by C Farren
Chapter 4
Jordan flitted through her mind in various stages of undress as she left the coffee shop. He was clearly in love with her. She hadn’t been imagining it. He had winked at her suggestively, right? He wanted her.
No way! There’s no way someone as young and fit as him could ever fancy someone over fifteen years older than he was. I’m old and ugly and have at least three grey hairs at last count. He must be playing me.
But what if he really did want her? Could she really pass up on the chance of making out with someone who made Chris Hemsworth look like a troll that had just been beaten to a pulp with the ugly stick?
She needed someone to confide in.
“Who’s Jordan again?” Maureen asked.
Wren sighed. Maureen at the unemployment office had been the only person she could think of to talk to at that moment in time. Miranda would be dealing with the kids’ post-school and she didn’t want to disturb her, and Keegan was off investigating his burglary. Maureen would have to do for the moment. She was the kind of person who lived off other people’s drama, judging by the Days of Our Lives calendar on her desk.
“He works in Metropolis, a coffee shop in Snowflake Bay,” Wren told her again. The woman had the attention span of a geriatric goldfish. “You must know him. You live in Snowflake Bay, right? You could hardly forget those buns.”
“Oh yes,” said Maureen, smiling. Her huge nose twitched like a rabbit staring down a carrot. “I know him, and his buns are delicious. I get crumbs all over the place!”
Either she was trying really hard with her euphemisms or she was actually talking about edible buns. Wren realized it was the latter.
“He winked at me,” Wren confessed, playing with her hair, nervous. At the moment it was frizzy and mousy brown and a tangled mess of split ends. “I’m not sure what it means. What do you think it means?”
“He might have glaucoma,” Maureen suggested.
“He’s only twenty-one,” Wren reminded her.
Maureen crossed her arms. “My uncle started going bald when he was five, and I know of a woman who had a baby in her sixties. This world is odd. Look at your hair for example.”
“What...what’s wrong with my hair?”
Maureen sighed audibly. There was a giant mole on the woman’s neck. It had a thick, tiny hair sprouting from it. The mole was mocking her. She hated that mole and everything it stood for. The mole was evil.
“Do you want me to be honest?” Maureen asked.
Wren had a feeling that Maureen was going to be very blunt. She suddenly didn’t want to hear this. The angel had been bad, but Maureen was going to be vicious.
“Maureen, I...”
“You don’t use conditioner. You don’t comb your hair. You look like you fell asleep in a construction site.”
Wren gasped. “Listen, Maureen...”
Wren was about to shout at her and call her out on her own messy hair when she noticed something. Sitting at another booth and talking animatedly to another unemployment office worker was the angel. She was dressed in a sharp black business suit and her hair was tied up in a bun. When their eyes met Fiona smiled, waved, and continued talking.
“Who’s that?” Wren asked Maureen, pointing to the angel.
“I’ve never seen her before,” said Maureen. “What does she have to do with this weird barista you think fancies you?”
Wren sighed and said, “Nothing. Look, I better go. It was nice talking to you, Maureen. You were...refreshing.”
Maureen smiled genuinely, blushed and said, “You’re welcome.”
She eyed the angel as she left, almost walking into people in the process. What was she doing there, dressed like that? Was she spying on her or was she also out of a job and looking for work?
Did out of work angels get unemployment checks?
“Got you,” Wren exclaimed, grabbing the angel’s arm as she exited the building. She looked at her in surprise.
“Are you following me?” Wren asked.
“Believe it or not, I have more than one client,” said the angel primly. Her sharp business suit made her breasts heave spectacularly. “And they’re not all as hostile as you.”
“Oh.” Wren was embarrassed. “Sorry. So...how is it going?”
The angel grinned. “Damian is quite picky when it comes to finding his one true love. He has confidence issues. But I think I’ve found him someone truly special. Only now I have to accidentally set them up. That can be quite tricky, especially when you don’t have nearly as much magic as some of the other higher-up angels. Just because they have a god or goddess for a parent, they think they’re sooo special.”
“So, you’re a cupid as well as a...life fixer-upper person?”
The angel’s smile was wide and multi-dimensional. “As far as I’m concerned, both jobs compliment the other, and some people require...extra work.”
Wren mulled over her words, about magic and gods and goddesses. What gods and goddesses were those? Was she pulling her leg, or was she deadly serious? Wren knew she was angel, so that meant there were other things out there that would probably rock her world too.
“Anyway, I better get home,” Wren said, feeling awkward now. The angel was smiling at her expectantly. “I need to feed the cat.”
The angel held her hand out. “I’m Fiona by the way. I probably should’ve introduced myself last night.”
“Probably,” Wren mumbled.
Fiona smiled awkwardly. “So...”
Wren shook her hand and said, “Pleased to meet you. So...goodbye.”
Wren hurried off down the street, just in case Fiona tried to follow her. She had no doubt that the angel could use her magic or whatever to track her down like a pint-sized blonde Terminator, but at the moment, she just wanted to put some space between them and think.
Chapter 5
Wren didn’t believe in anything. She never had. Her parents weren’t churchgoers, though her father’s father was Jewish. God and religion had never really crossed her mind before. She may have offered up a prayer to whatever deity might be listening during the dark days with Alex, but that was her sole experience with such matters. If angels existed, and gods and goddesses, what did that mean?
Should I pray now? Would that help?
She unlocked her front door and picked up the post. It was nothing but bills. She always paid her bills on time, so they were never a worry. She was fussy like that. Her mother had once forgotten to pay the electricity bill when she was about nine or ten. She could still remember the cries of horror when the TV went off and Dad missed the end of a football game.
“Hi sweetie,” said Dad.
Wren almost jumped out of her skin. She’d forgotten he was still here. He must’ve been waiting for her to come back from the unemployment office all morning.
“I thought you’d left,” Wren said, flopping down in her comfy chair. She noticed Dad had gotten cookie crumbs all over the couch.
“I decided to stick around until you got back,” said Dad, lounging around as if he owned the place. He had even taken his socks off. “I thought we could have a nice long talk.”
Wren sighed and ran into the kitchen, eager to be away from him for a blissful moment. Something was going on with her dad other than the gambling and Mom chucking him out, she was sure of it. She wanted to help him, she really did, but he could make things so difficult sometimes.
She put some nibbles into Gracie’s food bowl before noticing the cat flap on the back door was half open. Sometimes it froze like that in bad weather.
Wren opened the back door. Her back garden was quite spacious, mostly lawn, but with a large patio under a wooden gazebo near the back. It required very little maintenance, which suited her just fine. Gardening was not her forte, though when she’d first bought the house, she’d tried to give the place a colorful, floral makeover. It hadn’t gone well.
Gracie sat on the small table under the gazebo with two other cats. One was ginger and the other was pur
e black. The black cat tugged at her recognition, though the ginger one didn’t ring any bells.
“Are you hungry?” Wren called.
All three cats turned to her, their watchful eyes boring into her soul. Wren was a little startled. There was something very sinister about it, like she’d caught them plotting world domination or something.
Are they plotting world domination?
Gracie ignored her and turned back to her friends. Wren left them to it. If she wanted to stay out in the cold, then it was up to her. Besides, it was time to bite the bullet and talk to her father. If it got him out of her hair and back into Mom’s house, then so much the better.
“So,” she said, sitting down next to him. “What do you want to talk about?”
He looked at his bitten nails, then at the ceiling, and then finally at his daughter. Wren suddenly started to fear the worst. Was he ill, or dying? Did he only have a week to live? Did he need a kidney?
“Say something,” Wren urged him. “You’re making me nervous.”
“Remember that bet I told you about last night? I used up the money we’d saved up for your mother’s dream holiday, and your mother is very angry with me.”
“I know that,” said Wren.
He appeared surprised but carried on anyway. “The thing is...I didn’t lose all that money. I won over a hundred grand.”
Wren could barely digest his words. “One hundred thousand dollars?”
He nodded. “I think it was the happiest moment of my life. Not counting marrying your mom and your birth, of course.”
She had this sudden image of her parents swimming in a pool full of bank notes. She jumped in after them, doing the breaststroke, fifty-dollar bills splashing into the air.
“Why is Mom angry then?” she asked. “You could take her anywhere she wanted with that amount of money.”
He looked at his nails again. He always did that when he was being shifty.
“I was on a roll,” he said. “I couldn’t lose. I had to know whether I could win more.”
Oh no. Please tell me he didn’t...
“I took my winnings and went to a private poker game,” Dad continued. His hands were trembling. “I was doing good at first, but...I bombed. I lost all the money.”
Wren patted him on the shoulder. “You should’ve just...”
“I’ve not finished yet.” He actually started to smile, as if it was one huge practical joke. “I needed to win Mom’s holiday savings back, and so I borrowed some money. I lost that too.”
Now they were getting to the crux of the matter. He wasn’t here to unburden himself of his guilt or ask for advice. He only wanted money.
“I know you still have the money you got when you sued the tourist office, and...”
Wren laughed, cutting him off midsentence. He really had no idea.
“I used that money to buy the house,” Wren said. “I told you that.”
He looked at her, terrified. “You never told me that. I would remember if you’d told me that!”
“Dad, I have no money. Why do you think I’m collecting unemployment checks?”
He threw the cat off his knee and stormed to the door. He gave her a look that said she’d disappointed him, and it cut her deep.
No. It’s not disappointment. He’s scared.
“You really have no money?” he asked. “Really? You got nearly a million dollars from the settlement.”
“I bought this house, and paid off yours and Mom’s mortgage, and I went on all the holidays I wanted,” she told him, worried now. “I got myself the most expensive health insurance for the rest of my life. I have about a grand left in savings. You can have that.”
“It’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough.”
He actually looked scared, though he was trying his hardest not to show it. Seeing her father like this was painful. He was supposed to be brave. He’d been a rock during the dark days. She never would’ve gotten through it without his love and support.
“Will you be okay?” she asked him.
He forced a smile. “Don’t worry about me, sweetie. I can work my way out of this mess. I always know what to do.”
“If you need my help for anything else you only have to ask.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “I know that.”
He left, leaving her desperately concerned about him. She wasn’t sure whom exactly he owed money to, but she doubted it was someone who would forget such a large debt in a hurry.
Chapter 6
Wren had the most absurd dreams that night. She dreamed she owed money to an angel with raven black wings and a mad frown. The angel chased her around the unemployment office until she gave in and spat five-dollar bills out of her mouth like a machine gun. Then Jordan walked in, called her an idiot, and stormed out again, saying he was going to be with someone who wasn’t stupid. It was bizarre and silly and she couldn’t get it out of her head.
“What do you think it means?” she asked her cat.
Her faithful feline yawned and went back to sleep. She wished she could sleep that easily. Oh, to be a cat...
She looked at her cell phone, sitting on her bedside table. She knew she should call her mother and tell her about the trouble Dad was in. She could sort it out. Her mother sorted everything out apart from the cracks in her own marriage. A loan shark would quiver at her mother’s heels!
She dialed the number quickly but received no answer. This was odd in itself. Her mother always answered the phone for fear she was missing out on something important. Was she dead? Had she been kidnapped?
I have to go around there, don’t I?
She dressed quickly in her hardly ever used running clothes and made her way around to her mother’s house as quickly as possible. There was no signs of a fire, or a burglary, or a terrorist attack. In fact, all was calm.
“I bet she was on the john,” she muttered to herself.
She was still worried, though, so she knocked politely on the door and waited for a response.
“Hello?” the man asked.
Wren looked at the man who had answered her mother’s door up and down for a second. He was in his late forties, with silver hair and a cheeky smile. His shirt appeared to be on inside out, and his tie hadn’t been done up properly. His face was flushed, like he’d been running a marathon.
“Who are you?” Wren asked.
The man grinned brazenly and said, “I’m Anthony. Who are you?”
“I’m the daughter of the people who live in this house.”
His face fell like a deflating soufflé. His face went redder, he panicked, and he slammed the door in her face. Wren waited for a few seconds before heading inside.
“Mom?” she called. “Dad?”
She went into the living room. All was suburban and normal.
“Mom?” she called again.
“Wren!” her mother shouted, peering around the side of the kitchen door. “What are you doing here?”
“Who was that man?”
Her mother blushed, and Wren charged into the kitchen. She had an awful feeling that her mother was going senile, though that didn’t explain the strange man who had answered the door.
“There’s some things I have to explain to you,” her mother muttered, embarrassed. She indicated the man. “This is Anthony.”
“We’ve met,” said Wren.
Her mother grinned. “He’s my lover.”
Wren figured she was the butt of a very sick joke, and mockingly looked around for a hidden camera. In her heart she knew it was no joke. She’d suspected that her mother’s new friend was more than just a friend for a while now.
“Are you going to say something?” her mother asked. “Or would you like a cup of tea to calm you down first?”
“I’m perfectly calm and stable,” said Wren.
“Then let’s have a cup of tea anyway!”
As Wren’s mother switched the kettle on Wren sat by the kitchen table, still too stunned to utter a word.
/> “Where’s Dad?” Wren asked.
“I threw him out last night.”
Wren was unimpressed. “And you moved your lover straight in. Perfect. Was even Dad’s side of the bed cold yet?”
Dot’s clothes had been put on in a hurry, just like Anthony’s. Wren didn’t want to think about what they’d been up to before she got here.
“Your father has been sleeping on the sofa for...for months now,” Dot explained. “We’ve not been doing good.”
Wren laughed. “Of course, you’re not doing good. You’re sleeping with another man.”
Her mother sat by the table as the kettle boiled, forgotten. Neither of them were in a tea mood any longer.
Dot cleared her throat and said, “I met Anthony at my Spanish class.”
“You don’t go to Spanish classes.”
“It was after your father forgot our wedding anniversary and spent the day at the bookies. I was angry. I wanted to do something for me.” She smiled at Anthony. He gave her a saucy wink and giggled. Wren wanted to throw up. “So, I found this community college prospectus, closed my eyes, and picked a course out at random. I ended up with Spanish.”
The sadness in her mother’s made Wren want to give Dot the benefit of the doubt. She was her mother and she loved her, no matter what.
“What happened?” Wren asked.
Her mother smiled. “There was this man that took my breath away. He complimented me and sent me gifts and told me how beautiful I was. How was I to resist? As your father spiraled ever deeper into gambling, I ended up further in Anthony’s embraces. I love your father, don’t get me wrong. I’ll always love him. But I just can’t live with him any longer.”
“I know he’s a character, but...”
“He pawned my wedding ring so he could bet on a horse, Wren. He used our holiday money to bet on a dog. He sold our TV to buy a hundred lottery scratch cards, none of which won him anything. I’ve had enough.”
Wren took her mother’s hand. “I understand completely. Maybe inviting Anthony to live here was a...”
Her mother laughed. “He’s not living here. I just invited him over to comfort me. I’m not living with any man again.”
