by Anne Conley
“Just stop!” Tiffany was fighting her, but she was no match for Heather, who pushed her head under the water and rinsed the suds from it, only slightly surprised that an oil slick didn't spread over the top of the water's surface.
“You finish, and I’ll go get you some clothes.” Heather left the bathroom and got a mismatched pair of sweats for Tiffany to put on. Back in the bathroom, her twin was sitting still in the tub, looking defeated.
“So you won’t lend me the money?”
“No. Now get out and dry off. I’ve got to get home.”
“I don’t need you.” As if suddenly remembering something, her eyes widened and she inhaled triumphantly. "Your boyfriend came by. He's rich. He'll loan me the money."
Heather froze, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Who?"
"You know, Devon, or Damon. Yeah! It was Damon!" Her eyes narrowed. "He's cute, where'd you meet him?"
"His name's Damien, and he's not my boyfriend. He's bad news, Tiff. Please don't talk to him again." She lowered herself to Tiffany's level, crouching outside the tub. "Did he come by here?"
Tiffany nodded. "He's so rich, he probably wouldn’t even miss three thousand dollars."
"Don't let him come inside this apartment again, Tiff. I'm telling you, that guy's dangerous. Please." She pleaded with her sister, knowing it wouldn't do any good. She would do whatever she wanted. She was aware she needed to pick her battles with this one, though. The bigger a deal she made out of Damien, the more her sister would fight. So she changed the subject.
“When I come back in two or three days, are you going to be sitting in this same spot shivering like a drowned rat?”
Tiffany’s eyes ignited with a flash of anger. “No!” She tried to get out of the tub, but was suddenly too weak. Heather gripped under her armpits, and lifted her, getting her up and wrapping her in a towel. She left her there to dress and went into the kitchen to heat up something for her to eat. She breathed deeply, reminding herself why she put up with it. This wasn't her sister. This was the drugs. She just needed to get Tiffany over this hump and then hopefully things would improve.
Finding her sister on the couch, still in her towel, with Taco licking water droplets off her leg, Heather said softly, “There’s food for you in the microwave. Please eat?”
“Go away, Heather. I don’t need you.”
Without responding, Heather scooped up Taco and left.
Chapter 10
The knock on her door came promptly at seven, and Heather went to answer it, trepidation rising within her. She honestly wasn’t sure where this thing with Uri would lead, and she wasn’t sure where she wanted it to lead. But he was here now, and she had invited him.
And cooked for him. She didn’t often invite men over for her cooking. That was something that made her think too much about her family before the accident. When Dad had died, Mom quit cooking homemade food. She resorted to boxed meals and TV dinners. When she’d moved out, Heather had begun cooking. She enjoyed cooking for herself and then for her mother when she began to get sick. After the diagnosis, Sharon seemed to forget why she didn’t cook anymore, and she felt comfortable in the kitchen again. Hence the fried cauliflower incident.
Heather’s stomach burned white-hot fire and performed an intense flip when she opened the door. Uri looked perfectly gorgeous.
His blond hair was falling over his forehead, as it had every time she had seen him. His intense blue eyes smiled at her, and his mouth, which was a little large for his face, looked incredibly kissable. She blushed at the turn her thoughts were taking, but she couldn’t stop herself.
He was tall and lean but not skinny by any means. He had a wiry build that spoke of hidden strength and muscles in exciting places. His shoulders were broad and tapered to a slim waist. The tee shirt he wore under the open button-down accentuated his build, allowing Heather to wonder what he did to work out.
Her gaze was wandering further downward, when he interrupted her with, “I wasn’t sure what you were fixing, so I brought both.”
Heather snapped her eyes back up, to where she could see he was holding up two bottles of wine, one red and one white.
“Oh, um…chicken. So, I guess the white.” She answered, distracted, shaking her head a little to clear the muddle out.
He grinned at her, and she stepped aside to let him in, inhaling his warm, spicy scent as he ambled by. “Chicken, huh? Smells good.” He sniffed appreciatively, as he turned in a circle to examine her living area. "Nice place. I like the use of space." The owners had converted the space over the garage into an apartment, with actual rooms, although they were small. “You read?”
She laughed at him. “Don’t act so surprised.”
He looked at her with crystalline, appraising eyes. “I just didn’t expect you to have so many books.”
“I read a lot.” She shrugged. “No big deal.”
He walked over to one of the bookcases that lined three walls of her living room. “Some of these are quite old,” he mused.
“Yeah, what little extra money I have, I spend on books. I love the older classics. I can’t seem to help myself.”
“Have you read them all?” He asked, looking around at all the books, awe evident in his expression.
“Most of them.” She walked over to where he was standing and stood next to him, trying to see her living room from his point of view. “Some of the older books, I’m afraid to mess with too much, so I haven’t read all of them.” She gestured to the bookshelf he was standing next to. “But I try to get more recent publications to paw through with my doughnuts and coffee.” She said with a wry grin.
He reached across her and started to pull a book off the shelf. “Do you mind if I look?” He asked her.
His sudden nearness made her a little breathless. “Go ahead. I’ve got to get dinner on the table. It’ll just be a minute.” In order to gather her thoughts, she left him to his musings with the books and went to pull the chicken out of the oven. She dished up the green beans into a serving bowl and did the same with the au gratin potatoes. Wrapping the rolls up to warm them quickly, she went back into the living room.
“Dinner’s ready. Do you want to eat while it’s hot?” She asked him. He was looking at a small volume, and she knew immediately what it was. “That’s my favorite.”
He looked at her, surprise evident in his face. “Really?”
“I thought we already covered this. Ralph Waldo Emerson is my favorite author of all time.” She turned to go back into the kitchen, as he returned the book to the shelf.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “He just has such a simple way of looking at things, you know? Simplify your life, simplify your world, you end up closer to Divinity.” She pulled the rolls out of the oven and motioned for him to sit at the table. “I just wish it were that easy.”
“Why isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “Life is complicated.”
Trying to change the subject, unwilling to talk about her complicated life, she started opening the bottle of wine. When she had uncorked it, she looked up and reached for his glass. He was already holding it out for her. Staring at her, with his intense blue eyes, as if he could see deep into her soul. Something happened to her insides, making them like jello, and then her breath caught in her chest.
She sloshed wine all over the chicken.
“Oh crap. I’m sorry.” She jumped up to get a towel, and tried to sop up some of the mess. Uri finished pouring the wine and helped.
“It’s okay, Heather.” She noticed he was smothering a smirk on his face, and she appreciated his effort to not laugh at her clumsiness.
Finally, she sat down. Uri raised his glass for a toast, so she did the same.
“To destiny.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper.
Thinking it was a bit odd, she repeated his toast and they clinked glasses. “To destiny.” She sipped. It was exceptional wine. She hadn’t had any that good in a long time, maybe ever. Taking a l
arger sip, she savored the floral tones on her tongue.
They served themselves and ate in silence for a while. Heather was anxious around Uri and she managed to drink a few glasses of wine with dinner before he said, “This is wonderful, Heather. Thank you for inviting me.”
“Thank you for coming over.” She glowed under the compliment. Heather had been nervous about cooking for him, not sure what kind of food he liked. He seemed to be watching her intently, and she saw indecision on his face. Eventually, he seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, and relaxed visibly.
“I have something to tell you.”
The wine made it's presence known in her stomach, an acidic roiling that warred with the butterflies fluttering around in there. Usually, people she didn't know well didn’t start conversations with those words. And frankly, the people that she did know well didn’t start good conversations that way, either. She took another large sip of wine to help her swallow past the lump in her throat.
“Okay.”
“This may sound odd to you, but I would like for you to keep an open mind.”
She had enough crazy people in her life. Please don’t let this be another one.
“Okay.”
He took a deep breath. “Are you familiar with the archangels?”
She was surprised. This was not the direction she thought he'd be going. “As in the Bible?”
“There are some in the Bible, yes.”
“Well, I just know that there are four, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and another one.”
“Uriel.” He said quietly. “And there are seven. Those four are just the four most ‘popular’ ones, so to speak.”
“Okay.” So far, so good. He just knew his Bible. Not crazy. “So?”
“Uri is short for Uriel.”
“Okay. So you were named after an archangel.” She smiled at him, affably.
“No.” He stared straight through her, as if willing her to know what he was talking about, but she didn’t get it. Or, she didn't want to get it.
“What?”
“I am the archangel.” He said simply, his guileless eyes penetrating her, gauging her reaction.
Heather took another sip of wine, wiped her mouth with her napkin, and crossed her arms across her chest. Typical. Heather couldn't help but wonder what in the world it would take to find a decent guy that was both good looking and not crazy. Maybe she needed to move. The more she thought about it, the more her stomach sunk. He seemed so nice.
He took another deep breath and watched her carefully. She watched him watch her, not speaking.
“I help people fulfill their destinies.”
“Destinies? As in fate?" A scoff escaped her. She couldn't help it. "What we are fated to do? If we’re fated to do it, why do we need you?” She was humoring him. She didn’t believe a word of this, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.
“It’s not fate. I just show a possible destiny for a person. What they are capable of doing with their lives. It’s up to them to pursue it.”
“Like who?”
He thought a moment. “Emerson, for one. Anne Boleyn.” He scratched his chin. “Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Alexander Bell…”
“Steve Jobs? You’ve got to be kidding me!” That’s it. He was crazy. She stood up.
He looked puzzled. “No, I’m not.” He resumed his recitation. “Milton, daVinci, Curie, Pasteur, Einstein…”
As he spoke, something in the tonal quality of his voice made her remember the ballet he had hummed at the club. She was momentarily lost in his voice as he recited names to her. The heat in her belly spread throughout her torso and down her limbs, until she could feel the white-hot in her fingers and toes. Strangely, it was comforting.
“Are you…doing something to me?” She asked him quietly. This was incredibly weird, and she didn't like it much. Something about the way she felt was disconcerting. Could he be doing this to her?
He smiled a small smile at her, and the gesture gave his face a boyish quality. Heather couldn't believe he was an archangel, that would mean he was thousands of years old. “It’s part of the process. I’m not doing it, but it happens, when we meet, when I speak of the truth, when your destiny is fulfilled. I’m sorry if it’s uncomfortable.” He clenched his fingers. “It happens to me, too.” His smile widened, as if he was trying to comfort her.
Heather could argue his words. The feelings weren't uncomfortable, they were downright odd. But she couldn’t argue with the sensation that had taken over her entire body. She could feel the heat all over, her skin flushed, and a sweat broke out in her armpits and over her lip. The heat filled her body, flushing her skin a deep red color. Heather could feel the flush climb her cheeks and watched it spread down her arms.
“What is it?” She whispered.
Uri shrugged. “It’s hard to explain, but I’ve had the most success by telling people it’s the Holy Spirit.”
“I have the Holy Spirit inside me?” She thought back to other times she had felt the white heat in her belly: at the park, at the club. It hadn't felt exactly like this, though. A harsh bark of laughter escaped her.
Uri looked at her ruefully. “It’s hard for you to believe, isn’t it? My assignments keep getting more difficult. There just aren’t that many people left who take things on pure faith.”
“How do you lead people to their destiny?”
“It varies. Sometimes, it’s just as simple as telling them they are doing the wrong thing with their life. Others need some sort of vision.”
“Steve Jobs?”
Uri laughed at a memory. “Steve was easy. He knew he was destined for something, I just had to give him a slight nudge. His arrogance played in my favor, I’m afraid.”
“Who else did you say? Emerson?” Heather thought schizophrenics lived in their own reality. Maybe that's what was wrong with him. Maybe he believed this reality. Was it harmful to play along? Maybe if he got on some kind of medication, that would help…
“Ralph and his cronies were on the right track. I spent some time with him and Henry meditating on nature and its simplicities, and the rest just came to them naturally.” Heather didn’t miss his little play on words. “I’m proud of those guys. Many people since them have learned to become closer to God through nature and His miracles because of the Concord gang.”
“Who else? What did you do to other people?”
“I don’t do things to them, Heather. I show them. I make them think about their current path in life and what they can do to change it.” He leaned back in his chair looking pensive for a while. “Anne Boleyn took a little convincing. I did show her a vision of herself as Queen, showed her the possibilities. Unfortunately, she had very little faith and attributed the vision to witchcraft, which she began practicing more and more after I left her. It was her eventual downfall, I believe.” His voice saddened.
“Why did her destiny matter so much?”
“Why? She birthed the Virgin Queen. Queen Elizabeth the First, one of England’s most pivotal rulers. Elizabeth set a precedent for rulers to come and eventually brought the country to the heights that they enjoy today.”
“So, God’s not Catholic?” She joked.
“God’s not anything, Heather. He’s God. He’s everything.” Uri said simply.
“Why are you here now, then?” How elaborate this delusion was! Heather tried to think of ways to get him to a doctor, before she shook the thought out of her head. He's not my problem. I have enough complications.
“You are my assignment this time.”
She scoffed at him again, then stopped herself when she saw the look on his face. “Look, I’m not going to be inventing some life changing thing or develop some miracle process that will keep everyone from developing cancer. I won’t have any ideas that will change the way the world thinks. I’m a stripper. Nothing there.” She pointed to her head. She could humor him for now, and then after tonight, she would limit contact. He seemed nice and might make a good friend. She would have to p
ut romantic notions aside until he got treatment.
He sighed again. “That’s what I told Him, but He just told me to get to know you, and I would eventually see the destiny. I must admit, you are an enigma to me.”
She was pretty sure that he didn’t realize what he’d just said, so she let it slide. “You’ve spoken to God about me?”
“Yeah. He usually tells me what the destiny is, but He didn’t with you. I don’t get it. I’m flying blind here.”
Heather made the decision to take Uri with a grain of salt. So he seemed to be crazy. Something in his voice spoke to her, though, told her he wasn’t going to harm her, might even be good for her, somehow. But she couldn’t listen to this nonsense anymore.
“Uri, I like you. You seem like a nice guy. Really.” She reached across the table and grabbed his hand. He turned his palm upward and clutched hers back, sending a shock of electricity up her arm, which she tried to ignore. “But I can’t talk about this with you. I’m sorry. It’s too…” She squeezed his hand. “Weird. You know?” Not letting him answer, she continued. “It’s a little much for me to take. I have enough craziness in my life without this. Can we talk about something different?”
“I’m not delusional, Heather,” he said softly.
“Okay, I just can’t talk about this anymore right now.” She stood from the table and grabbing her wine glass and the half-full bottle, walked into the living room. Uri followed, bringing his glass.
“Tell me about you, Heather. How was your visit with your sister?”
”You don’t know? I thought you were omniscient,” she said, sarcastically.
“The Boss is, I’m not. I only know what He lets me know.” He sounded hurt, and she looked at him closer. His eyes did seem to hold a wisdom that contradicted the age of his body.
She sighed. “It didn’t go well. My sister’s an addict, and has been since…” She paused, not sure how much she wanted to tell him. “For more than half her life. I take care of her, whether she wants me to or not.” She played with the end of her hair, twisting it around a finger. “She would be living on the streets if I didn’t go in and help her. There’s no telling what would happen to her, if I weren't here for her.” Heather shuddered at the thought.
