The Sweet Dead Life (13 page)

I covered his head with the towel.

"How long?" he asked.

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"Five minutes," I said with authority. If he was looking up angels in Wikipedia, I figured he wouldn't question my hair care knowledge.

Casey nodded. Those people up in Heaven must be having a good laugh right now. Or else their candidate pool had dwindled to the point of no return.

If the best they could come up with was "Angels In Charge," I'd question their hiring practices, too. I moved us on to number three while we sat on Casey's bed and waited for the hair dye to maybe or maybe not disappear. As for number five, well, that one wasn't rocket science. Though it wasn't fair to Mags, Lanie was the prime offender. I assumed this had more to do with potential A-word status than with his natural personality or lack thereof.

Suddenly I felt bad. My stomach twisted. The chopped beef wasn't helping much, either. (I should have tried something smaller first. Maybe just the fries.) The Lanie thing wasn't fair to
him
, either. He'd completely given up on taking care of himself when she'd dumped him. Even a shallow twit like Lanie deserved a second chance, though, right? Unless she wasn't a shallow twit at all? Unless she'd grown up enough to apologize and forgive him? Still, what did a second chance even mean? What if Lanie
was
back in his life only because Casey was now the thing I didn't want to say? It probably meant they were even more doomed as a couple.

Now I was cranky again. I shook it off. Marched us forward on the list. "Do something angel-y," I said, trying once more to sound authoritative.

"Like what? That Wikipedia page was pretty vague."

"Well," I said, thinking hard. "If you're really an angel, then you probably can't be hurt, right?"

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Casey's gaze strayed to the bong sitting on the floor by his dresser.

"Stay focused," I told him. He'd told me himself that marijuana was frowned upon by the AIC. I rose from the bed and grabbed the scissors from the bathroom. The ends were rounded and dull, but the edge had some sharpness. It would have to do. I didn't give Casey time to argue--just reached over quickly and sawed the edge of the scissors against his right bicep.

"Hey!" He stepped back, his foot grazing the bong. It teetered, stray droplets of the stinky brown water sloshing over the rim. "What the hell, Jenna?" A thin drizzle of blood trickled down his arm.

"Don't wipe it off," I commanded. "We need to wait."

We watched his bicep and waited. So: angels could bleed like regular people. Maybe it was that transition thing. I glanced up at his eyes, and then back at his arm. My breath caught in my throat. The cut had vanished. Just like that. His skin was smooth and unblemished. No sign of blood. Nothing.

"Whoa," Casey said. He sounded stoned. I couldn't blame him.
Check
.

The five minutes was up. Back in the bathroom, we faced the mirror.

Carefully, I unwound the towel from his head.

"Crazy!" Casey smoothed his perfectly wavy and definitely
not
Clairol Champagne Blonde hair. I had tried to change him. I had failed.

Check.

"What about number five? I could call Lanie." Casey looked at me hopefully.

I would have kicked some sense into him, but my boots were gone and no way was I putting those purple clogs back

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on. There was nothing left but number two. We both knew it. (Maybe before I patented the A-Word Test, I'd shuffle the order so that The Question of Questions wouldn't be saddled with the unfortunate poop association of #2.) My brother's expression grew serious. He pressed a hand to my cheek. In the mirror, I noticed that his nails were neatly filed and buffed to a male-model sheen.

"Enough," he said. "I died, Jenna. I know you don't want it to be true. But I really did." Again, with his skin against mine, I felt that familiar wave wash the fear and confusion away. But I fought to cling to the uncertainty. I didn't
want
to be certain. I wanted Casey Samuels, perv stoner. It seemed as if he had a bunch more to say. But all that came out was, "I'm sorry. I've been a crappy brother."

I shook my head. "You're not," I choked out. Bad taste in girlfriends, yes.

Crappy, no.

"I am. Shit, Jenna. Look at me. I was failing Teen Leadership class, Jenna.

No one fails Teen Leadership."

I laughed. I sniffed and blinked. A big fat tear dripped down my cheek. It glistened a little in Casey's residual glow. There was one thing I hadn't added to the list:
Did the A-word die trying to save you?
My brother had died trying to get me to the hospital. We could pretty it up any way we wanted, but those were the facts. Casey had died in the accident. I had lived.

"I'm sorry you're dead," I whispered.

Casey pulled me into a hug. "Me, too."

We stood hanging onto each other, that new nice smell of his floating up my nostrils. I believed him now. And yes, there was something about his hugging me that buried the sadness. Only this time I didn't try to fight it. I guess that was the angel part. I guess that's what they did.

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"You really can't tell Mom, Jenna," he said. "Or Dad if we find him. You need to promise."

"I promise. I just ..."

"What?"

"Nothing." I stepped back from him. But I wanted to ask: Why me? Why was it okay to tell
me
? I didn't know if I was ready to hear that answer. Plus I wasn't sure if he even knew the answer. But I bet Amber did. I'd hear the rest of it soon enough. I yawned. We both had school tomorrow. Today, I guess, since it was after midnight. "Do you still have to go to school and work?" I asked.

How sweet would that be? Maybe he could do something about the detention I hadn't served. This whole angel thing might have its advantages.

"Yeah," Casey said. "I mean I still have to work to support us. That's part of the deal with me coming back. And Amber says I have to go to school, too.

That way people won't get suspicious. I need to keep up appearances while I figure everything out. Besides, who else could Bryce count on for the dinner shift?"

"Bryce is a pissant," I stated.

I yawned again, too exhausted and emotionally drained to ponder Amber's role in all this. At least for tonight. Could I trust her now? I didn't know. When was she going to tell Casey all the stuff he needed to know? Or had she, and was he just covering it up so he wouldn't scare me? It had been just Casey and me for so long. Now there was Amber, who it seemed wasn't going away anytime soon. But that didn't mean that she was completely honest or good-hearted, did it? After all, Casey still seemed perfectly capable of BS.

Nor did it mean that any of this was a good thing.

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"Maybe people will tip bigger at BJ's," I said, my brain racing. "Maybe you can make 'em."

Casey grinned. "Maybe."

There were probably a lot of angel angles to work. Okay. Time to go to bed.

My brother might be my guardian now, but I still had to keep my eyes open.

Somebody had tried to poison me. I wasn't dying anymore, at least not that I knew. But I wasn't safe. Especially since my
brother
had apparently been assigned to figure this whole mess out. Okay, that sounded meaner than I meant, but Casey was never a deep thinker. He was an instinct guy.
Make
out with Lanie! Get stoned! Risk everything to drive little sister to the hospital!

If the A-word transition process was a long one, I probably couldn't afford to wait.

112

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In the morning, I checked on Mom. She ate some toast in bed. I brewed her a pot of coffee and made her swallow a vitamin. I had to hold the glass while she drank. Her muscles seemed extra weak today, or maybe I was just noticing because I was feeling stronger. Then I helped her into a clean pair of sweats, and she held her arms up so I could slip a gray tank top over her head. I wanted to put her into a T-shirt, but everything she owned was dirty. I needed to get after the laundry.

Then I got myself dressed for school.

Here is what I wore: jeans, a purple tank top and my gray hoodie with the plaid lining. Also my old gray Converse with the black laces. I double-checked them. As far as I could tell, they were poison-free. But they were not my boots. My poor Ariats that I would never wear again! My feet were still itchy, by the way, and I was on and off thirsty, but I figured I'd keep popping the Cipro and things would get better. When I came back to say good-bye to Mom, she

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was still chewing the same piece of toast, staring off into nowhere.

Here is the stupid thing I did then: I started to cry. My eyes filled with tears.

My throat plugged up. I looked away when she asked me what was wrong.

"Nothing," I croaked.

I had assured Casey that I wouldn't tell her about what had happened to him, and I aimed to keep that promise. But for a few rotten seconds, it seemed horrible and unfair.

Then I looked up. Casey had appeared behind me in Mom's doorway. He reached over his shoulder and scratched a spot on his back, right where I knew those wing nubs sat.

"You look really handsome, sweetheart," my mother told him.

She was right. He did. He stood tall and arrow-straight, eyes sparkling. I was happy beyond words that he looked so good. I was sad beyond words because I knew why. Sadder when I looked at Mom. At how she was. And because she had no idea why Casey was all shiny and new.

"I have to brush my teeth," I said, bolting before I lost it completely. In the bathroom, I splashed water on my face and blew my nose. I frowned at my puffy red eyes and splotchy face. Then I overheard Mom's voice.

"Why is Jenna so sad?" she was asking Casey.

I decided to skip saying good-bye to her on the way out.

THE GILROYS WERE hanging up their Christmas lights when we locked up the house and climbed into the Merc. Mr. Gilroy, dressed in Dickies overalls and a tan Henley shirt, was perched on a ladder, screwing in bulbs. I saw that they had already decorated the yard with a manger scene and two 115

lit-up full-sized angels. Maybe once they got them plugged in, Casey could go stand in the middle.

Mrs. Gilroy hot-footed it across the strip of grass between our houses, a tangled extension cord clutched in her hands. "That looks like Nell Pittman's car," she observed. She wore black velour pants and a button-down red Christmas sweater with Santa heads all over it. A white pom-pom sat at the top of each Santa hat.

I shut the passenger side door on her and leaned out the window. "Manger's looking good," I said. "Y'all get rid of the reindeer?"

I knew they had. Last Christmas Brett Colson and some of the other Spring Creek football guys had driven around the neighborhood in the middle of the night for two weeks straight moving everybody's reindeer into compromising positions. Mrs. Gilroy had never gotten over the shock of walking down the driveway for her morning paper only to find Donner and Blitzen humping each other.

"The Prius is in the shop," Casey added. "This here's a loaner." As if to prove it, he shoved one of the leftover snickerdoodles into his mouth. (I didn't know if angels had to eat, but my brother had not lost his interest in chowing down.)

"Nell really doesn't mind y'all using her car?" Mrs. Gilroy asked.

Why the hell do you care?
I wondered.

"Hmm," Casey said under his breath. He revved the engine. "Uh-oh. Looks like MJ's in trouble." He pointed to Mr. Gilroy, still at the top of the ladder.

The strand of lights he'd just tacked up had come unpinned, dangling just out of his reach. Then he tore out of the driveway. "Best not to go overboard with this stuff," he muttered. "Mrs. Gilroy is too damn nosy."

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"What stuff?" I asked him.

He hung a right at the Kroger center and parked by the doughnut shop.

Had he done something to make those lights dangle? I didn't mind if he had.

Mrs. Gilroy
was
nosy. "Casey, what happened back there?" I persisted.

"Nothing. We're meeting Amber," Casey said without any other explanation.

Sure enough, Amber was inside by the window, dressed in her EMT outfit, munching on a sausage and cheese kolache. Snickerdoodles and now kolaches.

"Do y'all need to eat?" I asked as Casey and I plopped into two empty chairs at her little table.

"Jenna!" Casey scowled.

"Morning to you, too," Amber said. She made a point of biting into her kolache. Cheese oozed onto her lower lip and she dabbed it with a napkin.

"And no. But I enjoy it. Some of us don't. My theory is they never liked food that much in the first place. I did. I still do. But if you want great kolaches, you really need to go to the Hill Country. There's this little doughnut shop outside of Fredericksburg that makes cheese and fruit kolaches to die for." She smiled. "Metaphorically speaking." She looked from me to Casey and then back to me. "I take it your brother has filled you in."

I couldn't even nod.

Casey bought himself a blueberry doughnut. Then we all headed outside where we could talk more privately. There was a bench a few stores down--