Wild Angel

by Shari Copell

  She’d poured all of her thoughts out a year after his death, handwriting their story in a green, spiral-bound notebook while Nicks napped. It was a cathartic experience. When she finally penned the last word and closed the cardboard cover on their lives, she was still a long way from understanding him. Even so, it had helped.

  She’d written Rock’n Tapestries on the front of the notebook with the same Sharpie he’d used to sign that damned T-shirt, during the night that would forever be etched in her mind as one of the best of her life. Though Tage had asked her to dispose of both when they’d moved to a bigger house in the suburbs, she kept the T-shirt and the notebook hidden safely in the bottom of a box at the back of their closet. She didn’t want to hurt her husband, but some memories weren’t so easily discarded.

  If only I’d known...I should’ve tried harder...

  It did no good to think that way. And life might’ve turned out very differently for her if he’d lived.

  Chelsea ran a hand over her face, sighed, and dropped her chin into her palm. She’d been dreaming about Asher a lot lately. The dreams left her feeling as though she’d had her ass kicked in the morning. And she was terrified she’d call out in her sleep. The last thing she needed to do was call out his name in the dark when she was lying right beside Tage. No amount of explaining would fix that little faux pas.

  Asher touched her in the dreams. Soft. Gentle. Electric. Always hot. Running his damned fingers over her cheeks, moving his hands over her shoulders. How the hell was she supposed to reconcile that in her mind?

  Sometimes the dreams were disturbing, especially the ones where he tried to talk to her. She’d reach out and catch his hand as his mouth moved, his brow drawn up in concern. It was as though he couldn’t speak. What he was trying to say seemed important, but he couldn’t quite make it happen. After a while, he’d fade away.

  “God, Asher, what am I going to do?” Chelsea pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. Nicks and the rest of her children were as different as night and day. Worse yet, her oldest child was starting to notice those differences. “What the hell am I going to do if she starts asking questions?”

  She inhaled and tried to find her center. Nicks would never guess Tage wasn’t her real father. Chelsea only felt guilty because she knew. Her husband had never treated Nicks any differently than he treated his own blood children.

  She took a drink of tea and regretted that she hadn’t spiked it with rum. Drinking this early in the morning seemed like a cop-out though, and probably wasn’t a good habit to get into.

  It never seemed to get any easier. Time had diminished the pain somewhat, but not the love she felt for Asher. It was insane to have feelings for a man who’d been dead for nearly nineteen years.

  She looked out through the bow window in the kitchen. The sun was shining; the leaves on the maple outside had started to show brilliant orange on their edges. Pennsylvania was poised to become a wonderland of fall color.

  Draining the last of her tea, she came to a decision. Tage was off golfing. She wasn’t going to spend this lovely day cooped up in the house with a ghost. She’d confront him head-on, right where he lived.

  Nicks turned the car off but couldn’t seem to find the fortitude to pull the key from the ignition. Pulling them out meant she was planning to get out of the car, and she wanted nothing more than to stay here where it was quiet.

  She glanced up at the gray brick façade of Oakland High School. It had always reminded her of a prison. Felt like one too. She would be nineteen at the end of October. She should be in her first year of college like Charm and Pip.

  She wanted to quit and get her GED, but her parents had expectations for her as firstborn. Seeing her graduate on the stage meant a lot to them.

  Did she even want to go to college? Not really. She wanted to make a living doing what she loved—playing guitar. Wild Angel probably wouldn’t go anywhere though. She got the feeling her parents would insist on college, but she had no idea what she’d major in. The only thing that interested her was music.

  Misfit! Loner! Oddball!

  A rap on the hood of her car caused her to jump and put an end to the round of self-loathing. She glanced out the windshield. It was Dantre Shaw, one of the only people she could call a friend in this place.

  “Yo, girl! You fall asleep in there?” Dantre gave her a crooked grin through the glass.

  Nicks grabbed her backpack and exited the car. “Just daydreaming. And it wasn’t good daydreaming either, so thanks for the rescue.”

  “Anytime, friend. You ready for the calculus test today?”

  Math and its evil cousins were not easy for her, but she’d taken a stab at studying. “I guess so. As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “We only gotta get through this year, Nicks. That’s all. You and me. Wind beneath my wings and all that. We can do that, right?”

  She bumped a shoulder into the tall, lanky man and laughed. “You should be a cheerleader, Dantre. I feel better already.”

  Dantre shook his head, his eyes wide. “Hell to the no! I wouldn’t look good in them skirts at all. I’m glad I made you feel better though.”

  “No one could be sad around you. Let’s get this day over with. Then we’ll be one day closer to the weekend.”

  “I heard that!” He draped an arm around her shoulders.

  She and Dantre reached the end of the parking lot and climbed the concrete steps up to the school together.

  Chelsea knew where she was headed before she even got in the car, but it was easier to pretend she was going out for a drive to enjoy the beautiful day. Going to the Calvary Cemetery in Hazelwood didn’t feel so forbidden if she could rationalize it as a random event.

  In fact, you could rationalize anything if you rolled it over in your mind long enough. Like being in love with two men, only one was dead.

  She parked the car along the berm of the cemetery’s narrow road and pressed her forehead against the steering wheel. There is nothing rational about loving a dead man. I should go home. I have laundry to do.

  What the hell. She was here. She was rational about everything else in her life. Wasn’t she allowed to be batshit crazy about one thing, at least? Confronting your past this way was better than drinking rum-laced tea in the morning, wasn’t it?

  Chelsea opened the car door, stepped out, and slammed it with more force than necessary. She was not a coward. She was going to Asher’s grave come hell or high water.

  One step turned into another, and pretty soon she stood before the dark monument. The sight of his name engraved in stone never failed to turn her stomach. He’d been so much more than a name.

  She moved around to the back, dropped to her knees on the grass, and stared at the picture embedded in the center.

  God, what a night that was. What would I give to go back and do it all over?

  The wind ruffled her hair as she closed her eyes. Are you there? Speak to me. Give me a sign that you see me. She heard nothing that sounded out of the ordinary. Birds, an airplane, the wind in the trees.

  Feeling foolish, she rose, stepped to the front of the grave, and sat down on the grass.

  It was strange to think he was lying in a box deep beneath her. She pressed her hands into the turf, hoping for something from him. They’d had such a strong connection. Surely he’d communicate with her if he were able.

  Glancing around to make sure she was alone, she spoke aloud to the name carved into the granite. “I don’t even know why I’m here, so you can lose the smirk. I am no closer to understanding you right now than I was nineteen years ago. I wish you hadn’t been so secretive about everything. Why did you let yourself die?”

  She stared at a caterpillar trying to make its way across the turf. “I can’t be too mad at you though. After all, you gave me Nicks. She was worth it. I wish you could see her. She’s beautiful. She had a rough start, but God...she’s so strong. Not like me. I’m tired of pretending I’m strong. You need to stop coming to me in my dreams.
Seriously. You can’t do that anymore. It’s not fair to Tage, and I can’t take it. I’ve worked hard to bury everything, and seeing you young and whole and...Well, it messes me up. So last night was the last one. Do you hear me? It’s not that I don’t love seeing you, but you aren’t coming back to me anytime soon, are you?”

  Chelsea sat still and listened for a moment, feeling like a bomb about to go off. Hoping for a sign from him was stupid. This was the real world, not the movies. Asher was gone forever.

  Once she took control of her emotions, she rose and stepped around to the back of the stone one more time to look at his picture. Her gasp mingled with a rising wind.

  A cream-colored guitar pick was lying on the base of the gravestone. Had it been there before? She shook her head and blinked. It couldn’t have been there. The cream against the black stone would’ve caught her eye.

  She bent over, picked it up, and studied it carefully. Dirty, well-worn from use, it’d once had Fender stamped on the back, though the black paint was nearly gone. She held her breath as she turned it over in her palm.

  It was not there before. I’m sure of it!

  Closing her hand around the pick, she gave the picture one last look before she headed for the car.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Thank God that’s over!

  Nicks threw her calculus book onto the top shelf of her locker. The test wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be. Maybe she had a pretty good shot at passing after all.

  An English Lit test tomorrow—which was a pretty shitty thing for Mrs. Donovan to do on a Friday—then two days of freedom. A shiver of excitement settled down her spine. Wild Angel had a couple of new songs to try out on the crowd tomorrow night. She couldn’t wait!

  She pushed the English Lit book into her backpack, grabbed her sweatshirt off the hook in her locker, and turned to head toward the exit.

  “Jesus fuck!” She exhaled in a rush as her heart ground to a halt in her chest.

  Mr. Marius, the high school principal, had snuck up behind her. In fact, the creepy turd was practically standing on top of her. He had the dark, silver-handled walking stick he always carried with him gripped in his right hand. She wondered if he ever beat anyone with it. She sure as hell didn’t want to find out.

  She glanced at him. Black, bushy eyebrows rose over chilling gray eyes as he stared at her, unblinking. Nicks had always thought he looked like the bastard child of Frankenstein and a turkey buzzard. His head was square, like one of those pumpkins grown in a one-gallon milk jug. Dead eyes and a galaxy of horrific pockmarks scarred his ruddy face. He’d never been handsome, this man, and he clearly didn’t like children. She wondered what had ever possessed him to get into education.

  She held her breath. Perhaps possessed wasn’t the most appropriate word, given the look on his face.

  “Interesting verbiage, Miss Sorenson. It has earned you a week of detention.” His lips, pale white, like earthworms that’d drowned in a puddle, pulled up in a sinister smile of satisfaction.

  Son-of-a-bitch! She’d just finished serving all the detentions she owed this asshole on Monday.

  Nicks lowered her gaze, hoping to appease him into showing lenience. “I’m sorry, Mr. Marius. You scared me, that’s all. I didn’t expect you to be behind me.”

  That seemed to amuse him greatly. He made a wet, inarticulate noise deep in his throat. Nicks thought it was supposed to be a laugh, but it sounded more like a something one would hear in a porno.

  “Add those to the two you already owe me. That’s got to be some kind of record for this school.”

  “But Miss Powell said I was caught up after Monday!”

  Mr. Marius wiggled the puddle-drowned worms into a sneer. “Are you arguing with me, Miss Sorenson?”

  “No.” Arguing with him only earned more detentions.

  “You will serve one of them tonight. You will assist Mrs. Jeffers in the library shelving books.”

  “I have an English Lit test tomorrow. I need to study!”

  For a moment, he seemed to contemplate her appeal. Then he smiled that eerie-fuck smile again. “You will serve it tomorrow then. Your choice.”

  Nicks tightened her right hand around the strap of her backpack. He certainly knew she played with her band at Tapestries on Friday night. She’d seen him there a couple of times, standing against the back wall of the dining room. The man was so intimidating she’d reined in her language when she knew he was in the crowd. She wondered how many times he’d been there and she hadn’t seen him.

  “I need to call my mother then. She’ll worry when I don’t come home.”

  He nodded. “You may use the phone in my office.”

  No way am I going to your office with you! “I’ll use the phone in the library.” She turned and scurried away before he had a chance to take a swing at her with his walking stick.

  Fuming with impotent rage, she stormed down to the basement. It said a lot about the school and Mr. Marius that all the creative classes were on the lower level. It was like a dungeon down there, yet it housed the library as well as the art and music departments. They might as well put up a sign that said “Artistic souls not welcome here.”

  Shelving books in the library wasn’t so bad though. Willow Jeffers, the librarian, was an old friend of her mother’s. She was like an aunt to Nicks.

  She hit the last landing and walked through the open door into the hall that led to the library. When she saw all the loaded book carts out in the hallway, she threw her backpack to the floor.

  Thousands of books! Millions! She’d be here until 9:00 p.m. at least. Shit! Good thing she wasn’t struggling with English Lit.

  The library door was propped open with a rubber stop. Sticking her head in the door, she listened for signs of life. “Willow? I mean...Mrs. Jeffers? Are you here?”

  Mrs. Jeffers soon appeared out of an aisle near her.

  “Nicks. What are you doing here?” Willow’s eyes widened with comprehension. “Not another detention!”

  “I could swear I was caught up with detentions. Mr. Marius’s secretary said I was.” Nicks clenched her teeth in frustration and shut the door behind her. Sound traveled in this place as though it were shouted through a megaphone. She didn’t want anyone to hear her vent. “Marius looks for reasons to give me detentions. He hates me, and I don’t know why.”

  Willow hugged her. “He hates himself. He’s hard on the staff here too.” She put a hand on Nicks’s shoulder. “What did you do this time?”

  “I was breathing! He’s always sneaking up behind me, trying to catch me doing something. I turned around and ran into him. I dropped the f-bomb right in his face.”

  “God, like we teachers don’t hear that word a thousand times a day.” Willow rolled her eyes. “One-hundred percent of the student body would be here every night if we gave detention to everyone who said it.”

  “I have an English Lit test tomorrow. I need to study tonight.” Nicks threw her backpack up on one of the library tables with a sigh. “May I use the phone? I have to let Mom know I’m here.”

  “There are a lot of books out there.” Looking every inch a stern librarian, Willow pressed her lips together. “I’ll stay and help you so you can get home at a decent hour.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “I’ll call your mother for you. Go out and get one of the carts, and we’ll get started.”

  Feeling better about things, Nicks whirled on her heels and headed for the door.

  The hallway in the basement of the school had a bizarre, funky smell to it, like ditch water, floor wax, and old-man armpits. Nicks wrinkled her nose and surveyed the carts of books.

  There were eight of them, each holding approximately two hundred books. Thank God Willow was staying to help her.

  “Nicks Sorenson? Is that you?”

  Eyes wide, she jerked her gaze up to the pale blue cement block wall in front of her and froze.

  No. No. It can’t be. There’s no way...

 
“Nicks?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists. She certainly was having some kind of sorry-ass luck today. That voice was unmistakable.

  Stone Jensen was coming up the hall behind her.

  “I’ll be damned, it is you.”

  She whirled around with a huff and backed into the book cart behind her. There was no escape. Stone stood between her and the library door.

  “Did I scare you? I didn’t mean to.”

  She gave him the once-over. He held an acoustic guitar case in one hand. The other gripped a black leather jacket casually thrown over his shoulder. Wavy, midnight hair cascaded across the collar of his burgundy Henley shirt. He stared back at her with eyes so dark she couldn’t see pupils. He was hot. He was beautiful. Too bad she hated his guts.

  “What are you doing here?” She crossed her arms in front of her.

  He stopped several feet away from her, as though he needed to maintain the space between them for safety. It was a good plan on his part.

  “Mrs. Talbott is my aunt.”

  Nicks shook her head and narrowed her eyes. “Who the hell is Mrs. Talbott?”

  Stone gave her a curious look. “You’re a musician and you don’t know Mrs. Talbott, the music teacher?”

  She gulped air, trying to recover from being startled by his appearance. Find the anger and hold tight.

  “No, I don’t know Mrs. Talbott.” She mimicked his incredulous tone right back to him. “So she’s your aunt. So what? Am I supposed to care?”

  “She asked me to come here. I’ve volunteered my time to work with autistic students at the high school this year. I give them guitar lessons from two until the last bell three days a week.”

  “Really?” That was an epiphany. Apparently, not every cell of Stone Jensen’s body was arrogant and egotistical.