The A-Word Read online

  “Whatever,” Casey groaned. “Hope he bosses you around like you do me.” He signaled a lane change. The freeway was packed but moving steadily. “You said something’s coming. What? And how do you know?”

  “It’s going to sound weird,” Amber said after a few beats of silence.

  “Ha!” That was my response.

  “It’s like a sixth sense,” she said. “But not exactly.”

  “Like you see dead people?” My brother’s face was dead serious. Then he bit his lip and burst out laughing.

  “Like you probably have it, too,” Amber snapped. “Like—”

  “Like a Spidey sense?” I asked. It seemed to be what she was nervously stumbling for. My brother was not the only one who got his information from Hollywood. “You know. Like in those movies. Like your Spidey sense is tingling.”

  I expected her to roll her eyes. Instead she said, “Yeah. Like that.”

  I thought about how I felt lately. And I wasn’t even one of them. Maybe it was just common sense. Maybe she was being ridiculous. “Do you feel something’s wrong, too?” I shoved myself through the gap in the seats to Casey. He batted me away, smacking me in the nose. Hopefully not on purpose.

  “Ow,” I said. “Ass wipe.”

  “Sit back” he muttered. “And no. Well, maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Concentrate,” I directed him. “Do you see something wacky coming with someone named Bo Shivers?” I’d have told him to close his eyes, but that seemed reckless.

  “We’ll talk about it at Bo’s,” Amber said, and not a word more.

  Were they insane? No way could Amber drop all these bombshells—Bo Shivers? She has a boss? Angels have Spidey senses that tingle? And I might have them, too?—and then clam up. This did not settle well with me. Or the breakfast tacos in my belly. So I did the only thing I could think of that would make at least one of them acknowledge I was sitting back here, waiting for real answers. I pulled out my cell phone and began to act swoony and girlie. If there was one thing I knew it was this: like my brother, Amber was permanently single and lonely and pissed off about it. I bet I could press her buttons that way. Maybe something would slip out. Plus I had a cell phone now. With video of Ryan Sloboda! Who was coming over later to bring me a birthday present! The day was weird and getting weirder, but I was accumulating gifts like nobody’s business.

  “Look,” I said, scrolling to the video I’d taken last night of Ryan out on the field. It was shaky, but clear enough. I shoved my phone at her. “See how good he was playing? And without any special help.” I air-quoted the last two words even though I was not normally an air-quote girl.

  “Jenna,” Casey began.

  Amber snatched my phone. She pressed pause and eyeballed the screen.

  “Ryan’s too young for you,” I deadpanned.

  She almost smiled. Except she wasn’t looking at Ryan. She was looking above his head at that crazy big Jumbotron. “Is this new?” Amber asked. She flicked her fingers to enlarge the picture. The words SPONSORED BY TEXICON filled the screen.

  “I guess, yeah.” I fell back in the seat.

  “Texicon’s sponsoring a whole bunch of stuff now,” Casey said, suddenly perking up. “The football programs with all the guys’ pictures and stats, new flat screens in the locker room. Other stuff, too. Sloboda and them are lucky to be playing now.”

  Who cared about Texicon Jumbotrons? Even Amber wasn’t that weird. So why …

  My thoughts whirred and clicked. Oh.

  “Amber,” I said, leading with her name while my brain sorted itself out. “Isn’t Texicon where your friend Terry works? The lab guy? You know—the one who analyzed Mom’s blood and all.”

  Amber, her gaze still glued to my phone, didn’t answer. She looked lonely and sad and curious all at the same time. Were those tears in her eyes? No way. But that’s what it looked like. Maybe this was more than her being weird. Maybe not. I mean, we had already established that she lied like a rug to us when she felt like it. I did not have high hopes that she was imparting every crucial detail about her personal life.

  Amber chewed her bottom lip. Eventually, she tossed me the phone.

  “Yeah,” she said slowly. “Same guy.”

  There was a note in her voice—one that made me wonder: was it Terry who’d been Amber’s boyfriend back before she was an angel, back before she was killed? We didn’t know about all that either, did we? Was this another item in the growing pile of Things Amber Wasn’t Choosing to Share?

  “Yeah?” I said, encouraging her to spill.

  But she didn’t say anything more. Maybe she would have, but at that moment, Casey pulled up in front of a high rise that read TAFT STREET LOFTS, with a banner that announced: UNITS STILL AVAILABLE. BEST VIEWS IN HOUSTON.

  “We’re here,” Casey said, in case Amber and I hadn’t noticed.

  THE BUILDING HAD a doorman and valet parking. We had to tell the guy whom we were visiting. Upon hearing the name Bo Shivers, he became suddenly gracious and gave Casey a ticket to redeem the Merc once we were done. The lobby was huge and pretty. Slick tile floors and a desk with another doorman guy and there were even some tasteful Halloween decorations: an artsy metal tree with little black cats and pumpkins hanging from it was my favorite. I made a mental note to tell Mrs. Gilroy about this. She was always looking for new ideas.

  The elevator was glassed in. I could see all of downtown as we rode to the top. Yes. Bo Shivers, whoever he was, lived on the top floor. Penthouse. Like in the movies.

  “I love this place,” I blurted, surprised that I did. “It’s amazing.”

  It was. The higher we rode in the elevator, the more amazing it felt. On top of the city. Sleek and clean and—something else I couldn’t put my finger on. Not money, although obviously it took money to make something like this. Maybe the settled feeling you get when there isn’t anything to worry about. Not that I had experienced that lately.

  Or maybe ever. But I knew that if I did, this was what it felt like.

  The elevator doors opened at the twentieth floor. I figured my pulse would be hopping, but it beat in my veins all normal like. Smooth. Even. Maybe a little excited—but the good kind, like when you’re about to open a present on your birthday (which, hey, it was), and you know by the shape and feel of the box that it is going to be exactly what you wished for.

  We walked down the fancy, well-lit hallway. There was only one apartment up here that I could see. With its own private entrance. I guess it was no different than our house having its own door. But it was. Money did that, I knew—although not from personal experience.

  “So how come this guy’s so loaded?” Casey asked, frowning.

  Amber didn’t answer, just waved her hand like she was shooing flies. Her jaw was tight.

  We stood at the tall metal door now, me in the middle, Casey on my left, and Amber on my right.

  She raised her hand to knock. But the door swung open before her hand could reach it.

  He was tall. Muscular, too. More cowboy-type than gym rat, but his dark jeans fit well, as did the olive-colored long-sleeve, V-neck sweater he was wearing. His boots, like Amber’s, were worn in and scuffed. His skin was bronzy and his hair—longish, falling to the bottom of his neck—was mostly dark with a few strands of silver. His face was lined, but in a way that said, I’ve lived through stuff. Like whatever he’d done, he’d done it hard and fully and it showed. Which is not the same as getting old. Not at all.

  “Ms. Velasco,” said the man who could only be Bo Shivers. “What a delightful surprise.”

  “I’m Bo,” he said, extending his right hand. His left toted a squat glass of what smelled like Jack Daniels. Not that I’d ever imbibed, but I’d smelled it on Casey’s breath more than once so I knew it when I sniffed it. His voice was deep and low, and when he said his name, I felt it in my chest like you do when someone has their car stereo on too loud. He gripped the glass loosely now, thumb and first two fingers only—low, dangling close to knee level. I
kept waiting for him to drop it.

  “I won’t bite, Jenna. I promise.” His gaze locked on mine in a way that managed to be comforting and unsettling at the same time. “Especially on your birthday. Fifteen is a fine age, isn’t it?”

  My brain was pinging so fast that I could barely keep up with all the thoughts. Had Amber told him it was my birthday? How often did she talk to this guy, anyway? This guy she’d never mentioned even existed, living in this ritzy place with some kind of soft jazz playing in the background from an invisible speaker system.

  “You know her name?” Casey straightened, tall and confrontational-like, which I did not believe was the best idea right now. We had barely said hello. In fact, we hadn’t at all. I couldn’t tear my eyes from Bo Shivers.

  He was old, wasn’t he? But he was interesting. And not just because he was showing off that he knew about me, which maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was saying it just to get under our skin, which if he was Amber’s boss, I sort of understood.

  Funny: Mom’s Uncle Gene who lived up in Colleyville used to sneak nips from a flask all the time. That just made me roll my eyes, not pique my interest like this man and that glass of whiskey.

  “Nice to meet you.” I extended my right hand, deciding to go for it.

  We shook. He had a firm grip, and his palm was warm and calloused. A long but faint scar etched the top of his hand from the middle knuckle to his wrist and maybe higher, but the sweater sleeve covered it. More scars wound around his wrists, again faint, but there. Again, I couldn’t help staring. How did you get scars like that? I bit back the impulse to ask him.

  He withdrew his hand. Took a long sip of his drink.

  “I’m Casey,” my brother said. We were still standing in the entryway.

  “I’m aware.” Bo swallowed, then met my brother’s gaze. “Been aware, in fact. Although I take it the awareness hasn’t been mutual.” Here he cut his eyes to Amber.

  I figured they were going to have it out. He was obviously pissed that we hadn’t known about him.

  “Bo,” Amber began, sounding anxious and peevish all at once, but Casey cut her off.

  “You gonna invite us in, or we gonna stand out here for eternity?”

  Here’s the thing: I knew he didn’t mean it to be funny. But it was. I couldn’t help myself. I chuckled.

  Bo Shivers tilted his head. His eyes went dark, then crinkled at the edges, and then he was laughing, a full-out belly laugh. He stepped aside, gesturing with the glass of Jack for us to enter.

  “You got a nice place here,” I told him. Our mutual sense of humor had made me bold.

  “Eternity has allowed me time to decorate,” he observed dryly.

  So, he was smart and clever. In addition to being rich. I liked smart and clever. Even in an old guy. Or maybe not that old. I was finding it hard to tell. And the loft kicked ass. Not that I was an expert on interior design, but I knew what I liked. Dark wood floors all polished and shiny. Shelves of books positioned here and there. Bo was quite the reader, it seemed. On the walls, what walls existed, there were paintings—real ones, not poster art from Big Lots or the ones from that store they opened in the mall around Christmas when people found themselves inspired to purchase pictures of Marilyn Monroe or Jim Morrison or other dead celebrities. Fancy grey stone on the kitchen counter that I could see from here because it was mostly all one huge open space. A wall of windows that looked over downtown.

  We followed Bo toward the couches over by the windows. I could see now that one was actually a glass door. It led out to a balcony that skirted the entire side of the loft.

  I knew people lived like this. I had just never experienced that life close-up.

  Off to the right, a set of panels partially blocked what must be his sleeping nook. I could make out a big bed against one of the few walls and a plush-looking comforter. A smallish painting of a woman’s face, done in chalk or watercolor or some such hung on the wall above the bed.

  “So,” Bo Shivers said, whipping my attention back to him. We settled on the squishy leather sofas. “To what do I owe this visit?”

  “We’ve got some questions,” my brother said. “About this whole grounding business.” He was out of sorts, I could tell. Nervous. Sitting on the edge of the sofa, hands clasped on his knees, like he was ready to take off. Could he? I wondered suddenly. Could he fly again like he did that day last Christmas to save my life? Or did it just look like that because I knew he was tired of all this endless waiting for something to change, even now, sitting way up high here with all this pretty stuff around us.

  Casey went on and on: prattling about losing his earthly flight—and wasn’t that unfair, and had it happened to anyone else, and if so what had that angel done about it? Amber put in her two cents about her Spidey sense and how she thought something was coming and was Bo maybe having the same feelings … which it seemed to me he kind of was, although between Amber and my brother it’s not like he was getting too many words in. Or maybe he was staying quiet and watching on purpose. Probably that was it.

  Except me, I was still remembering. I saw those wings of Casey’s in my mind’s eye: all white and fully unfurled and so magnificent that they hurt my eyes with their glory even as I was tumbling to my doom. He had leapt without thinking, caught me in his arms, and hauled me to safety. He had known what would happen, but he hadn’t hesitated. Just like that night when he’d rushed me to the hospital and crashed our beat-up Prius. Just like that moment when everything in our world changed.

  I came back fast, he’d told me. I came back for you.

  Now he was hanging out at football games watching all the things he could never really have again, his wing nubs hiding—retracted and unused.

  Here is what happened then: I looked up, or maybe I was looking up all the time. But now I focused back in from all my remembering. And Bo Shivers was watching me, eyes neutral and dark as night. Something crawled up my spine and back down. For a moment it was like what happened when Casey laid a hand on my shoulder. I’d feel all calm and peaceful until he lifted it away and the worry seeped back in, all the more intense for its brief absence. But it was different. More like Bo Shivers trying to mine through to my soul or something, which I know sounds all dramatic, but that’s how it felt. An itch so deep inside me that I was never going to reach it. I stared back.

  “Take a picture,” I told him. “It’ll last longer.”

  “Jenna!” Amber squawked.

  Bo didn’t so much as blink. “I apologize if my honesty is startling. I don’t find that lying gets us anywhere, do you?” Which was strange since he hadn’t said anything to me that I could take for truth or lie.

  His brows drew into a slight frown. I felt momentarily in the dark, like an eclipse of the sun. Was he doing that? It was possible, I knew. I was still categorizing what Casey and Amber could and couldn’t do, but this was something new. Something intense.

  At which point Mr. Bo Shivers set his drink on the coffee table, rose to his feet, and strode over to the glass door. He opened it, stepped out on the balcony. He walked steadily, posture perfect. If the Jack had made him drunk, there was no sign. The wind had picked up outside, and I could hear it. Everything in the loft wavered in the sudden breeze. Goosebumps raised on my arms.

  With that, Bo Shivers walked to the railing, slung one long leg over it and then the other, graceful as a gymnast, and jumped.

  Time froze.

  The breath stopped in my body as he fell out of sight—arms stretched wide, palms up. Like a yoga position. Like falling was a meditation.

  No. Not that. More like useless wings.

  “Holy shit!” my brother said. Amber tore to the balcony.

  I sat where I was, mouth gaping, stomach clenching, heart beating like a hummingbird on crack.

  Then I heard the sound of ice clinking into a glass and then something being poured in the kitchen.

  All three of us whipped around.

  “I have a little problem with a de
ath wish,” said Bo Shivers, solid and in one piece. He strode from the kitchen with a freshly poured glass of Jack. “I apologize for that, too.”

  My heart was still lodged in my throat, but I managed, “Thought you didn’t lie.” I didn’t know if I was angry or relieved or both.

  “What the hell?” was Casey’s response. “Can I do that, too?” He sounded simultaneously hopeful and flummoxed. Did falling count as flying?

  “No,” Amber said, banging the balcony door behind her.

  “You could try,” said Bo pleasantly, swirling his drink. “Our dear Amber has lost her sense of whimsy. Maybe that’s why she kept Jenna Samuels a secret.”

  “What’s your problem, anyway?” I blurted, annoyed I found him so fascinating. Was this how Mags felt when she got all swoony around my brother, even though he was the last person she would normally go goofy about? That she wasn’t sure if the emotion actually belonged to her?

  I didn’t expect Bo to answer, but he did. And I didn’t expect to hear any truth. But I think I did.

  “The problem, my dear,” he said slowly, “is that Amber and your brother and I have something in common. We’re all stuck here against our will. I just like to experiment with it, is all. So far, I have found no way to beat the system. But I am ever hopeful.”

  Did this mean he jumped off balconies on the hour? Or worse? How long had he been doing this? Weeks? Years? Longer? I tried to formulate the right way to pose the question. But what came out of my mouth cut a different way.

  “You save someone too?” I asked.

  Bo Shivers shrugged and took a long sip of whiskey. He did not meet my eyes.

  I took that as a possible yes.

  After that, I expected the angel contingent to remove me from the discussion, but Bo said, “I really am sorry if I scared you.”

  “Didn’t scare me,” I told him. I folded my legs on the leather couch, trying to look calm and collected, like I was lounging at home. I flashed him a toothy grin. Did he know that my heart was bumping against my uvula? (For the vocabulary-challenged, your uvula is that little punching bag in the back of your throat.) “Guess you’re closer to Management up here,” I added. Like Casey and his “waiting-for-eternity” comment, I hadn’t meant it to be funny, but I guess it was.