Zoë shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Tell me about being an angel. Are there lots of you? I’ve never seen one before.”
He nodded. “Three or four thousand.”
“All over the world?”
“In San Francisco. But yes, we live and work everywhere humans do.”
“Hmm,” she said, trying to decide what to ask. “Why don’t you have wings?”
“My human form is just human, at least in appearance. I have what any man would.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, and she blushed obligingly.
Zoë cleared her throat and moved on before the imagery that had plagued her all night could resurface. “Can you eat?”
“Can, but do not have to.”
She wanted to ask if he used the toilet, but decided that would be rude by any standard. “Are you immortal?”
He furrowed his brow. “When you die, you will still exist, but in another form. Like your Gran.” He waited for her to nod. “Does that not make you immortal?”
Zoë shrugged, mostly because she didn’t know what else to do. “Can you feel pain?”
His eyes turned serious. “There are all sorts of pain.”
“You’re being evasive.”
He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “Not on purpose. It is difficult to fit my world inside of yours.” After a pause he said, “If you were to drop a stone on my head I would not be crushed, and the things that would end you will not end me. However, there are perils for me, things which are beyond humanity.”
Zoë flirted with the idea of being insulted, but as she was making up her mind, he leaned forward and planted his lips on hers. They were warm and soft, and tasted sweet, like a decadent treat from a baker’s window.
He pulled back and said, “I should take you home. Humans need to sleep at night.” He made it as a pronouncement, something he’d been instructed to memorize, as though to him sleeping seemed a bizarre practice by some strange foreign culture.
“Will you allow me to take you back to the car?” he asked.
Only then did she notice they’d wandered into an area she didn’t recognize. She looked around for a street sign. “Sure,” she said.
With a blur of motion, he wrapped his arms around her. They turned together and when he released her, they stood next to her car. Well, she thought, and her mind stayed blank with shock. They didn’t talk on the drive home, her mind turning over the strange and improbable evening. But she had to confess she’d had a wonderful time.
When she parked in the driveway, Alexander got out and opened her door. Before she had a chance to speak, he’d lowered his lips to hers and kissed her softly. She leaned into him and put her hand on his chest, noticing the rhythm of a heartbeat. It gave her immense comfort. She wanted him to kiss her again. She longed for it in a way that she’d never done before. Was it some angel mojo, she wondered, or was this something real?
She could see his smile in the darkness. He whispered, “Goodnight, Zoë Pendergraft.”
“Goodnight,” she said.
He stepped away. She got her key out of her purse and wandered to the front door. When she turned around, he waved. Once inside she went to the window, but Alexander had gone.
Chapter 3
Wednesday morning Zoë’s foul mood wouldn’t let her enjoy the drive to work in her zippy little car or that arriving early had allowed her to find a parking space much closer to the front door than usual. She should have been elated after such a lovely night with Alexander. She could still feel the gentle pressure of his kisses on her lips, and she recalled with delicious clarity the faint taste of warm blueberry muffins, or was it crumpets, on his lips.
Grabbing her purse from the backseat, she locked up and headed inside, clipping on her ID badge as she walked. A co-worker joined her as she entered the building. “Morning, Luis,” she said.
“You all right, Zoë?” he asked, his expression burrowing into a frown.
“Yeah. Just didn’t sleep well.” She put on her best fake smile and plopped herself behind her desk.
He nodded sympathetically without stopping, and she was grateful he didn’t pause for a chat. She should have been in a good mood. She deserved a wonderfully yummy mood. But Gran spent the entire night rattling around the house, creaking floorboards and shifting boxes in the attic. Zoë called out to her, hoping to talk, but the old woman refused to appear, and instead groaned and scraped like a Hollywood horror movie all night.
Zoë shuffled through the pile of undelivered mail and decided now was as good a time as any to get moving on it. She started with her department, tossing mail into inboxes without paying attention. Her mind wandered, and she couldn’t help but think about Alexander. He was an extremely graceful dancer. Surely angels didn’t take dance lessons. But then, how did they learn things? Were they somehow born knowing how to dance? No, that wasn’t right either, because angels weren’t born. Were they? Zoë grumbled to herself. She’d spent the evening asking the wrong questions and still didn’t know anything important about him.
She looked down at the fat envelope in her hand. Dustin Bittner. Simone’s new…whatever. Stalkee. When Zoë walked upstairs to his office to plop it on his desk, his chair spun around. She shrieked.
“Oh my God.” Her heart raced. “You scared me,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”
Dustin sat in his chair, looking startled and puzzled. “This is my office,” he said.
“Right. I know that. I didn’t know you came in this early.” Zoë straightened a curl that fell in front of her eyes. She held up the delivery. “Mail for you.” She handed it to him.
He accepted the package, turned it over and examined both sides before carefully opening the end. Zoë could see why Simone was interested. Probably close to forty, he had a good face, open and friendly. He wore his thick, silvering hair combed back and his blue eyes, although pale, showed intelligence and humor. Not pretty, but something in his look appealed to Zoë.
“Thanks,” he said, and she realized she’d been staring.
“Sorry. I was thinking.” Zoë turned to leave, but then a whim took her. “Are you married?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Erm, not anymore.” Then slowly he turned his head, as though he’d just figured something out.
“Oh,” Zoë said. “Not for me. I mean, I’m sure you’re very nice. Simone. You know her? In Purchasing?” Since he continued to stare, she rambled on, “Anyway, she mentioned you the other day and seemed to think you were…well, and anyway, she’s my friend, so I thought I’d ask. You know?” Shut up, Zoë, she told herself, willing her mouth to close and the words to stop falling out. “Right, so I must get back.” She smiled and left his office with little grace.
When she made it to the corridor and down the stairs, she rolled her eyes and smacked herself on top of the head with the few remaining envelopes in her hand. “I should have called in stupid today,” she muttered, but she didn’t mean it, because she couldn’t stay home with Gran in such a mood.
By the time she arrived at her desk, the office had bounded to life with the couple dozen bodies that worked in her department. Before she could even sit down, Marilyn came from nowhere and planted herself in front of Zoë’s desk. “I thought you were coming in early today.”
“I—”
“You can’t just take off whenever you like and show up at all hours. We pay you for a full week’s work, and we expect you to work it.” A scowl darkened her features.
Zoë’s head throbbed. She felt like crap when she didn’t get enough sleep, and Marilyn’s pointless tirade didn’t help. It wouldn’t make any difference to point out that she wasn’t really Zoë’s boss, that she was paid by the hour so it didn’t hurt anyone else if she didn’t work a full day, and that she had come in early.
“And furthermore, I don’t like your friends coming up here and hanging around. This is a place of business.”
“He was the mailman, Marilyn. Remember? I can’t tell the mailman to
stay away.” One of these days, Zoë told herself, she should get clarification from personnel about who she reported to.
“Just because he has to be here doesn’t mean you have jabber.” Without awaiting a response, Marilyn turned on her heel and marched into her office.
“Nice dramatic exit,” Zoë muttered.
When Zoë looked up, she jumped. An obnoxiously beautiful man stood in front of her desk. As with Alexander, she could tell he was—alive but not human. He had a similar presence, so she guessed he was an angel too. He had straight blond hair and the type of tan one could only get from spending countless afternoons lounging by the pool. Did angels take holidays? She could see quite a bit of his tan. His short-sleeved shirt barely had any buttons fastened, and his cargo shorts hung low around his hips revealing with certainty that he wasn’t wearing underwear. He held out an ecru envelope. When she took it, she read her own name on the front.
Her bad mood completely overtook her civility and her curiosity. “Are all of you people delivery men? That does rather explain the state of the universe, you know.”
His eyes met hers, and he looked at her strangely, as though no one had ever been rude to him before. With his good looks, it was possible no one had. “What’s this?”
“Letter from Thomas,” the messenger said.
“Thomas who?” Zoë tore the back of the envelope.
“Thomas of San Francisco.” He looked bored and not at all as though he was joking.
“Right.” Zoë glanced over the letter but didn’t take in what it said. The stiff, expensive paper had a slight woodsy scent, as though she could smell the tree it came from. The handwriting curled gracefully in archaic loops that made it difficult to read. “What’s this about? Is this even English?” Her vision blurred slightly as she tried once again to make it out. He shrugged. She couldn’t help but admire the way his shoulders carelessly rose and fell. “You’re a witness, aren’t you?”
“A witness? To what?”
“In Alexander’s case? You’re going to testify before the Celestial High Court?”
“Alexander? His case?” Zoë’s patience was about at an end. She waved the paper in front of the messenger. “I don’t know what any of this means.”
“Here,” he said, slipping her a business card. “Thomas.” When he leaned in close, she noticed he smelled like freshly baked bread.
Sure enough, the card read “Thomas” and below it, a local phone number. Zoë turned it over, thinking some explanation might be inscribed on the back, but she found it blank.
As if she had been lying in wait, Marilyn came out of her office to confront Zoë. “See,” she said and pointed at the angel. “This is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.”
“He’s a messenger, Marilyn. I’m being called to testify in court.”
“Uh huh. So he brought a subpoena?” Then glancing up and down at him, Marilyn added, “He doesn’t look like a law clerk.”
“No, a letter, and I never said he was a law clerk. He looks exactly like a messenger, which is what he is.” Zoë said.
“Yeah, sure,” Marilyn began, and took a breath as though planning to begin a long-winded rant.
Before she got a chance, the angel leaned over. Marilyn eyed him suspiciously at first, but she didn’t back away. He took her hand and whispered into her ear. Zoë couldn’t overhear what he said, but Marilyn relaxed, starting with the knotted muscles in her face. Her shoulders loosened, and her posture softened.
The messenger guided her back toward her office and let go of her hand at the door. Marilyn followed helplessly.
“What did you do to her?” Zoë asked.
“I told her to chill out a little,” he said and winked before turning toward the office door.
He left before Zoë could think of a response. She looked down at the business card in her hand before tossing it down by the phone next to the letter from this Thomas of San Francisco. “I’m starting to think Gran was right about them,” she muttered. “Nothing but trouble.”
Zoë did her best to get through the morning by burying herself in work. She forced her way through a sheaf of expense reports she’d been avoiding and organized a particularly nasty pile of papers in her “I don’t want to think about these right now” stack.
For the last fifteen minutes before her lunch break, she watched the clock hands, dusted her desk, and refilled a bowl of peppermint candies that had disappeared overnight. Finally when the big hand reached the six, she jumped out of her chair. Often, she’d discovered, walking with a sense of purpose discouraged comment, and she made her way down the maintenance stairwell to Henry’s room, striding like she had a mission from above.
“Henry?” she called once she was down in the boiler room. “Henry, are you here?”
For some reason Zoë hadn’t quite figured out, Henry always seemed to appear behind her. “I’m here, Miss Zoë. And you’re right on time.”
Zoë grinned. She knew as well as Henry did that time didn’t matter to him, but he still wore that old pocket watch of his, and he’d pull it out and look at it as though it still ticked. “Henry, I need your help.”
“Why, sure. Anything for you.” He grinned at her, revealing a gleaming smile.
Zoë hesitated. Henry seemed the perfect person to ask, but then, what if he reacted the same way Gran had? She perched herself on her usual spot in the back of the boiler room and paused. “It’s delicate, Henry,” she began.
“I’ve always found, Miss Zoë, when you have something that needs saying, the best thing is to get it on out there and done with. No worries. Old Henry’s heard it all. You haven’t gone and gotten yourself in trouble, have you?” He sat down in front of her, close enough that a chill came off his wispy form. She found his presence comforting, despite his lack of physical warmth.
“No,” Zoë said, knowing that “trouble” in his day meant a girl getting herself pregnant. “The problem is with Gran. Sort of.”
Henry nodded but didn’t interrupt.
“You see, I met someone, only she doesn’t approve of him, and I was wondering if you could help.” She paused but went on when she realized there wasn’t anything to do but say it. “Well, Alexander isn’t precisely human.”
“And what precisely is he?” Henry asked, in a serious tone that reminded Zoë far too much of her father.
“He’s…I suppose you might say he’s an angel.” She braced herself for Henry to react, but he didn’t.
Henry leaned back and watched her for a moment, and rubbed his chin. “Where’d you go and find yourself an angel?” Then as though something horrible had occurred to him, he said, “He’s not your Guardian, is he?”
“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know. He brought the mail yesterday, and then he invited me on a date. I think he only did it because I sort of asked him to ask me. I’m not sure why I did, actually.”
“Hmm,” Henry said. “He might be a messenger then. Did he bring anything special?”
“No, another one did today though. This one definitely had a messenger vibe. Brought some letter or something, but I couldn’t read it. The script was too loopy and it made my eyes go funny.”
“Two angels?” Henry laughed. “Now that’s quite a thing, Miss Zoë. Quite a thing. Most people go their whole lives without seeing any angels, and you get two in as many days.”
“But then most people don’t see spirits either, Henry. No offense, of course.”
“None taken.” Henry smiled. “I do know what I am. Always have. That’s the secret, you know. You got to know what you are.” He leaned forward, as though he’d told her something very important, and he searched her face to see if she understood. Then, without giving any indication if he had found what he had hoped for in her eyes, he said, “What did he want, this mailman who could be but maybe isn’t your Guardian? It would help, you understand, if you knew what sort of angel he is.”
“I don’t think he wanted anything but to deliver mail. Then
we got talking, and he asked for my phone number. Only, he didn’t have a phone.” Zoë shoved her curls back with her fingers while she tried to puzzle why Alexander would have been delivering the mail in the first place. “What sorts of angels are there?”
“Well, now, we don’t exactly mix in the same crowd, you see. But I hear things from time to time. There’s all kind of angels, and there’s all kinds that might say they are, even if they aren’t. Angels aren’t the only things out there, you know. And even if he is what he says, it don’t mean he’s the good kind.”
“The Fallen, you mean. I asked him already, and he said he’s not.”
“No, and I wouldn’t call them that to their faces. They like to be called the Free, not the Fallen, because they don’t see as how they’ve fallen from anything. Not all the stories you’ve been told are the right ones, and writing something down don’t make it so. Like us, angels have free will, and they choose their own path. And also like us, and this is the important part, what they call themselves isn’t the best way to tell what their intentions might be. But you know all about people calling themselves one thing and being another, don’t you?”
Zoë knew Henry meant her father. Until the day he died, he’d considered himself a good, Christian man. She nodded, holding back tears that came from an old familiar place. “So, how do I know? I really like Alexander, Henry. He’s different, but at the same time we’re a lot alike.”
“Trust your eyes, Miss Zoë. You’ll see the truth.”
“But appearances can be deceiving,” she shot back, hidden doubts bubbling to the surface. “What if he somehow dazzled me like that messenger did to Marilyn earlier. He whispered in her ear, and she went funny and calmed right down.”
“No. Not with you. You’re a seer, and that means something. You think it’s an accident you happened to see me? And I’ll bet when you laid eyes on him you didn’t think he was just the new mailman. Didn’t you ever ask yourself why you can see me, your Gran and the others?”
Ordinary Angels Page 3