Chapter 12
Now it was AJ’s turn to stare.
“Huh? I’m a what?”
“An angel, dumbass!”
AJ looked down at himself, at the baggy jeans and gray hooded
sweatshirt he was wearing, the same outfit he had been killed in (after all, he
couldn’t use his hands, so how was he supposed to change clothes?). “Uh… where’s my white dress thing then? And my wings?
And my halo?” He quickly reached
up to the top of his head just to make sure, but there was nothing there.
The girl just looked at him for a moment. Then she burst out laughing. “Oh my God – gosh, I mean – are you really
that stupid? You think real angels wear
white robes and halos and flutter around with harps?”
AJ was sure that if he still could feel temperature, he would have
felt his face getting hot just then.
“Oh,” he said lamely.
“Man! And I thought Nick
was supposed to be the stupid one!”
AJ frowned. “So you’re an
angel too then?” he asked skeptically, not sure he believed this whole angel
thing. After all, how could he, AJ
McLean, become an angel?
“That’s right,” she said.
“Well, you’re not very nice for an angel.”
She got a guilty look on her face.
“Yeah, I know. I’m kinda working
on correcting my potty mouth.”
AJ just stared at her. “I don’t
get this… does everyone who die become an angel?”
She laughed. “If every dead
person got to be an angel, think how many of us there’d be running around! Nope, it’s only a small percentage.”
“Well, what happens to the rest?”
“They go straight to Heaven - no bothering around with missions.”
“Missions?”
“Yeah, missions. That’s the
point of being an angel,” she said, talking to him as if she were teaching a
class of first-graders. “You have to
complete your mission on Earth before you can get to Heaven.”
“Well, what’s my mission?”
The girl rolled her eyes irritably at him. “How should I know?” she snapped.
AJ stared at her. “Well… I
don’t either. How am I supposed to find
out?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even
know what my mission is yet! All I know
is that to get where everyone else has gone, you have to complete it.”
“What happens if you never finish it?” AJ asked.
The girl shrugged. “I guess
you never get to Heaven then.”
AJ frowned at that thought.
What if never completed his mission?
What if he never found out what he had to do? Was he going to be stuck on Earth like this
for all eternity, some strange celestial being that no living person could see
or hear?
The girl smiled slightly, reached out, and patted his
shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Everyone finishes their mission at some
point. Some just take longer than
others. Me, I’ve been at it over a
year.”
But AJ had barely heard a word she said. He was looking at her hand, which she had
withdrawn from his shoulder, in amazement.
“What?” the girl asked suddenly, noticing him staring at her like
that.
“You can touch me!” AJ said.
“You’re solid!”
The girl laughed slightly.
“I’m not any more solid than you are.
Not naturally, anyway. We can
touch each other ‘cause we’re made out of the same stuff.”
“Oh…” said AJ, glancing down, feeling rather dumb again. He should have realized that. “So… uh… what’s your name?”
“Oh, sorry, it’s Lindy,” she replied.
“Lindy?”
“Short for Melinda,” she added, making a face. “But no one calls me that; it’s always been
Lindy.”
AJ nodded. “Well, my
name’s-“
“I already know who you are,” Lindy interrupted him, nodding down
at the open Backstreet Boys book.
“Oh,” said AJ sheepishly.
“Right. So…” He trailed off, trying to think of something
else to say. He really wanted to ask how
she had died, but he didn’t want to be rude.
“So, I see how you’ve spent the two weeks since you kicked the
bucket,” Lindy said. “Stalking that
girlfriend of yours.”
AJ raised his eyebrows. “How
do you know-“ he started, but she interrupted him again.
“First of all, when you’re dead and most people can’t see you, you
do a lot of observing. You find out a
lot of stuff. Secondly, you’re a
freaking celebrity, everyone knows all about you and your social life
anyway. So yeah, I know about Bianca, I
know she works here, and I know you’ve been hanging around here all week too,
watching her.”
Had she been hanging around Barnes and Noble all week too, just
pretending to be another human who couldn’t see him? AJ didn’t remember seeing her there, but he
had spent most of his time watching Bianca, just as Lindy had said. He most likely just hadn’t noticed her until
now.
“So you’ve been hanging around here all week too then, watching
me?” AJ asked her to confirm this.
Lindy shrugged. “Not much
else to do. It’s kind of a boring
sometimes, being an angel, especially when you don’t know your mission yet,”
she said. “But no, I haven’t been
watching you all week. I’ve done other
stuff too.”
“Such as…?”
Lindy shrugged. “It’s a
bookstore; what do you think?” She
motioned at her book again.
AJ looked down at it too, then something dawned on him. “Wait a minute!” he cried, looking back at
Lindy again. “How can you hold the
book? How can you turn the pages?”
Lindy snickered. “I guess
following that chick around was the only thing you could do for the past
two weeks,” she said. “Since you hadn’t
even figured out what you were until I told you, I’m sure you couldn’t have
discovered how to use any of your powers.”
“Powers?” AJ
brightened. “I have powers?”
“Sure,” she said. “For
starters, you can-“
“Fly?” AJ asked hopefully.
Lindy gave him a patronizing look.
“No, you can’t fly,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But there are ways of becoming partly solid,
so you can touch things without passing through them.”
AJ’s eyes widened.
“Really? How? Can you show me?”
Lindy yawned loudly. “Oh, I
dunno, I’m pretty tired right now,” she said lazily.
“Please?” AJ begged. “Come
on, Lindy, please?”
“Maybe another time. It
takes up a lot of energy; you might not be ready.”
“I’m ready!” AJ insisted.
“Come on, show me! Please!”
Lindy rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth twitched. She gave an exaggerated sigh and said, “Oh,
alright. I guess I could spare some time
to show you.”
AJ beamed at her. “Thank
you!”
Lindy raised her eyes toward the ceiling. “Why do I always get stuck with the damn
rookies?”
***
