Ordinary Angels
by
India Drummond
Ordinary Angels
Copyright © 2011, India Drummond
Trindlemoss Publishing electronic publication: September 1, 2011
http://www.trindlemoss.com
eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorised reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organisations is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United Kingdom by Trindlemoss Publishing, 2011
e-ISBN: 978-1-908436-04-7
paperback ISBN: 978-1-908436-05-4
Dedication
To Colin, who understands my artistic temperament and loves me anyway.
My very own angel.
Acknowledgements
Warm, heartfelt thanks to: Marsha Moore and Mollie Bryan for helping me through those early drafts, Jill Watt for letting me borrow her car and her mailman, and Daniel Mahgerefteh for showing me the secret life of a Tuesday dancer. To John Ponderoyn, Ute-Christine Klehe, and Rhonda Kurz: You were there at the beginning of this writer’s journey, before this story was even a twinkle in my eye. Thank you. Most of all I owe deep gratitude to Kate McIntire. Your never-failing faith and encouragement made so many things possible, including this book.
Chapter 1
All but one of Zoë Pendergraft’s friends were dead. This didn’t bother her, because most had died long before she met them. Henry, for example, died in 1883. Not in the Fiskers building itself, obviously, since the Fiskers building wasn’t constructed until 1924. Of all the spirits she saw living their afterlives, she only called a few friends, and Henry topped that list.
She looked up and down the corridor once more to make sure no one could see her. “Henry?” she called as she stepped into the company’s vast, dank boiler room and closed the scuffed, dirty door behind her. “It’s me. Zoë.” She’d had to avoid several co-workers on the way to the maintenance area, but she had a special reason to visit Henry today.
“I know it’s you, Miss Zoë. I always can tell.” Henry appeared from behind a series of pipes along the north wall. He must have been handsome when he was alive. She saw the appeal, even though he wore the overalls of a railway worker from the nineteenth century. Henry’s wide, dark face broke into a grin, showing a full set of gleaming teeth.
“I brought you a present,” Zoë said, matching his smile with her own.
“Now, you didn’t have to do that. You know it’s enough that you come see Old Henry and chat once in a while.”
With a dip into her jacket pocket, she closed her hand around the small metal object. “Guess what it is,” she said.
“Why I couldn’t begin to guess, Miss Zoë. You’re always full of surprises.”
She held out her hand and revealed an antique key. The decorative top, or bow as Henry had taught her to call it, had blackened with age, but she could still see the intricate scrollwork forming the cloverleaf design. The post had two identical bits on either side. Viewed together, they looked like two capital Fs back to back.
“I found it at a shop on Union Street. Isn’t it great?” One of the things she loved about San Francisco was the fantastic antique stores dotted all over the city.
Henry towered over her and peered at the key in her hand. “That’s just fine, Miss Zoë. The finest one I’ve ever seen.” His weathered face glowed for a second as he placed a hand over the key.
Zoë could have sworn the key shimmered blue when he got closer, but the effect passed so quickly she dismissed the thought. “Shall I put it with the others then?” She crossed to the farthest, darkest corner of the boiler room where a pegboard hung in front of a forbidding and disused metal door. On the pegboard was a mismatched collection of odds and ends from a century past with a few things even older than Henry. She placed the new key on an empty peg somewhere in the middle, above a line of trinkets that included a pocket watch, a small knife, and a carved piece of ivory. Nothing was particularly valuable, but they had each caught her eye, and she knew Henry loved old keys. “There.”
When she turned around, Henry looked teary. He pulled an old hanky out of his pocket and wiped his nose.
“Oh, Henry, I’d give anything to be able to give you a hug right now.”
Henry smiled. “You sit yourself down, Miss Zoë, and I’ll tell you a story.”
About nine months ago, shortly after she had started coming to see Henry, she’d smuggled down an old quilt to cover a long metal box. It wasn’t enough to make the seat soft, but it did protect her from the worst of the grime. She made herself comfortable on it now, settling in for a chat. Henry put his hand over hers. It went right through, and a deep chill made her bones ache. She tried to suppress the shiver that sliced through her body, because she wouldn’t want to offend her dear friend.
“In 1878 I worked for Southern Pacific as a stake driver,” Henry began and then interrupted himself. “Have I told you this before?”
“Don’t think so,” Zoë said, although he had. Dead people, she noticed, had a horrible sense of anything that happened after they quit living. Time got fuzzy and days, weeks, even years ran together into an insignificant blur.
Henry had a gift for storytelling though, so she didn’t mind the repetition. The images of the men working in the hot sun floated in her mind as if she’d blistered her back alongside them. Painting scenes of life in another age, he often talked about the “China House” where he’d bunked with the Chinese railway workers, and sometimes touched on his time in the gold mines in Lament, California. She’d noticed spirits rarely talked about how they died. Although she was curious, it seemed rude to ask, and Henry was such an old gentleman that she didn’t want to offend him. She’d been able to see ghosts for all her twenty-five years, and she’d learned which topics to avoid.
When her watch beeped once, Zoë couldn’t believe how the hour had sped by. She looked up at Henry, who hadn’t noticed the sound. He was in full swing, talking about his foreman, Bill Bradshaw, and the argument one day over water that nearly got him and his friend Li killed.
“I’m sorry, Henry. It’s time to go back to work.”
“Time,” he said and shook his head sadly. “I thank you for the key, Miss Zoë. It’s a real beauty.”
“It’s nothing,” she said as she stood to straighten her skirt and slip her shoes on.
“I met a lot of people in my life, Miss Zoë, and I’ve met even more after it.” He smiled and his eyes glistened. “It’s not nothing when a young, pretty girl takes the time for an old man like me. You should be out doing whatever it is girls do nowadays. Going to the shows or something.”
“I do, Henry. Just not at lunch time.” She made her way to the door, wanting to leave before he got to fussing about her social life and telling her to find some man to settle down with and have babies. There was no way a spirit could understand what it meant to be able to see him and the others, and how it made talking with regular people painful at times, and finding that special someone a distant dream. She waved when she got to the door, wiggling her fingers and grinning. “Bye, Henry. See you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Miss Zoë. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be here.”
&nb
sp; Zoë breathed easier after her visit with Henry. Tension and work headaches melted. She happily took the stairs two at a time back to the main floor. On the way, one or two guys in gray jumpsuits with bright yellow reflective stripes across their torsos waved and smiled. They’d gotten used to her coming into their domain nearly every day. As far as she could tell, they didn’t think anything of it, except maybe they thought she was on the odd side for taking her lunch hour in the boiler room.
Before she returned to her desk, she ducked into the ladies room to dust herself off. It was always wise to check if her brown curls had gotten unruly while she lounged below. She pondered her reflection, considering getting highlights, and then dismissed the thought.
While she applied some lip-gloss, a wisp of light reflected in the bathroom mirror caught her eye. The wisp shuddered for a moment as a small girl flickered into the room.
“Have you seen my mommy?”
Zoë turned around and did her best to smile at the child spirit. “No, honey. I haven’t.”
“My house shook, and I got stuck. After I got loose, I couldn’t find her.”
Without thinking, Zoë bent down and reached toward her. The spirit extended a tiny hand. As the cold chill of her touch bored through Zoë’s fingers, the girl vanished.
The bathroom door swung open as Zoë straightened up, and Marilyn Baker walked in. Marched was more like it. Zoë fought not to roll her eyes. “Hi, Marilyn,” she said.
“Are you all right?” Marilyn made everything sound like criticism. Today she wore her short black hair tight around her face, making her look even more severe than usual. Her black vest showed too much cleavage, and her high heels made her at least five foot ten, tall enough to tower over Zoë’s petite frame.
“Yeah,” Zoë said, walked to the trash receptacle on the wall and pretended to throw something in it. “Just dropped something.”
“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you.”
Zoë fought the rising annoyance. She was entitled to her lunch hour, and she was at most two minutes late back to her desk. “Um, just popped down to maintenance. Light bulbs.”
“Again? Look, I’ve told you to call extension five-three-one and they will send someone around. And tell them to bring you a new desk lamp. It’s ridiculous how often that one burns out.”
Zoë shrugged. “Okay.” She found it best to agree with Marilyn as often as possible.
“It’s not as though you don’t have enough to do without doing maintenance’s job for them.”
She realized she’d better leave before Marilyn noticed she wasn’t carrying any light bulbs, so she chirped, “Back to work,” and slipped out the door.
As she stepped into the corridor Zoë collided with her best friend, in truth her only living friend, Simone Wallace. Simone nearly dropped the manila folder she clutched in her arms. Her long hair perfectly framed her dark oval face.
“There you are,” Simone said, flicking her red nails with a gesture of annoyed impatience. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“I had lunch with Henry.”
“Do you know Dustin Bittner?” Simone asked, her coal-black eyelashes fluttering.
Zoë grinned. She loved that she could tell Simone things, like how she’d had lunch with a dead man, and Simone wouldn’t notice, much less call her a nut. Too much of Zoë’s life had been occupied with making certain no one found out about her peculiar abilities, so having someone with whom she could be herself was a relief. “Sure,” she said as they walked toward her desk. “Second floor. Engineer, I’m pretty sure.”
“Married?” Simone sounded eager, like she’d picked up a scent.
“I dunno. I take him mail sometimes if it comes through the project office, but I don’t really talk to him.”
“He’s not wearing a ring, I don’t think. It was hard to tell without staring.” Simone looked thoughtful. “You should do your psychic thing on him.”
Zoë sat down in her chair and chuckled. “It would only work if he were dead, Simone. And maybe not even then. You know how it is.”
Simone eyed her, obviously not knowing how it was. But Zoë wouldn’t bother once again explaining the difference between a medium and a psychic.
“Why don’t you do an internet search? Isn’t stalking potential boyfriends the reason God gave us Google?” Zoë pulled a file folder out of her desk and shifted through a pile of expense receipts.
“I did, but I didn’t find much. You gotta help me.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can find out. Maybe there will be a letter for him soon, and I’ll call you to take it to him. Give you an excuse to say hello.”
“Me?” Simone said, “You have to be kidding. I can’t do that. You do it, and ask him if he knows me.”
Zoë laughed. “That’s the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard.”
“Say whatever you want. You’re good with people.” Simone looked toward the door, and her tone changed. “Mmm, mmm. Special delivery.”
Zoë started to argue about being good with people and amend it to say she was good with dead people, which wasn’t the same thing, but her friend’s slack-jawed expression distracted her. She turned to follow Simone’s line of sight when she saw him.
“He’s radiant,” Zoë said absently, staring at something her brain could not quite process. A man walked toward them, but even that wasn’t right. Although every part of her body told her this was indeed a man, the word didn’t come close. Not a spirit. Too solid. Her eyes scanned him up and down. Very solid.
“He’s something,” Simone agreed, nearly dropping her folder again.
The oddest thing about this person, Zoë realized, was that he wore blue shorts. Mailman shorts. Glancing at his tanned legs, she indulged in a momentary fantasy, and swallowed hard. All of a sudden, she noticed he stood in front of her desk, smiling down at her. “You’re the mailman,” she said, not yet in complete control of her powers of speech.
“I am,” he said in a tone that was unbelievably sexy, considering the brevity of the statement. “I am supposed to give you this,” he said and handed her a bundle of letters. “And these,” he continued, and produced a few small padded envelopes out of his blue mailman’s bag.
“Aren’t you going to ask me for my phone number?” Zoë blurted out and then blushed all the way to her hairline.
“Does Ronald do that?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, not adding that she never gave it to the regular postman who flirted with her daily. If Zoë was honest, which she nearly always strove to be, she didn’t mind that Ronald persisted. It had become a game, but one she didn’t particularly want to follow through.
“Why does he ask for your phone number?” the new mailman asked, leaning forward as though expecting to hear something important and secret.
“To ask her out. Are you stupid or something?” Simone’s uncharacteristic sharpness snapped Zoë back to reality.
“Simone,” she whispered harshly.
“Well, really. What kind of dumb question is that?” Simone mumbled.
The mailman burst into delicious, warm laughter. He ran his hand over his choppy, light brown hair. “I am not sure what kind of dumb question it is. How many kinds are there?” He squeezed his eyes together in what could only be described as a two-eyed wink. Not a blink, but the sort of thing a child does when he doesn’t know how to close only one eye.
Marilyn burst into the cluster of three with a loud clacking walk. She leaned over to straighten her strappy high heel, and showed her deep cleavage. She had mastered overt sexuality without being sexy in the least. Marilyn’s eyes instantly locked on the mailman, devouring every inch of him.
“I’m not paying you to stand around gossiping,” she said with her usual sharp tone, although she hadn’t managed to peel her gaze off the new arrival.
He grinned. “Are you paying me?”
Simone snorted a laugh. “No,” she said, “But I, for one, am getting paid to be here, so I’m going back to work.” She to
ok her folder and sashayed away, giving her hips an extra wiggle as she did. “Goodbye, M.B.,” she said to Marilyn.
“Erm, goodbye,” Marilyn said. Poor thing didn’t know M.B. stood for Mega-Bitch and not Marilyn Baker, however, Zoë could tell her instincts had kicked in and told her something was up. It didn’t take any special powers of deduction to know Simone didn’t like her.
Zoë suppressed a smile. “I should get back to work too,” she said to the postman.
“Okay,” he said. “May I have your phone number?”
“Um, yeah. Okay,” Zoë said, wrote down her mobile and handed it to him.
“I do not have a phone though,” he said, which might have annoyed her coming from anyone else, but from him, it sounded adorable and charming.
“And I don’t know your name,” she replied, surprised at herself. She never gave her number to strange men, and this one had a quality she couldn’t call anything but strange.
“Alexander,” he said, “but I am not really a postman.”
Marilyn stood, still staring. “But you brought the mail.”
Zoë feared Marilyn was going to hear something she wasn’t ready for. “Thank you, Marilyn,” she said, hoping she wouldn’t pay too dearly for it later. Zoë knew Alexander wasn’t a spirit, but he wasn’t human either. The possibilities made her edgy. The unknown unsettled her.
Marilyn walked away without another comment, to Zoë’s surprise, but she did it reluctantly, as though she wanted to find an excuse to stay, but couldn’t.
“I’m Zoë Pendergraft. So, what are you, Alexander? You’re not human.”
“I am an angel.” Something in his tone convinced her Alexander was telling the absolute truth. “And what are you?” The question could have sounded simple or stupid, but he was neither. His green eyes radiated something magnificent and beautiful. The way his tousled hair stuck out around his face seemed artful and perfect.
Zoë didn’t know how to answer. Several thoughts presented themselves, but none fit. So she did what any woman would: she ignored the question. “I guess if you don’t have a phone, you’re not going to call me.” She stopped herself before adding “for a date”, but she needn’t have bothered.
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