even after he’d pulled himself together last year, he had still failed Teen Leadership—which he was now retaking. And more troubling, he was talking to Amber about me. He was talking to Bo about me.

  “Me?” I squeaked.

  Casey backed the Merc down the driveway, eyes on the rearview now. “Yeah. Crazy, right?”

  “Well,” I said as he shoved the car in drive and floored it. We lurched, then sped down the block. Maybe tomorrow, after he finally, finally took me for my permit, I would practice. I would drive slower than this, that was for sure.

  “Well, what?”

  “Prove it.”

  He glared at the road. “It’s true. You don’t have to do a test for it.”

  I almost laughed. He was trying to turn the tables on me, referring to my Angel Test, the one I’d come up with when I was having trouble believing that my brother was not the same as he’d been before our car accident. I’d even dyed his hair Champagne Blonde with Mom’s Clairol products just to see if I could change his looks—which of course I couldn’t. Also, I had no idea where we were going.

  “If it’s true, then you can prove it.”

  We hung a right out of our neighborhood, heading west, then over the railroad tracks. He screeched to a halt as the light turned red.

  “Is Mr. Gilroy really sick?” I pressed.

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Is he going to die?”

  Casey tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Checked the mirrors even though we were stopped. “You need to look in that rearview regularly,” he informed me. “You never know what kind of lunatic might be speeding up to rear-end you ’cause he’s yakking on his phone.”

  “Casey.”

  “Don’t know. I can’t know. But he’s sick and she was scared and he was stubborn. I think she’ll take him now. If she does, it could be okay.”

  “But I don’t even think about them,” I said. “They don’t matter to me like … well, they don’t.”

  The light turned green and Casey floored it again, hanging a left under the bridge, onto the feeder and then onto I-45 headed south. Toward Houston. Joining the stream of headlights as the sun dropped out of sight.

  “Bo?” I asked, nodding toward his phone.

  “Bo,” he said. He drove with his left, called on his cell with his right. “You still there?” he said into the phone after a couple seconds. “I’m coming. There was a—I’ll be there quick as I can.” He tossed the phone into the cup holder. Signaled a lane change and passed a pickup with its blinkers on. He didn’t explain further. I didn’t ask.

  “You care about everybody, Jenna,” Casey blurted out. “You do. It’s around you. It’s in you. It’s … you. I never knew it before. Never cared to know it. I know it now. I see it and feel it even if I want to ignore it, which I can’t. It’s like—energy. Yours. Theirs. And it feeds into me. So I can tell what you need, Amber says. It’s not like at first, when I … It’s different now. It’s constant.”

  I stared at him, trying to understand. “But you don’t know what your purpose is?”

  “Nope. But I know this. I know it all the damn time. It’s—it’s loud.”

  “Like me,” I said, not even meaning to.

  Casey almost smiled. “Yeah. But not always accurate. I guess I’m not that good at it yet or something. Or maybe everyone you know has loud problems.”

  That was entirely possible.

  “Truth?” I asked.

  “Truth,” he said. “For real.”

  I gave him the stink eye. “You still haven’t proved it.”

  “You don’t want to believe me, that’s your problem.”

  “You don’t have to be such a dick about it.”

  He laughed then. “Of course I do.”

  Did I believe him? Mostly. I believed there was more to his A-wordishness than I had thought. I believed that he knew when I was upset about something, but he was my brother. If he paid attention, he didn’t have to be an angel to know that. Same with the Gilroys. They were older than Moses. No big surprise if they were feeling poorly.

  “What about Amber and Bo?” I asked. “Can you read them?”

  That would make the whole thing easier. I cared about Amber, sort of. Bo … I wasn’t sure. But maybe Casey could use that energy or whatever to find out what Amber’s damage was all about. Maybe they’d reward him by giving him his flight back. Something. The downtown skyline loomed closer—all those tall buildings. In my head, I imagined Bo Shivers leaping off each of them in slow motion. I still had no idea exactly where we were going. With anything, not just this particular car ride.

  “Nope,” Casey said. “With other angels it’s different.”

  I pondered this. What if someone could read Bo? What would that someone see in his head? “Casey,” I said, drawing out his name while I formulated my question. “What do you think it fe
els like for Bo to fall like that? You haven’t … I mean …”

  Casey’s eyes stayed on the road. “Don’t know,” he said. But the way he said it, I wondered if he did.

  I jumped when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I peeked at it. Sweet dreams. See you tomorrow in the Commons area during break. R.

  See you, I texted back, spelling out you like he had.

  I liked that he had taken the time to use the whole word. I guess that was the writer in him. It made me feel special. I rubbed my thumb over my mustang head necklace. If I had not been in A-word land, my heart would have flailed its jazz hands again. Instead, I thought: This stuff Casey is trying to explain … is it like hearing Bo chuckle in my head—only more? What if he knew when things were wrong with my friends? Would I want to know?

  “What about Ryan? Is he okay?” I felt momentarily bad that I hadn’t looped Maggie in there, too. But she was my best friend. If she was fixing to have a coronary, she’d at least text me that she was feeling out of sorts. Probably blabber about how the universe had some grand plan. I loved that about Maggie, who knew I would be there for her no matter what. And that she would be there for me. But Ryan was another story. One I wanted to continue.

  “Wait,” I said, as Casey opened his mouth. “Don’t tell me. If you’re in his head, get out of there!”

  Turn signal again. We were getting off the freeway. Midtown.

  “Ryan’s fine,” Casey said. “The pissant.”

  “La la la,” I told him, holding my ears. “I am not listening.” Even if I was, it was hard to focus. So much happening all at once. “I have a plan,” I blurted because telling him this was something I could control.

  “Oh?” Casey turned left down some street I didn’t know. Tall office buildings surrounded us, a canyon of concrete and glass.

  “I’m going to figure out how Amber died,” I said. “And you can take the credit.”

  That wasn’t how it sounded in my head, but that’s how it popped out.

  “Jenna,” Casey said, making another turn. “How’s that gonna work?”

  “Gonna work fine. Need to go to Austin, though. For research. Maybe I can even drive as long as you’re in the front seat with me.”

  He made a grumbling sound in his throat, but I could see in his face that he was actually mulling it over.

  “We could get her promoted,” I added. “Be good all around.”

  “Jenna,” Casey said. “I don’t know if—”

  “Why do you act like you can’t do angel things?” I exploded. “Like you’re not as good as Amber?” It was, I figured, what I really wanted to know.

  One beat. Two. We turned again. This part of town was deserted. It was Sunday. It was night. No one was at work.

  “If I pretend,” Casey said, and I knew he was telling the truth, “I can pretend the whole thing. That I’m me. That nothing is changed.”

  And in that moment, I knew that’s why he was pretending, beyond just protecting me.

  We were barreling down Main Street now, up against the light rail tracks and speed bumps, the only barriers between the cars and trains. People regularly bashed into trains they swore they hadn’t seen coming. That was Houston for you; everyone treated their personal vehicles like horses and the rest was just an obstacle course to get around as fast as you could.

  “Casey, if we figure out who killed Amber, she’ll move on. It’s why she’s stuck. Maybe they won’t send someone else to boss you.”

  Of course we both knew the fly in that bowl of soup. Casey didn’t even bother to answer.

  “Um,” I said as we pulled up to what looked to be a dance club. WILD HORSES, read the sign. Country music bar, probably. A bunch of people were milling around outside, guys and girls both in jeans and boots. Girls in those skimpy cute tops that I wanted to start wearing. “What are we doing here anyway?”

  Out ambled the fly in our own A-word bowl of soup. Bo Shivers weaved his way down the sidewalk, possibly drunk. He was duded up in jeans and boots—snakeskin it looked like, which made me shudder remembering the juiced-up snake poison Dr. Renfroe had used to taint my boots. Also a white pearl-snap shirt untucked, flashing a bit of flat tanned belly as he walked.

  I was not opposed to the fact that he looked damn good. But it was disturbing. There was an age limit for sexy, and he was definitely breaking the curve. And maybe not as drunk as I thought when he first burst out of the bar.

  Casey hopped out and chased him down. I guessed I had to tag along.

  “Where is she?” Casey asked.

  “Tried to get her to go home,” Bo said. “She just hopped on that mechanical bull and told me to screw off. In quite the mood, our Amber. Worst I’ve seen actually. Something set her off. She hasn’t been like this since that first year.”

  If the universe had wanted to flummox me some more, it was doing a fine job. Because I had a sudden feeling I knew exactly who they were talking about.

  Bo narrowed his eyes at me. “Why is she here?”

  “Long story,” my brother said.

  Bo cleared his throat. “C’mon, Casey.” Then to me: “Stay put. This shouldn’t take long.”

  Casey grabbed me by the arm. “She’s coming with us.”

  Bo scowled, but Casey was already hauling me inside. He clapped the bouncer on the arm as we went. The guy smiled and let us pass. Bo smiled, too.

  “See what I mean?” He pointed toward the center of the place.

  We craned our necks.

  There was Amber Velasco, dancing on top of the bar. Her jeans were tight and she wore a skimpy low-cut white tank top and those boots of hers, her EMT belt hooked below her waist. Her hair was loose and out of its normal ponytail. She had a beer in one hand and a cowboy type in the other. The sound system was pumping “Copperhead Road.”

  She and the cowboy bent low at the appropriate boot stomps. The bar was shaking with each stomp. The crowd was cheering. Also, she was glowing, and not from the hazy bar lights. No doubt the wasted crowd thought someone had trained a spotlight on her.

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  My brother said, “Language, Jenna.”

  “Like I told you,” said Bo Shivers. “I think she’s depressed.”

  His lips curled, slight but wicked-seeming, like this amused him.

  Things went downhill from there.

  “The Camaro’s out back. I can drive,” Amber insisted.

  It wasn’t easy getting her out of there, but Bo (suddenly not tipsy in the least) convinced her it was time to go. Even in this state, she bended to his will. We were catching our breaths on the sidewalk. Amber was swaying her badonkadonk to the muted strains of Trace Adkins filtering from the club. Bo’s look was a thing of darkness. My brother’s wasn’t much better.

  “You should move along,” I told the cowboy, who had followed us—bad choice on his part. In the light of the street lamps, he looked more insurance salesman with a big belt buckle and tight jeans than bull-riding hottie. “Sooner would be good.”

  He looked like he might move, only then Amber pulled him to her—she was quick about it, half-lifting him off the sidewalk—and locked her lips on his. It was a sloppy kiss, not that I was now a kissing expert, just that it seemed random and wet and focused mostly on pissing off Bo and my brother.

  The cowboy didn’t seem to care. Or notice that Amber was freakishly strong.

  Bo placed a hand on the guy’s shoulder. His shirt sleeve pulled back some and I saw those deep scars of his.

  All of a sudden I felt a rush. How was it that Bo’s scars were still there? Casey had come back from our car accident all prettied up and perfect, zits gone and flabby, too-many-tacos belly miraculously flat and ab-tastic. All those cuts from the windshield, that long gash that I’d seen as I was trying not to die—they were gone. And when I cut him during my stupid Angel Test, it healed right away.

  But Bo had his scars.

  Why?

  Like at Bo’s loft, something crawled up my spine and took its time
flickering back down.

  “Amber,” Bo said, his voice slow. “I have faith that you can do better than this.”

  Amber turned her head briefly to mumble, “You don’t have faith in anything, remember? Least of all love.”

  “Do we really need to do this, darlin’?”

  Slurpy-kissing Cowboy turned to Bo, and their eyes locked.

  “Go home,” Bo said.

  The Cowboy blinked with a dangerous grin. I held my breath, expecting a brawl. But then the grin faded. He drew back from Bo, swallowing, and muttered something under his breath. (It sounded like “crazy freak” but could have been anything.) Without another word, he wandered across the street, stumbling a few times over the big white speed bumps that lined the light rail tracks.

  “Watch out for trains,” I hollered.

  “I’ll drive you home,” Bo said.

  Amber gave him the stink eye. She fished an elastic band out of her pocket and pulled her hair into a messy ponytail. “I’m fine,” she said.

  Suddenly, she was. Standing up straight and steady. Eyes clearing. Color back in her face. And her usual firmly neutral look that gave no clue what she was thinking. Or what the hell she and Bo were actually talking about with that whole faith conversation. I knew angels recovered from their excesses with lightning speed, but Amber and Bo were both quicker at it than Casey. Or maybe my brother liked to wallow in it because it made him feel like he used to. I suspected that was how it was with him.

  Bo told Amber it wasn’t up for discussion and that he’d deal with the damn Camaro if that’s what Amber was worried about.

  “Don’t forget to hydrate,” I advised Amber helpfully. “You’re my backup tomorrow if Casey can’t take me for my permit, remember?”

  This time Amber gave me the stink eye.

  “Thanks for helping her with those tombstones,” Casey said. Was he really thanking her? Maybe.

  “Mr. Gilroy’s not doing well,” I announced because now Bo was staring at me and someone had to say something.

  “Your neighbors are quite the handful,” said Bo.

  “Something like that,” I told him, feeling about as cranky and tired and confused as that Cowboy must have felt. The way he had just described the Gilroys, wasn’t that how I had described myself to him back at his loft? He could pick his own vocabulary. He didn’t get to use mine. I rolled my eyes and hoped he got the message.