“I get by with a little help from my friends,” harmonized The Beatles from the speakers. After the first stanza finished, a chorus of lilting soprano voices sounded from the back of the room. Every head in the classroom turned to see a white wave of guardian angels flow inside, clapping and singing as they made their way down the aisle to the front.
The angels reached Dr. Mullins and then pivoted to face the students, encouraging them to join in. Soon everyone was singing along.
When the song was over, a beaming Dr. Mullins shouted, “Bravo! I’m so delighted you could take time from your busy schedules to help teach my Earth 101 students,” he said. “Now, I’d like to introduce one of the senior guardian angels, Davida Jones, who will say a few words to the class.”
Davida was the picture of serenity with clear almond-shaped eyes and a smile that reached every feature of her face.
“Thomas Huxley was wrong when he said, ‘The strongest man in the world is the man who stands alone,’” she began. “In fact, such a man is the weakest. On behalf of the sisterhood of guardian angels, we want you to know you’ll never be alone on Earth. You have friends in Heaven to help you. Earth dwellers are assigned a guardian angel, who will be like their own private genie in a bottle. And that brings us to the second lesson of the day. Since the Supreme Being has given Earth dwellers free will, you must ask us for help, or we will be unable to intervene in your life.”
“Help!” sang out the angels standing behind Davida, their faces aping comical expressions of alarm. “I need somebody! Help!”
This time everyone in the class joined in the tune without waiting for prompting. As the angels reached the last few stanzas of the song, they lined up and streamed from the classroom via the center aisle. After they departed, Dr. Mullins quieted his boisterous class by bringing a finger to his lips.
“Let me summarize,” he said, once the room grew silent. “Lesson one. You’re not alone on Earth. You have friends in Heaven looking after you and seeing to it you get everything you need. It’s that old chestnut: Ask and ye shall receive. Lesson two: Seek out help if you need it. Sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how many Earthlings flounder about foolishly because they’re too stubborn to request assistance. Any questions?” He looked around the class and when no one immediately replied he said, “Good. Class dismissed.”
Well, at least that was quick and painless, Skye thought as she rose from her desk. Not that she had gotten much out of it. She was about to leave the classroom when Dr. Mullins said, “Skye Sebring. May I have a moment?”
What had she done to call attention to herself? Then she remembered the wad of Juicy Fruit in her mouth. She demurely removed it and tossed it in the trash can by his desk.
“Sorry,” she said.
He smiled. “I didn’t call you over because of your gum. I just wanted to make sure you were clear on today’s lessons.”
“Seemed pretty straightforward to me,” Skye said. “Although frankly, I prefer the Stones over The Beatles.”
“Hmmm,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I’m not sure what kind of lessons I might have gotten out of ‘Brown Sugar’ or ‘Honky-Tonk Woman.’” Then he touched her shoulder. “Ms. Sebring, if you have concerns, just call me. My number is in your course materials. I’m honored to have you in my class. You must be a very gifted soul to have been chosen to go to Earth at such a tender age. Most of your peers have been in Heaven for years.”
“Lucky me,” Skye said softly. Then a notion occurred to her. “Dr. Mullins, I don’t suppose you know why I was picked. I have no idea why I’ve caught the notice of the SB.”
“I’m not privy to that sort of information,” Dr. Mullins said. Suddenly he was intent on stuffing materials into his already bulging satchel. “But pay attention, as I suspect you’ll be needing these lessons. Maybe sooner than you expect.”
After class she teleported home to her apartment and wished up her favorite snack, a bag of Hershey’s Kisses. She’d sampled every delicacy Heaven had to offer—gold-foiled truffles from Belgium, dark semisweet squares of Venezuelan chocolate, and frothy mugs of liquid chocolate like the Aztec kings use to drink—but she always came back to her trusty Kisses.
Later that evening she peeked in on Ryan, hoping to take her mind off her impending journey to Earth. She snuggled against the arm of her sofa and turned on Earthly Pleasures. A dimly lit hospital room appeared on the television screen. Ryan was reading in bed, and the glow from an overhead lamp outlined his profile with a haloing light. Every aspect of him seemed endearing, from the cowlick springing out of the back of his scalp to his dangling foot, revealing a holey argyle sock and an exposed big toe.
Brock, flawless as he was, never had this kind of effect on her. In fact, it was Ryan’s imperfections that most fascinated Skye: the crooked nose, the goofy smile, the tendency to trip over his two feet. Why was it that the one man who captivated her was married and living in an entirely different dimension?
A dimension you’ll soon be visiting, she reminded herself. Not that going to Earth would improve her chances with Ryan Blaine. A drooling infant gnawing on a zwieback would hardly be an appropriate match for a grown man. And there was no telling where she’d end up on Earth—Ethiopia maybe, or a remote Polynesian island. The SB wasn’t a travel agent. You couldn’t book your destination ahead of time.
Skye continued to watch Ryan read. Maybe Earth wouldn’t seem so bad if she were Susan and was able to cuddle up with Ryan every night.
Ryan put aside his book—it was the latest Nelson DeMille— and reached for the phone on the nightstand.
Skye touched the split-screen button on the remote in order to see the person he was calling. At this late hour she imagined it had to be his wife.
The right side of the screen revealed a middle-aged woman with white-blonde hair seated in a control room of a radio station. “You’re on the air, caller. This is Minerva.”
“Hello, Minerva. It’s Alone in Atlanta.”
“Well, hello, Alone,” Minerva said. “Any news about your estranged girlfriend?”
“Still MIA, Minerva. The pain feels so fresh it’s hard to believe it’s been more than a year.”
Girlfriend? Ryan was married. Who in the world was he talking about?
“What’s on your mind tonight, Alone?” Minerva said.
“I recently had a dream about my girlfriend, and it was the most vivid dream of my life. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“What happened in the dream?” Minerva asked.
“I’m sure it would give Freud a field day. I dreamed she was in Heaven.”
Was he talking about her? Skye dropped down to the floor and knee-walked to the television until her nose was inches from the screen.
“Oh, Alone. You’re not saying you think your girlfriend is—”
“No. It wasn’t like that. She seemed very much alive. I’ve dreamed about her before, but this dream was so incredibly lucid. She glowed like some kind of angel, and looked exactly how I remembered her. I wonder what it could mean,” Ryan mused.
“I truly hope for your sake she does come back,” Minerva said, her voice thick with sympathy. “What song can I play for you tonight?”
“How about ‘Get Out of My Dreams and into My Car’?”
Minerva chuckled. “I’m glad you still have your sense of humor. I’ll play it for you right now.”
Skye had never been so confused. Who was Ryan’s girlfriend, and why did he mistake Skye for her? And why was he behaving as if he were in the perfect marriage when it was obvious his heart belonged to someone else?
Eight
Ryan was stretched out on his leather recliner in the den, a diamond-patterned afghan spread over his legs, listening to “Blue Sky” from the Allman Brothers’ Eat a Peach album. His photo album was opened on his lap, and he lingered over a picture of Susan, her eng
agement ring winking on her finger. Convincing her to marry him was a Herculean feat. He’d practically had to walk barefoot on hot coals to get her to accept the darn thing.
Photography was his hobby, and while he dated Susan he took hundreds of images of her, documenting their every beach walk, sailboat trip, and moonlight picnic.
As their summer on Devon’s Island neared an end, Ryan became anxious. He had to return to his law practice in Atlanta in a matter of days and wanted Susan to move there with him. Yet whenever he mentioned their future together, she flounced away from him.
One afternoon while Susan was at work, he drove to a jeweler in downtown Charleston and pored over the rings for hours. She’d once told him she wasn’t crazy about diamonds (“cold and colorless stones,” she said), so he selected a sapphire stone the exact shade of her eyes. After purchasing the engagement ring, he racked his brain for the most romantic way to propose. He briefly considered hiring a pilot to fly a plane trailing a banner that said “Will you marry me?” but then dismissed the idea as being too banal. His next plan was to rent a hot-air balloon. As he and Susan floated among wisps of clouds, he’d drop to one knee and ask (okay, beg) her to be his wife.
He continued to generate all manner of over-the-top schemes. One day he visited every grocery store within forty miles and bought out their entire stock of Hershey’s Kisses. He intended to use the candy to spell out “Will you marry me?” on her front lawn.
Over a period of a week, he drove himself crazy with proposal ideas, so determined was he to find just the right one that would make her utter that simple three-letter word. (As opposed to the four-letter “nope,” obviously Susan’s favorite.)
He was never able to settle on a plan because he strongly suspected that even if he arranged for a hundred doves to swoop over her house, dropping “Will you marry me?” notes from their beaks while Julio Iglesias serenaded her, Susan would turn him down flat. He was convinced she had strong feelings for him, but she refused to acknowledge their relationship was the least bit serious, behaving instead as if they were two teenagers involved in a summer fling.
In the end, Ryan decided the old-fashioned way was the best. So he took her to Crabby Abby, a seafood restaurant, planning to propose there. After Susan had devoured two pounds of oysters—the woman had the appetite of a Teamster—he got down on one knee.
“What are you doing down there?” she asked, her chin shiny with melted butter. “You lose a contact?”
He reached in his pocket and produced a jewelry box. At the sight of it, her face paled. “Not the velvet box. Oh, hell no.”
“Listen, Susan...”
“Nope, nope, nope,” she said, shrinking away as if he were presenting her with a ticking bomb. Her elbow knocked over her Hurricane glass, spilling red liquid all over the table. She didn’t seem to notice. “Get that thing away from me and promise me you’ll never take it out again.”
A gray-haired couple dining nearby shot him apprehensive looks.
“I can’t do that, Susan—”
“Then I can’t do this!” She bolted up from the table and bounded out of the restaurant.
After she left, Ryan ordered and quickly downed two Hurricanes. When he was thoroughly pie-eyed, he shambled home and rummaged in his pantry until he found a large trash bag, which he stuffed with Hershey’s Kisses. At least the candy wasn’t going to waste. He would use it to spell the word “why” in her yard in giant letters.
After the drunken candy incident, two days passed and he hadn’t heard a word from Susan. He’d turned into a pathetic excuse of a man, sitting on his porch, chugalugging Michelobs and listening to Marshall Tucker while singing bitterly, “Can’t you see, what that woman’s been doin’ to me?”
The next day he discovered a large manila envelope on his doorstep. It was stuffed with clippings from gossip columns and magazines from the past ten years, documenting his former relationships with assorted movie stars, heiresses, and party girls, the longest lasting a little over a month. There were at least fifty. An index card was enclosed that read, “You asked why. This is why. It’s your past. I’d have to be a moron to marry you.”
It was humbling and disturbing at the same time. He’d seen some of the photos and articles before, but never together in one damning pile. Not one of the women, gorgeous as they were, had ever prompted him to express himself via Hershey’s Kisses.
He bought an oversized scrapbook and sat up all night mounting dozens of photos he’d taken of Susan over the summer: Susan with a shell to her ear, chattering into it as if it were a cell phone. Susan devouring her third tofu hot dog of the night (she refused to eat anything with a face) and sporting a trace of a mustard mustache. Susan strolling on the beach followed by a parade of adoring mutts.
He left the scrapbook on her stoop accompanied by his own note, which read, “That may have been my past, but you’re the only woman I want in my future.”
The next day he stepped out for a walk on the beach when Susan, her hair streaming in the wind, flew toward him like a wildfire. Before he could say another word, she raised a warning finger and pressed her mouth hard against his. They continued kissing until their lips were raw and Ryan was backed up against the front door, scarcely noticing the knob sinking into his lower back. Finally he scooped her up and carried her inside, his mouth never leaving hers.
Their lovemaking, which began with feral wildness, ended in silence and reverence. Ryan stroked her lightly freckled torso, marveling at each honey-dipped spot. His lips followed a trail of freckles to her long white neck, arched as if offering itself to him.
Susan’s hands were tracing the terrain of his back muscles when her fingertips wandered to the top swelling of his buttocks and he felt his desire stir again. Ryan lifted up on his elbows to meet her eyes and was submerged in her gaze—a gaze that gradually blurred the borders between his existence and hers. He expelled a cry, one that started in the pit of his belly and rumbled through his body until it reached his tongue. How had he ever lived without her?
Hours later, after the light of an overcast morning had washed the bedclothes in muted grayness, they reclined on their backs, hips touching, calves entwined, both contained in private thoughts. Susan turned on her side to face him, hair spilling over shoulders.
He reached out, wanting to rub a strand of the silky gold between his fingers, but she caught his hand in mid-flight.
“There’s something you need to know.”
He could tell by her tone that their hour of oneness was officially over.
“From the start, I made up my mind not to get too involved with you,” she said, her voice more emphatic with each word. “My father openly cheated on my mother and it completely ruined her life. I promised myself I’d never let something like that happen to me. But lo and behold, I find myself dating a man who thinks the female population is his own personal smorgasbord.”
“Susan,” he said, capturing her chin before she could duck away from him. “I promise you, I’m not that guy anymore.”
“Shut up,” she said, covering his mouth with her palm. “People only change in fairy tales. But none of that matters. Your diabolical plan worked.”
“What plan?” His voice was muffled underneath her hand and she removed it.
“To make me fall in love with you. I tried not to. But you’ve lived up to your hype.” She pushed on his chest with both hands “You’re an amazing guy, even to someone as jaded as me.”
“Susan...”
She scrambled to her knees, loomed over him, and roughly grabbed both of his ears. “No more words. I don’t want to ever talk about this again. I’ll go back to Atlanta with you and wear that engagement ring you bought for me. But if you ever decide to go back to your old sleazy ways...”
“I’m telling you, Susan—”
She tugged on his ears and her eyes looked as fierce as a timbe
r wolf’s. “I’ll disappear from your life and never come back.”
Ryan shook his head as he remembered those prophetic words. Susan had meant every syllable.
“Knock, knock,” came his sister’s voice from the back door.
“Come on in, Darce.” Ryan tucked the photo back into the album and slipped it under his chair.
Darcy entered the den, carrying a couple of hardcover novels, the latest David Baldacci and a James Patterson.
“Hi, little brother,” she said, depositing the books on the glass coffee table. “Thought you could catch up on some of your reading while you were recuperating. The bookstore clerk promised me both of these novels have ridiculously high body counts.”
“How do you know I wasn’t in the mood for Nicholas Sparks?”
“Please,” Darcy said, hovering over him. “I know you all too well, little brother.”
Not entirely, he thought. He wanted to confide in his sister but resisted because he could never predict how she’d react.
Darcy pressed her hand against his forehead, her long nails scratching him slightly. “So why did you check yourself out of the hospital against doctor’s orders? Because you think you’re indestructible?”
“My physician urged me to stay one more night, but as much as I was going to miss the runny Jell-O, I told him they’d just have to do without me,” Ryan said, turning off the stereo with the remote. “And why should I stick around? There’s not a single thing wrong with me.”
Darcy wore a dress patchworked with eye-bleeding pinks and yellows. She was so thin her clavicle threatened to poke through her skin. All of her friends were similarly emaciated. How did so many affluent women manage to stay so skinny? Were they passing around Ex-Lax at their garden club meetings?
“Maybe you should take a nap,” Darcy said, settling on the couch. “You seem cranky.”
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