Angel Angst

by Abby L. Vandiver

  She grunted as she stood, and headed down the hall to the kitchen. She turned on the radio that sat on the countertop and rambled around filling up Duke’s bowls with water and kibble, washing some dishes that had piled up in the sink, and warming leftovers for herself.

  She sat with her feet up in the chair, knees bended and dappled her fork in her food, her appetite lost.

  “I need a sign to let me know you're here,” came the song from the radio. “All of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere. I need to know that things are gonna look up. I need a hand to help build up some kind of hope inside of me. And, I'm calling all angels. I'm calling all you angels.”

  “Oh geesh!” Sunny said and got up and went over to the radio.

  “That was Calling All Angels by Train-” was all the DJ got out before she turned him off. She picked up her plate from the table, dumped the food into the trash and the plate into the sink and went back to her bedroom.

  Duke, moved away from the wall, and kept Sunny company while she changed into her pajamas and brushed her teeth, not letting out even a whimper, or a clue as to what he found so fascinating with the wall.

  “You worried, too?” she asked the as she rubbed his head on the way out of the bathroom, even though he hadn’t appeared to be. She just didn’t want to alone in her frustration. She climbed into bed and patted it. “C’mon boy, we can just worry together.”

  The first part of the night, Sunny had had a fitful sleep, dreaming of running, trying to get away from Detective Dunley. But she couldn’t do it, no matter how fast she ran, it wasn’t fast enough. Cowering down on the ground, her head buried in her knees, she relented to him, holding up her hands over her head, waiting for the handcuffs. He threw her in jail and the jailer, Divit, threw away the key, only it seemed to float away and get lost in a bright lights that seemed eons away.

  Her nightmare jolted her woke. She sat up in the bed and swiped her hand through her hair. Duke was back at the wall, and looking around she realized she was in her bedroom, not a barred cell, and that everything was okay. So she scooted back down in the bed and pulled the covers up to her ears. It was wasn’t long before she drifted back off, thinking of her angel, and knowing all the power a warrior archangel had, and as the night wore on, the eye fluttering evidence of her earlier nightmares vanished and Sunny slept peacefully. When she awoken, she barely had a recollection of the torment her subconscious had put her through.

  Sunny rose early, got out of bed and went and stood at the window. The morning sun filtered in through her sheer curtains, she pulled the drapes back and saw that the cold and snow from the day before had all but disappeared. Sunny placed her palm against the window and found that the bright sun couldn’t over take the chill that still lingered. But to Sunny the day didn’t look as dismal as the one before where she’d endured watching Fleming Bennett murdered, in fact, she smiled, it looked promising.

  Sunny shook the memory of the day before off, tucking it in the back recesses of her mind. It was the day of her best friend’s graduation from seminary school, and she was going to be happy and help him celebrate.

  “It’s going to be a great day, Duke,” Sunny said.

  She hopped in the shower and hastily grabbed a towel wrapping it around her as she went to her bedroom. Dropping the towel she reached for her underwear on the bed where she laid out her clothes.

  “Wait,” Sunny said looking around. She grabbed the towel and covered herself again. “Are you in here?” She looked around the room remembering the lotion and deodorant flying off the shelf. She looked over at Duke. “Do you think that angel is in here?” He let his tongue wag, but gave no response.

  “How am I supposed to get dressed with angels lurking around?” she said. She grabbed the new outfit she’d bought just for the occasion, and went inside her closet.

  Emerging, a few minutes later fully dressed, she sat at her vanity and put the finishing touches on her hair and face.

  “Divit is going to be a priest. Can you believe it?” Sunny said to Duke, who was giving his wall-watching a break. She spread shiny pink gloss on and smeared it in with a pop of her lips. “How do I look?” She stood up and turned around. “Never know. I might find someone, as Divit seems to always push me to do, to go out to lunch with.” Sunny tugged on her skirt then picked up her purse off the bed and slung it over her head and across one shoulder. “No kisses for you today, Duke,” Sunny said and leaned over to get one last look in the mirror. “Don’t want you messing up my makeup.”

  Sunny grabbed her black and white hounds tooth coat on her way out, and headed to her VW Beetle. She expected that the day would be a good day, as all the days that followed. She hoped that her guardian angel was going to make everything alright.

  Isn’t that what angels do?

  She smiled at the thought.

  And that smile stayed plastered on her face until after the graduation was over. Initially because she was happy for Divit, then because it was the only way to suffer through the impatience of Divit’s parents who found the three hour ceremony three hours longer than any attention they cared to give to it.

  Mrs. Chowdary, dressed in a beautiful turquoise, silk sari with gold edging, kept wringing her hands mumbling. Every now and then she’d hit Mr. Chowdary to check if he was listening, but he couldn’t listen to her because he was fussy himself.

  No wonder Divit is always such a Debbie Downer, Sunny thought. He comes from a whole family of complainers!

  But once Divit’s mother walked back into her kitchen, and his father eased into his recliner, Sunny let that coated smile go, rubbed her cheeks and blew out a breath. His parents had miraculously become instantly pleasant again.

  “Why did your parents even come to the graduation?” Sunny asked. She was helping Divit set the table for the feast his mother was busy preparing. “It was so obvious how unhappy they were about the whole thing. Your mother kept mumbling something like ‘log kak-ya in-ya.’”

  Divit laughed. “Log kya kahenge,” pronouncing it correctly. “It means ‘what will people say?’” He shook his head. “Kind of embarrassing to her me being a priest. But in spite of her worrying about that, I’m still her son. Both of their son, and they love me,” Divit said and hunched his shoulders.

  Sunny chuckled. “A very well loved son evidently. I mean it’s enough food in there to feed an army. They don’t like what you did, but she’s making a feast to celebrate?”

  “A feast for the masses,” Divit said and nodded. “Although she tries to feed me every morsel of food she can find because I’m dubla patla.” He pointed to his thin frame. “She’s also invited an army to come.”

  “Nooo!” Sunny’s eyes wide.

  “Yes.”

  “Even though she hates what you did?” she asked. “They’re still throwing a party?”

  “Yep. My parents hate it, and so do the rest of my family. But my mother would never admit to me doing anything wrong in front of anyone else. She wants them to think I am the perfect son.”

  “They all don’t like that you went to seminary?”

  “That I want to be a priest.” Divit pulled the cloth napkins out of the buffet and started placing them on the table. “You know, Hinduism, what my family practices, is in opposition to Christianity on practically every level.”

  “Ouch,” Sunny said and sat the last glass goblet on the table. “So once everyone’s here, does that mean it’ll be multiple death rays cast your way?”

  “Hinduism believes that all life is sacred, so I’m not so sure they’d be death rays. Maybe just ones for mind control, so they can turn me from my wicked priestly-wanting ways.” Divit laughed. “Just be prepared to duck and weave the rest of the afternoon. I wouldn’t want a stray ray to accidently hit you.”

  They both laughed. But the afternoon didn’t turn out a bad as Sunny would have imagined. Along with the tamarind rice, beans poriyal with curry, coconut and turmeric flavoring, sambar, a lentil-based vegetable chowder with o
kra, shallots and onions and spicy rasam soup, there was good conversation all through dinner, and even a good laugh by all when Sunny discovered that the Bombay duck she was eating was really lizardfish.

  Divit’s was right, his mother was exceptionally nice to Divit while the masses – several aunts, uncles, and cousins – were present, and Sunny didn’t have to duck one ray. After everyone left, Divit leaned into Sunny and whispered. “I’ve got something to show you.”

  “What is it?” Sunny asked.

  “Come on. We’re going to my place.”

  Divit’s ‘place’ was in the basement of his parents’ home. Going through the kitchen, Divit’s mother caught the two of them before they could head down the stairs.

  “Are you to take her down there?” His mother asked a panicked look on her face. “Your room is in a mess!”

  “My room is not a mess,” Divit said.

  “Clean it,” she said her eyes pleading. “Why do you make me say it every day?”

  Divit opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He looked at Sunny and back at his mother.

  She waved her hand at him, gesturing for him to go on down the steps. “Tumhara kuch nahi ho sakta!” She yelled behind him.

  “What did she say?” Sunny asked once they got in the basement.

  “There is nothing that can be done about you,” Divit translated his mother’s words. “Meaning I’m a hopeless case.”

  Sunny laughed. “I tell you that all the time.”

  “Perhaps that’s why I was drawn to you as a friend,” he said. “You reminded me of my mother.”

  Sunny turned and looked around the room. A twin bed set in one corner with a dresser. And in the middle of the room an old green sofa sat opposite his desk and computer, with all of his books and trophies for baseball and soccer placed neatly on a shelf above. He had posters on the walls, no television, but a stereo system with a turntable and a rack of vinyl records. Everything in its place, no clothes tossed around, no papers strewn about.

  “Your room isn’t messy.”

  “Tell my mother that,” Divit said and sat down at his desk. “Come over here, let me show you this.” He turned around and faced his computer. Powering it up, he signed on to his Facebook account.

  “You’re on Facebook?” Sunny asked. “Is that allowed for priests?”

  “I’m not a priest yet,” Divit said. “But I’m sure the Vatican will see the need of social media in fully administering to the needs of their parishioners.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sunny said, a smile in her eyes. “You only wish.”

  “Look,” Divit said and pointed to the screen.

  A look of gloom replaced the gleam that had been in Sunny’s eyes. “That’s Fleming Bennett,” she said. “You looked her up on Facebook?”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to see what she looked like. What she was like.”

  “That’s a little morbid,” Sunny said standing straight and taking a step backward from the desk. “You wanting to see the face of a dead girl.” Sunny turned her back to the screen and crossed her arms around her torso. “I can’t get her face out of my head.” She shook her head. “I don’t need to see it again.”

  “She posted about everything, and none of her pages are private. She wanted to share what she did with everyone, even strangers. Look,” he said clicking through her photos. “She’d just moved to a new apartment. Bought a pair of shoes.”

  Those canary blue shoes flashed into Sunny’s mind and took hold of her. She felt a tear well up in her eye, and that same knot that had rose up in her throat and had settled in the day before, seemed to grow. She closed her eyes and tried to shake all of it loose.

  “Even every time she went to a restaurant she’d post pictures of the food she ate,” Divit was still giving a rundown of Fleming’s activities. “This one was posted the night before she died.”

  “Really, Divit?” Sunny spun around and looked at him. “Why are you looking at that?”

  “They’re having a candlelight vigil tonight outside of this bar she used to go to,” he said turning to look at her.

  “What are you planning on going?”

  “No. Of course not,” Divit said. “I was just saying. It’s a memorial for her. They said she loved candles.” He pointed back at his computer monitor. “One person posted that she kept them all over her apartment.”

  “I really don’t want to talk about that,” Sunny said.

  “What have you decided to do about it?” Divit asked turning in his chair to look at Sunny.

  “Do?” She frowned. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know.” Divit shrugged. “Something.” He massaged his temple with his fingers. “You were a witness to her murder.”

  “An unwitting witness,” Sunny said.

  “Have you seen any more of your guardian angel?” Divit asked.

  “No. I haven’t.” Sunny looked at him. She sat, perching herself on the edge of the couch. “I haven’t heard anything from Detective Dunley either, so I was thinking, maybe that means I’m out of trouble.” She held out her hands. “So maybe I won’t have to do anything. Maybe my angel took care it.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you said yesterday. But, I don’t think you not hearing about it means that you’re out of the woods,” Divit said, he stood up and started pacing the floor. “You’re going to let this escalate and it won’t be good for you.”

  “What are you talking about? You don’t know,” Sunny said and locked eyes with him. She sucked her tongue. “I just don’t know about you.”

  “What?” Divit said surprise in his voice.

  “Why are you always the pessimist?” she asked.

  “Why do you always think everything is just going to automatically be okay?” Divit countered.

  “I don’t,” Sunny said, she lifted one of the curls in her hair and started to twirl it. “I just think that you won’t know if things can get better if you don’t think they will.”

  “Think that things will be better?”

  “Yes. Positive thinking.”

  “Well I’ve always said that peppy, optimistic attitude of yours was going to get you into trouble one day, now look what happened to you.” He stopped pacing and looked at her.

  Sunny let her head fall onto the back of the couch, exasperated, she said, “I don’t think me being optimistic had anything to do with what happened yesterday.”

  “Maybe not Fleming’s death, but with the aftermath.”

  “The aftermath?” Sunny let out a slight chuckle. “It wasn’t a tsunami, Divit. There will be nothing cataclysmic that’ll happen because of what I saw yesterday.” She looked at him. “And why are you talking about her like you knew her?”

  “I do know her. As one of God’s children. I not only looked her up on Facebook. I checked out her Twitter feed, read some of her tweets.” He stared off. “It seemed like I made a connection with her. She was a person. A human being.”

  “I know she was human,” Sunny said. “But you can’t make a connection with a dead person. Especially one you never met.”

  “She was going after things in her life.” Divit sat next to Sunny on the couch. “She wanted to be a model. And she was beautiful. She was excited about her future. Now look at her.” Divit turned to Sunny. “And that’s you. You think that things are always going to be okay, Sunny. That’s not how the world works, and even if it were, you are too shy, or introverted, or whatever you want to call it, to turn your optimism into action.”

  “I am not. I moved here didn’t I?”

  “Yep, you moved to the big city, how long ago? And the only friend you have is me. You getting out into the world meant staying inside your studio.”

  “I meet customers.”

  “And how many of those customers have you made friends with. Gone out to lunch with?”

  “Oh, there you go. You’re always wanting me to eat with strangers.”

  “Th
ey could become friends.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to do.” Sunny filled up her cheeks with air and blew it out. She bent forward, balanced her elbows on her knees and held her head in her hands.

  “You should have stayed at the crime scene until the police came, maybe you’d be less of a suspect right now.”

  “Well, I can’t change that now,” she spoke through the hands that covered her face.

  “And you should have stood up to that detective when he kept accusing you of murder.”

  “What was I supposed to say to him other than I didn’t do it?” She pulled her hands down from her face and eyed Divit. “I’m not trying to get thrown in jail for giving him a hard time. Detective Phillip Dunley is a mean man.”

  “I shall smite him.” A low, rumbling voice fanned past their ears.

  Sunny jumped up startled, she and Divit looked at each other then they turned to scan for the origin of the voice.

  “Did you hear that?” Sunny asked, her voice so low it was barely audible.

  “Yes, I heard it,” Divit whispered back. “Do you smell that?” He hopped off the couch and turned in circles. “I think it’s vanilla incense. Or maybe sandalwood.” He eyed Sunny, his eyes gleaming. “It’s the angel.”

  “You think?” Sunny said sarcastically.

  “Where is he?” Divit asked.

  Sunny did a 360 degree turn, then pointed to a darker corner of the dimly lit basement. “There,” she said.

  They both turned their gaze where she’d pointed, and hovering midway up the height of the room near the shelf that housed his stereo equipment, they saw a small twinkling light. It looked like a single remnant of a fireworks display.

  “Is he going to completely appear?” Divit asked and looked at Sunny.

  “I don’t kn-” but before she could finish her sentence the angel formed into the shape of a man. “I guess he is,” Sunny said and pointed again.

  “What is he wearing?” Divit stood up and talked low out the corner of his mouth.