Earth Angel

by Siri Caldwell

  The other woman poked Hank with her elbow.

  Abby decided not to take offense. Hey, at least her hair was in a ponytail, right? That was about as jock-like as she was going to get. She adjusted her headband, a print with bold orange daisies that matched her leggings but teetered on the edge of clashing with her red hair, and fluffed her ponytail in an I-never-play-sports-that-could-involve-safety-helmets kind of way. She was not normally prissy about her hair, and she didn’t even really mean it, but Hank brought it out in her—this weird cross between flirtation and defiance.

  “Just so you know,” Abby said, “I’m not good at sports.”

  Hank looked her up and down. “Don’t be scared, little girl,” she said rudely. “I’ll teach you to play.”

  The woman next to her snorted.

  Hank turned her head belligerently in her friend’s direction, hiking up one shoulder. “What.”

  “We’ll teach you to play,” the woman said.

  Hank dipped her chin. “Come on, Aisha, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  The two of them got into an argument and Abby escaped and joined the rest of the group. Someone pulled her onto their team and soon she found herself up at bat.

  Her first swing was a disaster. A couple of women cheered in a motherly way, supportive of the new girl who obviously sucked.

  The next pitch, she could immediately tell from the change in the pitcher’s windup that she was moving more deliberately, more slowly, tossing her a gentle, easy-to-hit target. Being nice to her. Bruce’s attitude at the guitar jam was almost easier to deal with.

  Abby tightened her grip on the bat. She swung, and missed. How could she be so coordinated at the harp and so uncoordinated with a bat? She had good hand-eye coordination, just not when it came to balls. And no, she did not mind if anyone snickered at that, because she meant it that way too. Juvenile, yes. But true. When it came to balls—of any kind—she was not interested.

  “Give it a good whack,” the catcher encouraged her.

  Another pitch came at her.

  “Whack it!” someone yelled as the ball approached. “Pretend it’s your boyfriend’s head.”

  Abby clenched her jaw and swung, and as the ball thunked into the catcher’s mitt, the bat flew out of her hands.

  She didn’t belong here.

  Chapter Three

  Abby navigated traffic the way she played music—exquisitely aware of the location of all the players, whether they were cars and traffic lights and pedestrians on the street or strings and levers on a harp. She could sense where each vehicle was, feel it in her fingertips, feel a tug on the invisible strings that linked her to each driver when someone was about to come to a sudden stop or change lanes without using their turn signal, and she adjusted her speed accordingly, smoothly weaving around obstacles at well above the speed limit, one element in a coordinated whole. It wasn’t mind reading; it was an innate knowing. She didn’t understand how she did it, but she never questioned it.

  Her driving mojo didn’t carry over to other aspects of her life, but that was fine. Life without surprises would be boring. She thought about that when she arrived for her audition at the Sea Salt Hotel and Spa and wheeled in her five-foot-tall, 36-string harp and saw who was there to greet her.

  It was the woman from the hospital. She no longer had dark circles under her eyes or that appalling look of utter exhaustion, but it was definitely her. The despair was still there, lurking in her eyes, weighing down her shoulders, but it was so well hidden that anyone who wasn’t paying attention would think she was doing fine. Unlike the last time she’d seen her, her spotless jeans and unwrinkled emerald silk blouse under a matching jacket—besides bringing out the green of her eyes—did not look like they’d been slept in, and her short brown hair was styled into adorable pixie spikes. For a lot of people, a well-groomed exterior was a sign that they’d returned to normal. For this woman, she suspected it was an act.

  “I’m Gwynne Abernathy,” the woman said, not mentioning their previous run-in. “Can I carry something for you?”

  Abby handed her the low wooden stool hooked over her wrist and followed her with her harp through the lobby and down a hallway.

  “You’re the one who recommended me for the job?” The hotel owner had mentioned Gwynne’s name on the phone, but Abby hadn’t recognized it. She’d dismissed the minor mystery as unimportant, since every year she performed for thousands of wedding guests whose names she’d never know.

  But this wasn’t an anonymous wedding guest. This was…her. The one she’d been obsessing about for weeks, wondering if she really had ordered those angels out of that hospital room, or if it had all been a weird coincidence.

  She wasn’t expecting it to be her. The woman hadn’t even heard her play. And it wasn’t like they’d talked, or made a connection. On Abby’s part, yeah. Considering all the time she’d spent mulling over their awkward encounter, she’d have to say they made a connection. But on Gwynne Abernathy’s part? Doubtful. But that was okay. If it got her an audition, she’d take it. And maybe afterward she’d pull her aside and ask her what had happened in that hospital room.

  “Thanks for putting in a good word for me,” Abby said.

  “I’m surprised Kira mentioned it.”

  The hallway opened into an archway that led into a spacious lounge where Gwynne set down her harp stool. The room was uncluttered and painted white, designed to draw your eye to the hundreds of glass balls on the ceiling, each one lit from within, glowing with the pale blues and greens of sea glass. Glass pebbles in the same range of colors tiled the far wall, and an adjacent wall was painted with a mural of a mermaid sunning on a rock. The beautiful design barely registered, though, because the room was swirling with angels. They spun around her and Gwynne, unafraid to come close, and as one swooped toward her face, Abby tripped on her long skirt. She caught her balance on the hand truck her harp was on, leaning on it harder than she would have liked but managing not to jar the harp.

  “Are you all right?” Gwynne asked.

  “Yup, no problem.” Abby spoke with a practiced glibness that came from years of denying sights that were clear as day to her but seemingly invisible to everyone else. Did angels follow Gwynne Abernathy everywhere she went? She didn’t look terminally ill, and she couldn’t think of another good reason why so many of them would be here. The place was positively angel-acious.

  A blonde dressed in white linen pants and a clingy white sweater unfolded herself from one of the white sofas and padded over in bare feet. “Hi, I’m Megan McLaren. Kira should be here any minute for the interview. Do you need help setting up?”

  “No, I’m good. I’ll just need a few minutes to tune.” Harps didn’t like to be moved—any change in temperature or humidity meant they needed to be retuned, or at least checked.

  Abby unstrapped her harp from the hand truck and unzipped it from its padded case, her hands passing through the illusion of angelic bodies. Usually she tried to avoid that, but there was no real reason to—they did not actually have bodies, not bodies you could feel or touch. It was easy to forget, though, because they were good about respecting physical boundaries and usually didn’t crowd so close. She didn’t know what they were so worked up about today. It had to be something to do with Gwynne.

  “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you,” Gwynne said. “At the hospital.”

  Abby glanced up from her harp in surprise. “You didn’t snap.”

  “I didn’t know you were there. It wasn’t you I was mad at.”

  She didn’t volunteer whom she was mad at, though. A family member, a nurse, a flock of angels she had no way of knowing was there…

  “You don’t have to apologize. It’s fine.” Puzzling, but really, fine.

  * * *

  Abby Vogel was a tiny little thing, no taller than her harp, but clearly strong. She hefted her five-foot harp out of its carrying case like it weighed nothing. Her dress, however, screamed the opposite of tough. It was straight from
a Renaissance faire—a red velvet dress that laced up the back and hugged her lush curves, then flared at the hip into a skirt that fell all the way to the floor. Her sleeves were the same way, clinging to her upper arms but draping loosely from the elbows so the fabric fluttered whenever she moved her arms and made it hard to look away. When she’d hiked up her skirt to avoid stepping on the hem on her way in, she revealed what looked like homemade knee-high deerskin boots lashed to her calves with leather laces. Her long, red hair was streaked with blond and gold and caramel highlights, and on her head sat a gold circlet that had gone out of fashion centuries ago.

  Gwynne wouldn’t be caught dead in a getup like that. On Abby, it looked romantic—and that was not a word Gwynne had ever used to describe anything.

  Romantic? Try bewitching. Like Abby had emerged from a fairy mound glowing with confidence that this was how the natives dressed, and had no idea that if she wanted to, she could make a string of sexual conquests during her stay.

  Gwynne swallowed—it was either that or drool. Obviously the deaths of her mother and sister had knocked out some of her common sense. She wasn’t used to being turned to mush by a stranger wearing period costume.

  Kira dashed in as Abby finished her tuning, saving Gwynne from further gooey, unexpected feelings. If she was going to fall apart, she’d rather not do it in front of Megan, her ex. Megan had seen enough of her mush.

  “Am I late?” Kira switched from a jog to a bouncing walk for her last few steps across the room. Even when she wasn’t late she was always running, always burning energy, making Gwynne feel like she should drop and do fifty pushups to prove she wasn’t a slacker, even though she was. She was out of shape. People assumed she was fit because she was petite, but fit and petite were not the same thing. She used to make more of an effort to work out—she liked sports and she did play softball in the summer—but lately her idea of exercise was climbing onto a stepstool to reach the shelves of her kitchen cabinets.

  While Kira introduced herself to Abby, Gwynne took the opportunity to brush a flutter of angel light away from her face. It was odd there were so many angels in the room. Either they liked the harpist or they liked her music, or both. Or maybe Abby was ill and they wanted to heal her? According to Kira, she’d had to reschedule the audition because of a doctor’s appointment. For an ear infection, which didn’t seem like it would be an angelic priority, but what did she know? They were here, and they certainly weren’t here on Gwynne’s account. And Megan they completely ignored—for once—so it wasn’t her. No, it was herself and especially the harpist they were swooping around, for whatever reason. Not that they necessarily needed a reason. As far as angels were concerned, any day was a good day for swooping.

  Before Gwynne could spend any more time contemplating their reasons, Abby began to play. She recognized the first tune, “Greensleeves.” From there Abby moved from one haunting, aching melody to another in a seamless medley of ancient-sounding music full of aching loss, songs that sensed the grief in Gwynne’s heart and lured it out of hiding. Was it her, or did this woman not know any cheerful music? She didn’t know if she could listen to this every day. She’d either love it or end up an emotional wreck.

  Far too soon, it was over. Abby’s hands floated off the strings and down to her lap as the last bell-like notes lingered in the air and died out. For a minute no one said anything, still caught in her spell.

  “That was beautiful,” Kira said.

  She nodded questioningly at Megan and Gwynne to gauge their opinion. They both nodded back.

  “You’ve got the job if you want it,” Kira said.

  “Do I get to decide what music I play?” Abby asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then I’d love to.”

  * * *

  “By the way,” Kira said from across the desk in her office, handing Abby yet another employment form to fill out and sign, “there are some flakes who work here, but don’t let it bother you. You won’t freak out if Megan tells you she works with angels, will you?”

  Abby’s pen stopped, poised over the paper. “She thinks angels are real?”

  It would be so great to talk to someone who understood, but she wasn’t going to get her hopes up, because Megan couldn’t see angels. No one could. Maybe what Kira meant was, Megan believed in angels. Lots of people believed in all kinds of crazy stuff. It didn’t mean anything. She probably believed in ghosts too. Didn’t mean she could see them.

  There was that weird moment at the hospital with Gwynne, though, when she’d wondered if Gwynne had ordered the angels to leave. She’d asked Sapphire, her closest angel friend, about it afterward—when Sapphire finally deigned to reappear after abandoning her for the rest of her shift at the hospital that day—but Sapphire wouldn’t answer. Since mysterious silence was typical for her, she wasn’t sure she should read anything into that. But she couldn’t forget the incident. The possibility that she wasn’t the only one who could see angels was too compelling.

  “Are you freaking out?” Kira asked.

  “No, I—”

  “You have that look,” Kira said. “That look that says ‘Get me out of here.’”

  Kira didn’t get it. “That’s not—”

  “I’m in love with her, so…”

  “So you want to make sure I don’t say anything to hurt her feelings?”

  “Exactly. I’m not saying I want you to believe in the woo-woo stuff. I don’t care either way. I just want to make sure this is not going to be a problem.”

  “It won’t be a problem.”

  “Good. It’ll be nice to have someone else around here who’s down-to-earth. We can bond when the woo-woo factor gets out of control.”

  Abby noticed that she did not include Gwynne Abernathy in the “down-to-earth” category.

  “So you’re not a fan of angels,” Abby clarified. She liked to know where people stood, especially when that person was her new boss.

  “Let’s put it this way. I don’t believe in things I can’t see. Megan’s working on me, though.” Kira looked pleased about that.

  The thing was, though…it wasn’t Megan the angels were circling during her performance. It was Abby and Gwynne. They liked Gwynne, and there might be a very good reason for that—a very obvious reason. The same reason angels flocked around Abby.

  She’d never met anyone who could see angels. But she had a feeling Gwynne might be different.

  Chapter Four

  Abby looked up from her harp as Gwynne Abernathy greeted another visitor to Sea Salt. It was Hank, the first baseman from her embarrassing attempt to fit in with the local lesbians. Great. She hadn’t even had a chance to get to know Gwynne yet, and already someone else was going to make that first impression for her. Someone who was dangerously dykey in her dusty work boots and dirty jeans that were the polar opposite of the fairy-tale dresses Abby loved to wear. No one would ever peg Abby as gay if they saw her next to Hank—not unless she and Hank were acting like best friends—and the chances of that happening were slim.

  “I wondered where those shoulder muscles came from,” Hank told Abby, acknowledging her presence for a split second before ignoring her again. Abby heard the words she didn’t say: Because they sure as heck didn’t come from swinging at a softball.

  She wondered if working here was going to do anything at all to improve her lesbian credentials.

  Probably not.

  But it didn’t matter. She liked having the freedom to play whatever music she wanted and she liked everyone she’d met here, even those who didn’t understand there were other ways to get shoulder muscles. Try a feminine activity like playing the harp, thank you very much.

  Not that she didn’t understand why Hank didn’t want to play softball with beginners. Performing music with struggling novices was not something Abby had much patience for, either.

  “Thanks for the invite,” Hank said to Gwynne.

  “You should have told me your crew was doing repairs down the street.
I would’ve invited you sooner,” Gwynne said. “You didn’t have to wait for me to drive by and notice you by accident.”

  “We only started today. Besides, I didn’t know you worked here.”

  Gwynne poured Hank a glass of water and added a slice of cucumber. “You don’t follow my every move?”

  “Afraid not.” Hank accepted the glass and plopped into an overstuffed chair. “Heard you quit the mumbo-jumbo business, though. How does it feel?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “Right. Because you decide to take a job here in la-la land serving cucumber-laced drinks. You could’ve called me. I could’ve gotten you a job.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate the thought,” Gwynne said drily. “Is this why you’re visiting?”

  Hank shrugged out of her jacket. “It’s cold out. You have heat.”

  “Glad to know my company is so thrilling.”

  “Just trying to eat my lunch in peace,” Hank grumbled. “This here is one of the shitty perks of road maintenance—if we want to eat, we have to hide, or some self-righteous member of the driving public is sure to report us to complain we’re sitting around on our asses wasting the taxpayers’ money. I’d like to see them out there freezing their toes off or frying in the sun, sucking fumes.” She unwrapped a paper bag and started in on the burger that was her lunch.

  “The guys give you a hard time for ditching them?” Gwynne asked.

  “They think I have a hot date. Whatever.”

  “Why would they think that?” Gwynne said. “Did you fuck things up with Aisha? Because I swear to God, I’m going to make you apologize to her. Tell me you didn’t break up with her.”

  “Shit, no.”

  “Then…?”

  Hank finished chewing. “I don’t talk about Aisha at work—period. The crew knows I’m not into guys, but I don’t fill them in on my personal life.”

  “They’re guys. They don’t care about your personal life.”

  “Oh, they care all right. If it’s something they can give me a hard time about, they care. And personally, I could do without their dating advice. I get enough shit from you already.”