Earth Angel

by Siri Caldwell

  “You collect angels,” she observed neutrally. Lots of people collected angels, she reminded herself. It didn’t mean anything.

  “I know, a harper who collects angels. What a surprise, right?”

  Gwynne didn’t want to enter any farther into the room, but she also didn’t want Abby to think she was uncomfortable coming in. She could act cool. It wasn’t like she’d never been in a woman’s bedroom before. She strolled over to the drawings to examine them more closely. The angels were all gossamer, their shapes suggested by a few areas of shading and smudged lines that made them disappear into the paper, barely there. They were simple, but they radiated raw emotion: Wistfulness. Compassion. Pure joy.

  “Did you draw these?”

  “Yeah. I took an art class in college. All except for that one on the other wall—my friend Penelope drew that one for me. She’s a lot better than I am.”

  “No, you’re good. You really captured that feeling of unreality about them, the way you can see right through them.”

  Abby was looking at her funny. Why would she look at her like…She knew Gwynne could see angels, right? Anyone who spent more than an hour with her at the spa would have picked up on that popular piece of gossip.

  “You’re not even looking,” Abby said.

  “At what?”

  “At Penelope’s drawing.”

  Abby swung her arm like a traffic cop in exaggerated circles and pointed at the far wall to another framed drawing, this one done in black ink. The angel had tattered butterfly wings and wore demon-kicking thigh-high boots with lots of buckles drawn in painstaking detail. More fairy than angel, to be honest. Her wings partially obscured her torso while simultaneously making it quite clear she was otherwise nude.

  “She’s good,” Gwynne admitted despite herself. “Your friend’s got quite the imagination.”

  “She said my angels didn’t have big enough boobs. I think it was a joke.”

  “Or a come-on.” If someone drew Gwynne a picture like that, she’d definitely read into it. “Were you dating?”

  “We were just friends.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. It’s not like I have so many ex-girlfriends I’d get confused and not remember sleeping with her.”

  “I have a hard time believing you don’t have women falling all over you all the time.”

  Abby’s face twitched as if she didn’t know what to make of her compliment. And who could blame her? It was the type of charming, insincere comment that anyone who detected that note of bitter bewilderment in Abby’s voice would feel compelled to make. But Gwynne wasn’t insincere—she meant it. There was something irresistible about the way Abby’s freckled, heart-shaped face glowed with innocence. Something desirable about the faint crinkles at the corners of her eyes. Why hadn’t she dated more? Or had Gwynne simply misunderstood her comment?

  “Believe it.” Dismissing further debate, Abby walked to her closet and pulled out her performance dress and hung it on the back of the closet door. The dress had a navy blue satin lining with a gauzy lavender see-through overlay and navy sequins. Gwynne would not be caught dead wearing sequins, but she was positive Abby could pull it off.

  Abby hunted through a chest of drawers, rummaging through a jumble of bras, underpants and tights. “If you were my navy blue bra, where would you be?”

  Oh, dear God, she was definitely not answering that. If I were your bra…She attempted to search the room so Abby wouldn’t look at her face and see the whole list of inappropriate answers that crowded her brain.

  “I thought musicians wore black,” she said stupidly. This wasn’t an orchestra gig and she’d never seen Abby wear black.

  Abby tucked her hair behind her ear. “Black is boring. When I perform, I put on a show.”

  She didn’t need to. People didn’t hire her because her dress was nice or because her harp looked like a dragon. They hired her because her skill was breathtaking and her music sang to the vulnerable places in her audience’s hearts.

  “Besides,” Abby said, “that way if somebody hates my music, and they come up to me after the performance because their date dragged them along and they’re smiling nervously, trying to think of something to say while their date is going on and on about how great I was, they can always say I love your dress.”

  “A pity gesture for your non-fans? That’s sad.” And Gwynne didn’t believe it for a minute. “What if they don’t love your dress?”

  “What, you don’t love my dress? Everyone loves this dress.” Abby arranged the gown against the closet door to admire it. “If not, they’re welcome to lie.”

  “Then I definitely love your dress.” She didn’t have much of an opinion either way. Pretty? Yes. Over-the-top? Also a yes. Lust-worthy? Not unless Abby was the one wearing it.

  Abby fanned the skirt of her gown and fingered the hem. “It took forever to sew, but I love this old-fashioned glamour.”

  “You made that yourself?” Gwynne didn’t sew, but it was obvious, even to her, that this was not a beginner’s project.

  “I spend all my money collecting harps. I don’t have any left over for costumes.”

  “I have to say the dress looks amazingly intricate.” It was the polite thing to say, and it was true too.

  “And sexy?”

  “Um…sure.”

  “I know I said you were welcome to lie, but…you don’t have to lie. I’m aware that this dress scares women off.” Abby let the fabric slip through her fingers. “No one ever says You look hot in that dress, can I ask you out? Because women who date women would rather date someone who doesn’t wear sequins.”

  “Then you haven’t found the right woman.” One who would be insane to care about her sequins when she could be looking at the way her hair fell across her face while she leaned over her harp, or the way she lit up when she smiled.

  “I want to date someone I can talk to, and most women are…I don’t want to say aliens, but…okay, aliens. I don’t get them. I know I’m supposed to understand how women think, but I don’t. I don’t get how they think.” She kicked at a pile of laundry beside the closet and brightened. “I knew I’d find it!” She fished out her missing bra and dangled it overhead like she was waiting for applause.

  Gwynne tried not to choke. Abby was so right—she did not understand how women think. A bra at Macy’s was an innocent item of clothing, but a bra in the hand of a woman you found attractive was a health hazard.

  “Good thing that’s a pile of clean laundry,” Abby said, directing her comment to her lingerie.

  Gwynne crawled onto the bed because, one, there wasn’t anywhere much else to be with all the clothes strewn across the floor, which was something she couldn’t get away with in a house full of nibbling rabbits, and, two, if Abby was going to act like she was straight and it was safe to wave her bra around, then Gwynne was going to remind her what she was dealing with. She leaned back on the daisy-patterned quilt and made herself comfortable, daring her to acknowledge that bringing her into her bedroom wasn’t one hundred percent safe.

  Abby hung her bra on the hook on the back of her closet door with her dress and ignored her. Gwynne stretched out her legs, letting her feet hang off the end of the bed so her shoes didn’t touch the quilt. What did they call this size bed? A full? Smaller than a queen-size, anyway. Whatever it was called, she didn’t understand how Abby could sleep with anyone in such a narrow bed. They’d have to lie on top of each other to fit.

  Maybe that was the idea.

  Her legs heated and abruptly she swung up to a seated position, her feet connecting with the floor. “You’ll find someone.” Maybe sooner than she thought, if they were both lucky. “Somewhere out there, there’s got to be a non-alien life- form who gets you.”

  Abby shook her head and smiled. “When you put it that way…”

  “It sounds too good to be true, right?”

  “It sounds like an alien plot, is what it sounds like.”

  “Are yo
u suggesting I…”

  Abby positioned her hands on either side of her head and pointed her fingers like dancing antennae. Gwynne mirrored her, adding beeping space creature sounds.

  “Another alien! I should have known.” Abby crooked her antennae fingers in excited but unintelligible alien sign language.

  “Plan B—you try kissing a space alien to see if she’ll turn into a princess,” Gwynne joked.

  Abby’s antennae fingers slowed, one awkward pointing move at a time, then stopped. “I believe that’s supposed to be a frog.”

  Oh, crap. She’d gone too far. “How about—” Gwynne cringed at herself, but she couldn’t stop. “—an alien frog?”

  “An alien frog.” Abby sounded dubious.

  “A cute alien frog?”

  Abby frowned. “I gave up alien frogs for Lent.”

  “Too many princesses following you around?”

  “Too many frogs.”

  All goofiness abandoned, Abby knelt beside the bed and twisted her body to look underneath the bed skirt. Her toes bumped into Gwynne’s shoe which, despite the frog comment, caused another spike in her blood pressure. Gwynne snatched her feet out of the way.

  “You don’t need to move,” Abby said with her head halfway under the bed as she dragged out shoes and flung them behind her like a cat scattering kitty litter.

  Gwynne balanced on her tailbone, her feet hovering an inch above the bed. “Do you want me to start taking stuff to the van? The dress?”

  “No, thanks.” Abby straightened and surveyed her choices with a critical eye. She picked out a pair of plum-colored strappy heels and pushed the rest of the mess in a jumble back under the bed. “I’m going to change into my dress before we go.”

  She was? Like, right now? Gwynne lowered her feet to the floor and ran her palms along the stitched seams of the quilt. This was what she got for being prompt. No, not prompt. Early. She’d made a point to be early because it was either that or be late, because she wasn’t good with clocks. She’d always figured life went more smoothly for responsible people who showed up on time, but it seemed she’d been gravely mistaken. Because if she’d been late, Abby would already be dressed. Instead, Gwynne was going to wait in the other room and hope a certain frog-hater couldn’t sense her imagination was running rampant.

  “Where did you think I was going to change?” Abby said. “On the beach?”

  So she’d forgotten that tiny detail, what with all the bra waving. Bras always distracted her.

  “Guess the sandy public restrooms aren’t going to cut it,” she acknowledged. “I’ll get out of here.”

  “Stay. I’ll just be a minute.” Abby had turned her back to her and was already pulling off her crocheted sweater.

  Gwynne jumped off the bed and tripped over a belt and a dirty sock in her haste to face away from her. She should leave. Abby had told her to stay, but…she should leave. She spotted a gold circlet lying on top of a pile of hair accessories on top of the dresser and fumbled for it to give herself something to do so she wasn’t standing there, motionless, like an idiot. Abby should have kicked her out. She shouldn’t just pull off her clothes like there was no attraction between them. Either Abby was oblivious, which she doubted, or she was pushing her. Or she was oblivious. Gwynne’s thoughts circled dizzyingly. She had to be oblivious.

  She turned the circlet in her hands, studiously keeping her eyes away from the mirror above the dresser so she wouldn’t see Abby’s hands go to the button of her jeans. Too bad she couldn’t cover her ears too, because hearing her step out of her clothes was almost as unnerving as she imagined watching her would be.

  Fabric rustled, making her imagine the satin skirt brushing against Abby’s legs. She glanced in the mirror. She couldn’t help it. Abby was contorting her arms behind her, struggling with the mile-long zipper down the back of her dress, muttering about having gained weight. She wiggled and hopped and sucked in her stomach, but the zipper went nowhere.

  The dress looked completely different now that it was on her body. The wisps of color looked great against her skin tone. And because Gwynne could see her aura, she could appreciate how the dress complemented the full spectrum of her personal coloring to dazzling effect. And the wiggling—the wiggling was hard to look away from.

  “How does this tiara thing stay on your head?” Gwynne asked, her voice gruff.

  Abby looked over her shoulder and steadily met her gaze in the mirror. “Bobby pins.” The Duh, what else would I use? went unspoken. “You didn’t have a very girly childhood, did you?”

  “No bobby pins, or, obviously, tiaras, but I did go through a fairy princess phase.”

  Abby’s eyes twinkled. “Hard to believe.”

  “Yeah, I know. All that frog-kissing talk gave me away.” She might not have been girly, but fairies and magic had fit right in with her real-life angel friends. And who was wearing the fairy princess dress right now? “I’m sure you had princess fever worse than I ever did.”

  “Oh, yeah. There was hot pink crapola all over the house.”

  “And Barbie dolls?”

  “You think I’m going to admit to that too?”

  “I’ll admit to it,” Gwynne said. “What I can’t figure out is why I wanted to undress them so much.” She’d developed early, what could she say.

  Abby gave up on her dress and dropped her arms to her sides. The dress hung precariously on her shoulders, the back gaping open, just waiting to slide off. “Can’t you?”

  Abby was going to have to work on her outraged face. Right now it was hard to distinguish from her come-hither pout. Her voice was kind of breathy too.

  “Just this inexplicable fascination, I guess.”

  “You are something else.”

  Gwynne decided no apology was necessary. “I’m not the only girl in the world who changed her dolls’ outfits a lot.”

  “How convenient. You can help me zip up my dress.”

  Oh, no, not that. Abby had played right into her hands and now she really wished she had kept her mouth shut. She should have left her bedroom the minute Abby started to get changed. She was crazy to have stayed.

  Gwynne replaced the circlet on the dresser with a clink. Of course she stayed. Anytime Abby was around, Gwynne stayed. It was like a compulsion, the way she needed to be near her.

  “So, Gwendolyn?”

  “It’s Gwynne.”

  “No feeling me up.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “I noticed that about you, Guinevere. You’re very polite.”

  Abby wouldn’t say that if she knew Gwynne was imagining what it would feel like to pop open her bra and slide her hands into the back of her dress and around to the front and impolitely cup her very lovely breasts.

  “It’s just Gwynne.”

  “Is that short for something?”

  “No.”

  Abby’s lips curved in a bewitching, not-so-innocent smile. “Okay, have it your way, Gwynnosaurus.” She turned her back to her and swept her long hair out of the way, exposing the delicate column of her neck.

  Gwynne’s laugh came out hoarse and bothered. That freckle-covered neck looked quite kissable. So did the curve of her lower back, laid bare by that too-long zipper. She reached for the zipper. She could stand behind her forever, stroking the hollow of her spine and kissing the back of her neck and making her very, very late for her gig.

  Why did Abby have to wear a dress? Blouses were nice. They came in a range of colors and they had the added bonus feature of buttoning in the front, making them easy to close without requiring assistance from friends. She could have worn a blouse with a long skirt instead of this handmade dress that had a tight bodice and a tricky zipper. Then Gwynne wouldn’t be in this situation, fantasizing about the softness of her skin against her lips instead of already on her way out the door.

  It wasn’t too late to refuse to help. She could say no. But she’d seen Abby struggling with the tight closure, and refusing to help would be rude.r />
  Rude. Sure. Talk about a rationalization.

  It was clouding her judgment to stand this close to her, close enough to breathe in her lilac scent, close enough to unhook her bra. The wide expanse of her back begged to be freed. Abby stood very straight and Gwynne leaned in.

  Stay away from her bra, Gwynne.

  The closeness was making her crazy. Abby breathed faster, audibly, reacting to her nearness, or possibly to her very careful hand placement, one hand tugging on the zipper tab and the other holding down the fabric for counterbalance at her sacrum, a.k.a. her ass.

  She got the zipper halfway up before it got stuck. Abby squeezed her shoulder blades together to help make it easier, but even so, Gwynne had to step even closer to pull the two sides together. She accidentally grazed the edge of her protruding shoulder blades. Her fingers shook.

  If there was a God, Abby did not own a single blouse.

  “There’s a hook at the top,” Abby said softly, her voice a caress.

  “I know.”

  She pulled the zipper the rest of the way up and fit the hook together. She tucked the edge of a wayward bra strap out of sight and smoothed the neckline and reluctantly stepped back, hoping Abby couldn’t hear that she too was struggling to breathe.

  God, they were both a wreck, and they were going to be late to Abby’s gig if they didn’t get a move on.

  But the next time she touched this dress, she was taking it off.

  Chapter Seven

  March was not the warmest time of year to hold an outdoor wedding, but Penelope had her heart set on a romantic ceremony by the sea, and off-season was the only time of year anyone could get a beach permit. Abby felt a little chilly during the ceremony, but she poured her heart into the processional music, and afterward, as the light started to fade, they moved into a heated tent where Abby was stationed near one of the space heaters and played background music while guests mingled over drinks, scouted for their place cards, and admired vases overflowing with giant poofball alliums and white snapdragons atop magenta tablecloths lashed to the table legs with white ribbon.