Angel Over My Shoulder (10 page)

She went to retrieve a plate, fork, and a cake knife. She cut a slice from it and as she ate she thought of Angel and their time together. He had told her to find him…She knew his birthday and that one day they’d stand on the shore together but that was about all. More importantly, she knew that she’d have to wait eighteen years and that seemed impossibly long. Every night she went to sleep praying that she would see him there; in her dreams.

But she never did.

Her life was a big empty expanse. She had no personal relationships and once she left her professional life she returned to her solitary one. Everyone that she had ever valued was gone now; and without Angel she could no longer visit the dead. Their memory began to fade into the background and desperately she fought to keep Angel’s memories in the forefront. She spent her nights reliving their conversations and the vivid places that were born of their imagination. When she thought of their passionate nights, it was all that she could do to keep her fingers from exploring the space between her thighs. But all that did was to make the need greater and so she ignored it.

Leslie blinked, returning from her memories. She boxed the rest of the cake and placed it into the refrigerator, and feeling nostalgic she moved to her album collection and searched until she found Bobby Caldwell. With a slight smile she pressed the album cover to her nose. Once upon a time her parents had touched this album…

She carefully slipped the vinyl from its cover and placed it on the old stereo. When the opening lyrics began she sat on the floor and clutched her knees. She sang softly as lonely tears began to glide down her face. Suddenly she leaped up and grabbed her purse and car keys and then hurried to her car. Grandma’s car had been replaced with a new Camry. It only took her five minutes to get to her destination because she wasn’t going far; just a few blocks over.

She pulled into the drive-way of a small, run down house. It had seen better days…even back when she was a kid it had seen better days. She rang the bell and listened intently for someone’s approach. If she still had the phone number she would have called first…but she had forgotten her best friend’s number years ago.

An older black woman opened the door and when she saw Leslie her face brightened.

“Hi, Mrs. Rogers. I was trying to get in touch with Missy.”

“Leslie, I haven’t seen you in ages. Well Missy doesn’t live here anymore.” Leslie looked disappointed. “Wait here and I’ll get you her phone number.” Mrs. Rogers left her on the front porch but returned a short time later holding a scrap of paper with Missy’s phone number on it.

Leslie smiled. “Thank you!” She hurried home and picked up the phone pacing nervously. She hadn’t been a good friend to Missy so she might not even want to hear from her. But she would apologize because she now realized that she had stolen something from Missy; when she had withdrawn from the world, she’d also taken away Missy’s best friend.

A man answered the phone after the first ring. “Hello?”

She hesitated wondering if she had misdialed. “May I speak to Missy Rogers?”

“Missy ROGERS? Who’s this?” The man asked.

“Leslie. Leslie Wilke.”

There was a long pause. She wondered if he would hang up on her after saying that she had the wrong number. “Just a minute.”

The phone went quiet and then a few moments later she heard a breathless voice.

“Leslie?”

“Hi, Missy. Yes it’s Leslie.” There was a loud scream and Leslie almost dropped the phone. Then she heard rushed excited words that were hard to make out.

“Leslie, I’ve been thinking about you so much! I missed you girl! How have you been?” Leslie smiled in relief and sank down onto her couch. The two women talked with excited voices, as if there hadn’t been years between their last conversation. Often times their words tumbled over each other as if there wasn’t time enough to catch up on all of the things they’d missed. Missy told her that she was married and had a young baby.

“Who did you marry? Anyone I know?” Leslie’s question was met with a brief silence.

“Derrick.”

“Derrick?”

“Yeah.” Missy responded slowly.

Leslie was so surprised that she almost forgot to speak and covered it the best that she could. “Wow…I had no idea. Congratulations…was that him on the phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, and you two have a baby?”

“Yes. I sorta thought you knew…and that’s why you stopped talking to either of us.” Missy’s voice was now the one that held a nervous tension.

“No. I never knew.” Leslie was shocked, but not in a bad way. “Missy, I’m happy for you two. The reason that I didn’t talk to you was because I was…in a bad place.”

“Did you stop talking completely?” Missy asked with concern.

“Yes, for a while, but not long.”

“I feel so bad Leslie. I should have been there for you but I…I felt bad about Derrick and I guess guilty. I promise that I never liked Derrick in that way while you liked him. I thought he was cute and all, but that summer you started pulling back. And Derrick asked me if I knew what was wrong with you, if maybe he’d pissed you off at that party April had. Things just sort of…happened from there.”

After the party…Leslie was nodding her head. Things had changed for her after the party when she’d had the dream. She had to face her grandmother’s impending death and it wasn’t something that she did easily. She quickly tried to find something positive to say. “It sounds like you two were meant to be.” Leslie couldn’t see the smile but she somehow felt it over the phone.

“Yeah.” Missy spoke softly.

“Well how old is your baby?! I can’t believe you’re a mom. Boy or girl?”

“A little girl; Natasha. She’ll be six months in a few days.”

Leslie sighed, a smile on her face. “Missy, I’m so happy for you.”

“I can’t wait to see you! We gotta get together. Come to dinner! Yes! You can come tonight. I am making chops and I will thaw out two more!”

Leslie chuckled. “I’d love to. And if you two don’t mind a cake with one slice taken out I’ll bring desert.”

“Oh that sounds great, Les…um because I’ve picked up a few pounds and have a big-ass sweet tooth. I guess it’s a good thing that my best friend is a baker.” She ended softly.

Leslie smiled and her eyes stung. “I don’t know if it’s good or bad because now I have someone else to give my experiments to.”

After hanging up, Leslie hurried to the shower and then contemplated what one wears to a dinner with a long lost friend who had married the guy you used to have a crush on. She selected jeans, boots with a sensible heel, and a black turtleneck. It was fall and might still be a bit warm but it was casual and understated.

Her hair had grown longer over the years and she wore it bumped under and just about shoulder length. When she looked in the mirror these days, she saw a woman that had light brown skin and bright brown eyes. Her scars from the previous piercings were still visible and yet softened by her use of cocoa butter. Her body was toned, not because she exercised but because sometimes she forgot to do the simple things like eat.

She repaired the cake so that it didn’t look like it had ever had candles in it and then she carried it to the car. Derrick and Leslie owned a condo that was center of a hip and trendy neighborhood where more and more wealthier blacks frequented in order to enjoy the jazz clubs, restaurants and art galleries.

She was intrigued as she parked in front of, what looked like an old warehouse. As she approached the building she could see large wrought iron balconies. She rang the bell within an artfully decorated entryway and heard Derrick’s masculine voice over the intercom telling her to come up. The security locks released and she stepped into a nice lobby. She pressed the button for the elevator after checking for the location of Missy and Derrick’s condo. When the doors opened again, it led directly into Missy and Derrick’s home. She was impressed. It was modern and tastefully decorated. They obviously had money. She knew that Derrick wasn’t a knucklehead. He was standing there holding the prettiest, plumpest baby with glistening black curls and huge dark eyes. Leslie didn’t know who to look at first; Derrick or the baby.

“Derrick.” She smiled shyly. “Hi.”

“I can’t believe that you look exactly the same.” He seemed amazed as he stared at her.

She touched her lip with her fingertip. “Well no Mohawks or British Knights.”

He smiled. “Come on in. Missy is buttering the rolls. This is Natasha.” She could tell that Derrick was completely enamored by his baby girl. For a moment she felt sad. Had things been different then maybe this could have been her life…

“She’s adorable. May I hold her?”

“Sure. Let’s trade packages.” He took the small boxed cake and passed the fat little infant to her. She felt such a rush of love overcome her at the sight of the little being that the love between Missy and Derrick had created. Would she ever have something like this? She held the baby close as Derrick led her back through the amazing condo to the kitchen.

Missy was carrying a basket of hot rolls to the dining room and she almost dropped them when she saw Leslie. Missy was now plump and pretty.

“Leslie!!!!” She ran over and hugged Leslie and the baby! The baby was evidently used to Missy’s bear hugs because she didn’t appear phased. Derrick swooped down and rescued her while the two old friends hugged.

Missy was laughing but her eyes were bright. “This reminds me of The Color Purple when Celie and Nettie see each other for the first time after all those years.”

Damn, Leslie thought, now tears had sprouted in her eyes. “And they started singing that song about sisters.”

And of course Missy started singing it and tears started flowing for real, and then Leslie joined in and they started laughing. Derrick watched them as if they were both stone crazy and then he carried the baby out of the room so that they could get caught up.

Missy reached out and touched Leslie’s face with gentle fingers and Leslie looked down. “I pulled them out when my grandmother died.” She explained. She gave her friend a crooked smile. “No more bone nose.” Missy just looked sad.

“Is it that bad?” Leslie half joked, referring to her torn face.

“No, it’s not that. Even with those scars you look beautiful; you still look like Lisa Bonet. The scars make you seem…I don’t know, mysterious maybe.” Leslie gave her an uncomfortable look.

“I…don’t feel very beautiful. Never have, actually.” That wasn’t exactly true…she had felt beautiful in her dreams.” She moved to sit in one of the breakfast bars that overlooked the open kitchen. Missy sat next to her. “Remember my Uncle?”

Missy’s lip curled up in distaste. “Yeah I remember that snake.”

“He’s in jail.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” She recounted the events after the funeral and how her uncle had tried to set her up, and then later when the detectives had uncovered that he had actually been selling Grandmama’s drugs. The kicker is, because she’d brought charges against her Uncle, then other family members came forward. He was charged with much more than her molestation, including fraud and had been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.

“He got raped in prison, too.” Leslie added.

“Good!” Missy shouted.

“He sent me a letter telling me that as a part of his rehabilitation he has to write a letter apologizing for his crimes and even though he didn’t have to mail it, he needed to. He told me that he knew that he was wrong and it wasn’t my fault-”

“As if!”

“…and that he knows what it’s like to have someone take you against your will since it’s happened to him in jail-”

“Hope they make him into a punk!”

“…and that he didn’t expect me to ever forgive him because he would never forgive himself.”

Missy grew quiet. “Do you? Forgive him?”

A momentary shadow crossed her face. “Hell no.” She hated him. There was no forgiveness for all that he had taken from her. He was an opportunistic, sick bastard that had not only raped her, but had then tried to set her up to go to jail in a revenge plot that ended up getting him in trouble. Leslie folded her hands in front of her. “But I don’t let what happened dictate who I am any longer.” Derrick returned to the room then.

“Okay ladies, I put the baby down for a nap, and dinner’s getting cold. Let’s eat!” He grinned and slapped his hands together. Instead of eating in the formal dining room, Leslie insisted that they eat right at the bar and then wouldn’t have to move everything back and forth.

She had fun with Missy and Derrick. She could plainly see the love that they had for each other in so many ways. They didn’t have to touch and kiss, their feelings were easy to see just by the exchange of looks or the completion of the other’s sentences. Derrick explained that after college he had become a graphic designer for a company that made web pages. Leslie hadn’t gone to college but had landed a job in collections at one of the major credit card companies.

“We always have overtime. I think there will always be job security for me. Oh, and guess who I saw the other day?! April, and she is engaged to a white man.”

Leslie chuckled. “All that talk she used to do about white people this and white people that.”