“We’ve been looking at examples all term,” said Miss Castle in a dejected tone. Then an idea for a starting point came to her. “Think about qualities you find attractive in a boy.”
“Well, I think intelligence is very important,” a girl named Bianca volunteered.
“Obviously, he should be a good provider,” her friend Hannah piped up.
Miss Castle looked at a loss. She was spared having to comment by a contribution from a different quarter.
“People are only interesting if they’re dark and disturbed,” said Alicia, one of the goths.
“Chicks shouldn’t talk so much,” drawled Tyler from the back of the room. It was the first thing we’d heard him say all term, and Miss Castle was graciously prepared to overlook its derogatory nature.
“Thank you, Tyler,” she said with underlying sarcasm. “You have just proved that the search for a partner is a very individual thing. Some say we can’t choose who we fall in love with; love chooses us. Sometimes people fall for the complete antithesis of everything they believe they’re looking for. Any other thoughts?”
Ben Carter, who had been rolling his eyes and wearing a martyred expression throughout the discussion, put his face in his hands.
“Great love stories have to be tragic,” I said suddenly.
“Go on,” encouraged Miss Castle.
“Well, take Romeo and Juliet for example: It’s the fact that they’re kept apart that makes their love stronger.”
“Big deal—they both end up dead,” snorted Ben.
“They’d have ended up divorced if they’d stayed alive,” announced Bianca. “Did anyone else notice that it took Romeo all of five seconds to switch from Rosaline to Juliet?”
“That’s because he knew Juliet was the one from the moment he met her,” I said.
“Puh-lease,” Bianca retorted. “You can’t know that you love someone after two minutes.
He just wanted to get in her pants. Romeo is just like every other horny teenage boy.”
“He didn’t know anything about her,” Ben said. “All his praise is for her physical attributes: ‘Juliet is the sun’ and blah blah blah. He just thinks she’s a babe.”
“I think it’s because after he met her everyone else became insignificant,” I said. “He knew right away that she was going to be his whole world.”
“Oh God,” groaned Ben.
Miss Castle gave me a meaningful smile. Being a hopeless romantic, she couldn’t help but take Romeo’s side. Unlike most of the teachers at Bryce Hamilton, who competed to see who could get to the parking lot first after the final bell rang, she wasn’t jaded. She was a dreamer. I suspected that if I told Miss Castle I was a celestial being on a mission to save the world, she wouldn’t have even blinked.
Saving Grace
I’d never seen God. I’d felt His presence and heard His voice but never actually come face to face with Him. His voice wasn’t what people imagined, booming and reverberating as depicted in epic Hollywood movies. Rather it was as subtle as a whisper and moved through our thoughts as gently as a breeze through tall reeds. Ivy had seen Him. An audience in Our Father’s court was reserved for the seraphim alone. As an archangel, Gabriel had the highest level of human interaction. He saw all the greatest suffering, the sort that was shown on the news; war, natural disasters, disease. He was guided by Our Father and worked with the rest of his covenant to point the earth in the right direction. Although Ivy had a direct line of communication with
Our Creator, she could never be induced to talk on the subject. Gabriel and I had attempted many times to glean information from her to no avail. So, strangely enough, I ended up imagining God in much the same way as Michelangelo had: a wise old man with a beard, sitting on a throne in the sky. My mental picture was probably inaccurate, but there was one thing that couldn’t be disputed: No matter what his appearance, Our Father was the complete embodiment of love.
Much as I savored every day spent on earth, there was one thing I sometimes missed about
Heaven: how everything there was clear. There was no conflict, no dissension apart from that one historic uprising that resulted in the Kingdom’s first and only eviction. Although it had altered the destiny of humankind forever, it was rarely talked about.
In Heaven I was dimly aware of the existence of a darker world, but it was removed from us and we were usually too busy working to think about it. We angels each had assigned roles and responsibilities: Some of us welcomed new souls into the Kingdom, helping to ease the transition; some materialized at deathbeds to offer comfort to departing souls; and others were guardians assigned to human beings. In the Kingdom, I looked after the souls of children when they first entered the realm. It had been my job to comfort them, to tell them that in time they would see their parents again if they let go of their doubts. I was a sort of celestial usher for preschoolers.
I was glad I wasn’t a guardian angel; they were usually overworked. It was their job to listen to the prayers of their many human charges and guide them out of harm’s way. It could get fairly hectic—I’d once seen a guardian try to come to the aid of a sick child, a woman going through a messy divorce, a man who’d just been laid off, and the victim of a car accident all in the same instant. There was so much work to do and never enough of us to go around.
___
Xavier and I sat under the shade of a maple tree in the quadrangle, eating lunch. I couldn’t help but be aware of his hand, resting just inches from my own. It was slender but masculine. He wore a simple silver band around his index finger. I was so engrossed in looking at him that I hardly noticed when he spoke to me.
“Can I ask a favor?”
“What? Oh, of course. What do you need?”
“Could you proofread this speech I’ve written? I’ve done it twice, but I’m sure I’ve missed things.”
“Sure. What’s it for?”
“A leadership conference next week,” he said offhandedly, as if it were something he did every day. “You don’t have to do it now. You can take it home if you like.”
“No, it’s fine.”
I was flattered that he valued my opinion enough to ask me. I spread the pages flat on the grass and read through them. Xavier’s speech was eloquent, but he’d missed some minor grammatical errors that I spotted easily.
“You’re a good editor,” he commented. “Thanks for doing it.”
“It’s no trouble.”
“Seriously, I owe you one. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” I said.
“Yes, I do. By the way, when’s your birthday?”
I was taken aback by the question.
“I don’t like presents,” I said quickly, in case he got any ideas.
“Who said anything about presents? I’m just asking for your date of birth.”
“Thirtieth of February,” I said, throwing out the first date that came to mind.
Xavier raised an eyebrow.
“Are you sure about that?”
I panicked. What had I said wrong? I ran through the months in my head and realised my mistake. Oops—there were only twenty-eight days in February!
“I mean thirtieth of April,” I corrected and grinned sheepishly.