Angel Over My Shoulder (9 page)

“This is crazy!” She exclaimed.

“Calm down.”

She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “It’s hard to calm down when someone accuses you of a suicide that you didn’t even attempt.”

“Leslie, what we hope to accomplish here is to give you an evaluation. Here you will have an opportunity to speak to our counselors, maybe even be prescribed a course of medication that may help you. Believe me, if this is all a misunderstanding we will get to the bottom of it.”

She pictured the dream…the vision. She just needed to get to the end of the 72 hours.

***

Leslie spent the next twenty four hours in counseling rehashing the molestation, the period of time when she was mute, her cutting…every bad thing that she wanted to forget. When she was not in counseling she was in a drug induced sleep. She wanted so badly to see Angel but her dreams were empty. She began to understand that taking drugs created empty dreams; it’s why she had seldom seen him when she was a teen…

After one particularly grueling session Leslie returned to her room and spotted flowers sitting on the windowsill. She hurried to them and picked up the card. It was from Glenn. She remembered the envelope that was sitting on the stereo at home. Once upon a time she thought she’d have to show someone that letter to prove that she wasn’t crazy…now she thought that the contents of it would prove that she was….

The last day of her stay, Leslie was called to the counselor’s office where a policeman was waiting for her. She was scared. They were going to arrest her while she was in 72 hour hold?!

“Miss Wilke, I’m Officer Hoffman. I’d like to talk to you about your Uncle Monty Wilke.” The officer told her that her Uncle was being investigated based on the allegations that she had brought against him. Neighbors had seen him entering her house, which raised questions. When they dug through the phone records it was obvious that she hadn’t made contact with him in years. Then how did he know that she was planning to commit suicide? At best he had manufactured a false relationship between the two but it was Dr. Budev that confirmed that it was unlikely she would ever seek him out.

It made her smile when he turned to her and told her that he believed every word she had told him. Leslie gladly gave her statement to file charges against her uncle. Her uncle had overplayed his hand and now he was the one being investigated!

Later that evening Leslie was released. She carried her vase of flowers from Glenn with her as she walked out the door. A staff member of the mental health alliance offered to drive her home and she gladly accepted the offer.

“Can you stay until the locksmith gets here?” The man kindly obliged. Once she was alone in the house she checked the fridge…but the pitcher of Arnold Palmer had mysteriously disappeared.

After getting settled back in her home she drove to the diner. Glenn was working on his computer in his office when Leslie knocked on the door. He gave her an intent look.

“Come in. Sit down.”

She did so, nervously. “I wanted to say thank you for the flowers. How…how did you know about the hospital?”

“The police came to ask me questions. Nobody here knows. I fielded all of the questions and I told them that you were a good person.” He teepeed his hands in front of his face. “Can you tell me what that was all about?”

She sighed and nodded. It wasn’t easy because Glenn was an older man that turned red when she explained about the molestation, but he listened without interruption and when she got to how her Uncle had brought false charges against her he looked very angry.

“I…I understand if you don’t want me to manage for you. After all of this-”

“If I didn’t already know your character, then yes, maybe I would tell you that you weren’t right for the position. But I happen to know that you are a good worker, and a good person, and believe me; I told those cops the same thing. Your Uncle is a piece of shit for what he did to you. If you need me to, I will be a character witness for you Leslie.”

She swallowed back grateful tears. “I appreciate that Glenn.”

Angel was right; his visions had changed her, and those changes had allowed her to bypass a lot of bad things.

***

It felt like forever since she’d seen Angel. When Leslie lay in her bed that night she replayed images of the man that she had grown to love. He was real to her, but he would never be real to anyone else, no one else would ever know him. That fact seemed incredibly sad. She got out of bed and retrieved the letter that set on top of the stereo, still unopened.

This was incriminating now that the danger had passed. It described her dreams and life with Angel. She had used this opportunity to let her story spill from her, to release her. And she had written everything down from her first memories of him to the visions that he’d shown her over the years. Leslie sighed.

She should burn this, or rip it up. But she couldn’t. Climbing the stairs again, she pulled the lockbox from beneath her bed. In it were the scraps of her past, her parent’s wedding bands, a ticket stub to a Prince concert, a baby tooth, her Dad’s sixth grade report card and other tidbits that would only be important to her now. She placed the letter there and pushed it back under her bed. Then she lay down and tried to rest.

Invisible fingers touched her arm, gliding gently down until they were tracing the lines of her fingers. Her eyes opened and she was standing on the beach. Her feet sank into the warm sand and the waves of the water lapped the shore. She gave Angel a curious look. He was smiling at her.

“Did you see what happened?”

“I see what you see and know what you know.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and she smiled along with him. “You made magic happen.”

Her expression grew serious. “Is that what I did?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.” He led them to the water’s edge and she noticed that he seemed to be in a peculiar mood—more happier than normal. Well maybe with this behind them they could focus on more happier things.

“I’ve never been to the beach before,” she said as she stared out into the horizon.

“No. But you will.” She gave him another curious look.

“Another vision? Something good this time, I hope?”

He was smiling mysteriously. “Not a vision for you, one for me.” He stopped walking just short of the water and with the next wave; the cool ocean flowed over their bare feet. He squeezed her hand and seemed about to burst with his need to tell her something.

“What? A vision for you? How is that possible?”

He stared at her. “Leslie, today I was born.”

“What?” The word dragged from her mouth taking impossibly long.

“Today I’m real. For the first time I’m real.”

“You were always real to me, though…”

He was nodding his head. “But there was never anything before or after, there was just you. Now…there is something other than you.” Maybe she was supposed to be happy about this news, but instead she was left with a sense of foreboding. There was something important that she was missing…

“What was in your vision?”

“Us.”

She waited. “And?”

He chuckled and leaned forward to place a kiss on her lips. “What more?” He swooped down and hugged her happily, swinging her around, causing her to squeal in pleasure. “Let’s make love on the beach.” He pushed down his pants and swept off his shirt in one fluid motion.

She sighed at the sight of his beautiful nude body and then stripped out of her own clothes, not caring if they got wet by the waves. Angel’s eyes brightened and he took a few moments to appreciate her nude form before he pulled her into his arms and rolled his hips against her pelvis.

“Ohh…” She sighed. “I missed you so much.”

“I know. I missed you, and was afraid for you and sad…” He punctuated each statement with a lingering kiss. He lifted her in his arms, their nude bodies pressed together and he looked at her. “I love you.” From her position slightly above him she watched him with a sense of total acceptance. He loved her unconditionally; as she loved him.

“I love you, too; always and forever.”

He let her feet touch the sand again but he didn’t let her go. His lips sought out hers and he kissed her deeply, lovingly.

Suddenly he staggered and gripped his head in his hands.

“Angel!” She reached out for him, he was falling. Her hands went through him….

He gave her a surprised look. “No! I didn’t know!”

“Angel?” He lay on the beach looking like he was in pain, struggling to stand and Leslie kept reaching for him, only to have her hands go through him like a phantom’s hand.

“I made this.” His eyes appealed to her. “I wanted to be real so I made this, bu-”

“You made yourself real, but Angel what’s happening?!” She dropped down on her knees beside his naked form.

“I allowed myself to be born! Leslie find me!” Suddenly his body began to shimmer.

“No…” Her chest was heaving. He was disappearing. “No, Angel!” He reached out to her and before she could lift her hands he was gone.

The world around her began to heave and swirl and the air left her body as if she was in a wind tunnel! She squinted against the flying sand and suddenly the world calmed. She blinked her eyes and Leslie Wilke was lying in her bed, completely alone.

~1993~

Leslie lowered the blinds and locked the door to the bakery. It was only 3pm but it was their stores policy to only bake enough pastries to last for one day and when they sold out the doors closed. Officially closing time was 3:30. Monfort Heights Bakery was one of the best in the city, and since Leslie had taken over as manager, they had tripled their business. She didn’t expand their hours and Leslie would often find herself accosted by customers dashing to the locked doors and begging for a dozen of their signature, melt in your mouth donuts.

She balanced a small box in her hands, as she gripped her keys, purse, and a folder of recipes that she had been considering.

After Glenn had paid for her management course he offered to also send her to culinary school to study as a pastry chef. He had said that she didn’t need to know how to bake in order to be a good manager, but if she did she’d be a great one. So she enrolled in the Cincinnati Culinary Institute and managed to keep very busy. She needed it to be; keeping busy was the only thing that kept her sane.

Leslie soon discovered that she had a love for baking and she immersed herself in all things to do with the culinary arts. While she was being schooled, she realized her bakers were very good at what they did, but they weren’t trained pastry chefs. For the most part, they had been hired on and told to do something a certain way, and when someone new came on board they instructed them to do it the exact same way. Once Leslie showed them the proper way to do things, a good bakery was transformed into an excellent one.

Glenn came into the store on a rare visit, and noted the line that went out the door. His face was amazed when he took her back to her small office.

“Do you want a raise?”

“Yeah, sure.” She said surprised. “Thank you Glenn.”

He was shaking his head at her as if he was disappointed in her. “Leslie? Why didn’t you ask for a raise if you wanted one?” She gave him a confused look. But that was Glenn with his strange questions and round-about way of telling her something.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I’m happy with what you pay me. I mean, I love what I do and you pay me well to do it.”

“Damn.” He just looked at her like she was a curiosity. “Why couldn’t you have been my kid?” He headed out the door. “You’re making me rich, kiddo, so I’ll do the same for you.” That was over a year ago.

Leslie drove to the bank and made her daily deposit. Then she hurried home, not wanting the contents of her box to melt. She still lived in the house that she had shared with her grandmother and besides some updated furniture and remodeled kitchen it still felt like Grandma’s house. She placed the pastry box on the marble counter and then went upstairs to change out of her clothes. Her bedroom was still the smaller one, though she had purchased grown up furniture for it.

After putting on a t-shirt and cargo shorts, Leslie went back downstairs and took the small cake out of its box. She turned it a full 360 degrees peering at it in approval. It was perfect. She had decorated it herself. It was a butter cake with butter cream icing and this year it was decorated with a big yellow sunflower.

She dug through her utensil drawer until she came up with a box of candles. Carefully she inserted two into the beautiful cake. She picked up the box of matches and lit the two candles.

“Happy birthday, Angel.” She whispered. “Today you are two years old. You are walking, and falling and probably getting into things. Your Mom and Dad probably have to chase after you and keep you from putting everything you pick up into your mouth.” Her eyes took on a wistful expression. “You probably have a head of golden brown curls and big beautiful sky blue eyes. I am sure that you are a beautiful baby…just like you were a beautiful Guardian Angel.”

Leslie bent down and blew out the candles. Two fat tear drops fell onto the crystalline icing of the cake, looking as if they belonged there.