And suddenly Camael was gone, ceramic mug and all, and Gabriel was left mooching about a Starbucks in Citrus Heights.
He spent maybe three hours there, simply staring into space, wondering how in the hell he’d gotten there and feeling more than a little gratification that at least Abraxos had to be sharing his fate.
And then wondering what Abraxos had been doing. Wasn’t being a condescending prick to these humans what angels did?
Apparently not to Camael, was it? And surprise! The little angel of angelic powers actually knew his shit. Now, there was a lesson in angelia that Gabriel should be taking. Keep your power held close to your vest and your wings low—well, that was how he should have played it, that was for darned sure.
He wasn’t sure what pulled him out of his reverie—a car horn, perhaps—but he turned around and looked out the window to see a kid sliding out of what looked to be his mother’s minivan, while said mother—plumpish, irritated, with jeans and a sweatshirt and messy hair—gave him last-minute instructions. The kid grabbed his telltale green apron and ran for the back entrance of the Starbucks.
Semi-amused, Gabriel watched as, two minutes later, the kid emerged into the front of the house, washing his hands. He had blond hair, spiked up from a widow’s peak, and happy blue eyes, but it was his wicked grin that set him apart from every other blond white boy in the suburb.
“Did the rat-bug break down again?” asked the girl at the counter. She was in her early twenties, with thin black hair tightly pulled back from her temples and sticking out in a ponytail of split ends. Gabriel could see bits of dusky scalp at her hairline and thought she might be balding by thirty if she didn’t figure out another hairstyle. Or maybe her eyebrows would comb over. But she didn’t give the kid who’d just run in any grief, so Gabriel adjusted to angel vision and mentally smacked himself for the comb-over thought. Hell, he must really have become a cynical bastard if he had to make himself see simple kindness.
“It got egged again,” he muttered, shaking his head. “God, won’t some people grow up?”
“You tempt fate, you know,” the girl replied, her voice lilting up with overtones of another language—probably Mexican Spanish, if Gabriel knew his languages. “I mean, most nobody don’t give a shit about your rainbow car, but the people who do—they’re mean.”
The boy looked at her and grinned. “You got that right! But you’re not mean, Maritza, my darling, are you?”
She smiled back shyly. “No, Jamie—I love you, and all your boyfriends too.”
Jamie grimaced. “No boyfriends at present—”
“Jamie!” Maritza wailed, and at that moment, three women wearing really uncomfortable shiny shoes and black suits at least five years out of date walked into the Starbucks, and Gabriel realized he was pouting because Maritza and Jamie had to stop talking. He’d been interested—he could admit it. Destruction of property was Gabriel’s bread and butter, but Jamie seemed like he could get over it, and Maritza was more concerned about his love life. It was nice, he thought, wishing he had some coffee to sulk into. He saw some horrible places in the world, and some horrible things—not least of which were the government rooms in which rich men made decisions that would cost lives. It was nice, hearing a perfectly normal conversation between people who weren’t out to screw and/or kill other human beings.
Jamie and Maritza helped the women, who all gravitated to the corner of plush chairs kitty-corner to Gabriel. Please don’t notice me, he thought, and, lucky him, they didn’t. They started talking about their children, and Gabriel sat in judgment.
“Yes, I told him he couldn’t wear that T-shirt in my house, and then I got a call from the school telling me he wore it there!”
Maybe next time you’ll let him wear it at home and ask why he thinks you should legalize marijuana. His best friend’s mom is dying of cancer—he’s trying to be a good kid.
“Well, I’m grateful for my Cassie—she’s never missed a day of school in her life. Homework every night, nose to the grindstone—she’s just like her father.”
Her father doesn’t have slice marks up her arms and doesn’t make himself throw up twice a day. Maybe you should worry about her happiness and not her GPA.
The third member of the group, a tiny little woman with dark hair and horn-frame glasses, just listened to her friends and nodded but didn’t say anything.
“So what are your two up to, Carla?”
Carla smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know—they’re in third and fifth grade. They like to go out back and play Star Wars with the Nerf swords as lightsabers. They can kick my ass in Mario Cart, but I still win Tricky, because it’s an old game. What’s to tell?”
Gabriel smiled at her, even though she couldn’t see. They’re cheerfully amoral, sneak their broccoli to the obese dog, and eat more chocolate than they strictly should. Well done, Mom!
“Well, yes, but what about their grades? Are they at grade level? How are they doing on their homework?”
Carla shrugged. “They don’t do homework. I think it’s overrated. So, are you two going out for Valentine’s Day?”
The conversation went off on another tangent, but Gabriel made sure to sneak an attagirl into Carla’s mental dialog. He thought homework was overrated too, especially before sixth grade.
“I saw that!” Camael’s voice echoed in his head.
“Saw what?” Gabriel asked with a straight face, and Camael went away.
The women left, and the store grew quiet. Jamie and Maritza were working on cleaning up, probably so Maritza could go home, when another customer wandered in. He was young—probably as young as Jamie—but he moved much more hesitantly, like he was nervous.
“Hey!” Jamie chirped. “There’s the customer I’ve been waiting for!”
The boy looked up and used his palm to smooth the straight brown hair out of his gray eyes. He had a triangular face, like a fox, and sort of a skittish way of moving that suggested he’d spent his life trying to make himself invisible.
“Heya,” he said, looking around the Starbucks like he was making sure Jamie wasn’t talking to anybody behind him. “Yeah, catching the four fifteen again.”
Gabriel’s eyes bulged. Yeah, he’d seen the bus stop when he’d first sat down—he’d made a mental note to avoid the place at all costs. Those people were crazy enough to see him and to tell the whole world about it. Angels were very, very careful around those who could spot the auras and the invisible wings. For one thing, it didn’t seem to do the people with vision any good to tell the world they could spot messengers of the divine. In fact, it seemed to get them shut up in some really awful places, and Gabriel sort of liked the look of the young man with the timid, fox-shy gestures. He was an angel—he could spot purity of heart. Sue him.
But besides the purity of heart, this young man didn’t seem to be any more discerning than the other people in Starbucks. He flashed another shy smile at the kid behind the counter.
“So,” Jamie said, “the usual?”
A timid nod. “Yeah—basic coffee. All I need.”
It’s all you can afford. Gabriel watched the kid count quarters out and grimace. Oh hell. It’s more than you can afford. The kid shoved his hand into his pocket with a sort of panic, and Gabriel sighed. Fine. If he had to.
The kid pulled out a twenty and looked at it, surprised.
“Wow, Ernie!” Jamie said encouragingly. “You’re rich today!”
“Yeah,” Ernie said, still a little stunned. “If I’d known I had this, I might have ordered a venti something with chocolate.”
“Good.” Jamie smirked. “’Cause I had Maritza make you one anyway. It’s too cold out there for coffee regular!”
“Oh, but—”
“One Caffè Americano,” Jamie sang. “Tall. Right, Maritza?”
“Yup,” Maritza sang back just as cheerfully. “Here you go, Ernie. One Caffè Americano, tall, except it’s a Caffè Mocha, venti, with caramel sauce. And a sugar cookie, because I was just
going to recall them. Here you go, baby. Stay warm.”
Ernie flushed, his pointed little cheekbones taking on color as only the fair-skinned could. “Thank you,” he mumbled, clearly both really embarrassed and really grateful. “It’s getting nasty out there.”
Gabriel looked outside and realized the sort of grayish day had turned iron gray and blustery, with little dots of cold and wet. He wanted to ask “Where’s your coat?” because all this kid had was a gray hoodie, without scarf or gloves, but he didn’t.
“Yeah!” Jamie agreed, and then he looked glum. “Man, I’ve got to call my mom to get me too. I hate doing that. I’ve got to get her out of bed at, like, eleven o’clock at night, and I feel like scum.”
“She’s probably just happy you have a job,” Maritza said practically, and Gabriel smiled. He’d looked into her home—a small apartment for her, a husband who worked in a machine shop, and a toddler they both loved very much. Maritza was already a good mom.
“Wh-what happened to your car?” Ernie asked, and Gabriel looked at him sharply. It was clear the question took everything he had.
Jamie shrugged. “Got egged. Was sort of my fault—all the stickers and stuff. I should probably just take them off.”
“No!” Ernie burst out, and Gabriel wasn’t the only being in the shop who looked at him in surprise. Ernie blushed again, but he kept his feet squared as he cuddled his giant paper cup of coffee and fat. “No,” he said, a little more quietly. The downpour that had been threatening broke overhead, and they all looked up as what sounded like a bag of pistachios pelted the roof. “The stickers are important,” Ernie said after a moment. “The stickers give us hope, you know? That we’re not all alone. It’s good that some people are really loud and speak out and have parents who are on their side. It’s good.”
He looked behind him and grimaced, because the bus was trundling down the block. “Bye,” he said quietly, like he hadn’t just given a real powerhouse of a coming-out speech and surprised the hell out of the two people in the coffee shop. “Thanks for the coffee,” he added weakly and then disappeared.
Gabriel watched him go and was tempted to actually physically follow him and see where he went. It was not often he was surprised by people, but that timid boy had just done it. What a brave thing to do, when he could barely look his crush in the eye.
But Jamie obviously didn’t know he was a crush.
“Wow,” he said into the hush left by Ernie’s exit. “That’s…. I mean, you know. You want to give people hope and make a statement, but—”
“But you don’t know if you do for real,” Maritza filled in for him, kind of smiling. “No, I think that’s good.” She grunted. “Especially in this town.”
Jamie sort of laughed. “Anybody leave you any more threatening Post-its?”
She shook her head. “That wasn’t threatening, mijo, that was stupid! They didn’t even spell ‘immigrant’ right. All that told me was that person needed to spend more time in school and less time reading my ‘Go Cesar Chavez!’ bumper sticker. If I really want to blow their minds, I should get one that’s pro-choice too!”
Jamie laughed in disbelief. “But, but—”
“But just because I wanted my kid don’t mean everyone else has to have theirs. I’m telling you, there are some people who do not need to be spreading their relatives around, do you hear me?”
More laughter. “Yeah, I’m hearing you. I wish whoever it was who broke my back window with eggs and a rock heard you too!”
Gabriel smiled and gave in. He didn’t actually order one, but suddenly he had a nice recyclable aluminum mug in front of him, filled with whatever it was that had made Ernie so very happy. Why not? Like Camael said, it was sort of a vacation, and there was something sweet about sitting in this little island of calm in the sea of grayness outside, reading these admittedly nice people like a book.
There were worse ways to spend an afternoon.
THAT NIGHT he simply sat and disappeared, becoming a blank spot in Jamie’s vision as he closed down. Jamie was amusing to watch, because the first thing he did was turn up the stereo the workers apparently kept under the counter and start singing along with the songs. Another young man had come on after Maritza left, and together the two of them sang One Direction in warped harmony, and for a brief moment, Gabriel hated them all again.
But then he saw the other young man—Steve—wait dutifully with Jamie until Jamie’s mother showed up, and he was reminded, yet again, that small kindnesses abounded.
It was a thought he had not been prepared for when he’d been set plonk down in the middle of a coffee shop, that was certain.
Gabriel sat, still as stone, in the dimmed coffee shop, closing his eyes and seeing the people he’d met that day behind his eyelids.
Some of them were doing reprehensible things. In spite of his kindness to Jamie, Steve was going out to sleep with a girl he had no intention of calling again. The woman whose son wore the marijuana shirt was starting a campaign to dismiss a liberal teacher she disliked. One of the businessmen who had stopped by that evening was embezzling funds from his employer.
What the fuck ever.
Some of them were not doing terrible things. Carla was making brownies for a coworker who was depressed. Maritza was singing a song to her baby, who was teething. Ernie was doing his homework while he volunteered at a suicide hotline.
Gabriel frowned and shifted a little in his seat. If he’d still had his wings, they would have rustled. He understood geography very well—he saw the earth from various places above all the time.
That place where Ernie sat, in the cheerful room with all the reminders of what to do in an emergency on the cubicle walls, was not between where Ernie lived (a tiny little apartment across the street from a high school) and Starbucks. In fact, Ernie of the scant pocket change had needed to travel to the Starbucks and then transfer buses to go back in the right direction.
Why on earth would he do that?
Well, there was the little crush on Jamie, right? But that was such a small thing, that attraction, wasn’t it?
Tentatively, because Ernie was more sensitive than the others—of this Gabriel was sure—Gabriel did some exploring in Ernie’s duplicitous little brain.
And saw Jamie.
He saw Jamie at eight, playing in a sandbox in a local park, being king of the sandcastle and letting Ernie add leaves to the top.
He saw Jamie at thirteen, surrounded by friends but remembering to smile as he passed Ernie in the hallway at some sort of learning institution.
He saw Jamie at high school graduation, with a duct-tape rainbow on his mortarboard, high-fiving a group of students before stepping to the head of the line and taking his place in the processional. Ernie had been in the same line, and while Jamie hadn’t singled him out, he’d made Ernie—awkward, with spots and hair that didn’t seem to wash—feel included.
He saw them make plans to meet up at grad night after the ceremony, and the way Ernie had lit up inside.
He saw Jamie, buzzing around town in a little Volkswagen, back and forth from state college to a home filled with a mother, father, and sisters. Ernie took the bus to school from a lonely low-rent apartment, the only thing he could afford while working nights at a gas station. Ernie had no happy family, no happy home, because Ernie had come out after graduation and had spent that evening packing his life into boxes and hauling them to the low-rent apartment building instead of going out with his friends.
Instead of going out with Jamie.
Gabriel pulled out of Ernie’s head abruptly.
So what? So the fuck what? Well, yeah, it was sad—but there was so much worse, wasn’t there? Before Gabriel got called into a crime scene, there were bodies, sickness, dead, terrible losses, destroyed families, maimed survivors…
The litany of images paraded behind his eyes, wiping away the pleasant day spent in a coffee shop, wrecking the peace, the small details of caring for people with ordinary lives.
St
op!
His eyes popped open, and he was back in the closed Starbucks, his human chest heaving with the effort of dragging one breath in after the other.
There were tears on his cheeks.
Gabriel? Camael’s voice was soft with compassion.
Go away, he thought, but he had no strength left for anger.
Just remember, Gabriel, what you’re fighting for.
Gabriel’s response was static, white noise in his brain, because he couldn’t. Couldn’t remember.
Subtly, ever so quietly, Camael prodded him with the image of Ernie, working the suicide hotline because once, his first year away from home, in a dismal apartment without heat, he had been on the other end of the phone.
And the next day, as he’d been slogging his way to finals, his bus had broken down and he’d ended up here. In Starbucks. Where Jamie had tried to hug him over the counter and had asked, with genuine enthusiasm, how he was.
The tears wouldn’t stop. Oh for sweet hell’s sake, look at him—Gabriel, the flaming sword of God’s justice here on earth—weeping like a…. He couldn’t even say “child.” He’d seen children endure horrors without weeping.
And it didn’t matter.
He put his face in his arms and forgot he was an angel, forgot he was invisible in a coffee shop in a shitty strip mall, forgot everything but the taste of human pain and the dignity that endured it.
THE NEXT morning he was more himself. He watched as the morning baristas broke the blender and chuckled meanly as they tripped all over themselves trying to fix it, and make coffee, and prepare the premade sandwiches, all in a tiny little bit of space that a mouse would find offensive.
God, he was really glad he wasn’t human most days.
But Jamie drove up around three o’clock, his yellow Volkswagen sporting a new back window—and fresh rainbow bumper stickers, judging by their brightness and lack of sun deterioration—and his chest ached suddenly, in the place where his heart would be if he admitted he had one.
Grand Adventures Page 42
