Angela’s going to be a poet, Wendy’s a vet, Kay Patterson over there is head of a sorority house and marries a senator, Shawn is an Olympic-gold snowboarder, Jason’s one of those computer programmers who makes a gazillion dollars coming up with some new way to Google, and I’m—I’m—I’m a cruise ship director. I’m a famous ballerina for the New York City Ballet. I’m a heart surgeon.
I go with heart surgeon. My pen flies across the page.
“Time’s up,” says Mr. Phibbs. “Finish your sentence and then we’ll share.” I read back over what I’ve written. It’s good stuff. Completely bogus, but something.
“There’s nothing more inspiring than the complexity and beauty of the human heart,” I write as my last sentence, and I can nearly make myself believe it. The daydream about Tucker has almost faded from my mind.
“Heart surgeon, huh?” says Angela as we walk together up the boardwalk on Broadway in Jackson.
I shrug. “You went with lawyer. You really think you’re going to be a lawyer?”
“I’d make an excellent lawyer.”
We step under the archway that says PINK GARTER, and Angela fishes out her keys to unlock the door. As usual for this time of day, the theater looks completely deserted.
“Come on.” She puts her hand on my shoulder and pushes me through the empty lobby.
For a minute we stand there in the dark. Then Angela slips away, disappearing into the black, and a moment later a halo of light appears on the stage, which is still decked out with the set of Oklahoma! , a fake farmhouse and corn. I wander reluctantly down the aisle, past the rows of red velvet seats and up to the line of clean white tables in front of the orchestra pit, where all last year Angela and I sat with Angela’s notebooks and stacks of dusty old books and talked angels, angels, angels until sometimes I thought my brain would melt.
Angela practically skips up to the front of the theater. She climbs the stairs at the edge of the stage and stands looking out, so she can get a clear view of anybody coming in. Under the lights her long black hair glows a shade of deep blue that isn’t entirely natural. She sweeps her bangs behind her ear and looks down at me with this super-pleased-with-herself expression. I swallow.
“So what’s this all about?” I ask, trying to sound like I don’t care. “I’m dying to know.”
“Patience is a virtue,” she quips.
“I’m not that virtuous.”
She smiles mysteriously. “You think I haven’t guessed that already?” A figure appears in the back of the theater, and I get that panicky tightness in my chest.
Then the figure comes into the light, and my breath catches for a different reason.
It isn’t Christian. It’s my brother.
I glance up at Angela. She shrugs. “He deserves to know everything we know, right?” I turn back and look at Jeffrey. He shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
Jeffrey’s been hard to figure out lately. Something is definitely up with him. First, there was the night of the fire, when he came tearing out of the trees like the devil was chasing him, his wings the color of lead. I don’t know if that means anything, the state of his spiritual well-being or whatnot, since my wings at that time were pretty dark too, on account of the soot. He said he was out there looking for me, which I don’t buy. But one thing’s for sure, he was out there. In the forest. During the fire. Then the next day he was glued to the television, watching every minute of the news. Like he was expecting something. And later we had this conversation: Me (after spilling the beans about finding Christian in the forest and him being an angel-blood): “So it was kind of a good thing that I saved Tucker instead.” Jeffrey: “Well, what were you supposed to do, if your purpose wasn’t about saving Christian?”
The million-dollar question.
Me (miserably): “I don’t know.”
Then Jeffrey did the oddest thing. He laughed, a bitter laugh, false, which instantly rubbed me the wrong way. I’d just confessed that I’d messed up the most important thing I was ever supposed to do in my life, my reason for being on this earth, and he laughed at me.
“What?” I barked at him. “What’s so funny?”
“Man,” he said. “This is like a freaking Greek tragedy.” He shook his head in disbelief.
“You saved Tucker instead.”
I may have called him a jerk-face or something. But he kept laughing, until I seriously wanted to smack him, and then Mom caught wind of the impending violence in that uncanny way she has and said, “Enough, both of you,” and I’d stalked off to my room.
Just thinking about it now makes me want to slug him.
“So what do you think?” Angela asks. “Can he join us?”
Tough call. But mad or not, I’m pretty curious to find out what exactly he knows. Since we don’t seem to be communicating well these days, this might be the best way. I turn to Angela with a shrug. “Sure. Why not?”
“We have to make this quick,” Jeffrey says, slinging his backpack down onto one of the chairs. “I’ve got practice.”
“No problem.” Angela suppresses another smile. “We’re just waiting for—”
“I’m here.”
And there is Christian, striding down the aisle with his hands in his pockets. His eyes roam over the theater like he’s considering making an offer on the place, inspecting the stage, the seats, the tables, the lights and riggings in the rafters. Then his gaze lands on me.
“So let’s do this,” he says. “Whatever it is.”
Angela doesn’t waste any time. “Come join me up here.”
Slowly we all make our way onto the stage and stand in a circle with Angela.
“Welcome to Angel Club,” she says melodramatically.
Christian does his laugh/exhale thing. “First rule of Angel Club, you do not talk about Angel Club.”
“Second rule of Angel Club,” chimes in Jeffrey. “Do not talk about Angel Club.” Oh boy. Here we go.
“Hilarious. You’re bonding already.” Angela is not amused. “Seriously, though. I do think we should have rules.”
“Why?” Jeffrey wants to know. Always with the attitude, my sweet little brother. “Why do we need rules for a club?”
“Maybe if we knew what the point of the club was,” adds Christian.
Angela’s eyes flare in a way I’m familiar with—this is not going according to her carefully constructed plan. “The point,” she says in a clipped tone, “is to find out all we can about this angel-blood stuff, so we don’t like, you know, end up dead.” Again with the melodrama. She claps her hands together. “Okay, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. Last week our girl Clara here stumbled upon a Black Wing in the mountains.”