Chapter Seven

 

Out in the hallway, I’m barely aware of Vera maneuvering through the crowd. The ideas Warren has given me are so overwhelming. Part of me is in utter denial. How can I possibly be an angel? I killed myself. That’s hardly angelic. I was a sinner. I did terrible things, although at the moment I can’t remember all of them. I know I screamed at my parents when they said they were separating. I remember saying terribly hurtful things to both of them. I know I killed my best friend. And then there’s my sister.

There’s something about my sister I’m supposed to be remembering, but I can’t.

A bright light zooms past me so fast it leaves a trail of shimmering stardust behind. Up ahead, the light blossoms into the image of a feisty, petite angel. She has long blond hair with a pink streak dyed through the right side, heavy dark eyeliner, and black fingernails. She wears a black tank top over ripped jeans and cargo boots. A tattoo of a Celtic cross adorns her upper arm. A pair of bright wings are tucked behind her.

She stands, arms crossed, and spreads her wings slightly in front of an older boy who’s at least a foot taller than she is. He’s wearing a varsity basketball jacket, and his hand, glittering with a fat class ring, presses against a blue locker.

Behind the tiny girl angel is another boy. He has darker skin and the beginning of a pathetic goatee growing on his chin. This younger boy keeps his eyes cast down and shoves some books into his open locker. The varsity boy is staring straight over the head of the tiny angel, his eyes glued to the goatee boy.

“Meet me in the usual place. Fifth period.”

Goatee puts a book on the top shelf. “I don’t know, man. Maybe not today.”

Varsity leans in. I am sure he has no idea his face is two inches above that of the angel. “What do you mean? You haven’t bought in ages. You must’ve run out by now.”

“I’m low on cash.”

Even I can tell Goatee is lying. He’s avoiding eye contact with Varsity like he’s expecting them to shoot lasers.

Varsity glances up and down the hallway. I do the same. Vera is across the hall, twirling the combination on her own locker.

Varsity leans in another inch. “You’ve got the money. I’ve seen you working third shift at the station. Don’t tell me you’re not interested in having a good time anymore.”

Goatee pauses as he pulls a folder out of his locker.

I glide to his other side.

He bites his lip.

The angel floats up, her face before Varsity’s. Then she flips the tip of her wing. It hits a picture hanging on the inside of Goatee’s locker. The picture—that of a pretty Latino girl with dark eyes and long wavy hair—flutters to the floor. Goatee stoops to pick it up, glancing at the picture before thrusting it into his pocket.

“I’ve got plenty of good times.” Goatee smiles to himself, slams his locker shut, and heads down the hallway. Varsity is left standing with his mouth open. He rolls his eyes, pounds his open palm against the row of lockers, and heads in the other direction.

The angel turns around and follows Goatee, but not before winking at me as she passes.

“Score one for the good guys,” she says.

I am shocked, but why should I be? If Warren could see me, surely other angels could too.

I glide over to Vera and watch her shuffle books in her locker. On the inside of her locker door are a mirror and several of those magnetic pink ribbons people put on their car bumpers.

A few feet to the left, another girl opens her locker and begins to put away books but not before glancing toward Vera. This girl is several inches taller than Vera. She looks at the mirror in her own locker as she adjusts the headband in her dishwater blond hair. I can only see her profile, but there is something familiar about her. Perhaps she’s in some of Vera’s classes.

Shifting the books in her arms, Vera puts a hand on her locker door to close it.

“You know someone with breast cancer?” says the dishwater blonde, pointing toward the pink ribbons in Vera’s locker. Her voice is soft and a little sad. It, too, seems very familiar, but I can’t put my finger on where I’ve seen or heard her.

“Knew,” responds Vera without looking at her. “I knew someone with breast cancer.” She closes her locker.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry, Vera.”

“I’m sure you are, Cecille.” Vera walks away without so much as a glance toward the girl, but I can’t take my eyes off her.

Cecille...the name echoes through my very soul as the girl turns to watch Vera walk away. With her face turned toward me, I immediately recognize the pale blue eyes. How can this be? She was only twelve when I died. Can she really be a freshman in high school now? And look at how tall she’s grown—at least six inches since I last saw her. Have two years really passed? They must have, for standing before me now is a girl who can only be my baby sister.

I want to stay and watch her, but Vera has moved down the hallway, and I am pulled away from the familiar dishwater blonde.

“Cecille!” I cry. “I’m so sorry.” I want to sob, but angels who don’t have bodies also don’t have tears.

Vera moves around the corner, and my world goes black again.

 

The memory rushes up before I can stop it.

It was three days after the car crash. Ally had died in the hospital a few hours after we arrived. I had walked out with only a few cuts and bruises.

Mom let me play hooky from school Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was the funeral. I was scheduled to perform in the second weekend of performances for the spring play, but Mr. Cardone, the theater director, called me Friday afternoon. It was school policy that you couldn’t participate in extracurricular activities on days when you missed school, but as he put it, it was “probably for the best” that I not perform anyway. My understudy was perfectly capable, and the show would go on without me.

I was furious. How could I be replaced so easily? Acting was what I needed at that moment. I needed to be in another world. This world was too painful. I wanted to laugh at death, not wallow in its misery.

A hundred emotions swarmed me. I felt grief over the loss of my best friend, guilt over causing her death through my careless driving, anger over losing the part in the play, misery at having been rejected by DePaul, confused about what to do with the rest of my life, and utter despair that God ever answered prayers. Where was the joy in life?

I couldn’t see any happiness. My future looked bleak and painful. My dad had just lost his job again, and Mom wasn’t making much as a secretary. There was talk of my putting off college altogether to get a job. I was sick of listening to other seniors talk about their plans for the future. I was sick of never hearing good news.

I tore a page from my English notebook, scribbled a note of explanation, and sat down on my bed. Next to the note, I laid Ally’s obituary from the Pioneer Press. I didn’t deserve to live.

No one was home. Cecille was having dinner at her friend Vicki’s house, but Mom would be home soon. She would be the one to find me. I figured she’d be relieved. She was always complaining about how expensive my tastes were. Without me, there’d be more money for her and Cecille. Maybe this way Cecille could succeed where I failed. She could get the training she needed to be a world-class ballerina, and places like Julliard would clamor for her.

I heard a key in the door downstairs. Mom was home. I had to act fast. I pointed the gun at my head and pulled the trigger, my petite fingers straining to squeeze it. After the gun fired, my body flopped over onto my bed like a lifeless rag doll, my face pointing toward the door to my bedroom, as footsteps pounded up the stairs.

Then came the high-pitched scream. I could no longer see, but the scream was burned into my memory.

It wasn’t my mother screaming. The scream was that of a twelve-year-old girl. Cecille—not my mother—had come home early.