Big Love (18 page)

Zing looked glum. She was in love with Nell and the thought of having only one week and one day to revel in that love was depressing.

“This is about Nell, isn’t it?” Annabelle sat next to her on the bed.

“Do you need a pillow?”

“No, I’m fine. Answer the question.”

“Yes, it’s about Nell. I’ve always loved her, of course, but now my love is… big. I don’t want to leave,” Zing said.

“You shouldn’t have let her see your love. She’s doomed now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, guardian angels in love glow with a supreme love. Nell has experienced that now because of you,” Annabelle said.

“I didn’t mean to. It’s this human condition thing.”

“Yeah well, you should know supreme love is like a love potion.”

Zing looked alarmed. She sat up. “I’ve charmed her into loving me back?”

“Not exactly. It’s more like an ethical love potion. It’s not induced like you’d given her some potion to drink that was made up of newt eyebrows, frog heels, and bat wool, cooked up by a crazy hunch-backed witch that had her medical license yanked.”

Zing tried to bleach her brain of those things. She didn’t want to know what newt eyebrows looked like—never mind drinking them. She moved on. “Why didn’t I feel like this when I was only her guardian angel?”

“Because it’s fraternal love that we feel towards the humans we’ve been assigned to watch over.”

“Oh.” That made sense. When she was watching over Nell, there was a fondness because she’d watched over her for so long, but nothing like this.

“I’ve been scouring the handbook and haven’t found a thing about guardian angels and corporeal love,” Annabelle said.

“Hmmm. Have you ever heard of an angel named Betty?”

“No. Why?”

“Because Miracle thinks she might be a guardian angel. Maybe I’m not the only one running around here in human form.”

“Maybe you should talk to her,” Annabelle said. “If she really is a guardian angel who found out how to stay human, she could help you do the same thing.”

Zing picked up Betty’s card from the nightstand. “Maybe.”

“Call her,” Annabelle said. “I have to go. Miracle is taking a shower. Did you know that eighty percent of all fatal accidents occur in the bathroom?”

“Okay. I’ll see you later?”

“You can count on it,” Annabelle said right before melting into thin air.

Zing stared at the card in her hand. She picked up her phone and dialed.

Betty answered on the first ring. It seemed like she’d known for certain that Zing would call. “I wondered how long it would take you,” Betty said.

“I have a big problem,” Zing said.

“I know. When do you want to meet?”

Zing wanted to say right now, but instead she said “Tomorrow? I have to work until eleven-thirty.”

“Let’s do lunch.”

“Okay.”

“There’s a nice café on Magnolia Street. It’s a short walk from the bakery where you work. We can sit outside. I’ll meet you there at noon.”

“Do I need to bring one hundred and fifty dollars to pay you with?”

“Do you have one hundred and fifty dollars?”

“No. But I could bring you a box of donuts.”

“I like maple bars.”

“You got it.”

Chapter Twelve

“What have you done?” Carol asked. The moment after Nell had kissed Zing on the cheek and gone into her office, Carol grabbed Zing by her collar and dragged her out front to the counter.

“I haven’t done anything,” Zing said, straightening out her uniform smock.

“Oh, yeah, do you know the first thing Nell told me when she got in this morning?”

“That she was glad to be back?” Zing ventured.

“No,” Carol hissed. “She told me that she had fallen in love with you. All the time and effort she had wasted on Dove-the-Deceiver she should’ve been giving to you.”

“She’s happy though, right?”

“Look, she just got over being tricked and now you’re tricking her. You really think that’s a good idea?” Carol asked.

“It wasn’t an idea. Or a trick. It just kind of happened.”

“Arggghh!”

The timer for the glazed donuts went off. “I hate those donuts,” Carol said and she stalked off.

Zing brushed crumbs from the top of the donut case. Maybe Carol was right. She was an angel and her job was to watch over Nell. It wasn’t to fall in love with her. But love it was and Zing was in it up to her eyeballs.

Carol brought out the cart filled with trays of fresh donuts and pastries. “Carol…” Zing said.

Carol held up her hand in a stop signal. “Do not talk to me until I calm down.”

They loaded the case in silence. Zing became sadder by the second. Carol was her friend and she worried that she wouldn’t be anymore. Carol slammed the case door closed and marched back to the kitchen. Zing put on her “let’s sell a lot of donuts” face and did her best to get through the morning. It was hard.

As Zing flipped the closed sign to open, Nell came out of the back. “Carol seems peeved at us.”

“She’s more than peeved. We should remove any sharp objects from the area.”

Nell laughed. Zing thought it the most beautiful laugh in the world. It tinkled around Zing’s heart.

Nell said, “She’ll get over it. At least, unlike Dove, you’re real.”

They stared at each other. Zing could tell they were both thinking the same thing, but neither one wanted to be the first to say it.

“For now,” Nell said at last.

“For now,” Zing repeated. “We have seven days.”

“And we’re going to make those seven days last a lifetime,” Nell said.

Zing nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Come for dinner tonight at my place?”

“I’d love to.”

***

Zing smelled the tantalizing aroma of sandwiches and soups as she approached the entrance to the Merry Magnolia Café. One good thing about being a guardian angel on earth was that the world existed in a heightened state of sensory wonderment. She smelled pastrami on rye, tomato basil soup, ranch dressing, and lemonade.

Betty was already there, seated at a table in the back. She waved at Zing. Zing walked toward her, turning many a head on the way.

Betty smiled as Zing approached. “I’d say you were meant for love.”

“What do you mean?” Zing asked, setting the box of maple bars on the table next to Betty.

“Everyone stares at you.”

“Oh. I didn’t choose this body, you know.”

“I know you didn’t. But we manifest according to our purposes,” Betty said.

The waitress came over with menus. The café was busy and she looked harried. She pulled a pencil from her bun and said, “What to drink?”

“I’m ready to order,” Betty said without opening her menu. She raised both eyebrows at Zing in a silent question.

“I know what I want. I smelled it on the way in.”

“Me, too. I’ll have the spinach quiche with raspberry tea,” Betty said.

“And I’ll have the pastrami on rye and tomato basil soup with a lemonade,” Zing ordered.

“I’ll be right back with the drinks,” the waitress said, scurrying away.

Betty watched her go. “She has a nice tush.”

“Must be all the walking.”

“So, you said you wanted to talk to me?” Betty asked, after the waitress dropped their drinks off and quickly moved on to the next table.

Zing cut right to the chase. “Are you a guardian angel?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Zing sipped her lemonade. “Explain, please.”

“I was, at one time, a guardian angel. Now, I’m not.”

“What happened? Did you get fired?” Zing asked. She dumped three sugar packets in her lemonade and stirred with the straw.

“Not exactly.”

The waitress came out with their food. Zing’s sandwich was enormous and the soup came in a large bowl.

“Can we eat first and then talk?” Zing asked.

“If you prefer.”

“Yes, last time I had a serious talk I didn’t get to eat my sandwich because everything went south. Then I was hungry and when I get hungry I get cranky.”

“We’ll eat first. I don’t think our talk will go south.”

***

Annabelle was frantically searching through
The Guardian Angel’s Handbook.
“I don’t understand why she can’t just tell you how to do it instead of all this subterfuge.” Annabelle whacked the pillow on the bed with the book.

“Betty said it’s different for everyone. Each book is made specifically for each angel. So, we have to find where it is in
my
book.”

“I thought all the handbooks were the same.”

“So did I,” Zing said, studying her meager wardrobe. She wanted to look nice for Nell. She pulled out the Hawaiian shirt with pineapples on it. “Do you think this looks good on me?”

“I think your outfit is the least of your worries,” Annabelle groused.

“This is my first real date. I want to be pretty.”

“You’re gorgeous. You should have figured that out by now.”

“Betty said the same thing. By human standards, I’m hubba-hubba. I always thought they were looking at my unique sense of fashion,” Zing said.

“It’s unique all right.”

***

Miracle was trying to shove Zing out the front door. Zing splayed out her arms like a cat refusing to come out of its carrier at the vet. Miracle finally gave up. “Why won’t you leave?”

“I’m scared, Miracle. I’ve never had a romantic dinner. I don’t know what to do. What if we have sex? Then I really won’t know what to do,” Zing said.

“Whoa, Nellie,” Miracle said, dragging Zing back into the house. “You mean to tell me you’ve never had sex?”

Zing shook her head. “Never.”

“How old are you?”

“One thousand and four.”

“You’re one thousand as in one, comma, two zeros and the number four, years old?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve never had sex before?”

“I’ve never been human before. I’ve never felt the need. You take being human for granted, you know. All this is new to me,” Zing said.

“There’s no chapter about sex in your guardian angel handbook?”

“No, it’s a guardian angel handbook not a human handbook. Although, I really think you all need one.”

“We probably do. But as far as the sex thing goes, don’t worry about it. Nell knows what she’s doing. She’ll walk you through it.”

“What if I like it?”

“That’s the point.”

“Yeah, but then I’ll never want to leave my human body, and Betty said there’s a loophole where I can stay human, but I can’t find it in the handbook.”

“Tell you what,” Miracle said, “You go have sex. I’ll read your book. If there’s a loophole, I’ll find it.”

“But I don’t know if it’ll make sense to you.”

“You’d be surprised at what makes sense to me. Now, any last questions before I shove you out the door?”

“Are you sure this shirt is okay?” Zing asked.

“Hopefully, you won’t be wearing it very long.” Miracle said. She quickly shoved Zing out the door and closed it in her face.

***

Zing knocked once and the door flew open. Nell wrapped her in an embrace that almost squeezed the breath right out of Zing. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” Nell said.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Zing handed her a bouquet of flowers. They were enormous white dahlias. She’d gotten off the bus two blocks away from Nell’s, and made it to a flower shop just as it was closing. The florist, for reasons unknown to Zing, wouldn’t take any money from her. “They’re my gift,” the florist said.

“Thank you.”

“Does the number 856 mean anything to you?” the florist asked.

“Nope.” Only then did Zing notice that the woman was glowing. “Are you a…were you, are you, one of us?”

The florist only smiled secretively and repeated, “856. That’s a clue.” She walked into the back room before Zing could ask any more questions.

Nell accepted the flowers from Zing. She lowered her nose to the blooms and inhaled deeply. “These are gorgeous. Thank you, Zing.”

“I hoped you’d like them.”

“Come in and I’ll put them in water. I’ll add an aspirin. They look like they need one,” she said pulling off a wilting leaf.

“Why? Do they have headache?”

Nell laughed. “No, it’ll make them last longer, though.”

“Longer than a week?”

“Probably.”

“Then they’ll be here longer than me.”

Nell put her finger on Zing’s lips. “Let’s not talk about that. I want tonight to just be about us.”

“Alright. What’s for dinner?” Zing asked, changing the subject. She followed Nell into the kitchen.

“Pesto chicken with roasted red potatoes and asparagus.”

“That sounds delicious.” Zing peered into the oven. It was so dark she couldn’t see anything.

“You can open it and look,” Nell said as she pulled a crystal vase from the cupboard over the sink.

“That’s okay. I’ll wait. Then it’ll be a surprise. I may like surprises.”

“You may like them?”

Zing said, “I’ve never been surprised before. Is that a bad thing?”

“Depends on the surprise.” Nell added an aspirin to the flower’s water. “There you go,” she said to the flowers. “That will make you feel all better.” She looked at Zing and smiled sheepishly. “You probably think I’m crazy for talking to flowers.”

“Of course I don’t,” Zing said. “They can hear you, you know.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.” Zing took a deep breath. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.” Nell pulled out a chair at the bar for Zing to sit.

“Are you rebounding?”

Nell sat beside Zing. “Are you worried that I’m just on the rebound and not really into you?”

Zing nodded. “I read about it. It’s not a good thing.”

Nell said truthfully, “I thought about that, Zing. But Dove and I weren’t really dating. We were both pretending this online thing we had going was real, but it wasn’t. That’s why I can love you without reservation because, I know now, I didn’t really love Dove. She wasn’t real, therefore our love wasn’t real either.”

“Oh, that’s good. I’ve never been in love…” Zing stopped. There was no time like the present. “Or had sex.”

“Oh,” Nell said. She was startled into silence.

“Are we going to have sex?” Zing asked.

Nell laughed nervously. “We might. We are on a tight time schedule.”

“Are we having a speed relationship like that speed dating thing?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Then can I kiss you already?” Zing asked, feeling more uncertain than she had in her entire life.

“I’d like that.”

Zing caressed Nell’s face. Her skin was soft. Zing leaned in and kissed Nell. She marveled at the softness and texture of Nell’s lips. Then Nell’s tongue got involved and Zing thought she’d swoon from ecstasy. Shocks of pleasure rippled up and down her spine.

Suddenly, Zing pulled away.

“What’s the matter?” Nell asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Zing said, trying to catch her breath. “I just need to breathe.”

“Were you holding your breath while we were kissing?”

Zing nodded.

“You need to breathe, Zing. You can breathe while we kiss.”

“Really?”

Nell nodded.

“Can we try it again? I think I need to practice until I get it right.”

Nell’s laugh was cut short by Zing’s eager lips. After several minutes of intense kissing, Zing pulled back again. “You know, I like donuts and potato chips and cookies, but this is the most fun my mouth has ever had.”

“Kiss me again,” Nell said, grabbing Zing around the neck and pulling her close. “I want your lips on mine.”