Guardian Angel

by Andrew Neiderman

  Got to get up a plan, he thought. He knew how to find out who owned a property, so he would get her name. Then he would do some investigating to see why she needed a babysitter. Did he dare have hope? Let’s put it this way, he told himself: if it turns out she’s available, I’ll devote every free second of time to winning her. His determination filled him with hope, but then he suddenly stopped again and thought, Why would a woman who lives like that want to have anything to do with me?

  The question sent a chill down his spine. He sat on his bed and stared down at the floor.

  Look at the impression I just made. She must think I’m a crackpot. This whole idea is stupid.

  He thought he could hear laughter and looked at Julia’s framed photograph. When his mother came in and cleaned his room today, she’d put it right side up again.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked. “You think the idea of anyone with class liking me is funny? What were you before I found you, huh? A waitress at Denny’s. Where were you going with your life? Like all the others, you came running out here expecting to be discovered. Well, I discovered you. Instead of being grateful, you had me regretting it.”

  He turned away and thought again. There was something more than beauty in her face. There was a vulnerability. She was…looking for help.

  She called me her guardian angel, probably because she needs one.

  His hope began to build again. He would pursue her. He would find out her name and what was going on in her life. She was basically alone, wasn’t she? He could feel it, sense it in her eyes. She was just like him, searching, hoping, needing.

  And the best thing was, he was sure she wanted children, wanted a family. She already had one or two. Of course, she might think that was enough, even though she was surely young enough to have more. If she were with him, she would see how good a husband and father he was and she would want to have a child with him. He was confident of that.

  “Tomorrow,” he declared. “Tomorrow my life will start again.”

  He started out to the bathroom, and on the way he put Julia’s picture facedown.

  Maybe if he did it enough times, his mother would stop putting it back up.

  Somehow, for some reason he had yet to understand, he couldn’t put it in a drawer or throw it out. He would have to admit that for now, at least, she was company.

  Despite how the evening had gone, Megan couldn’t help being pleased. Men were fighting over her. It was difficult for men to understand, perhaps, but women, especially women who had been married or were in the process of getting a divorce, were for the most part insecure about themselves. It was only natural for any woman to ask herself, Am I still pretty? Would anyone else want me? Can I compete out there against women who were in the minds of men fresh and exciting?

  She never understood why Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate was attracted to Mrs. Robinson. Why didn’t he look for a girl his own age, or just a little younger? Why would girls his age be more intimidating than a woman Mrs. Robinson’s age? Was it just her coming on to him? Are men that simple, that easy to figure out?

  Maybe it was unfair to judge poor Benjamin. He had other problems. She wouldn’t want anyone looking at her life and doing the same. She had her own particular problems. Who would have ever thought her marriage would come to this? She remembered vividly how amazed she was with Scott’s determination to make her his wife. Yes, she’d liked him and then she had fallen in love with him, but why was he so determined it be she?

  Surely the question on the surface looked like a question someone who didn’t think much of herself might ask. Why not me? I was just as pretty if not prettier than the next girl, and I was just as intelligent. I had a nice personality. I wasn’t as aggressive as most girls, perhaps, but that was probably just the sort of woman Scott wanted for his wife. He was around enough barracudas at work and in the business world. I had a lot to offer.

  Why had it all gone so sour? She was certainly not overly demanding. In the beginning she’d put up with his lateness and his missing important family events. She’d put up with his 24-7 mentality when it came to his father’s and his business. She’d tolerated him running off to do something his father needed done on weekends. She had even put up with their having to cancel their first vacation so he could complete a project his father wanted completed. No, this can’t be blamed on me, she thought. No way, José.

  Anyway, what good was it now to fix blame on anyone or anything? It was over. It sickened her still to think that, but she had to face it and be grown up about it. She had to be more like Tricia Morgan and some of the others. She had to have grit. The Lesters weren’t going to push her around.

  She loved her lawyer. Emily Lloyd looked as if she was so determined to help her, she would take on her case pro bono. She was that enraged about it, all from a purely female point of view. She was champing at the bit just waiting for their first court session. She wanted to get her teeth into Scott and his father as deeply and as soon as possible.

  “You’re going to come out of this all right,” she’d promised. “Both you and Jennifer.”

  Despite all that, despite Megan’s anger and her determination, she felt a pang of regret and still even some sympathy for Scott. You just don’t turn on and turn off love like some water spigot. It takes time to die, time to be buried. She was just starting her period of mourning. She still wished it had all turned out differently. She would just not say these things to anyone, especially Emily Lloyd.

  Now that she was crawling into bed alone, she did pause to think about the man she called Batman. Tricia got a kick out of how she had reacted to him. At the café, all she’d wanted to hear about was Batman, but Megan really couldn’t tell her much.

  “After all, he was only there beside me for minutes.”

  “I should have such minutes,” Tricia had said.

  She had seen something in his eyes-some sincerity, some real concern. He’d looked like he genuinely cared about her feelings and how this Tyler creep was treating her. It was more than just a bigbrother protection act, however. She’d seen how much he was enjoying being near her, how his eyes explored her face and how frantic and disappointed he was when he knew he had to get away.

  Funny, she told herself, but I should be turned off by someone so violent, not excited by it. She tried to imagine how Scott would have reacted. He wouldn’t have punched Tyler, but he would have attacked him with choice words. In that regard, he was his father’s son. Gordon Lester could dissect someone with some quick phrases and cutting remarks. He was Zorro, when it came to verbal dueling.

  That wouldn’t have been half as stimulating as this was, however. She was too embarrassed about it to tell Tricia, but she was actually aroused. Right now, she fantasized her Batman scooping her off that bar stool, kissing her and taking her out of the club. Would she have gone if he had asked her to flee with him?

  Of course not, the reasonable part of her said.

  “Too bad,” she muttered.

  She turned over, looked at the side of the bed where Scott slept and overcame any sad feeling by telling herself, He’s away again. This is nothing new, except…this time it will be permanent.

  Jennifer was there to wake her in the morning. Megan was disappointed, because she was right in the middle of a helluva sexual fantasy with her Batman when she felt herself being shaken.

  “I’m hungry. I made some oatmeal. You want some?”

  “You did? That’s terrific, Jen.”

  “It was only putting it in a bowl and into the microwave, Mom.”

  “Nevertheless, that’s…”

  She paused. She was going to say, More than your father would have done, but bit down on her lower lip instead and started to get out of bed.

  “Did you have fun last night?”

  “Fun? Yes, I think I did, in a strange way,” she said, reaching for her robe.

  “Why strange?”

  “Not strange, so much as unexpected. C’mon. I’m hungry too now,” she s
aid, putting her arm around Jennifer’s small shoulders. “Besides, we’re going to that movie this afternoon, remember? I promised.”

  “Right,” Jennifer said surging forward to the stairway. “You want toast, right?”

  “Toast it is,” Megan said and followed after her. “We’re going to make it,” she muttered as she descended. “We’re really going to make it.”

  The phone rang while they were eating breakfast. Jennifer leaped up before Megan could and got to the receiver first.

  “Hi, Daddy!” she cried. Megan froze. “I made Mommy her breakfast,” she added. She listened. The expression on her face grew serious. “I can’t, Daddy,” she said. “We’re going to the movies.”

  “What’s he want?” Megan asked.

  Jennifer, mimicking what Megan and Scott did when they were on the phone and someone asked something, put her hand over the mouthpiece.

  “He wanted to take me to the Getty Museum to see stuff and have lunch.”

  “You can go if you want to, Jen. I’ll take you to the movie tomorrow.”

  Jennifer thought, but also studied Megan’s face for signs of disappointment.

  We’re already in that game, Megan thought: tearing the kid apart with her loyalties. She could feel the oatmeal coming back up.

  “Okay, Daddy. Mommy said she’ll take me tomorrow.” She listened. “I’ll be ready,” she said. “Bye. Oh, where do you live now?” She listened, nodding as if he were standing right in front of her, and then said, “Bye,” again and hung up.

  “He’s living in a hotel,” she whispered.

  Megan looked up sharply. She’d been confident he was going to move in with his father. That house was twice the size of this one and his father was living alone with his servants.

  “Hotel? He said a hotel?”

  Jennifer nodded and sat.

  “At least he doesn’t have to make the bed,” she said, which brought Megan her first really good laugh of the day.

  She wondered if it would be her only laugh.

  He couldn’t wait for Monday to find out information about her.

  He had a better idea. He was out early, even before his mother got up to make breakfast. Once again she would have no opportunity to ask him any questions about his night out, grilling him on the women he’d met or hadn’t met. Sometimes, he did think she believed he had gay tendencies.

  The sun was barely up, and on Saturday in Los Angeles, that made for light to no traffic. It took him no time at all to drive to Beverly Hills and he parked near her house, near enough to see her front lawn and the driveway. His hope came true. There in the driveway was a newspaper. As inconspicuously as he could, he got out of his truck and strolled down the quiet street. There weren’t even any joggers out this early.

  When he reached the driveway, he turned sharply and scooped up the paper. All he wanted to do was read the name on it. Unfortunately, it had only her husband’s name, Scott Lester, but at least he knew that. It was as if he had some sort of an addiction to her already and had to know even the smallest possible facts, anything more than just the address of the house.

  He dropped the paper where he’d found it and crossed the street to walk back up to his truck. There he sat thinking and staring at the house. So her husband was getting his newspaper. He wasn’t dead, obviously, and if he was getting his newspaper, he wasn’t gone. A lead ball of disappointment settled in his stomach. Everything he had felt, every instinct he had relied upon had told him she was perfect for him. It didn’t make sense. There just had to be something to justify his intense interest and hope.

  Like a stubborn four-year-old, he pouted in his truck cab and glared at the house. Even his hunger pangs didn’t send him off. He sat and stared, as would some lovesick teenager waiting and hoping to catch sight of his dream girl. The sun grew higher in the sky and the street began to come alive. Out of one house, a husband and wife emerged to jog. Another door opened a few houses down and an elderly lady came out with a Scottish terrier on a leash. She headed in the opposite direction. Traffic began to build. At one point he had to take a bad leak, but he didn’t budge. He was mesmerized by her front door.

  Open, he willed. Open and let her out.

  When a Beverly Hills patrol car cruised down the street toward him, his heart began to thump. What if they had somehow found out who he was and there was an APB out on him? Beverly Hills was supposed to have one of the best city police forces in the country. They surely had a description of him. Maybe she had given them great detail. Naw, he thought immediately, she wouldn’t betray him like that. He could see it in her face. She wouldn’t give him up.

  The patrol car did slow down a bit more when it approached him. He looked at his clipboard and pretended to be checking something off as the car passed him. The patrolman gave him an interested glance, but nothing more. He looked up in his rearview mirror and watched the car turn at the corner and disappear. Relief washed over him.

  Once they spoke to those creeps at the Cage, they’d probably decided the whole incident wasn’t worth their time. They had more serious work to do than scour the neighborhoods for someone who fit his description. He was confident no one had seen him get into his truck. He had parked far enough away from the dance club. He wasn’t going to pay any valet, not because he was cheap. He was a little embarrassed about the truck. No, I’m safe, he thought. He turned his attention back to her house and the street, waiting for some sign of movement.

  Finally, a sleek black Mercedes sedan turned into the driveway and a tall man with wavy blond hair, wearing a light green sweater and jeans, stepped out. As he started toward the house, the front door opened and a young girl came bursting out to run into his waiting arms. He lifted her and kissed her cheek. Then she came to the door and he saw his dream lover.

  She stood in the doorway and watched but didn’t budge. He couldn’t hear her, but she shouted something to the young girl, who nodded. The man looked at her and started to speak. He started toward the door, but she closed it before he finished speaking and got too close. He remained staring at it for a moment and then turned and walked back to the car to open the door for the girl, who was clearly his daughter. After she got in, he closed the door, looked back at the house, shook his head and got into the car to back out and drive off.

  It was as if someone had shouted, Happy New Year!

  This, he thought, is a broken marriage. And it was clear that she had nothing but anger and disdain for her ex-husband. His instincts were right after all. Thank goodness he had come up with the idea to drive over here early. The fact that the husband’s name was still on the newspaper, however, told him this breakup was not too old. That worried him for a moment, but he recalled how she had closed that front door on him. There was no forgiveness looming in that woman, he thought happily.

  He had a chance. Sure, he wasn’t rich enough to keep a house like this; few men were. But he was confident she was not the sort of woman who judged people on the basis of their bank accounts. Maybe he was talking himself into it, but he was still convinced that she was his kind of woman, the kind of woman Julia could have been but wasn’t.

  He started his truck engine and turned on the radio. He would eat a helluva breakfast this morning, after he took one helluva leak.

  Megan stood just in the entryway, half expecting Scott to keep coming and ring the doorbell. A wild thought occurred to her. Someone he knew had witnessed the scene last night at the Cage. Or, more likely, someone his father knew had been there. It could easily have been the son or daughter of some wealthy client or associate who had seen her at some social event. Maybe Tricia had been on the phone immediately after dropping her off, and the information had shot through the ears and mouths of a good dozen links in the gossip chain, dropping right in Gordon Lester’s lap.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have been so abrupt with Scott, she thought. Maybe that made me look guilty of something.

  But he had made no reference to last night, she countered, arguing with herself
.

  I’m being paranoid already, she thought, and chastised herself for having these crazy ideas. Was this the way it was going to be? Why should she be ashamed or afraid anyhow? She had a right to go out and meet people.

  Nevertheless, the phone was ringing already. First call was naturally Tricia.

  “How are you, the morning after?”

  “Still in a bit of a daze. Scott called first thing this morning.”

  “He found out?”

  “No, he wanted all of a sudden to spend a Saturday with Jennifer. He’s taking her to the Getty for lunch.”

  “Typical. I could write the whole scenario for you. He’ll be acting like he should have for weeks now and doing his best to make you feel guilty, make you feel you jumped too quickly.

  “Don’t laugh,” Tricia warned before Megan could even think of it. “It works with most women.”

  “It won’t with me.”

  “I’m here for you, if you feel yourself slipping. What are you going to do with your day now?”

  “I don’t know. I had promised to take Jennifer to the new Disney film, but…“

  “Let’s go on a wild shopping spree and have a fattening lunch. I’ll pick you up in an hour or so. You’ve got to spoil yourself for now, Megan. There’s too much opportunity for these dry, dark and depressing hours.”

  “You’re probably right. Okay. In an hour or so,” she said. “By the way, you haven’t told anyone about last night yet, have you, Tricia?”

  “Don’t worry. I know exactly what you’re concerned about. No one has heard anything from me.”

  “Good,” she said, but wondered why Tricia had qualified with from me. “Did you see anyone who might know me or Scott there when you were dancing?”