Janey Milstead

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Abby & the Silver Lake Angel Chapter 10

  As the cat prowled the perimeter of the refrigerator, praying for more parmigiana, Abby felt bewitched in a good way but highly bothered and bewildered in the other. Pouring herself a cup of the ink-black coffee that Minella had brewed before leaving for work, she sat glumly at her kitchen table.

Now that the Minella situation seemed to be taking care of itself (she shivered at the thought of how well it was getting taken care of) why couldn’t she just be in love and enjoy it without all the other crap? A Rock concert. That nutsy-cuckoo idea was right on the top of her freak-out list. Talk about impossible! There was no way she could ever pull that off. But David, her darling boy, needed that tall paper. Not to mention how was she going to get him away from Doctor Pill?

Still half asleep, Abby opened the new issue of the L.A Weekly. As she was looking for Jonathan Gold’s latest food review (his writing was so delicious it was almost good enough to eat itself) the paper fell open to a full page ad announcing a benefit at the Hollywood Bowl the following Sunday evening. Proceeds were going to a well-loved and financially needy charity and the lineup of stars was highly impressive – would you believe Neil Young and Bono for starters? There was also going to be a special guest appearance by someone named Kevin Redmond who would be performing his current number one hit, “Spondulix.”

Wow, Abby thought, closing the paper. If only the angel and his band could get on that show. Bono was such a concerned guy, maybe she could convince him to listen to the kids, but by the time she ever got through to him, David would be in college.

  Then, with a sudden intake of breath, Abby rammed the Weekly back open. Kevin Redmond? That couldn’t be her (former) Kevin. But it had to be him. That was not only his name, spondulix was a term he had sometimes used when he was talking about money!

And even she had heard his hit, which was not easy since she almost always listened to classic rock or NPR. It was pretty cool, very rock and rolly but the lyrics were a major slam at the Haves, the protest song reincarnated. But who knew it was her (former) Kevin of all people? Wasn’t he just a recording engineer? (Sorry, engineers, about that “just.”) When had he started recording his own material and why hadn’t he said something? This was too weird.

Standing up, Abby marched resolutely to the phone. If she didn’t do this now, if she stopped to think about it or plan it, she’d never have the guts. She would leave him a message and hope he got back to her, only surprise, surprise. When Kevin’s number connected, she didn’t get his usual answering machine. This time she got that bane of the entertainment industry, the Kamakaze secretary.

In reply to a snotty “Who’s calling?” Abby responded with her name only to hear, “And who is that?”

“Me,” Abby said dumbly.

The secretary ahem-ed threateningly. “ I mean what company do you represent?”

“Bad,” Abby said, then quickly reconsidered. “I’m a personal friend.”

The secretary gave a snort and Abby could almost hear the woman’s lip curl. “Do you have any idea how many times a day I hear that line?”

“Well, it’s true this time. Tell him it’s Nursie,” Abby added, leaving off the other half of that tender nickname (never you mind).

“Hold on,” the secretary barked, and the next voice Abby heard was Kevin’s.

They talked for a moment as Abby offered congratulations and the usual pleasantries. Then she asked, quite sincerely, when all of this had happened.

“You’d know if you’d answered my calls,” Kevin said, half cranky like. “I’ve never been able to reach you since that last night.”

  “Oh, did you call?” (Come to think of it, yes, he had.) “I’m so sorry, Kevin. I’ve been so crazy. I’ve been trying to adopt David, the little boy whose parents were killed. I told you about it.”

“Right. How’s that going?”

“Not very well. There are a lot of complications… Kevin, I have a huge favor to ask of you.”

“Name it, babe.”

“I want you to listen to a great band.”

Kevin groaned aloud. “Oh, sweetie, L.A. is full of great bands.”

“Not like this one,” Abby said. “And it’s hard to explain but there’s a connection to David.”

“Huh?”

“Just listen to them, Kevin, please. I literally beg of you.”

There was silence at first. Then Kevin said he would come over and

talk about it. And the way he said it, Abby knew talking wasn’t the only activity on the program. But it was an offer she didn’t dare refuse. It just needed a change of venue.

“I’ll have to come to your place,” Abby said, gritting her teeth mentally. “I, er, have a roommate.”

“Oh?” Kevin said carefully. “Guy or gal?”

“Somewhere in the middle,” Abby answered. (Well, it was true. Much to his displeasure, Al the cat had been neutered.)

“Oh,” Kevin said again. “I see. So how about tonight?”

“Can’t, have to work tonight.”

“Okay, how about after the weekend?”

Abby paled. The concert was this weekend. “Can’t we do it sooner?”

“We can do it any time you want,” he said, his voice dropping the octave that used to make Abby’s underpants begin to lose their elasticity.

After they’d decided on Thursday night, right after she got off work, Abby got off the phone in a panic. A new problem had just been added to her list: How was she going to get what she wanted from Kevin without giving him what he wanted in return?

 

Thursday arrived and felt like a lead balloon when it got there. There had not been word one from the angel. Abby had alternated between praying and shaking her fist at the heavens, but nada. Now she was at work and when she got off at eleven p.m. guess who else expected to get off. And what chance did she have of diverting his attentions? She didn’t have anything to prove that her supposedly fabulous group was worthy of a spot on the benefit. The one that was only three days away, as in Yikes.

If only the kids were here to go to Kevin’s with her. Then she could just force him to listen to them and he’d be so blown away he’d forget all about those other activities.

At least she’d been hearing from Minella who’d got a cellphone and was using it when he wasn’t in her bed. He was too nice to ask what was wrong, but he knew it was something.

 

Abby knew she was in trouble before she knocked on the door of Kevin’s West Hollywood condo. She could smell the incense, and when he opened the door, she was met by flickering candlelight. It was exactly the way she used to greet him.

“I figured it was my turn to set the stage,” he grinned and kissed her soundly, (He also kissed her lips, ha ha, even though she kept them sort of clamped together.)

“It looks great, Kevin,” she said. “And it’s very good to see you.” That was true because even though the lust factor had taken a dive, he was still such a cool guy and really very sweet. Cute too, cuter actually, now that the hipster goatee was gone and his hair was longer.

“I got dinner, too,” he said, ushering her to a soft leather couch and sitting down beside her.

“You cooked?” Abby asked in amazement.

“Nah, I had Greenblatt’s deliver some stuff,” he said and kissed her again. “I’ve missed you a lot, Abby. I don’t know any other women like you.”

“Me?” Abby asked, still in amazement mode.

“Sure you. You’re a real person, somebody worth caring about. These chicks who dig me because I hit the charts, God, what a joke. They weigh about nine pounds, hang out with their personal trainers and all they talk about is clothes and clubs and each other. I want you back, Abby.”

Abby moved away from his oncoming embrace. “Kevin, we, uh, you never really had me. Oh, you had me, but we were never really together except in the bedroom.”

“It won’t be that way now,’ he said firmly. “I didn’t know jack shit in those days. I’ve learned a lot about what’s important.” He re-reached for her.

Abby turned pale inside and probably outside. She didn’t want to hurt Kevin and she needed a favor and being hard to get wasn’t going to get it. But even if she could put him off and string him along until after the concert and then run like hell, it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

Abby took one of her deep breaths. :”Kevin, you were the best thing in my life for a long time. You kept my lights on. I felt more confident, even beautiful because you wanted me.”

“You are beautiful,” he said sadly, sensing what was coming.

“Well, I doubt that, but feeling like it is almost as good. But Kevin, at a time when I need your help so desperately, I still have to be honest. I’ve fallen in love with somebody, someone who loves me back and I’ve got to walk that line. I just have to.”

“Typical,” he said, but he said it kindly. “That is so typical of you. Unwilling to compromise yourself even when you’re about to beg. No wonder I love you.”

Abby grinned at him. “You don’t love me, Kevin, but I love the fact that you think you do. And now about that begging.”:
  ”Go ahead, whine,” he laughed,

Abby quickly told him a highly edited version of David’s financial plight and the great band that had offered to help. If they could appear on the benefit, maybe David could have some of the proceeds!

“That can’t happen,” Kevin said, without even having to think it over. Abby’s face fell a mile, but he continued. “Maybe you could petition the charity for help but the money gets turned over to them. It’s all handled by CPA’s and lawyers, all very legal like. It has to be because they want all the money to go for aid and not get caught up in administration.”

“Then it wouldn’t do them any good to be on the show,” Abby said sadly.

“Well, it would get them noticed. That sure can’t hurt. And if they have a CD, they could sell it at the Bowl after the concert.”

If they had a CD Abby wouldn’t be reaching into her purse to find a kleenex to mop her fevered brow. But instead of locating a tissue, Abby’s hand came into contact with what was very definitely a disc. She pulled it out, staring at it in disbelief until Kevin took it out of her hand.

“Let’s hear this fabulous outfit,” he said, sliding the CD into the high tech machinery that filled one whole wall of the living room. That was the last thing he said for awhile. It’s difficult to speak when one’s mouth is hanging open.

The music was, in a word, ineffingcredible. Abby had never heard anything like it, nor had anyone else unless they’d been present when a group of the world’s most famous musicians got together and were fronted by probably the most incredible singer on the planet (or elsewhere).

“My God, that guitar is as good as Hendrix,” Kevin finally breathed. ”And that lead singer! Who are these guys?”

“I don’t know a lot about them,” Abby said truthfully. (Other than the fact that they’re all dead, she didn’t say.) “I got to know them through the hospital. One of them had a friend who was killed in the accident that took David’s parents.:

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kevin said, “But they’re insanely good. We’ll put them on last when everybody’s starting to leave. These guys’ll stop them in their tracks, and believe me, they will sell some serious CD.”

“Oh, Kevin,” Abby said, now digging for a tissue because she was starting to blither. “This is so wonderful. Are you sure the other stars won’t mind?”

Kevin shrugged. “There are some biggies on the program but the concert was my idea and I did most of the work to put it together,. Besides, they’re all good people and as long as we put this band on as kindof an afterthought, they can’t object. They wouldn’t anyway. We’re there to make money for something important and that’s what matters. Your band will probably have to cough up something for the charity from the CD sales,” he warned.

“I’m sure they’ll be happy to, “ Abby gushed happily.

Kevin looked at her and smiled rather tenderly. “Well, I wish this evening was going to have a different ending, but let’s do the next best thing. Let’s eat a lot and listen to this miracle again.”

Miracle is right, Abby thought as Kevin brought in towering deli sandwiches and a host of yummy sides. And please let it be one, she hoped and prayed. There wasn’t much riding on it, only the future.

“By the way,” Kevin said, passing her the new pickles. ”What do these guys call themselves?“

Abby didn’t even have to think. It came right out, Her answer? “Band Of Angels.”

Abby & the Silver Lake Angel Chapter 9

  There he sat, the world’s most unlikely angel: seventeen, not very tall, trying desperately to grow a mustache, wearing some kind of robe and sporting a cat draped happily around his neck like a hairy boa.

He was also sobbing into his cheese doodles.

“What’s the matter?” Abby cried, forgetting to even be surprised to see him,

The angel leaped into her arms, cat and tears flying. “It’s Chuey,” he cried back.

“What’s chewy?” Abby asked, staring at him.

“Chuey,” he said impatiently. “Him,” he added, pointing to another enrobed teenager, seated across the room. “He died.”

“But he’s right there,” Abby said, none too brightly in this mad moment.

Chuey smiled pleasantly, happy to be the center of attention. Then the almost beautiful chubby boy with a mop of black hair went back to demolishing a package of potato chips.

The angel had the good grace to ignore Abby’s pretty dumb comment. “He hung in there long, I thought he was going to make it, like your David, but no,” he quavered. “I was okay with it until we got back here and I started thinking about his life and all the things he was going to miss out on.”

Looking unconcerned, Chuey took a long swig of his coke.

“Oh no, he was in the accident too,” Abby breathed, finally getting it. Patting the quivering Heavenly Body in her arms, she said,

“I’m so sorry, but at least you’re together.”

The angel sniffed as she fished a tissue out of the box on the coffee table. “Now sit down and eat your nice doodles. And tell me what you’re doing here. ”Thank God.” She added that mentally. No sense giving him the big head.

“You prayed for me to come,” he said defensively.

“Yes, I did,’ Abby nodded, suddenly remembering the latest pile of manure she was up to her earlobes in. “You have to help me find a way to take care of David. They’ve cute”

“I know,” the angel interrupted. “He needs some tall paper.”

“He needs care and that takes money,” Abby corrected.

The angel frowned. “I don’ know why you pinche people can’t get your stuff together and get off the money trip. You’re wrecking the whole planet with your stupid bottom line.”

“Thank you for the sermon,” Abby said. “And I couldn’t agree more. So what are we going to do about it?”

The angel shrugged, munching. “I dunno. We gotta do something.

Where’s your own private dick?”

“I beg your pardon, and do I ever know? Does he ever call? I saw him this morning (that’s putting it politely, girl) but of course I haven’t heard from him all day. Now it’s midnight and he’s in San Francisco and Abby’s voice trailed off. The angel stoup purposefully. “I’ll go get him.”

“No, don’ do that. He has a lot on his mind. He’ll either call or he won’,” Abby said bravely, her heart in her gizzard.

The angel grinned. “I mean I’ll go tell him to get his culoup here. He’s parked out in front.”

As the angel disappeared out the door and Chuey crunched happily,

Abby raced to the window. Sure enough, there was the “Unmarked” (yeah, right) car right out there on Lucile Avenue. By the time Abby had gotten a grip and raced back to the door, Minella and the angel were coming up the stairs, chattering pleasantly in Spanish. Bilingual too, whatta guy.)

Trying to keep her cool in front of the aforementioned Heavenly Bodies (all three of them), Abby put her arms around Minella in a sensible hug and moved away quickly before she lost it and added her legs.

“We already figured it out,” the angel said joyously. “How to make mucho dinero!”

Abby gaped at him. “And how are we going to manage that?”

“Give a concert,” the angel said excitedly. “You know, Dave Aid!”

“But who would be the star?” she asked, incredulous.

“Chuey, of course.”

“Chuey?” she echoed.

“Yeah, and maybe I could get Jimi and George and some of the other guys to sit in with him. They’ve been teaching us some great stuff. I’ll bet the Boss will let us. Taking care of David is my job.”

“But Chuey?” Abby interjected, unconvinced.

The angel turned to his friend. “Sing,” he ordered and on cue, Chuey put his treats do and opened his mouth. What came out was the most remarkable thing Abby or anyone else had ever heard. A marriage of rock and pop and down-on-the-delta blues cascaded into t room. Chuey then wound up his brief but incredible performance with the tail end of the aria, Vesti La Guibba. Then he smiled and went back to his chips.

“Cool, huh?” the angel couldn’t help but brag. “Dunno about that last part. Some old guy, Caruso somebody, has been singing with him.” At first, Abby and Minella were both too shocked to speak.

Finally, Abby croaked, “My God!” while Minella nodded assent.

“Exactly,” the angel said. “Now we gotta turn in these choir robes or we’re gonna be in big trouble. You get to work on the concert and we’ll be back! I’ve got a great idea f the finale, too. A big surprise. Course the concert will have to be held outdoors.”

“Anything else?” Abby said sardonically.

“Nah, that should do it.” And with that, the angel kissed the cat, pecked Abby on the cheek and then he and Chuey disappeared into thin, and not so thin, air.

“What in the hell?” Minella said.

“I think you’ve got the wrong direction,” Abby said shaking her head and fully expecting it to rattle.


Minella was one of those people who could drink pots of ink that passed for coffee at all hours and then go right to sleep, but all Abby had was decaf so she brewed a pot they sat down at her old-fashioned kitchen table. All three of them. Al the cat, who had barely tolerated this most recent interloper until now, had parked himself in a chair right next to Minnella and was staring at the detective intently.

“What’s with him?” Minella asked as Al edged closer.

Abby shook her head. “I don’ know. We’re all nuts. Maybe it was seeing the angel again.”

“Yeah, nuts about covers it. Every time this stuff happens, I still can’ believe it, but I know that just happened. It did, didn’t it?”

“Yes it did and now we’re going to put on a rock concert. Talk about nuts.”

Then Abby turned to the the curly-haired detective and pulled an Al. “Do you by any chance hate to talk on the telephone?” she asked, staring intently.

“Yeah, and besides, you can’ even find a phone booth anymore that somebody hasnt’ peed in.”

“Well, do you plan to have anything to do with me in the future?”

“I plan to do everything with you,” Minella answered, giving her a look. The look said it more like I plan to do everything to you, but Abby didn’t bite. There was other business to conduct first.

“I’m glad to hear that, but if you expect me to live through this romance, you are going to have to get a cell phone and you are going to have to use it with some regularity or something very unladylike is going to happen to me.”

“Yeah? What?”

“I am going to go stark raving apecrap.”

Minella laughed so hard the cat jumped in the air. But Al immediately resumed the position and edged even closer.

“Here,” Minella said, still laughing. “I brought you a present.” Bringing a small package wrapped in white butcher paper out of his pocket, he placed in on the table
between them. Suddenly Al’s eyes were the size of Fancy Feast tins.

“What is it?” Abby said curiously, picking up the package. She put it back down fast.
“It stinks!”

“It’s supposed to,” Minella grinned. “It’s the parmegiana reggiano I promised you.”

“Right, the real cheese,” Abby smiled back. “Please put it in the refrigerator, quick before it mutates.”

Minella concurred, Al hot on his heels. Then he came around the back of Abby’s chair
and put his arms around her.

“Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable out of that uniform, Nurse Abigail?”

“It’s Abra as in Cadabra for your information,” Abby answered, but the answer wasn’t no.

However, when they reached the bedroom door, Al was standing across it. His eyes were now golden slits and his stance was more than faintly reminiscent of his saber-toothed-alley-cattus ancestors. “What’s with him?” it was Abby’s turn to ask.

“Hold on,” Minella said. Going back into the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator, unwrapped the package and hacked off a bite. He placed it in Al’s bowl and the cat pounced on the morsel.

As they went into the bedroom, they could hear Al purring. If not a friendship, at least a relationship had been born.

When Abby woke she was smiling into her pillow and Minella was dressed and sitting on the side of her bed, knotting his current excuse for a tie.

Abby was about to groan appropriately when the phone rang.

When she picked up the receiver, a female voice on the other end of the wire asked politely but warmly if she could please speak to Anthony Minella.

“Anthony,” Abby said, extending the phone. ˜It’s for you.”

Ignoring her smartassery, Minella proceeded to have a short conversation that consisted mostly of “Okays” and “I Sees” and one

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“I hope you don’t mind my leaving this number,” he said, handing the phone back to her with a funny (not as in haha) look on his face.

“Of course not,” Abby said, sitting up. “Is something wrong?”

“Not really. Um, my doc’s office got the results of my blood test.”

Abby sat way up. “What? Tell me!”

“I don’t have it, but I can get it. They said not to worry cause I probably won’. But it is hereditary and it’s carried by males.”

Abby got out of bed, fast, wrapping the sheet around her. “Does your dad have it?”

“Not that he knew of.”

“He could get it too, then.”

“Not hardly,” Minella said. “He was killed in the line ten years ago.”

“In the line?” Abby echoed.

“Of duty.”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said, going pale. That was horrible and so was the fact that his son put his own life on that line every day too.

“Don’t panic, Abby,” Minella said gently, sitting her back down on the bed. “I know that look. Maybe you should think this over before we get in any deeper. Let’s face it, I do have a dangerous job.”

Abby struggled for an inner grip. Then she said, “Well, so do I!

I spend every day around diseases and blood and infections and gross stuff you wouldn’t believe and I don’ need to think anything over.

But maybe you should.”

Minella laughed. “Okay, okay, I think I’ll just be getting along to my less dangerous job.”

With that he kissed her chastely so as not to get any motors running. At the doorway he paused. “There’s coffee in the kitchen if the cat will let you in there. He’s guarding the refrigerator.”

Smiling, Abby lay back down dreamily, ready for more delicious sleep.

When she awoke around noon, she did so in a panic, having just dreamed they gave a rock concert and nobody came.

 

Abby & the Silverlake Angel Chapter 8

  There are times in this world when a person feels like going out and getting hammered. And this was one of them.

  But, when Abby walked into her favorite watering hole/restaurant/hangout place—the Dresden, where else?—she knew that wasn't’t going to happen.

  Oh, the setting was perfect, just the right spot for a late afternoon drink or two many.  But behind the bar stood the rest of the story. Two of them, in fact. The Dresden was well known for its handsome, dark-haired  bartenders, and there stood two more of the same.  They also stood between Abby and the good (yes) clean (well…) fun she had in mind.

  That’s because she’d known both Johnny and Stevie forever, from the neighborhood even before the Dresden. And she also knew that these two guardians of her sobriety and if necessary,  her virtue (what was left of it), weren't about to let her have too much fun.

  Making her laugh in spite of her mood, Stevie whipped up the first martini, the real kind: Gin and a whisper of  vermouth shaken with ice and garnished with a twist and an olive. (Once she’d ordered it with an onion as well, and Stevie had yelped “what ya think this is, a salad bar?”) As Abby sipped its chilly elegance, it tasted so good, she was soon ordering another.

  Johnny made that one, and presented it to her with a kiss on her hand and an against-my-better-judgment grin.

  Re-sipping, Abby looked around her. It was hours before Marty and Elayne would strike up the band at the piano, and too early for the hip and cool crowd. The huge bar was nearly deserted and Abby found its dark quiet very comforting.  Even the two TV sets were on mute. Some ball game somewhere was being played out in silent desperation, but Abby welcomed the silence. She hated TV’s in bars anyway; they pretty much finished off the already-fading art of conversation.

  Abby was glad not to have to engage in any of that at the moment. Her protectors behind the bar were both busy preparing for another big night, Dresden style, opening bottles of wine and icing down huge tubs of longnecks.

  Abby refused to let herself ruminate about the grief list she’d spent most of her day off making (she was finally taking a day away from the hospital—David was doing that well). So she’d caved and let Kevin come over, which had made him a lot happier than it had her. So she couldn't possibly fight Dr. Phillips’ adoption plans now that she knew about his tragic loss. So Minella still hadn't called her, as usual. She’d be damned if she was going to think about any of those problems, especially the last one, especially in this place where they’d had dinner together and seen Angel for the last time…

  Just then Abby felt the presence of someone close behind her—a little too close. In fact, hovering  would be more accurate.  But not to worry about that, either. The Dresden was the sort of place a woman could go alone without feeling like a floozie or being treated like one. So, confident that the hoverer must be another Dresden buddy,  Abby turned and looked directly into a perfectly ghastly tie.  It looked very familiar, as did the curly head and sexy grin above it.

  “Minella,” she breathed, not meaning to, her stomach sinking fast on the  Love Elevator. Then, also not meaning to, she added “You weasel,” and buried her face in the tie.  (This item will be known henceforth as the tie that binds.) (Not mention the tie that blinds.)

  Minella laughed. “I was going to ask what a girl like you was doing in a nice place like this.  Now  I wish I had,” But his hand came up momentarily and held the back of her head. Then he sat down on the stool next to her.

  Abby looked at him, wanting to kiss him, wanting to kill him. “Had you asked, I would have said I’m having a peaceful drink, or I was before I was interrupted,” she said loftily. “The real question is, what are you  doing here?”

  Minella gave the look back. “Do you want the truth?”

  “No,” Abby blurted. “Please lie to me some more, like when you keep saying you’re going to call me and you never do.”
  Oops. Bombay Gin was doing her talking for her and it was being totally uncool not to mention way too revealing. It was also pretty damn bitchy although he deserved it.

  Minella laughed again, his dark eyes crinkling to match his dark curls. “You’re gassed,” he said, but he said it fondly.

  “I am not,” Abby countered. “Not yet, anyway. But I’m going to have another and get that way.”

  But all that got her was a like-hell-you-are look from the dynamic duo pretending not to be watching the action from behind the bar.

  Ambling over to them, Stevie loomed.  “Is this guy bothering you?” he asked, half in jest and half not.

  “I certainly hope so,” Abby said lightly, getting her groove back (she hoped).  Then she introduced them, leaving the Detective part off Minella’s name and made one more stab at ordering a third martini. She got a coke.

  Minella got one with her, along with an order of the Dresden’s famous fries, and they sat for awhile, munching wordlessly. Abby was wondering if he was ever going to answer her question when Minella turned to her. “Okay, I’m here because I was thinking about you and I saw your car and I came in here against my better judgment.”

  “What does that mean?”
  “I’ve been trying to stay away from you.”

  “I noticed. And you’ve been doing a bang-up job of it.”

  “Well, I can’t stand it any longer.”   
  “Then why do  you stay away?”

  Minella sat silent for a moment, finishing off the fries. Then he stood up. “Kiddo, I have something to tell you that isn’t very pleasant. Let’s go someplace we can talk.”

  She offered to meet him at her apartment, but he deep-sixed that idea, telling her in his cop voice that she wasn’t driving, not yet, after those two jolts of alcohol. Piffle, Abby snorted, but after he paid the bill (with the entire staff pretending to be looking elsewhere), she followed him out to the parking lot and got into his car without comment.

  There was a lot of comment going on inside her head, however, all of it bad. What he had to tell her: He couldn’t get involved with her because he (a) was married (b) getting married (c) afraid of getting married (d) already had a steady girlfriend (e) had 14 steady girlfriends (f) couldn’t stand non-skinny women (g) couldn’t stand her in particular.

  That covered a lot of territory but she never in her wildest dreams (and some of them were damned wild, folks) expected what came next.

  Driving up Hillhurst to the little police outpost  in the CalFed complex, the one that had to close when the budget ran out, Minnella pulled into the far corner of the deserted parking lot.

  Shutting off the motor he turned to her. “Okay, here it is. I have personal problems.”

  “You’re married,” Abby said, hitting number one on her list.

  “No,” he said, looking away. “Health stuff.”

  Abby thought he was kidding and was going to quip “mental or phyiscal” but he went on talking. “When we had our annual physicals, something weird showed up on my blood test.”

  Aids, Abby thought, going white. Please, please not that. She’d already lost too many friends and patients to that menace.

  “Don’t look like that,” he said. “It’s not what you’re probably thinking. It’s something very rare and not good. It’s just a possibility but it’s not good. They asked for more testing by a hematologist but I never followed up. I was that freaked out.”

  Abby felt like she was listening to this through water. (She was, the tears starting to slide down her cheeks.)  “But you have to follow up!” she quavered. “Don’t you even care?”

  “I was so far into denial, I figured screw it. If I was going to crash, I didn’t want to know about it until it happened.  After all, I didn’t have a helluva lot to lose.”

  Abby looked at him and buried her face in her hands, thinking how much she had to lose and wishing he  felt the same.

  “I’m not finished, Abby. That was the way I felt until I met you and the…the kid and all that happened. You two changed things, changed the way I felt. So when we got Angel squared away, I got on a plane for home—Chicago—and had the tests done there.”

  Flooded with relief on one hand and horror on the other, Abby gasped “What did they find? Tell me. I’m a nurse. I can understand a diagnosis.”

  But when Minella said the name of whatever it was, Abby had  never even heard of it.

  “I told you it was rare,” he continued. “That’s why this is taking so long.  I had to go back for more tests right after I saw you the last time, and I’m still waiting. There’s only one lab doing this test and it’s in Switzerland!  I still don’t know if I have the thing or if  I’m going to get it for sure or if  I just might  get it. I only know if I do get it, there’s no cure. That’s why I shouldn’t be here, not until I know I’m okay.”

  “Yes, you should be here,” she said, moving into his arms.

  “Abby, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to start something I can’t finish.  And  I don’t want to involve you in my shit.”

  Abby looked up at him. “I am deeply involved in your shit, and I’m not sorry.”

  Minella looked at her, his dark eyes boring a hole in the space between then. “Yeah, I guess we aren’t starting anything. That got started the first time I ever saw  you.”

  After that the windows got fogged up pretty good until Minella thought to check the time. “I gotta go back to work,” he said into her hair.

  “Just don’t tell me you aren’t coming over later,” she said quietly.

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “You have to,” Abby said, not so quietly. “What if you get  sick and I never see you again and I never get to‑‑— ”  Stopping, she grabbed him by the tie from hell and kissed him frantically.

  “Okay, okay,” he laughed. “I promise not to die before—”

  “Don’t you dare joke about it,” she interrupted. “Just come over and make love to me before I’m the one who dies.”
  This was apparently an offer Minella was unable to refuse because he kissed her back (not to mention her front) until the window got all slushed up again.

  If you thought  Abby was frantic then, you should have seen her some time later. How much time, she had no idea. She’d been too busy ranging all over her apartment,  absently picking things up, putting them down, turning on the radio, the TV, then snapping them off. As she paced here and paced there, the cat followed her at first, hoping it was some kind of new game. But when she stripped off all her clothes to take a shower and sat down on the couch instead, in the dark, Al got into one of the kitchen cabinets and stayed there.

  And what was she doing sitting there starkers? She was trying her best to hold on, to maintain, to suss it out. She was trying to keep from going out of her damned mind. But it wasn’t working. What was she going to do? First she was losing David to Dr. Pill.  Now she was losing Minella, too, to some dread disease. She was afraid to ask WHAT NEXT?  Something might answer.

  If only the angel were here—how many times had she thought that? But he’d know what to do. He’d drive her nuts, and have to take off his pants to get his wings unfolded, but he’d make impossible things possible.

  Abby’s mind, what remained of it, was flying at the sides of its cage to the point where she almost didn’t hear the phone ring. When she finally answered it, Minella was on the other end of the wire. He would be over in fifteen minutes.

  Fifteen minutes? She still hadn’t got in the shower, her bed wasn’t even made, and so on and so on (and scooby dooby do).

  Abby did manage to whirl into action, but when Minella arrived, it was no Kevin moment. There was no soft music, no candles flickering, no incense, no chilled bottle of wine, and no perfectly coiffed blonde in a blue caftan extending a gracious welcome.

  Instead, Minella was met at the door by a teary-eyed looney with dripping hair and still-wet body that had been thrown into an old terry cloth robe just prior to getting thrown into his arms. But he was ready for her. In mufti for a change, he was wearing a nice pair of sweats. They were damp and his hair was wet, too.

  They didn’t even make it as far as the bedroom the first time.

  Being with Minella was like nothing Abby had ever even dreamed of. He was strong and gentle at the same time, and tireless. He knew a lot more about making love than she did, but she was somehow glad of that. It gave a whole new and exciting meaning to the phrase “teacher’s pet.”

  And he was so different from Kevin. Kevin had time to work out every day and Minella had to work his ass off.  Minella’s abs weren’t rock hard but that description certainly could be applied to other more important areas. And his heart wasn’t one of them.

  Abby awakened early the next morning, for her, anyway. For one split second it was like any other morning. Then it all came flooding back and she smiled into her pillow.

  Opening one eye, she looked at Minella beside her. He was facing her, lying on his side, quietly asleep. He should be exhausted after his, shall we say, performance, but he didn’t look it. He looked beautiful. He was beautiful, just like their night together had been beautiful.

  I think I love this man, she thought to herself, feeling beautiful too.  For at least another split second.

  Then: Love?  What was she, nuts? Don’t make any long-range plans, honey, the remnants of her sanity warned. You barely know this man. Plus he has serious problems. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.  You don’t even know what’s going to happen when Mister Sex Bomb wakes up!  What if this turns out to be one of those disastrous Mornings After. You know, the one where he looks at you like you’re Eric Herble (thank you, John Lennon), and have grown another head during the night.  And he can’t wait to get as far away from you as possible. Hasn’t that happened to a lot of us, cookie? Hasn’t it even happened to a nice girl like you?

  Abby gulped. Yeah, it had happened. Once, but once had been enough to curdle her libido for months. And make her a lot more particular about whom she let put what where. But Minella? Surely he wouldn’t wake up all changed and cold and distant. He wouldn’t, would he? Because if he did, she wouldn’t be able to bear it.

  It wasn’t long before she got her answer. As she lay there, growing more uncertain with every heartbeat, Minella suddenly stirred.  Opening one eye, he looked at her. Blinking hard, he re-opened the eye and looked at her again.  Then, saying nothing,  he turned his face into the pillow.

  Abby held her breath. Say something, her head shrieked. Find out right now if this had been just another Hollywood night in the life of Columbo, Jr.

  Swallowing hard, Abby croaked out the only thing she could think of that was friendly and impersonal “What would you like for breakfast?” she asked the back of his dark curly head.

  Turning over, he looked at her, still saying nothing. Then he said just one word. But what that word was, and the way he said it, sent a thrill ripping through Abby from  below her equator all the way to her arctic circle. Which it promptly melted.

  What he said, his voice deep, those eyes boring those holes again, was, simply, “You.”

  And, as he reached for her, everything Abby was, everything she had, opened to him—her arms, her heart, her soul, everything but her pores.

  Al, who had crept in to snuggle between them, barely made it out in time. He went to sit on the sunny windowsill, occasionally shooting them a disdainful cat glance that said “good grief, not again.”

  What they had for breakfast, after each other, was almost as tasty.

  Minella surprised Abby by suggesting that she make the coffee while he did the cooking. Sitting on a stool, she watched in wonder as he scrambled eggs with a glug of milk, a pinch of Italian seasoning and—are you ready—a drift of baking powder. Before that, he had put slices of bread into the oven and when they were toasted, returned them buttered and topped with another drift. Parmesan, this time, from the green can in her fridge.

  “I’ll bring you some Reggiano next time,” he muttered, throwing the can into the wastebasket.

  Abby had never had such a repast: Light eggy clouds piled atop  crunchy buttery toast and this gorgeous man sitting across from her. They ate hungrily, silently, but neither of them seemed to be able to stop smiling.

  Abby had her bath first, a good soak, resisting the urge to invite company. She needed to take pity on her wonderful visitor at this point. It would be nice if he could at least walk when he left her apartment.

  After Minella had showered, Abby lounged on her bed with a last cup of coffee, watching him dress. She was still floating on air, the problems and possible horrors of tomorrow far away. Her brain had gone on vacation when Minella arrived last night, allowing the rest of her to have a turn. She was actually doing that new agey thing—living in the now! And this now? Wow.

  Minella had a plane to catch; he was going to San Francisco to testify in a trial. He’d brought a leather case with him and was currently fishing out his “uniform” —slacks, already semi-rumpled jacket, clean shirt and you-know-what. And this one was the all time winner (or loser, depending on the nature of the contest), featuring Van Gogh-like whirling circles of purple and yellow.

  “Minella,” she said casually (she still couldn’t call him Tony) (because he was Minella!). “Who picks out  your ties?” (Maybe an ancient auntie, blind as six bats, sent them to him from Armpit,  Nebraska.)

  Snapping the laundry bands off his shirt, Minella slipped into it.

  “Don’t you mean what drooling fiend picks out my ties?”

  Abby tried to look innocent. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Well, it just so happens that I pick them out myself,” he said, buttoning, buttoning. “They make me wear a damn tie at this job and I try to make them just as sorry about that as I possibly can. You can’t say I don’t have unusual taste.”

  Wow again. This man shook me all night long, he can cook and he also makes me laugh.  She thought this. “You have lovely taste.” She said that, or at least she thought she did. But looking back, she might have said “I love the way you taste.”

  Whether she said it or Minella read the contents of her eyes, he stopped what he was doing and crossed the room and reached for her.

  “Minella,” she breathed, running her hands up his arms in that crisp, sexy white shirt (she’d been undone by them ever since she first saw Fox Mulder in his shirt-sleeves on an early “X-Files”). “How could you possibly even think of…”

  Unbuttoning, unbuttoning, he pulled her to him. “I’ve been saving up.”

  In the kitchen, the cat looked up from his Fancy Feast. He listened momentarily to the carryings-on that were being carried on down the hall. He then stalked over to his litter box and expressed his opinion.

  Talk about Endorphin City. When Abby left for the hospital later that day, she didn’t walk, she wafted. Everything around her looked different, was different, including herself.  She was definitely in what her late friend Al (the one she’d named her cat for) used to call an I-love-you-tree, I-love-you-bus mood. Mostly she loved a guy named Minella, and even that thought didn’t scare her. They hadn’t talked about any of the bad things. Those hadn’t even been mentioned. Instead they’d made plans to re-explore all of the good things just as soon as possible.

  When she got to David’s room, everything was in keeping with the mode and mood of the day. He looked extra well, and was even cuter and brighter than usual. She stayed to feed him his afternoon snack and play with him as much as an eight-year-old boy in a body cast can play.  Her brain was still wearing its rose-colored glasses while she read him his daily story. It kept them on until the stroke of three when she was on the floor, ready for work and the first thing she saw was Dr. Phillips.

  Something was terribly wrong. She knew that from the look on his face. She knew it even more when he rushed over and embraced her.

  “What’s the matter??” she asked, astonished.

  “They’ve cut off David’s funding,” Phillips answered in a bleat.

  “Who has?”

  “The government,” he said sadly.

  Abby tried to push him away but he was clutching at her “Whose government?” she asked angrily.

  “Ours. We’ve been notified that there’s no more money for David and several other patients whose bills have surpassed their insurance coverage. He’ll have to be moved to a county facility.”

  “No!” she cried, clutching him back. “That can’t happen.”

  “It is happening,” he replied, actually patting her. “They’re good doctors, Abby. It doesn’t mean he won’t get well.”

  “But they’re so busy,” she wailed. “And he needs me. He needs you. You’re adopting him. Can’t you put him on your insurance policy?”

  “I tried. They won’t let me because the adoption is still in progress. I don’t have the assets to continue his treatment personally. Nobody does.”

  “I sure don’t,” Abby said against his shoulder as he re-patted, actually quite tenderly. Then she pushed herself away from him.

  “When is this going to happen?”

   “The first of the month.”

  Abby straightened her uniform and smoothed her hair. “That means we have three weeks to fix this. And we’re by God going to do it!”

  “But how, Abby? How?”

  “We’ll just have to think of  something.”

  Somehow Abby got through her shift.  She held it all in as she did her work, as she went in to kiss the sleeping David goodnight, and when she grabbed a ride home with a colleague. She didn’t even let go when she reached her wonderful old four-plex. She didn’t because she couldn’t. She was that stunned. She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t blither inwardly or outwardly about any or all of the things that were going wrong. She could barely even think.

  All that she could manage was a silent prayer: Please God, send me my angel.

  When she got to her door, the angel was waiting. He was sitting on her couch, and he was the one who was crying his eyes out. 

                     

Abby & the Silverlake Angel Chapter 7

   After receiving the terrible news that she would have to get in line to adopt David, Abby was all over the emotional map-lost at sea, adrift in the doldrums, down in the pits and up that scatological creek without so much as a pop sickle stick for a paddle.

  She left no turn unstoned in her attempt to discover who had beaten her to it and messed everything up. But the answer was always the same: "Sorry, but that information is confidential."

  As her dilemma continued, Abby kept trying to dig up the facts. She also tried to change the direction things were taking. After praying and praying for Angel to show up and rescue her (and David), she ventured across his Silverlake Blvd, and paid a visit to Our Lady Of Perpetual Sorrows. There, surrounded by incense and icons and a calming sense of connection, she flat out begged her angel's Boss to let him come back just one more time.

  While she was hoping and still praying that would happen, she stayed on the move, trying to keep a grip or at least get one. She worked her shift even on her nights off, taking care of David and her other little ones. She defrosted her refrigerator, gave Al the cat a flea bath and went out for
bandaids immediately thereafter.

  She also went out after work more than usual. She even let herself get talked into going to sushi and karaoke at the cool new incarnation of Zen Restaurant over on Hyperion. The sushi part was a snap (yum), but getting up in front of people and singing? Yuck, not to mention not a chance. Still, a sake or two later, there she was, belting out Bob Seger's "Rock 'N Roll Never Forgets."

  How the angel would have giggled himself silly at that sight! (Him and the rest of the world.)

  Throughout all this, she strove to remain calm on the outside. Inside, she was a candidate for her own special on Animal Planet. The possibility of losing David wasn't depressing enough. To make life even more pleasant, she still hadn't heard from you-know-who. (You would think that when two people saw Heavenly Hosts together and when one of those people then kissed the other in an extremely thorough manner, that person might hear from the other damn person again, and in this geological era.)

  (Kevin hadn't called either, not even to whine. No doubt she'd scared him good with her mention of impending parenthood.)

  Whatever, if Abby thought she'd hit the top rung on the nut ladder, worrying about who was adopting her David, she hadn't seen nuthin' yet. Not if she could have seen the deranged look on her face when she found out who that someone was.

  "Dr. Phillips?" she screeched into the night. As the sound echoed through the previously peaceful hospital hall, Jody turned sixteen colors of the rainbow.

  "Shut up, I mean shhhh, Miss Ellison," the student nurse hissed at her supervisor. "I'm not supposed to know, and I'm sure not supposed to tell anyone!"

  When she could breathe (and just barely) Abby started to ask the girl how she'd managed to uncover this information. But there wasn't much point in asking. Jody knew everything there was to know about Dr. Phillips, or hoped she did. (Everything, apparently, but the fact that he was a walking anus.) Her schoolgirl crush on the doctor had deepened to near stalkerdom, a mystery in itself. (At first Abby figured the poor thing had been at the drug cabinet, but as she worked more nights with the young student, Abby realized that while Jody was very pretty, she was also pretty silly.)

  "Why would he do such a thing?" Abby half-babbled. (This was half question and half quest, the first rhetorical and the second of the fishing expedition variety.)

  Jody smiled sweetly. (Okay, she simpered, but let's not get bitchy about it.) "I don't know, but isn't it just like him?"

  Abby rolled her eyes inwardly. Kicking kittens would be more "just like him", but they do say love is blind, now don't they. Only in this case, they forgot to add deaf to the facts and dumb, period.

  "He doesn't have to go to all that trouble," Jody re-simpered, lowering her voice and her lashes (not to mention her standards). "I'd be happy to make babies with him any old time." The leer in her tone was a virtual nudge-nudge.

  "I'm sure he'd be thrilled to hear that," Abby said, somehow managing not to throw up.

  The student nurse paled, her dark curls flying. "Oh, don't ever tell him I said that. He doesn't even know I'm alive."

  "It's a deal," Abby replied, recovering enough to carpe the memento. "I won't tell him that if you don't tell him what you told me."

  "Huh?" the girl asked. Then something went whir-click inside her alleged brain and she nodded. "Oh, I get it. Mum's the word."

  Abby had never heard that expression this side of the late show, but it covered the ground. And the following day, still nuts (and still uncalled), when she went to see her own supervisor, mum continued to be the word.

  Mrs. Keller, as Irish as her name, was someone Abby trusted and always had. There was just something about the woman, something in addition to the fact that she had been a gifted and dedicated nurse before becoming a gifted and dedicated administrator.

  Abby knew she could safely admit that she'd "accidentally uncovered" the oh so confidential facts of the matter. She hoped that Mrs. Keller, sort of an angel herself, would help her do something about the situation.

  Moments into the conversation, Abby knew otherwise. Slumped dejectedly in her chair, she listened to Mrs. Keller's concerned but firm voice.

  "Abby, you've already done so much for David. Your diligence, and your constant care---even during your time off-may have been what turned the tide. You may have saved his life!"

  Abby made a face inside her head. Yeah, maybe she'd had somewhat of a hand in it, but her nursing skills hadn't been much of a factor. What had saved David's life was a miracle. A miracle courtesy of things that went bump in the night (trying to get their wings folded).

  When Abby didn't answer, Mrs. Keller peered at her thoughtfully, as if she were making a decision. Then she spoke again. "Since you're aware of his adoption plans, I'm going to tell you something else you can't repeat. Dr. Phillips knows all about being a father. He had a little boy of his own, about David's age."

  Abby sat up straight. "What do you mean had? What happened?"

  "I don't know," Mrs. Keller said honestly, "and I'm not in a position to ask. I'm only telling you this so you won't worry about his ability to make a home for David."

  But other thoughts were already coursing through Abby's head. What had happened to Dr. Phillips' son? Had he lost him through a custody battle in a messy divorce, by way of some dreadful scandal? What, what, what? (As in what, her worry?)

  Whatever had happened, Abby's new quest was to dig out the details. Maybe it was possible, just possible, that if they were gory enough (and since he was him, they just might be), they might make a difference to the adoption board.

  Wondering where on earth to begin looking, Abby peered at her watch. It was 7 p.m., time for her lunch break (dinner to those with more rational schedules). She'd brought nothing with her- to eat; she'd been way too nutty to fix anything or stop on the way for provisions. That meant she was left with the "food" in the staff caff (one of their kinder terms for the doctor's cafeteria).

  As she went through the line, Abby hurried by the soup of the day (salt broth with death-dodger dumplings) and the bubbling caldron of macaroni and "cheese." But the word cheese on the handmade sign stopped her for a moment.

  The angel and his Cheese Doodles If only he were here, he'd know what to do. He'd come up with something teenagey and ridiculous, but somehow he would make it work.

  Abby was still in line, her nose wrinkling at the unctuous odors around her, when she saw him. There he was, Dr. Phillips, alone at the farthest table in the farthest corner. Quickly deciding on her usual-coffee, toast, and salad-she picked up her tray. Then, squaring her shoulders, she marched in his direction. There was no time like the present for them to start getting better acquainted, whether he liked it or not.

  Apparently he didn't. When Abby appeared at his side and offered a "do you mind if I sit here," Phillips looked up from his sandwich and his book with displeasure.

  Abby sat down anyway. "You're reading Annie Proulx," she said, trying not to sound surprised.

  "I don't much like her," he said.

  That figures, Abby didn't say. Human beings liked Annie.

  As he went back to reading, Abby concentrated on her tray. First she added a scrape of I Sure Can Believe It's Not Butter to her single slice of sourdough (there's a tasty tongue twister for ye). Then she squeezed lemon on her salad and peppered its fan of anemic-looking sliced tomatoes almost beyond recognition. As she pulled her coffee cup nearer, Phillips stopped
eading and edged the cream and sugar toward her. Abby waved them away.

  "Dieting?" he asked in a condescending tone.

  Abby looked up at him. "This is what I always order here. It's safe. I can't handle their Le Page's Glue Sauce."

  Phillips managed a one-quarter smile. "You mean that's all you're going to eat?"

  Abby caught the inference and tossed it back. "Why, were you expecting me to have a loaf of toast instead of a slice?"

  Phillips half-smiled in spite of himself, then he grew serious.

"Abby, why haven't you had weight reduction surgery?"

  Abby's eyes goggle. "Are you crazy?" she asked before she could stop herself. Then she remembered this twit (spelled otherwise) was technically her boss. "I mean, why would I do that?"

  Phillips shrugged. "You're overweight."

  "Over whose weight?" Abby started to huff, but he was still talking.

  "I must say you do wear it well with your height," he said, and he said it appraisingly. "But you have such a--"

  If he'd blundered onward, if he'd come out with that "such a pretty face" line, Abby might just have lost it and kicked him right in the kishkas. Next she'd have lost her nursing credential, but it might have been worth it. However, the doctor's critique of her physiognomy was interrupted by a voice from the overhead speaker, summoning him a meeting.

  Looking relieved, Phillips crammed the rest of his sandwich into his face, grabbed his book and fled.

  Abby shook her head. That certainly hadn't worked. She didn't know any more about him than she had when she sat down, other than his thoughts on her personal areas.

  Morosely, she sipped her coffee. It was awful, but it was strong and hot and comforting. Abby loved good coffee and ordered her beans all the way from the venerable Arbuckles in Texas. (Their beans and ground coffees came packaged with a peppermint stick, an old cowboy tradition.) But she was neither a coffee snob nor a Starbuck's junkie. The former was laughable, and the latter way too trendy (and overpriced) for her tastes. But at least she knew who Starbuck was. (For the illiterate and/or forgetful amongst us, he was the coffee-loving first mate on Captain Ahab's Pequod.)

  There was no way this was going to work. She would never be able to get to know Phillips well enough to ask him anything more personal than the time. There had to be another way, she'd just have to think of one.

  When she couldn't, she finally did something she'd sworn she'd never do. She called her very own missing person.

  Holding her breath, Abby phoned the Hollywood police station and asked for him. When he picked up on the first ring and said "Minella" in that voice, that voice, Abby's couldn't get her breath back.

  "Hello?" he asked questioningly.

  "Hello," Abby croaked.

  "Abby, is that you?"

  "Yes," she said, regaining some of her cool and vowing to keep it.

  "It's good to hear from you. I was planning to call you."

  "Call me what, Ishmael?" she said coldly, knowing he'd get the "joke" and the sarcasm. (If he'd read Dickens, he was sure to have read Moby, too.) (How'm I doing in the thematic grouping department?)

  Abby heard the smile in Minella's voice when he replied. "I'm sorry. I've been away."

  "Really," she said, remaining aloof. "Whatever. I'm sorry to have to ask, but I need your help. Again."

  "What's wrong?" he asked quickly, the vocal smile vanishing.

  Abby told all, as quickly and rationally as she could, finishing with "I have to know and I don't know how to find out."

  "Neither do I," Minella answered.

  "I don't believe that," Abby said. "You people can find out anything."

  "Abby," he said, his voice apologetic. "I'm not Agent Mulder."

  "You are to me," she said earnestly. (Well, there went aloof, right into the toilet.)

  Minella was waiting for her in the parking garage when she got off work at eleven.

  Abby slid into the front seat of the car. One look at his curly head and crooked smile and she wanted to throw herself at him and commence sobbing.

  Five minutes later, that's exactly what she was doing. She'd been hoping for the worst, but she hadn't anticipated anything like the heartbreaking story Minella told her. Three years earlier, Dr. Phillips'
wife and 8-year-old son had been killed in an accident much like the one David had survived.

  Minella held Abby and once again let her cry on his jacket. It was a new one, and it was already rumpled, but it was an improvement. Besides, he was in it. Feeling so sorry for Phillips, so sorry that it was a personal tragedy that had made him so angry and mean, Abby moved closer to Minella.

  His arms tightened around her, just as they had that other time.

  Leaning her head back, Abby looked at him through her tears. She didn't know what would happen, but she certainly wasn't expecting what did.

  "I have to go," he said.

  "Right now?" she asked incredulously.

  "Yeah," he said, his arms loosening, then dropping away from her. "I'm very sorry."

  Abby eyed him icily. "You certainly are," she said. With that, she slammed out of his car and into her own.

  When she got home, she slammed into her apartment, kicked the cat (just kidding) and called Kevin.

Abby & the Silver Lake Angel Chapter 6

  Abby's eyes opened wide at the sight of Kevin. Then they narrowed. For someone so hip, you'd think he'd know better than to intrude when two people were probably out on a date (sort of). Or maybe Kevin didn't think it very probable for her to be on a date. Maybe she didn't either.

  "I think the question is what are you doing here?" she said, and she said it coolly as opposed to cool.

  Giving Abby's very male dinner companion a sidelong glance, Kevin shrugged. "Oh, just hanging. Where've you been, anyway?"

  "Busy," she said, moving toward cold.

  Minella cleared his throat, causing Kevin to re-eye him and Abby to remember her manners. (Someone around there might as well have some.)

  "Kevin Sharp, this is" she paused before committing TMI (Too Much Information). "This is Mr. Minella."

  "Tony," the detective amended, extending his hand across the table. Kevin shook it extra-manfully. "Nice to meet you, bro. How do you know Abby?"

  God, what a nosey question. She wished Minella would give a curt but revealing reply like in the Biblical sense, and what's it to ya?  But he dropped that ball and Abby picked it up instead. "We're just on our way out, Kevin," she said. "I'll call you."

  Her ex-whatever gave her a pointed stare that broadcast how many times he'd heard that one that lately. Abby felt her face start to turn red. Then Kevin made a pointed comment that finished the job: "Okay, then, see you Wednesday."

  Abby clenched her teeth. How dare he assume that the status was still quo, and then say so right in front of Minella. "I said I'd call you," she said, her voice sounding as tense as she felt . But before she lost it entirely, Kevin was mercifully swept away by a crowd of hipsters flooding into the Dresden dining room, looking for somewhere to perch until they could find even standing room in the bar.

  It might have been fun to join that merry throng. Marty and Elayne still played her favorite Beatle song ("In My Life") every time they saw her. That would be neat except it would probably further convince Minella that she spent all her spare time hanging around bars. Besides, at midnight on a Saturday in the Dresden, inserting themselves into that bar would have required a shoehorn.

  As they waited for Minella's car, Abby writhed (wrothe?) in discomfort. What a dumb thing to have happen. What must Minella think of her? Tony she needed to get used to thinking of him as Tony, and start calling him that if he ever came around again after that performance.

  Well, at least Kevin was presentable, in the present sense of the word anyway. The goatee was gone and his current bow to the fashion nazis was the latest bedhead coiffure. His hair was still short, but now it stuck up in eighteen different directions.

  She didn't have long to wonder what Minella thought.

  "That your boyfriend?"

  "He was," she said quietly. "In a way."

  "Is he giving you a hard time?"

  "Not really," she said, just as quietly.

  Quiet, in fact, was the word for the short trip home.

  It was a soft, fragrant California night, the streets almost empty, finally getting a breather from heavy traffic. To look at the peaceful scene now, it was hard to believe that a few hours later, it would jammed with SUV's trying to run (and run over) the world.

  And speaking of now, now what? What should she do when they got to her apartment? If she invited him in, what would he think? After that incredible, unexpected kiss and the way she had returned it, what else could he think? She'd certainly thought about it herself, a lot, even with everything that had been going on.

  But if she did invite him in, too much might happen. Not that she didn't want it to, but it was too soon. She wouldn't want him to think she was easy. (She wasn't, was she?) Still, if she didn't invite him in, would he think it was because of her "boyfriend" and never come back?

  Abby was so deep in thought, she didn't realize that Minella had already stopped the car. Looking up at the light she always left burning in in her apartment, she could see Al, her cat, sitting in the window. He was waiting for her like he used to before the angel became his new best friend.

  However, she needn't have worried about what might happen next. The subject of Minella and Tony joining her for a nightcap didn't even come up, among other things. The detective did walk her to the door, but he only kissed her hand. (He'd been starting to do that when that damn Kevin had showed up!)

  "Now that I can get to them, I have some things I have to attend to," he said. Then he kissed her hand again, this time on the palm, sending shivers through her timbers. "I'll call you," he added, and then he was gone.

  "Nuts," Abby grumbled to herself as she unlocked the door. I'll call you; that had a familiar ring to it, she thought, not even getting her own pun. She was too busy thinking about Minella, Tony, whatever his name was. He could have at least kissed her elsewhere. Or, if he'd played his cards right, everywhere. (Maybe.)

  As the door opened, Al leaped down from his perch and eyed her expectantly. Picking him up, Abby buried her face in his fur. The apartment seemed so empty to her now without the angel, without the feeling he left behind him even when he was out and about. It must feel the same way to the poor cat.
  Would they ever see the angel again? She could only hope so, Cheese Doodles and all. What would she do about David without him to guide her? What would she do without him, period? She hoped he was all right, but then, all things considered, how could he not be?

  Carrying Al into the kitchen, she opened a container of his very favorite kitty treat, some sort of evil-smelling liver nodules he was unusually fond of. But Al just continued looking at her expectantly.

  When she dropped onto the bed, Abby was so exhausted, she fell asleep before she even had a chance to undress. But not before she noticed that the cat was back in the window.

  Al hadn't been waiting for her after all.

  Abby stood motionless at David's bedside, her breath caught somewhere in her midsection. A river of emotion ran through her; she wanted to laugh, cry, jump for joy, scoop the child up in her arms.

  David had just spoken his first word since the accident! And he'd actually smiled!

  He'd fallen right back to sleep. The medication that alleviated his suffering while he healed tended to make him groggy, but his was a healthy, easy sleep all the same.

  When Abby could move, she checked all of David's monitors. Everything was perfect. Then, brushing a kiss onto his forehead, she rushed to the nurses' station and sang out the good news.

  Dr. Phillips was next on her list, and not quite the same list as he'd been on up to this point. He hadn't been his usual stick-in-butt self lately. In fact, he'd been so near-human, one of the nursing students had admitted to having a crush on him.

  Actually, Phillips been rather tender to the David, for him, and for that reason, Abby sailed into his office (well, cubicle), anxious to share the moment.

  "David spoke," she said breathlessly.

  Phillips looked up from his work. "That's good news. What did he say?".

  Abby swallowed hard. "He looked up at me and said Mama." she said, and it was written all over her happy-face that David's choice of words had gone directly to her chewy chocolate center. But Abby's joy wilted and dropped right off the vine when the doctor glared at her. "Don't romanticize this situation, nurse. No doubt he was only asking for his own mother."

Abby gulped inwardly. She knew that. But it had felt so right, especially since David would soon learn the hard, cold facts. Before he had to face never seeing his real mama again.

  "I'm sure that's true," she said, calmer than she felt. Then she couldn't stop herself from asking the question she'd been avoiding. "What's going to happen to David when he's well enough to leave the hospital?"

  The doctor's stern expression didn't change. "That doesn't concern you."

  It concerns me very much, you a-hole, Abby thought, but the doctor hadn't finished.

  "Your only concern is to help him get well," he said dismissively, returning to his charts.

  Abby walked away, too tangled in her thoughts to even consider what she'd like to do to Dr. Phillips (for sure it would have involved a variation on her foot and his behind). David had no relatives in the United States. His father's family could not be located, and David's mother had been an only child and a late one. This left David with one set of elderly grandparents, and a smattering of aging aunts and uncles deep in Mexico.

  Under these circumstances, David could easily become a ward of the court. California had no orphanages, so he might be sent from foster home to foster home, and some of those were a fate worse than many things.

  Also, the small insurance policy his parents carried had already run out, and the expenses continued to mount. David would be in his body cast at least another six weeks. Thank God the hospital had a special fund to care for patients like David until they recovered.

  But then what? Someone else had to care for, and about, him, permanently.

  Am I the one, Abby wondered. Am I ready for motherhood?

  It was a question she handout really asked herself before David came into her life. She had never felt pressured to join the baby dance, or worried about the ticking of her biological clock. (Or was it an illogical clock? Didn't it often happen that by the time you were mature enough to settle down and raise a family, you were already growing "too old" to do so?) Abby loved her work, she had a life. Was she ready to share it?

  Wednesday was slow in arriving and by the time it got there, Abby was full of woe. Nothing was going right. She still hadn't made a decision about David, Minella still hadn't called, Al didn't want to eat, not even his liver nodules, Minella still hadn't called, etc. What's more, it was that day. She hadn't contacted Kevin like she'd promised (sort of), but it would be just like him to show up anyway.

  He did, and when he did, Abby was the most unready she'd ever been for one of his visits. In the old days (two weeks ago), she would have been perfumed and shiny. She would have put her blonde hair up in preparation for letting it down.

  Tonight her hair was down alright, hanging in wet strings against her sweat suit. And perfumed wasn't the word for her after 45 minutes on her stationery bike. Abby preferred riding her mountain bike out in the fresh air, and she often did, but this was the big city and not really conducive to midnight biking. So she rode in place instead and watched re-runs of "The X Files."

  When she opened the door, Kevin stared at her in shock, the ubiquitous wine bottle almost slipping from his grasp. "Wow," he said. "You look hot."

  "I am hot," she agreed crossly, walking ahead of him into the living room.

  "How's about I give you a nice bath," he said, closing in from behind.

  Abby whirled around. Kevin had that mean business look on his face and she knew exactly what sort of business he meant: Monkey.

  "Stop it and sit," she said. "We need to talk." Lighting on a chair, she directed him to the couch across the room.

  Kevin sagged onto it, far away from Al at the other end. The cat glared at him, slits for eyes and his ears laid so far back it looked like he'd combed them with Crisco.

  "Okay, Abby," Kevin crabbed. "What the hell is the matter with you? What did I do?"

  "You didn't do anything, Kevin," Abby said. "Maybe that's the problem."

   It wasn't really, she thought as he stared at her in confusion. The thought of having to deal with Kevin on a full-time basis had never thrilled her, not with his "industry pressures" and constant running conversation about the music business and what was out with the in crowd this week. In the past, it had really pissed her off that he had no other interest in her besides these midnight visits. Now she was fuming that he had dared to show up like nothing had happened.

  Kevin ignored the barb. "But we've been seeing each other for over a year."

  "That's correct," Abby snapped, "and very well put. You come over, we take off our clothes and we see each other."

  "Oh, for God's sake," Kevin muttered. "I really like you, Abby. I never promised anything more." That ticked her off even further. Like, who asked him? But there was no point in being a total bitch about the matter when her heart wasn't even in it. "I like you too, Kevin (and in many ways, she did). But I never promised I wouldn't get tired of being booty call."

  Kevin recoiled. "I never expected a classy chick like you to use a lowlife expression like that."
Classy chick, eh? But the compliment didn't take the twist out of her knickers. "That's what Tom Leykis calls it," she said smugly.

Kevin groaned. "There's no way you listen to Tom Leykis."

  "Of course I don't," Abby shot back. "But I do hear things. I have ears, you know."

  "Yeah, well, you used to have brains too, before you started hanging around with To-ny." He spit Minella's name instead of saying it.

  "I suppose you don't see anyone but me," she said coldly.

  "I didn't say that, but nobody regular. Nobody like you."

  Abby couldn't help herself. She moved in for the kill. "You mean the reason we never went anywhere together isn't because I'm fat?"

  "For ----'s sake," Kevin exploded. "You are not fat. You're a big girl. A big stacked girl."
  "I'm not a girl. I'm a woman. I am a size 18 woman," Abby said stoutly. (She was so mad, she missed that pun too.)

  "Yeah, and you're 18 feet tall," Kevin said, looking her up and down. "And on you it looks good.
  Abby wasn't having any. "Isn't Kate Moss or someone like her supposed to be today's ideal woman? Well, she's a size zero."

  "Oh, Kate Moss's ass, if she even has one," Kevin growled. "You were the one woman I know that I'd consider taking to the Grammys."

  Abby gave him a look. "You mean now or when you win one?"

  Kevin volleyed the look back. "I'll take you now. When I win, I'll take Kate."
  Abby laughed in spite of herself. It was a typical Kevin remark and it was nice to know he could still crack her up, even now.

  Kevin took advantage of the lightened mood. "Look, Ab, it's not you. I just don't have time for a girlfriend. I'm starting to get somewhere and I don't anything left over to give to a relationship. I thought you understood that. You know all about what it's like to be too involved in your work."
She certainly did, but she didn't like him going around thinking she was pining away to be his girlfriend when she didn't even want to be. She felt like saying so even if it wasn't very kind now that they'd made up (sort of).

  "I don't want to be your girlfriend, Kevin," she said. (Well, so much for kindness.)

  "Oh," he said in surprise. "Okay, what do you want?"

  Abby shook her head. "I don't know. I didn't know I didn't know, but now I don't. Know, that is."

  Kevin's eyes almost spun, but he rallied. "Does this mass confusion have anything to do with To-ny, whoever he is?"

  "He's a cop and I don't know that either."

  "A cop?"

  "Don't ask and I won't tell."

  This time Kevin shook his head. "Umm, maybe I'd better go."

  Abby nodded. "I think that would be a good idea."

  Kevin got to his feet, then he stopped. "Abby, are you okay?" When she answered him with another look, he added, "Right. You don't know."

  Abby nodded again.

  Opening the door, Kevin tried to pull off a nonchalant grin, but he only managed a grimace. "Well, take care of yourself." As the door closed behind him, the cat gave a "good riddance" shake, but Abby jumped out of her chair.

  "Kevin," she called after him, "none of this is personal. I'm just crazed right now. I'm trying to make some momentous decisions. For one thing, I'm adopting an eight-year-old child."

  "Yikes," he said, stopping to look back at her in shock.

  "I'll say," Abby agreed. "I'll call you."  Kevin stared, one eye saying do that, the other begging please don't.

  "Abby trembled as she closed the door. She had been hoping hopes and dreaming dreams, and suddenly, boom, she'd come to a decision. Then she'd blurted it out like a dope.

  It was then that she noticed that the cat was staring at her in absolute horror.

  He couldn't possibly know. Or could he? Hadn't she learned that just about anything was possible? After all that hanging around with the angel, maybe Al new, of course not, she was just being batty.

  "Don't worry, Al," she said softly. "You'll always be my number one boy."

  Since cat couldn't say tell me another one, he just curled his lip and stalked from the room.

  Later, when Al crept hesitantly into her bed, Abby stroked and stroked him to calm his fears. To calm her own, too. She still had them, but she knew she was doing the right thing. She was finished with all the agonizing and weighing pros and cons and driving herself mad. This was what the angel had wanted and it was what she wanted. David needed her and she needed him. She would put the process in motion tomorrow.

  This thought made her feel so relieved and optimistic, Abby fell asleep in a haze of warm fuzzy. Her bubble didn't burst until the next day when she made inquiries about how to proceed with David's adoption.

  "That's when she found out that someone had beaten her to it.

Abby & the Silverlake Angel Chapter 5

  One moment Abby was in the detective's arms. The next, the room was filled with angels in white robes.

  "Get your gringo hands off her," a familiar voice thundered (or tried its best to). Six pairs of wings flapped menacingly as Al the cat dove into the broom closet.

  His eyes goggling, Minella leaped to his feet. The seasoned L.A. detective thought he'd seen it all, but this was the all time fuse-blower. After an astonished look at the visitors, he slumped to the floor.

  Abby was the next one to leap. Falling to her knees beside Minella, she cradled his curly head in her lap.

  "I want his hands on me, dammit!" she cried angrily.

  "Language," Angel growled (he hoped). "It's okay," he added, turning to his companions. "I can handle it." And it was a good thing Minella had already passed out because what happened next would have really finished him off. At Angel's words, the Heavenly Host disappeared in the blink of an eye.

  Angel disappeared with them, but Abby knew he wasn't gone. She could hear him in the next room, struggling with his wings.

  "Don't you dare come in here until you're fully dressed," she warned, ministering tenderly to the still prostrate Minella. But her warning went unheeded. Moments later, Angel was back, jockey shorts and all.

  Abby looked daggers at him. "Couldn't you at least leave your robe on?"

"We were at choir practice," Angel shrugged. "We have to turn those robes in right afterwards or we get in deep caca. Besides, this guy is never going to believe me unless he sees them for himself. So wake the dude up."

  But the dude was already awake.

  "What happened?" Minella moaned.

  "That happened," Abby said, pointing to Angel.

  Minella stared at the boy, standing there in his fruit of the looms backed by a six-foot quivering wingspan. "Holy suffering Moses," he breathed.

  "Close," Abby said under her breath.

  "What happened to the rest of them?" the dazed detective asked. "There were others, weren't there?" (Right then he wasn't sure of much, like his name, for instance.)

  "Just some amigos I hang with," Angel hedged. "They had to get back to, her, they had to go. So can I put my clothes on now?"

  "Turn around first," Minella said.

  Angel gave him an attitude stare. "So you can snap the cuffs on me?"

  "I said turn around," Minella ordered, getting his groove back. "Nice and slow."

  Attitude melting into acquiescence, Angel did as he was told and Minella stared some more. It was obvious that the wings weren't man-made. That they were part and parcel of the boy's body.

  "Okay," the detective said resignedly. "Get dressed and let's figure this nightmare out. Anyway, let's try."

  As Angel repaired to the kitchen, Minella looked helplessly at Abby and patted his empty jacket pocket. "I picked a fine time to give up smoking," he said wryly.

  Abby laughed for the first time in too long.

  "What's so funny?" Angel called accusingly from the other room.

  "Just a joke," Abby called back to him. "You wouldn't get it. You're too young to have seen Airplane."

  "I did so," Angel said defensively, rejoining them, this time with clothes on. "I dig the part where the balloon pilot puts his hands around the chick's"

  "Never you mind," Abby interrupted. "Now I want you to meet Detective Minella. Shake his hand like a gentleman."

  Muttering something about cabron cops under his breath, Angel grudgingly extended his paw. Minella grasped it firmly.

  "Now I want you to tell him exactly what happened," Abby continued.

  Angel pulled a pouty face. "I'm not supposed to tell anyone, especially not a cop."

  "Well, you're going to tell this one," Abby said sternly. "And tell all of it."

  Sighing a sigh that was really more of an air-whine, Angel began his confession. Midway through it, Abby brought him a coke and stiff jots of brandy for the wide-eyed detective and herself. Watching Minella struggle to absorb the tall tale of a lifetime, she flashed on what had been happening before they were interrupted. That thought made her inner elevator drop several floors.

  At the conclusion of his story, Angel finished with this clincher: "The cross had to go back to the church where it belongs. It has to go back right now."

  "No way," Minella answered grimly. "It can't go back, it's evidence."

  "Way," the angel insisted. "And I can't take it myself. It's on the other side of SilverLake Blvd." Minella looked question marks at Abby.

  "It's a long story," she answered. "Can't you return it for him?"

  Minella's eyes regoggled. "Me? I can't return stolen goods. I'm an officer of the law." Abby shot him a look to remind him of what she occasionally thought of the law and its officers.

  "Pullease," Angel pleaded, sounding like the kid he was. "When it gets back, the little boy's gonna wake up and be okay!"

  Abby gasped aloud. "Say that again!"

  "You heard me," Angel said smugly.

  Abby jumped to her feet. "You mean David's coma will just go away when the cross is returned?"

  "You got it," Angel nodded. "So help me God and everybody else up there!"

  Tears sprang to Abby's eyes. "Then give it here. I'll take it back myself!'

  Minella sat silently for a moment, then he stood. "No," he said grimly. "You've already done enough to help." Then he turned to the angel.

  "Okay, pal, whoever and whatever you are, let's roll. And if you got any more miracles, you'd better use 'em. I get caught and my ass is grassland."

  "Thank you," Abby breathed, and got one of the detective's rare but incredible smiles for a you're welcome. (It was dazzling even if he did still look a tad goofy.)

  As Angel slouched toward the door, Minella turned back to Abby. The smile was gone but his eyes were deep water.

  "Did you mean that thing you said earlier?" he asked quietly.

  "Which thing?" she asked, knowing full well which thing.

  "You know which thing."

  Remembering her arms going around the detective's tweedy jacket, and her surprised lips parting under his, Abby dropped her eyes. But she couldn't hide the flush that crept over her cheeks. Then the embarrassment of blushing like a total ninny made her turn even redder.

  "Good," Minella said, following Angel out the door. "Hold that thought." Then he poked his head back in. "That Kevin guy? If he comes over here, tell him he's under arrest."

  One hour and forty-three minutes later, the bells at the church of Our Lady Of Perpetual Sorrows pealed joyfully. On the other side of Silverlake, a little boy named David sat up and asked for a drink of water.

  Minella was a bit taken aback when they arrived. He'd suggested the venerable retro-for-real restaurant when he called Abby at the hospital and invited her to dinner after her shift. But he probably hadn't been expecting his date to be welcomed with arms quite so open. First Abby got a hug from Joanie, the flame-haired hostess, then one from another Gabriel, the handsome bartender she'd had a crush on years ago when she was a schoolgirl and he was a bus boy.

  Abby had been going to the Dresden in Hollywood ever since she could remember. She'd gone there with her parents for Sunday night dinners. She'd gone there before her first prom at Marshall High (with a boy named Ray somebody‹totally geeksville). She'd even had her first drink at the Dresden a Tom Collins because it was the only drink she'd ever heard of. And tonight she was having the only first-date in centuries that didn't make her want to flush herself down the nearest commode.

  Minella was so easy to be with, even after this day of all days. Sitting in the big white high-backed booth, they were comfortable even when they weren't talking. But they were most of the time. There was a lot to talk about.

  The detective had decided against trying to sneak into the church and do the deed unnoticed. Instead, he'd gone to the priest and made him an offer he couldn't very well refuse the shiny golden cross in return for the silence of this lamb of God. He'd even been prepared to bed if necessary, but it hadn't been. Our Lady was far from being a well-to-do parish and they were overjoyed to have their most valuable and meaningful artifact returned. No questions were asked. In fact, Minella got himself blessed.

  What had become of the angel, Minella didn't know. He'd left him at the Sun Lake drugstore on his way to the church. Neighborhood-friendly pharmacist Dean Ng had allowed the local graffiti artists to decorate the exterior of his building, and Angel was last seen digging the murals.. He knew better than to go any further. Just up the street, busy Silverlake Blvd. streamed through the underpass below Sunset and Angel didn't dare put even a toe in that water.

  He hadn't come to the hospital either, to witness the miracle of David's awakening. Abby was there, of course. The moment Minella and Angel had departed on their mission, she'd rushed to David's side. Since his nurse was a friend of hers, Abby revealed that she had a strong feeling something was going to happen and to be ready. She half expected Angel to show up for the big moment, but it didn't happen.

  When David suddenly awakened, her nurse friend wondered aloud whether Abby's name wasn't really Sabrina. But wonders had yet to cease. When Dr. Phillips had come rushing in, he had been uncharacteristically kind. He also failed to eye size-18 Abby the way he usually did (like he was considering her for a "Before" picture). He had even gone so far as to put Abby in charge of David's care on the three-to-eleven henceforth.

  Now, many hours later, Abby and Minella were finally relaxing in the calm elegance of the old-fashioned dining room. From the adjoining bar, they could hear Marty and Elayne warbling the world's most famous lounge act for their packed audience of martini-pounding hipsters.

  Finished with their meal, they had just eschewed dessert and decided on coffee instead when they saw the angel ambling toward them. He was wearing his usual costume which included jeans, Nikes, and backwards baseball cap.

  In the old days, Mr. Ferraro, the owner forever, would have sent Angel home to don proper attire, but these were far more casual times. Some of the long-time regulars laughed that the current crop of habituates looked like the people who used to get thrown out. But many of those new customers were successful young writers, directors, actors, artists. There were plenty of wannabes too, but it was impossible to tell the ruling class from the contenders, so just about anything went. Luis, the number one waiter, even let them call him dude. (He'd been letting Abby call him Louie-Louie for years.)

  Angel didn't wait to be invited before sliding into the booth, but neither Abby nor Minella minded the interruption. They were that happy to see him. They stayed happy until the angel tried to order a beer. Then Abby stopped smiling and changed his request to a coke. "Remember what happened to you the last time you were drinking."

  "Yeah, yeah," the angel said sadly. "Like I could forget. But it's okay, I can't stay anyway."

  "Why not?" Abby asked.

  "Cause they ain't t got no cheese doodles in this fancy joint," the angel teased. But then he grew serious. He really did have to go, he told them, and he probably wouldn't be back. His job was over. He had other jobs waiting now that he'd finally earned his wings.

  Abby's first thought was for David. What about him, she asked the angel. What was going to happen to him now?

  "That isn't up to me anymore," Angel replied, noisily slurping the rest of his coke up from the bottom of the glass. "That's up to you."

  "Me?" Abby said in amazement.

  "You," Angel nodded, crunching the last of his ice. Standing up, he grinned at her. "You'll take good care of him, just like you do Al." Then he turned to Minella. "And you take good care of her, or else."
  With that he touched his cap and started toward the exit. (At least he didn't disappear into the ether like something out of The X Files.)

  "Please don't go, Gaby," Abby called after him. It was the first time she had ever used his real name and it stopped him for a moment. But only long enough to turn around and give her the sweetest, most angelic look imaginable.

  "I gotta," he said, "but thanks for everything." Then he was gone.

  "Thank you," she called after him, about to start blubbering. It wasn't just that David needed Angel. She needed him too. She was used to him hanging around, even if he did drive her nuts. And he needed her too. He was only a boy himself, not even 18 years old.

  "It'll be all right," Minella said comfortingly.

  "I hope so," she said glumly. And he was probably halfway right at least. Even though she would miss him terribly, Gaby would be fine. He might be just a kid, but he was now a full-fledged angel. But David.that was another story. Moments after he'd awakened, he'd been whisked off for tests. The next time Abby had seen him, he was back in his room asleep. Not the motionless waxen repose of his coma, but tumbled on his stomach in kid sleep. As she stood beside his bed, he'd opened his eyes.
  "Mama?" he said.

  For an instant, Abby felt her heart grow warm and full, but in the next second, she realized he wasn't calling her mama. He was calling for his mama. And how would he deal with the pain when he found out he would never see her again? And where would he go when it was time for him to leave the
safety of the hospital?

  Abby would help him through it. She would have to do it, she wanted to do it. But it was a scary thought. David was so young, so helpless. He would need so much care and attention and help and she was only only one person.

  Just then Minella took her hand and Abby felt another kind of warmth. But this was another unknown quotient. Did he just want to make love to her, or was there a chance some teeny little chance that she wouldn't be just one person anymore?

  She might have been about to discover the answer to that question. Minella was just raising her hand to his lips when a voice suddenly loomed "Abby???"

  When they looked up, beside their table, clutching a bilious green apple martini, stood Kevin.

Abby & the Silver Lake Angel Chapter 4

  Abby slammed the door of the unmarked patrol vehicle and sat like a stone. (Unmarked, hah. All it lacked was a sign that said "Gee, I'm not a police car, honest!)

  When the detective got in far more calmly and sat behind the wheel, she glared at him.

  Her captor tried look reassuring. "At least I didn't handcuff you," he tried to say lightly.

  "Thanks ever so much," Abby snapped. "But you had to arrest me at my work."

  "No, but I had to pick you up," Minella said wearily, shaking his un-policeman like mop of curly hair as he fired up the motor. "We have a problem and you have a history ofof not being exactly cooperative."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Abby asked, knowing full well what it meant and hoping he didn't.

  The detective peered at her through those dark eyes of his. "Miss Ellison, it means that two years ago, you interfered with an officer of the law while he was acting in the line of duty."

  Abby snorted aloud. "He was acting like a jerk, trying to question a child who had been badly hurt. The man was endangering my patient and I asked him to stop."

  The detective pursed his lips. "And when he didn't stop, you hit him over the head with a tray."

  Abby shrugged. "He was lucky I wasn't carrying a bed pan."

  The detective bit his lip. "He was still an officer of the law."

  Abby snorted even louder. "Sometimes, the law, and its officers, is an ass," she said, paraphrasing, nay, murdering Dickens.

  The detective turned away quickly, so she wouldn't see his grin, but he wasn't fast enough. Abby saw it anyway. Wow, she thought, the man actually reads. Sneaking a peek at her arresting officer, Abby had to admit that even under the present dire circumstances, she still found him quite arresting.

  When they got to the station, Abby was ushered into a room with a table and chairs. "Is this where you're going to interrogate and if necessary, beat the information out of me, whatever that may happen to be?"

  But the detective's light mood had vanished. "This isn't NYPD Blue, miss" he scowled. "It's real life. Your car was used in a robbery in Glendale and then abandoned."

  "No," Abby paled. "Is it okay? What about the driver?"

  "That's what I'd like to know," the detective said, tossing a mug shot onto the table in front of her. "What about him?"

  Abby silently dropped into a chair. It was a shot of Angel, of course, glowering manfully (he hoped) into the camera.

  "Maybe you could tell me why it is you said you didn't know him," the detective went on. "And more importantly, maybe you could tell me how you happen to know him when he's been dead for two months!"

  Abby breathed in gasp of air and let it out with a whoosh. Picking up the computer print out that accompanied the mug shot, she read that the angel's name was actually Gabriel, no doubt the genesis of the nickname, Gabriel being the angel of the Annunciation. The photo had been taken a year ago when he was arrested on suspicion of Grand Theft Auto. Abby wasn't surprised by that. In one of their talks, Angel had admitted that sometimes, he and his friends "borrowed" cars, but they took them back. Wouldn't that make the charge more like Petite theft Auto?

  But the rest of the information on his rap sheet turned her white as one. Angel had shuffled off this mortal coil as the result of an automobile accident at the corner of Fountain and Virgil, right near the hospital. Also killed in the accident were the driver of the car, along Julio Suertes and his wife Rosa, passengers in one of the cars struck by the runaway vehicle.

"Suertes?" she said in disbelief. "That's David's last name, the little boy I was visiting when you came to take me away. He's been in a coma ever since."

  "Since the accident that killed the boy who was driving your car today."

  "How do you know it was him, he?"

  "Because the officers saw him. They saw him trying to start your car in front of a pawn shop in Glendale, where the burglar alarm was ringing off the wall."

  "My Mustang is tricky to start," Abby offered helplessly. "It's a classic, you know."

  "Miss Ellison," the detective said, sounding like he'd love to raise his voice but refraining. "This is not about your vehicle, which is perfectly safe. This is about how a deceased individual was able to borrow
your car in the first place‹borrow anyone's car. And then, when he can't get it started, disappear. Not around the corner. Into the ether. As in poof.

  Can you explain that to me just for starters?"

  Abby swallowed hard. Yes she could, but she knew she hadn't better. Not where they just might happen to have a rubber room handy.

  Two hours later, Abby wheeled into her garage in her '67 aqua fastback. It was in fine shape, which was more than she could say for herself. She had hemmed at the detective, then hawed. But all she'd been able to come up with was a weak position: This kid, this Gabriel person, had been hanging around the neighborhood. She hadn't said so when first asked because she hadn't wanted to get involved. She'd let him borrow her car because seemed like a nice kid and he'd said he had a very important errand. One on which his very life depended.

  That got a sour look out of the detective, but out of the goodness of his heart or whatever it was that made him sort of look at her a lot, he'd set Abby free. At least until tomorrow, until she could get herself
straightened out (make that get her story straight).

  There had been more to that story. An expensive item had been stolen from the shop, one that had been pawned earlier on the day of the accident. Abby had not been apprised of what the item was, but was not that surprised to heat that the price of the pawn ticket had been left on the counter. The first thing she was going to do was look in her underwear drawer to see if that little sneak had been "borrowing" from her again.

  But that wasn't going to happen until after she'd killed him (again).

  Providing he was there when she opened the door to her apartment, which she somehow knew he was going to be.

  She was only right. When she entered her living room, there he was, sprawled on the couch, sound asleep. Two empty coke bottles lay on the floor beside him along with an empty cheese Doodle bag. Al the cat was curled blissfully on his midsection.

  "Get up from there, you little‹devil," Abby said. Actually, she screeched it so loud, Al shot four feet into the air and did an impressive disappearing act of his own.

  "Que onda?" Angel said, opening his eyes blearily. (After all, it was three a.m. by then.)

  "I'll give you a que honda, whatever that is,:" Abby further screeched.

  "I just got out of jail!"

  The angel hung his head. "I know. I'm sorry."

  "And you're the one who's responsible for that sweet little boy laying over there in that hospital in a coma!"

  "I am not," Angel said defensively, sitting up. "I'm the one who saved him, and I'm here to finish the job." Looking around quickly, Angel trembled a little. "I'm not supposed to tell you that."

  Abby sat down and glared at him sternly. "I think you'd better tell me a little of things, mister. And you'd better start right now."

  Angel sighed and began talking. "Okay, the day of the accident my friends come by to pick me up in this TK car. It was cool, only my best friend Chuey's brother is driving it. I don't dig that cabron and I almost didn't go with them. But I get talked into it and since Senor Big Shit is throwing money around, we go over to Tommy's on Rampart and load up on burgers‹don't you just love their chili?"

  "Yes," Abby said sternly. "And stay on the subject."

  "Okay, okay, while we're at Tommy's, I hear about how some stuff got ripped off and pawned. That's how come all the ready cash. So we decide to buy some beer and some other stuff and head into Hollywood. That's when it started turning to shit. Chuey's brother is driving crazy now and he won't let anyone else do it. A couple of the guys got out and I did too. But I got back in the car because my buddy's in there and I have to take care of him.

  We're like kind of digging being off our turf and we're drinking and heading up Virgil, well Chuey wasn't. Chuey doesn't drink, he eats. Anyway, everything was okay until when we hit the curves. Then the cabron loses control of the car and we're heading sideways right into the busy intersection. I grab the wheel and we glance off a Hyandai and miss all the other cars, but that puts is in a spin and we shoot right across the intersection and broadside a car parked at a little cross street, waiting to get onto Virgil."

  "What happened then?" Abby whispered.

  Angel shook his head. "The next thing I know, I wake up in a white room and I find out real fast that it ain' t no hospital."

  Al was in bed with her when Abby woke up about one p.m. and when she tottered into the living room, Angel was gone. Out to finish saving David's life, she hoped. Hoped to God.

  Since Angel had the car again (more hopes to God), Abby called a cab.

  There wasn't time for her favorite walk up Sunset Blvd. She needed the extra time to look in on David before her shift began.

  But, when she reached his room, someone had beaten her to it. That someone was sitting beside the silent little boy, holding his hand. And believe it or not, the someone was Doctor A.H. (ahem) Phillips.

  Ordinarily, Abby would have ducked out the door before he saw her, but today she entered the room fearlessly. She was already in so much hot water, what did another gallon matter.

  Dr. Phillips looked up as she moved toward him. Probably at the end of double shift, he looked worn and bedraggled. Not as bad as the time he'd used the bedpan for first base, but not good.

  At least he didn't have that imperious smirk on his face, which, along with the rest of him, was not unattractive unless his big mouth happened to be open. Which it was most of the time. But today it was closed, in a long thin line.

  "Are you all right, doctor?" Abby asked.

  Phillips dropped the boy's hand like it was on fire. As it fell limply to the coverlet, the doctor challenged Abby with tired eyes.

  "I'm fine," he said quickly. "I was just checking his pulse."

  Liar, liar, Abby wanted to say but didn't. "How's he doing?" she asked.

  "The same," Phillips said, rising. "No sign of life."

  Wait until tomorrow, maybe even today. Abby wanted to say that, too. She wanted to shout it from the rooftop. But Dr. Phillips was the last person on earth who would understand just how far these matters were out of mortal hands. Or understand much of anything.

  He proved it with his next statement. "Regarding last night, this hospital does not approve of bringing criminal investigators onto the premises." He was his nasty self again.

  It was a mistake, Abby said coldly.

  "It certainly was and see that that you don't make it again." With this the doctor stalked out. But even this jerk couldn't ruin Abby's mood. She just flashed the digital spasm at his back (causing the nurses watching David's monitor to crack up totally) and leaned down to kiss the little boy.

  While she was there she whispered this in his ear: "See you soon, baby. Just as soon as your Guardian Angel gets it together."

  She looked in on him time and time again as her hours passed, half expecting to find him sitting up in bed eating ice cream. But David remained silent, unchanged and he was still that way when ll o'clock rolled around.

  As elated as she was, she had also worried all day about the angel and what it was he had to do, and whether he would be able to do it.

  Hopefully he would also do it without sending her back to the pokey.

  Occasionally she still worried a little about herself. What if she was imagining all this? Losing her grip? Going a bubble out of plumb?

  She wished she could call some of her friends for comfort, but there was no one she would dare tell this to. Well, there was her best friend Emily, but Emily was a little busy right now with a brand new baby. All she'd need to hear was that her lifelong girlfriend had flipped out.

  But Abby didn't really flip out until she unlocked the door of her apartment. There sat Detective Minella, on her couch, holding a gold cross.

  "What are you doing here," she asked in astonishment. "Expecting a vampire?"

  "Funny," he said, not laughing. "And you can probably have me arrested.

  I didn't get a search warrant. I didn't want to involve you if I didn't have to. But I had a feeling it was here."

  "A feeling what was here?"

  "This," he said, holding up the cross. About a foot tall, it sparkled at her from across the room. "It was in the freezer. It's the first place we look."

  Abby sagged into a chair across from him. It was all starting to make sense. Well, sense is probably the wrong word. But it was beginning to fall into place. This must be the item that had been stolen and pawned, the key to all of this. But what mystery did that key unlock?

  While she was pondering that, the detective was pondering something altogether different.

  "I don't know what to do next," he said, breaking into her thoughts.

  She'd almost forgotten he was there.

  "Do? Oh, right. Return it, of course."

  "It's not that simple. I can't just pretend this didn't happen. This is very valuable and it's stolen. I could say that you turned it over to me.

  Maybe that would make it easier on you."

  "On me? You mean you think I stole it?"

  "I don't know what to think. It's all too nuts. I don't want to involve you in this mess. II like you. But how can I not?"

  "Right," Abby said flatly. "Your career and all. You have to do the right thing and I have to go to jail for real this time."

  Minella made an impatient sound. "Screw my career. I have to do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. Somehow I thought you were one person who would understand that."
  "I do understand it."

  "Then tell me what's going on here. Please. There's no way you're going to tell me anything I haven't heard before, trust me."

  These were about to go down in the detective's lexicon as his most famous last words to date. Because this was Abby's next sentence:

  "Look, this is hard to say and it's going to be even harder to believe, but
the kid, Gabriel, is an angel."

  Manella almost dropped the cross.

  "I know because I've seen his wings," Abby went on. "He lived in my apartment for a month before he even revealed himself to me. He's here because he has to make something right . It has everything to do with David."

  "If he's an angel, why did he have to borrow your car? Why doesn't he just fly?"

  "I asked him the same thing. He's having, er, transportation problems because he disobeyed orders and went back to his old turf on the other side of Silverlake Boulevard."

  The detective cleared his throat. "Miss Ellison, please don't hit me over the head with anything, but I'm going to have to ask you to take a drug test."

  Any other time, that would have cracked her up, but Abby flew to her feet, tears starting to press behind her eyes. "I knew you wouldn't believe me," she cried. "I can't even believe it myself, but it's true."

  Before Minella could reply, the phone jangled noisily. "I have to answer this," she said, picking up the receiver. 'It might be about David."

  But it was about Kevin.

  "Hey, Ab," he said cheerfully in his smoothest tones. "You busy?"

  "I can't talk to you right now, Kevin," she said shortly.

  "Why not, what's the problem?"

  "I just have one, that's all."

  "I'm right down the street at the Akbar. I'll come over. Maybe I can help."

  "Please don't come over, Kevin."

  "Abby, what's going on? I thought we had such a nice arrangement."

  Abby sighed. She longed to tell Kevin that she didn't feel like having any more "arrangements," with anybody, but this was hardly the time. While the detective was trying hard to pretend he wasn't listening, his ears were practically poking right through his curls.

  I"ll call you when things calm down, Kevin," she said. "I promise," she added, and then she gently replace the receiver.

  This time she sat down on the couch by Minella. The tears were pressing harder, especially after that ghastly conversation with Kevin. He had been very nice to her in his own way (mostly) and probably deserved better (sort of). But she was tired of being his secret love or whatever in hell she was.

  She had a lot more to give than weekly samples.

  Minella's voice brought her back to the problem at hand. "Abby, maybe it would help me understand all this if you would tell me the whole story."

  "I just did."

  "No, I mean the details. All of it."

  So, Al sitting protectively by her side, she told all. Starting with the mystery chores getting done and the tuna salad in the fridge and the night of the jockey shorts. She told him about the cokes and cheese doodles and her talks with the angel. She told him about Angel's purpose and problems, what she knew of them, and ended with the tragic way in which he, along with David's parents and his best friend's brother, had died on a corner they all passed ten times a day.

  When she was finished, she was in tears and the detective actually looked a bit weepy himself. "And it's true," she sobbed. "It's all true, so help me God. Please help me God. And help your angel so that little boy can live."

  Suddenly the detective's arms were around her and she was sobbing against his tweedy shoulder. "Abby, Abby," he said, patting her. "Don't cry,

  Abby. I believe you. Anyway, I believe you believe it."

  Abby leaned back and looked into his face. "But that doesn't change things, does it? You still have do the right thing."

  "Yes, I do," he said, and then he did it. He kissed her surprised lips.

  It wasn't the current form of kissing with tongues wrestling and mouths set on devour. It was slower and deeper, more thorough than that. It was Rhett kissing Scarlett, it was Lancaster and Kerr on the sand in "From Here To Eternity," it was Mulder finally kissing Scully.

  It was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to her.

  Or it was until the room was suddenly filled with wings.

Abby & the Silver Lake Angel Chapter 3

  The haunting scent of Black Narcissus incense drifted through Abby's apartment. It smelled so exotic, she'd stopped feeling guilty about paying so much for it at the Bodhi Tree.

  Abby was quite fragrant herself after her relaxing bath, and in the candlelight, her blue caftan was a perfect match for her eyes.

  Even Al the cat was posed picturesquely. Curled up on his favorite cushion, he snored softly to the rhythm of yet another bit of atmosphere, Shana, Abby's favorite DJ, was spinning Bob Seger's, "We've Got Tonight" on Arrow 93, Abby's favorite classic rock station.
Everything was ready for Kevin's visit, much readier than usual. Abby had gone to all this trouble because she was trying to get into the mood she had created around her.

  She definitely looked in the mood. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror behind her shelf of angels, Abby gave herself a grin. The pale silk really did set off her light blue eyes and made her blond hair glow.

  "Not bad for a girl with such a pretty face," she mused to herself. She'd been hearing that left-handed compliment (read: insult) most of her life. No matter how fine she looked or felt, sooner or later the Weight Police showed up to remind her that she was larger than the average bear. It didn't matter that she was tall (5'8") or that her poundage was well-proportioned on that frame. It still happened.

  Sometimes it even happened at the hospital. And not just from Dr. Phillips (of bedpan fame) who continued to stare staples at her. Abby worked with nurses of all sizes and most of them were cool about that subject. But the staff also had its share of diet addicts. You know the type. Hardbodies with heads and hearts to match who spent their evenings on a stairmaster and loved to talk about it, especially if there was a plus-sizer within earshot. Who lunched on a butterfly's eyebrow and then made a gigantic deal about how "stuffed" they were.

  Abby knew just where she'd love to stuff them.

  As for the women who were built more along Abby's lines, it was a mystery to her how any of them managed to remain BBWs in a job where you literally ran your butt off. But they did, which should have been proof positive that humans came in all sizes. Doctors of all people should have figured that out, but so many of them still didn't get it. They were still trying to force round pegs into square holes. They also suspected larger people of scarfing pizzas like stacks of hotcakes, munching their way through crates of Oreos daily and lolling about in vats of whipped cream.

  Abby laughed. That last one didn't sound at all bad, providing you weren't alone at the time. But her merriment faded fast. Despite how spiffy everything looked, herself included, for the first time she just didn't feel up to Kevin's weekly visitation. The rest of her was interested, but her heart wasn't in it. Something was off center, out of kilter.

  Usually she felt this way after Kevin left and went back to his world of cool sounds and hot chicks. That was when she felt sad and upset with both of them. When it hit home and hurt that she was only his lover when she had so much more to offer. But how many size 18 arm ornaments did one see around Hollywood?

  Tonight, this feeling wasn't waiting until he left. This time the anticipation of his eminent arrival (he'd actually called to make sure she was available!) was missing.

  So was something else. If it hadn't been, Kevin wouldn't be making his regular personal appearance in her four-poster. Abby would have never felt free to enjoy a private mad moment if her other visitor were still in residence.

  But no problema there. Her angel had apparently flown, if he'd ever really been there in the first place (maybe she was just coming down with early Alz). Abby hadn't seen or heard from him since the moment he'd disappeared into thin (sorry, make that well-rounded) air. A week had passed since the night they'd thought (and prayed) that David was stirring from his coma. A week without any evidence that Angel (who insisted he was an angel named Angel, just to make things more confusing) had been hanging around while she was at work. No cheese doodles missing from the mass quantities she'd stocked for him. No little unexplained miracles in her life. No dinners waiting for her in the fridge when she got off work. No strange but oddly pleasant sensation that she and Al were not alone.

  She was alone all right, and it didn't feel good. She didn't feel good. She'd only seen the angel that one time, and it had happened in a manner that would have scared any sensible person out of their wits. Evidently, Abby didn't qualify. After the first terrifying sight of her youthful winged intruder in jockey shorts, she'd felt as if she'd known him all her life. And it was a good feeling, one she'd been experiencing ever since the evidence of his presence had begun. She'd felt better and stronger and happier and also somehow comforted by someone else being around, even if it was a phantom.

  Maybe she was tired of living alone. It had been several years since she'd had a roommate, and two since her only long-term relationship had hit the rocks. She'd been spending so much time at work, she hadn't felt lonely, but was she?

  Just then the doorbell rang. As Al looked up in annoyance at this interruption, Abby hesitantly crossed the room to open the door for Kevin.

  Yeeks. When she did open that door, the man at the threshold was not Kevin. In fact, he was about as far removed from Kevin as anyone could get. Instead of her musician's tall, lean, Gold's Gym body and smoothed-back hipster look, there stood a man about her own height. His curly hair was shaggy, his sports jacket rumpled and his tie a disaster. But he was oddly attractive in the lived-in sort way Abby had always found rather endearing. And his smile! He was trying so hard to look stern, she almost didn't get a sample, but after his eyes traveled the full length of the blue caftan, he caved.

  "It's my guess you weren't expecting me," he said.

  "And who may I ask is me?" Abby had the presence of mind to inquire. (She was so flattered, she really wanted to smile back and invite him in, but she wasn't quite that crazy.) " 

  Um, Detective Minella from the Hollywood precinct," the man replied, forcing the foolish grin off his face. "Have you seen this individual around your building?"

  Abby stared at the photo the detective extended in his strong paw. It was Angel! He was wearing his Dodger cap and fiddling with the light sconce in the entryway, the one that hadn't worked in years. She'd wondered who'd finally fixed it

  "Where did this picture come from?" she asked incredulously.

  "One of your neighbors took it," the detective told her. "Several of them have seen this kid hanging around. He doesn't live here so they got nervous. Have you seen him?"
Abby swallowed hard. She was trying to figure out what to say when she heard a slight noise to her right. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Angel materialize. He was shaking his head furiously, his fingers clasped together in silent pleading.

  "Well, not exactly," Abby said, not wanting to lie.

  Out of the detective's view, Angel fell to his knees. Pullease his eyes begged.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" the detective said, trying to sound official and almost succeeding.

  "I mean I've seen him somewhere," Abby said quickly, failing to add that it had been in this very apartment and in his underwear. "Or someone who looks like him. I think."

  "Have you seen him around the neighborhood?"

"  No," Abby said honestly. "It must have been somewhere else." (And was. Like her living room for instance.)

  That seemed to satisfy her inquisitor. Putting the photo back into his pocket, the detective pulled out a card. "Call me if you see him again," he said, handing it to her. And Abby could almost swear his eyes added and call me if you don't.

  But all he actually added was "and don't just open your door until you know who or what's on the other side of it." Then it was Abby's turn to smile and when she did, the detective gave her another long look and hurried off down the hall.

  Still smiling, Abby closed the door. Now there was a huggable man if one ever existed. Then the smile froze. Turning her gaze to the angel, her eyes narrowed. As glad as she was to see him, just exactly what was going on here?

  "Just exactly what's going on here?" she asked angrily.

  Angel shrugged. "Nothing. What are you so pissed about?"

  "That was a policeman," Abby glared. Finding the cops on her doorstep was not her idea of something to do, not even if it was a cute one. "I've managed to stay out of trouble for 33 years and I'd like to keep it that way."

  "I can't stay out of trouble for three minutes," Angel muttered as the doorbell rang again.

  "Nuts," Abby said. "Now what am I going to do?"

  "Get rid of that cabron," Angel hissed. "We need to talk."

  Abby didn't have to look that one up in her Spanish Pronto handbook. Opening the door a crack, she peered into Kevin's face.

"  Sorry I'm late," he said into the inch of space. "I was recording and"

  "Kevin, you can't come in."

"But I told you, I was recording and" I'm sorry.

  "Something's come up."

  "But"

   "I'll call you, Kevin."

   "But"

  "Goodnight," she said. With that, she closed the crack in his amazed face. And if she hadn't been so ticked at her other visitor, she might have gloated a little. Instead of departing pleased and satisfied, for a change Kevin was leaving with a case of tired but.
However, she was ticked. "So where in hell have you been?" she asked sternly as Angel made himself comfortable on the couch, Al purring in his lap.

"  You mean in Heaven," he corrected crabbily. "And you're not supposed to talk that way to an angel."

"  Well, you're certainly not acting like one, getting me in trouble."

  "You think you're in trouble," Angel said sadly. "I lost my wings."

  "Lost them how? You mean you left them somewhere?"

  Angel gave her a pitying look. "I had to see my mama. I miss her. Besides she was making tamales. Then when I got there, I didn't dare let her see me and my pinche cousins had scarfed everything up."

  "So what does this have to do with your wings?

  "My mama lives on the other side of Silverlake Boulevard."

  Abby gasped. "You didn't! You said you're not allowed to go there!"

  Angel nodded. "That's why they called me into the office and took my wings away."

  Abby stared at him. "But they let you come back here anyway?" 

  "I have business," he said solemnly. "Then I can get my wings again. But first I have to borrow your car."

  Abby stiffened. "Oh, no you don't. Use the bus pass you stole money from me to buy."

  "Borrowed," Angel re-corrected. "And it's all used up. I only need your car for one day."

  "No way, Jose," Abby said, immediately wishing she hadn't.

  "Okay, Abra," her angel shot back.

  "How did you know that name?" Abby gasped.

  "I know a lot," he said smugly.

  That certainly put him one up on Abby's mother. Mom had never been the same after seeing "East Of Eden" as a teenager. But shouldn't she have known that if she named her poor daughter Abra (after James Dean's sweetheart, played by the wonderful Julie Harris), cadabra or cadaver‹was sure to follow? Like for the rest of that daughter's life until she had the good sense to shorten the damn appellation?

  "Pullease," Angel pleaded again, only this time with his eyes and his voice. "I have to do something very important to me, to a lot of people."

  Abby tried to give him a hard glance and tell him there was no chance in any location that he was driving her Mustang. But looking at him sitting there, her heart went out to him. There was no way she could stop it. He tried to be so big and tough and wise but he was really just a kid, small and frail and vulnerable. And her heart didn't really go out to him. He already had it. He'd had it ever since he'd clumsily but proudly unfolded those huge satiny wings.

  Now he didn't even have those.

  So, after she grudgingly said yes, despite the fact that she knew it was a totally insane thing to do, she plied her angel with cokes and cheese doodles until he fell asleep on the couch, Al in his arms. He was still there when she woke up the next day.

  "Hey," she said, shaking him. "I thought you had important business."

  "I'm going, I'm going," he yawned. "It's just so peaceful here."

  That it was. Abby's beautiful old two-story fourplex had been built in the thirties and had real walls. Her apartment looked out into blue sky and leafy trees and was the perfect place for a day sleeper.

  Angel turned down her offer of breakfast and she did likewise to his suggestion that he drop her at work on the way to his mission.

  "Never mind, I like to walk," Abby told him. "But my car had better be in that parking garage when I get off work. In perfect condition and without you in it."

  "It will be," he said solemnly. "I promise."

  "And no tamales," she warned. "If you're so hungry for them, they make great ones at the Yuca Hut over on Hillhurst."

  "Not like my mama's," Angel scoffed. "She's from Honduras. They're the best in the world." And with that he was out the door.

  Abby walked to work at least twice a week, an enjoyable half hour's journey. That meant she had to grab a cab home at ll:00 or catch a ride with one of the other nurses, but the inconvenience was worth it. It was part of her health regimen. That and her Pilate's and good nutrition most of the time. Everybody needed a break from sensible living. So did every body.

  Some time ago, after being on about 900 diets, trying to cut that size 18 in half, Abby had realized that the most important thing was to take good care of herself. In the times when she was starved physically and emotionally from yet another diet, Abby would begin eating anything she pleased, anytime she pleased. That made her feel lousy and her self-image plummet.

  When she stopped the yo-yo syndrome and replaced it with a full-time healthier approach to life, she'd actually lost weight and had stayed this size for several years. Now that she was taking care, she carried her weight and herself with pride and she worked at keeping it that way.

  Abby also wanted to walk because it was a beautiful day in her 'hood, a place she dearly loved. One of the oldest parts of the city, it was located between East Hollywood and downtown L.A., only seven minutes from Olivera Street, where La Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles had begun. Abby's Silverlake 90026 was famous at the moment for being hip and cool, but it wasn't all tattoo parlors and musicians and young filmmakers. There were plenty of families, too, of all colors and persuasions. Silverlake (which is an area, a street and a beautiful reservoir nestled in green hills) was multinational and multicultural and always had been. It was one of the reasons Abby loved living here.

  There were a lot of others reasons. Mainly, it was home, she'd grown up a block from Marshall High. Silverlake was also one of the city's most verdant areas, the greenery punctuated by jacarandas bursting with purple blossoms in spring, poinsettias proclaiming the holidays, and night-blooming jasmine perfuming the winter air. There were so many trees, you could actually see the stars from Silverlake and it had some of the most spectacular views in the city. From her living room window, Abby saw the Hollywood Sign and the Planetarium across the basin. Her upstairs neighbor could see the ocean.

  As she reached Sunset Blvd. and the delicious scent of the Delta Taco stand wafted out at her, Abby suddenly remembered the tamales her friend Maria brought the nursing staff on holidays. Plump bundles of savory masa, they were filled with chicken and potatoes and green olives and steamed in banana leaves. Maria was from the same part of the world as Angel's mama, and he was right, they were the best tamales in the world. No wonder he was hungry for them. So was she and she made a mental note to find out today if Maria had any on hand in her freezer.

  Silverlake had always been cool. Now that it had also become hip, shops and restaurants were cropping up like mushrooms after a spring rain. As she walked along Sunset, Abby passed eclectic businesses with names like The Sniveling Sibling, Pull My Daisy, a record shop called Destroy All Music. Juxtaposition across the street from each other were one of the best El Pollo Loco's in the city and the elegant cuisine of the small but mighty Cafe Stella.

  After pausing at the Casbah for an espresso to keep her moving, Abby stopped at Eat Well to buy one of their great fresh-roasted turkey sandwiches for her dinner. She had long since eschewed (as opposed to chewed) the food in the hospital cafeteria. Their salads were passable, but she had permanently spurned the salty soups and LePage's Glue Sauce entrees.

  Despite an occasional flood of concern about her car and its driver (not to mention her sanity in general), Abby's shift went well. All of her little patients seemed to be on the mend, and to make things even better, Maria promised to bring some of her wonderful tamales the following day.

  All of Abby's little charges were improving except one, not that David was really her patient, he was actually under the care of the ICU staff. But that didn't mean she hadn't been in to see him any number of times during the day, after checking to see that Dr. Phillips wasn't looking, of course.

  Just before her shift ended, Abby went back for one last visit. David was still the same, still and silent. Her heart aching, she was leaning over to kiss the motionless little boy on the cheek when she sensed someone behind her. Turning, she saw Dr. Phillips. He too was motionless, staring, the oddest expression on his face. It was almost pleasant!

  Abby jumped. "You scared me."

  Dr. Phillips quickly regained his composure, not to mention his usual sour look. "What are you doing here?" he barked.

  "I might ask the same of you, sneaking up behind me," she snapped. but he didn't have time to get furious. Officer Minella had suddenly loomed in the doorway.

  Abby smiled at him in disbelief. She was so surprised to see her rumpled detective (and so happy), her knees began knocking holes in their white tights. But Minella wasn't smiling back.

  "Miss Ellison?" the detective said uneasily, extending his badge. "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to come with me."

  Abby's eyes flew wide open and so did Dr. Phillips'. In the confusion that followed, no one even noticed that, just for a flash, David's struggled to join them.

Abby & the Silver Lake Angel Chapter 2

  Abby lurched backwards onto the couch as Al the cat dived under it. Standing directly in front of her was a young Hispanic male. Probably not a day over seventeen, he was wearing nothing but a pair of jockey shorts.

  "Help!" Abby bellowed, brandishing a 1950's snowball paperweight.

  "Cool it, lady," the intruder hissed. "It's me."

  "Me who?" Abby quaked.

  "The guy you were talking to earlier," he said impatiently. "I took my clothes off so I can prove I'm an angel."

  "I don't want you to prove anything that involves removing your pants,"       Abby snapped. "Put them back on immediately."

  "I can't get them unfolded if I do," the boy complained, sounding quite earnest.Abby wanted to ask what he couldn't get unfolded with his pants on, but she was afraid of the possible answer.

  "What are you raving about?" she demanded.

  "These," the boy said and from behind him, a pair of wings began to emerge until they nearly filled the room with their shimmer.

  "Dear God," Abby said, not inappropriately, about to fall on her knees and cross herself even though she wasn't Catholic.

  "Killer, huh?" the boy grinned, his angelic smile almost as astonishing as the rest of him.

  At this point, Al peered out from under the couch, uttered a indescribable cry and re-dived. Abby could hear him trying to claw his way into the springs.

  She was braver. Stepping forward, she extended a trembling hand. "Can I touch them?"

  The angel or whatever he was shrugged. "I guess."

  Gingerly, Abby approached the breath-taking six-foot wingspan. It felt like silk and flexed slightly under her fingers. She drew them back sharply.

  "They're not made of feathers!" she marveled, feeling a few feathers short of a duster herself.

  The boy blurted out a laugh. "Course not. What you think I am, some punchy bird?"

  "Well, pardon me," Abby said sharply. "In the movie Michael, his wings were"

  "That movie was a total load," the angel interrupted.

  That did it. This was not happening. She couldn't possibly be in her apartment at 4 a.m. discussing films with a nearly naked angel. Rushing into the kitchen, she grabbed the bottle of brandy off the counter. Pouring herself two fingers, she sat down with a thunk. She'd obviously been working way too hard or someone in the hospital cafeteria had baked something extreme into the brownie she'd snacked on earlier.

  When there was no sound from the living room, she tasted the brandy and relaxed slightly. There was no one there. She was just seeing things after putting in way too many hours at the hospital. Long overdue for her vacation, there was no way she was leaving with David still in a coma.

  Then, suddenly, the sounds of a struggle reached her ears. "Who's there?" she quaked.

  A voice cursed in Spanish. Then, in English, "I'll be there in a minute. I'm still trying to fold these things back up! "

  Abby sighed, giving up. She had obviously gone mad, wigged completely. Rising, she fished a Coke out of the fridge, and poured herself two hands of brandy as opposed to fingers. Sitting back down at the table, she waited for the apparition to join her.

  When it did, it was wearing the regulation teenage regalia of the day‹jeans, jacket and a backwards baseball cap. Sitting down, it began sipping the soda. Then it spoke. "Can I have some cheese doodles?"

  Abby pointed wearily to the cupboard over the sink. She had no idea why she'd even bought them since they tasted like orange cardboard. "Okay," she said as he helped himself. "Let's get down to business. What are you doing in my apartment?"

  The boy crunched a doodle. "I, um, needed a place to stay west of Silverlake." Abby stared at him. "And why is that?"

  "What am I supposed to do," the boy near-whined, "hang in the park? It's winter!"

  "I know what time of year it is," she said sternly. "I mean why west of Silverlake? "

  "Because I can't go on the other side of that street," the boy explained, politely offering her a doodle. "That's where I got in this mess in the first place."

  Abby waved the bag away. "And how did I get lucky?"

  The boy sighed, tiring of all the questions. "You live in the area and you're nice. You're nice looking too I don't like skinny women."

  Abby stiffened. "Don't get any ideas, sonny."

  "No problem, lady," the boy said sourly. "I don't get to get any more ideas. Besides, you already have a boyfriend even if he is a cabron."

  Abby understood enough Spanish to know that was no compliment. "Never mind your analysis of my personal life. Just exactly what do you want?"

  The boy sighed, crunched, sipped and sighed again. "Look lady, I thought you were into angels."

  Abby did have a small collection of miniature antique angels, but she wasn't as deeply into the concept as some of her fellow nurses and patients. In fact, she hadn't been quite sure how she felt about the subject. Now she for sure wasn't sure.

  "I do like them but you certainly can't stay here no matter who or what you are!"

  "Why not? I been helping out."

  "I noticed. Why didn't you reveal yourself to me sooner, and I don't mean without your pants?"

  The boy giggled. "Are you kiddin'? You¹d have lost it if you came home and found some Mexican in your apartment."

  "That is a very racist statement, Angel," Abby said sternly, "or whatever your name is."

  "Not when I say it, it isn't."

  "Oh, is that how it works?"

  "Yeah, Anyway, I laid low until you started getting worried. I didn't wanna scare you. I could've just left, but I like it here. Besides, I owe you money."

  Abby's eyes flew wide open. "What money?"

  "The bucks I borrowed to get a bus pass."

  So that's what had happened to the cash she thought she'd misplaced. "If you're an angel, why don't you just fly?" she asked sarcastically.

  The boy shook his head like Abby was the dumbest human he'd ever encountered. "I can't fly is why. Not 'til I finish earning my wings. And I wouldn't be flyin' around no East Hollywood if I could!"

  Just then, Al entered the room. Easing over to Abby's visitor, he began winding himself about the boy's ankles, purring loudly.

  "He didn't recognize me with my clothes off," Angel explained, rubbing the cat's ears.

  There was a line in there somewhere, but fortunately the phone rang at just that moment. It was Helen, charge nurse on the fifth floor at the hospital, graveyard shift.

  When Abby hung up the phone after a conversation of only a few words, her heart was in her throat. "I have to go back to work."

  "Why?"

  Abby smiled. "My favorite patient may be regaining consciousness."

  But she was talking to herself. By the time those words were out of her mouth, her companion had disappeared into thin air, Coke, cheese doodles and all.

  Abby looked at Al. Al looked at Abby, then dived under the sink. Feeling like joining him, she grabbed her coat instead.

  Hallucinations or no hallucinations, she had to get to David. And she thought of nothing and no one but that dear little boy while she drove the short distance to the hospital and parked in the emergency lot. When she stepped off the elevator, the hall was darkened and quiet, but Helen wasn't smiling.

  "I'm sorry, Abby," she whispered as they stared through the glass at the motionless child. "I could have sworn I saw him open his eyes. I guess I was just over-hoping."

  Abby swallowed hard. As long as she was there, she could at least sit with David for awhile. She did that every chance she got anyway, talking softly to him or talking to the Heavens in his behalf. Tiptoeing into the room, she sat beside the motionless child.

  He was such a beautiful little boy, his hair dark and curly, his eyelashes long against his cheek. Only eight years old, he had been this way ever since the accident that had killed both his parents over a month ago. Abby loved all the children she took care of, but David had a special part of her love and her prayers. Life didn't have a habit of being very fair, but what was happening to this little life was unconscionable. First his family gone, now possibly him too.

  Abby's visits with David often ended in soundless, hopeless tears, but this time there was a different feeling in the room. Maybe she was over-hoping herself, but what if Helen actually had seen the child open his eyes? Maybe it wasn't a false alarm but a good sign instead, one that meant he was going to get well. Maybe even the fact that Abby was nutty enough to start seeing angels was a good sign. Whatever, for some unknown reason, she felt more hopeful than she ever had before in this sad place. Anyway, she did until she heard the voice.

  If a voice could sound like a dead fish, it would be this one as it intoned "What are you doing here, Nurse Ellison?"

  Perfect. It was the almighty Dr. A.H. Philips, and you can guess what those letters stood as far as Abby was concerned. In addition to acting like he was the Emperor of the hospital if not the entire world, he'd done his residency at a stomach-stapling clinic. He been glaring at Abby's curvy frame ever since he arrived, like she was next.

  "Just sitting with David," she answered, far more politely than she felt. (If a nurse wanted to survive at this hospital, she didn't offend the Ruling Class, especially this turdzo.)

  Dr. Philips snapped on the light. About forty, he was kind of cute or would be if he weren't such a twit. But Abby had never seen him smile once in the six months he'd been at the hospital. Tonight was not going to be an exception.

  "The personnel on duty are perfectly capable of caring for this patient," he said officiously.

  You wouldn't know care if it bit you on your pompous ass, she thought. But all she said was, "A little extra attention can't hurt."

  "The doctors on staff will be the judge of this patient's course of treatment," he said coldly, turning the light back off and motioning her out of the room. "And until you become one of those doctors, you are to be on the floor during working hours then only and in uniform!"

  With this he hurried importantly down the hall as if every patient was clamoring for his august presence instead of trying to sleep through it. Abby stared after him, her eyes narrowing. One of these days this this jerk was going to get what was coming to him. She hoped.

  She couldn't have hoped it at a better time. What was coming to him at that very instant was an orderly carrying a bedpan. It was hard to say who didn't see whom, but there was a clang and suddenly Dr. Philips slid about six feet on Heaven only knew what, and landed splat on his arrogant backside.

  Rushing into a empty room, Abby howled into a pillow while the on-duty staff rushed to the enraged doctor's rescue (or else). The more he railed at them, the harder Abby laughed.

  When the coast was clear, she took one more look at the sleeping child. Blowing David a kiss, she walked the five flights down instead of taking the chance of running into Dr. God on the elevator.

  On her way to the parking lot, Abby was so hopeful about David and so busy reliving the glorious moment of Philips' come-uppance (go-downance was more like it), she didn't even notice when she stepped on a cheese doodle.
 

Abby & the Silver Lake Angel Chapter 1

  My name is Abby, my parents' choice, not mine.

   Strange things began happening to me about a month ago. Well, actually, they started happening the day I was born. But about four weeks ago, they began hitting a new high.

   For one, life started getting easier. Little things changed, like my car stopped coughing consumptively and began purring like its salad days, before it spent nearly a decade breathing the L.A. smog (not to mention contributing to it).

   Then my uniforms started taking on a whiter shade of pale although I hadn't switched laundry detergents. And they stopped getting so stained at the hospital where I'd spent the last five years as a nurse in the children's ward.

   It's a job I loved. I hated seeing the little ones sick, but I truly loved helping to make them better. In a way, it's like having my own family. I'd hoped to do that too and probably I still will. But you never know. I'm only thirty-three, but like the song goes, the days grow short as we reach September, or some such.

   I hadn't done much lately about trying to alter (or altar) my single status. With my hours, that wasn't easy. I lived on a double 3-ll shift, one of them in reverse, working from 3-11 p.m. then sleeping from 3-11 a.m. It was great because it allowed me to have some day and some night to myself and kept me from having to get up early in the morning. (When I have to do that, I can't function as a nurse. I require one.)

   The schedule fit perfectly with my goofy body clock. I loved snuggling into bed and sleeping through the sunrise. I liked waking up with Al--that's my cat--in midmorning and having a whole four hours before I had to get it and do it again.

   Al must have been a born night cat, too. My weird hours suited him perfectly. Or maybe he was just well trained. I always figure that if you feed your pet just before you want to hit the sack, it won't be in your face at 6 a.m. wanting to eat or frisk or go walkies. It'll be out cold, just like you, and you won't have to throw it against the wall or anything. (Joking, joking.)

   Anyway, my schedule wasn't really that great for anything else. I did go out with friends after work because the clubs were still all hopping at that hour. And I occasionally had a date, most of which left me wanting to enter a convent. But there are so many things you can't do when you work nights.

   I had no idea what was on television (which is probably in my favor) except I tried to catch "The X Files" re-runs on Fox Cable every weeknight at 12:00. And people went to concerts and plays and movies on the weekend, not on Wednesdays and Thursdays, a.k.a. my days off.

   Speaking of the "X Files," something happened regarding that show that demonstrated the changes that seemed to be going on my my life. I saw it all the time and although I wasn't much into the alien thing, Fox was sexy and committed (an interesting combo) and I dug his relationship with Scully. Also all the regular cast was outstanding (especially those Lone Gunmen and Cig Man and the big guy with the great voice who's a honcho in the conspiracy) and the guest stars--well, I've seen some performances on that program that should have won about 900 Emmys.

   Then, one night, not long ago, I saw one that would have had me--the former me--in the pits for days. This will probably sound crazy, but it was about a bad guy who had to avail himself of adipose tissue in order to stay alive. (And we're not talking F.A.'s here.) So he went around scarfing up large-size people, mostly women that he found through Bigger The Better type personal ad outlets.

   The whole thing was handled pretty tastefully (she said not inappropriately), and he even ate a cop who was a man and only barely chunky, and Agents M&S did catch him, but there were a couple of confidence-shattering lines that would done me in if I'd heard them a week ago.

   I can only remember one now, but it was a doozy. One of the agents was questioning woman about a missing person and the woman said her missing friend had met a man on the net and had agreed to meet him. She went on to say that although her friend's weight had climbed to 165 lbs., the guy didn't care because, now dig this, HE WASN'T INTERESTED IN SEX!

   My first thought was not printable, but the expurgated version would read something like this: I beg your you-know-whatting pardon?

   Since my bones probably weigh 165 lbs., that comment would not have made my day, or my month. Only this time, it just ticked me off, to put it politely. So, instead of drooping around for days, feeling like the broad side of a barge, I wrote them a letter.

   I told them how much I liked the show, but I had a bitch to pitch re the episode about Ole Liposuction Louie: If they thought 165 lb. women didn't have men in their lives who were interested in sex, the truth wasn't the only thing that was out there--so were they! I suggested they check out BBW Magazine, even Mode (and I'm being damned generous mentioning them, don't you think?), or have a look at Emme's books or columns or Katy Arons' rousing "Sexy At Any Size" tome or her hot Extra Hip 'zine. Or just look around them! There are 50 million women in America who wear size 14 and up and we spend over 20 billion dollars a year on fashion! Hello!

   I signed off by saying I was a size 18, 5'8" female myself and my problem was finding a guy who wasn't interested in sex! I got a little cute in closing and said I actually had a nice curvy figure and that you could even see through my thighs. But it was by invitation only.

   They probably thought I was a nut or something and threw my letter away. But the point was, I wrote it! I didn't agonize or beat myself over the head. I complained, I mailed and I forgot the whole damn thing until right now when I had the chance to run it by you and see if you think I'm a nut, too.

   Even if you do, that was out of character for me, and nothing had changed to make me handle it so differently. That's really why I shared it with you. Nothing had changed that I knew of, that is, to make me alter my M.O. about anything, yet it seemed to undergoing some sort of overhaul.

   (Before I leave the subject of Lipo Louie, I will say I never had that bad an experience [God forbid] with a personal ad date, but the two men I did actually did meet in such a manner were a pair to draw to. They didn't just need to be spanked and put to bed. They wanted to be.)

   Anyway, after that, some bigger strange things began to happen. When I walked out to the parking structure one night, already feeling like I was coming down with a cold, it was pouring rain. Guess what. When I got to my car, I was still dry. Of course, the guard who walked with me was drenched. I jumped in my car quick so he wouldn't think I was a witch.

   That was weird enough, thanks, but then when I got home, my apartment was clean. I mean it was far cleaner than it had been when I left. Everything was neat and put away and kind of shiny and Al was vibrating happy circles around a nice full dish of cat food.

   Since no one had keys to my apartment, I probably would have figured I'd lost my marbles and forgot I made things all spic and span before I went to work. But Al? I mean, we've already been through when he dines and why.

   So what was up? I didn't know. All I knew was that something was.

   Something in addition to my regular weekly visitor, that is, who arrived at that very moment, causing me to forget all about this along with most everything else for awhile.

   That was because was he was someone I was about half in love with if I'd admit it to myself. Kevin was a local musician, very talented, and of course totally hip and cool. He had the nineties short-haired, goateed hipster look and although I preferred a shaggier, more lived in type, Kevin was smart and attractive and funny and successful. And I was surprised and flattered when he showed up at my door one night after work, a nice bottle of wine in hand.

   I knew him from around the Silverlake neighborhood where I'd grown up and still lived and we'd exchanged heys any number of times. And to cut to the chase, it took him a few visits, but we ended up being lovers.

   But that's all we were, and I was too smart myself not to know why. In the first place, I'd already found out that when a man shows up at your door at midnight, his next move is not going to be to ask you out to dinner. Somehow he's managed to circumvent that nicety and cut right to his own chase.

   Also, he worked in the entertainment industry, and those guys exist in a permanent Babe Contest. We are talking Arm Ornament City, and although I'm sure some of them don't appreciate all the heat applied to them (by each other!) to sport the best trophy, they don't do much about it except cave in to the pressure.

   Of course, as a result, in the arts, so to speak, there are more wonderful women without men than there are in any other profession on the planet. Also, of course, if you're a woman with stature, you can't dip down the chain a bit and date your mechanic or anything because that is not cool. If you're cool, you stick to highly presentable friends or you appear on the arm of a peer.

    I'm glad I don't work in that industry, but those of us who live surrounded by its denizens do feel its effect. And I sure don't know any big beautiful women--and I don't care how beautiful they are--dating any studio heads (if indeed those people even do date) or their underlings. (I'm not saying it never happens, but I can assure you it's rare bird when it does.)

   And so, not an unattractive woman in my own right, but definitely over that 165 lb. limit (were it only that high!), I ended up having an extremely enjoyable but limited relationship with Kevin. The few times I did suggest doing something (else) together, he was always unavailable. So I got a clue and went with the flow. Or, I should say, I went without it. It didn't bother me while I was with him, but it did when he left, which I always made him do by my bedtime, and when I thought about it the rest of the week.

   Being sent home never failed to annoy him. "Why won't you let me spend the night?" he would grouse, cuddled comfortably in my bed and wanting to stay there, albeit temporarily. And he did it again that night.

    Ordinarily, I would tell him I couldn't sleep with someone else in the bed or some other lie, but tonight my answer was quite different. Looking him right in the eye, I said exactly what I'd been thinking for a year.

   "Because I don't want you to have me for breakfast and then go do lunch with someone cooler."

   His eyes became orphan-annie-esque. "Did you want to have lunch with me?"

   I shrugged. "Maybe," I said (but I felt like someone else was speaking the words!). "But not tomorrow."

   Then I made him go home. Before he left, he kissed me and actually asked if he could come over next week. Usually, he just showed up.

   Would you believe I said "we'll see" instead of "yes, please"?

   Then, when he left, I sat down and smiled nastily, reliving the recent and surprising event. Until the other events of the evening began to sift back into my brain, that is. Then I stopped and got nervous all over again.

   I had no idea what to do. Here I was practically hearing the Twilight Zone theme in my head. Finally, coming up with no other answers, I wondered if I was imagining the whole thing and was just in low blood sugar or something. I hadn't eaten anything since before I went to work and I wasn't hungry in this state, but I warily entered my spotless (??) kitchen and opened the fridge.

    That did it. I have a favorite dish I love, especially after work. I call it Sort of Salad Nicoise and it has tuna, olives, salad greens, hard-boiled egg, etc. It's light but filling and really good, especially with toast. Well, it was all in there, in my Westinghouse, waiting for me (except the toast), beautifully arranged on one of my best dishes.

   Slamming the fridge closed, I fled into the bedroom. I looked in the bed, under it, in the closets, then behind the shower curtain. With Al hot after me, thinking it was play time, I covered the whole place, behind the drapes and all. I found nada, but by now I knew someone--something?--was there. By now I could actually feel a presence and it was scaring the pants off me, or would be if I'd been wearing any.

   "Okay," I quavered in stark terror. "Who are you and where are you and what do you want? I'm calling the police!"

   "Don't do that," said a voice, a male voice. "They'll think you're loco." (This was true. If I called the authorities to report an invisible intruder in my apartment, I could be in even bigger trouble--unless I happened to reach Agent Mulder.)

   "Then who are you?" I demanded, grabbing my pepper spray out of my purse.

   "I'm Angel," said the voice.

   "You're an angel?" I echoed, fearing for my sanity.

   "Well, um, that's my name."

   "You're an angel named Angel?"

   But he, she and/or it never had a chance to reply because just then there was a knock at the door. It was Kevin. He'd forgotten his dayrunner, which I hadn't even noticed in my panic. Finding it for him fast, I was shooing him back out the door when I suddenly stopped. "You didn't make me some dinner while I was taking a shower, did you?"

   "No," he said, his eyes re-orphing. "Would you like for me to?"

   "No," I said, shooing.

   "Are you all right, Abby?"

   "No," I said, and almost closed the door on his goatee.

   Then I returned to face the empty room, and it was. The presence I'd felt was gone. It was just me again, and Al, who was sitting on the couch, looking at me with no little displeasure. (After all, we had run merrily--he thought--through the house but there had been no toy mouse's or balls of paper on a thread on any of the usual accompaniments to such antics. As in, thanks for nothing.)

   Picking him up, I looked deeply into his eyes. "It's not you, is it?" I quavered. "Are you talking to me?" (If I hadn't been so wigged out I'd have laughed at myself--I sounded just like Travis Bickel in "Taxi Driver".)

   Al just looked at me in disgust, as if to say "Whoa lady, I'm the cat. I don't talk. I pee in a box."

   I was about to give him a big apologetic hug when I heard a noise behind me. Turning around, I dropped Al. Then my jaw.