Chapter
! Fourteen #
After checking out my story, the cops carted Ethel off to the prison wing of County General Hospital. When I finally limped home, I swallowed a fistful of Tylenol and spent the next heavenly hour or so soaking my aching muscles in a marathon bath. After which I collapsed into bed where I slept for twelve straight hours (near-death experiences tend to tucker me out) until Prozac lovingly clawed me awake for her breakfast.
In spite of a bump on my head the size of a potato puff, I felt fine. And starving. If you don’t count those Tylenol, I hadn’t had a thing to eat for nearly twentyfour hours. So I drove over to Junior’s deli and treated myself to a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and an English muffin with strawberry preserves.
I’d come home and was working off my breakfast with a strenuous nap on the sofa, when somebody rang my doorbell.
You’ll never guess who it was.
Angel Cavanaugh.
She stood on my doorstep in a Hello Kitty T-shirt and flipflops, barely big enough to cast a shadow, a bouquet of flowers in her hand.
Her dad stood at her side, holding a shopping bag.
“Don’t you have something to say to Jaine?” he said, nudging her with his elbow.
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“I’m really sorry,” Angel said, looking up at me with sheepish eyes. “For lying to you. And for getting you in trouble with Sister Mary Agnes.”
Alert the media. She actually seemed to mean it.
“These are for you.” She held out a bunch of supermarket daisies.
“Why, thank you!” I have to admit, my heart melted just a tad. “Won’t you come in?”
I ushered them inside and hurried to the kitchen to put the daisies in water.
When I came back out, they were sitting on the sofa.
Prozac, the shameless flirt, had wandered in from the bedroom and was shimmying in ecstasy against Kevin’s ankles.
“Wow, you’ve got a cat!” Angel said. “I always wanted a cat.”
“I’m not sure you want this one.”
Prozac glared at me through slitted eyes. I swear, that cat understands English.
Don’t listen to her, kid. I’m adorable.
With that, she leapt into Angel’s lap and began purring like a buzzsaw.
“You have something else for Jaine, don’t you?” Kevin said, once again nudging Angel with his elbow.
Reluctantly she plucked Prozac from her lap, and walked over to me with the shopping bag her dad had been carrying.
“Here are the jeans,” she said, taking them out of the bag.
“You shouldn’t have spent so much money.”
This time, I could tell her heart wasn’t in it.
“That’s okay,” I said. “You keep them.”
“Thanks!” She grabbed them back so fast, she almost got whiplash. “Can I go put them on?”
“Sure. You can change in my bedroom,” I said, pointing down the hall.
“I can’t tell you how much those jeans mean to her,” Kevin said when she’d dashed off. “Angel doesn’t get very many THE DANGERS OF CANDY CANES
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gifts. I’m all the family she’s got. And, as you can imagine, she doesn’t make friends very easily.”
I could imagine, all right. In Technicolor and Dolby stereo.
“We’ve tried other mentoring programs, and you’re the first person who ever stuck it out for more than an hour.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish. That’s why I’m so grateful to you. Anyhow, I called L.A. Girlfriends and explained how Angel lied to you about having asthma, and how she goaded you into the food fight. Which, incidentally, she loved. She said she hadn’t had so much fun since the time she fingerpainted on our living room walls.” He shuddered at the memory. “It took three coats of paint to cover that mess.
“Anyhow, Sister Agnes has agreed to take you back. That is, if you want to see Angel again.”
He looked at me like a puppy begging for a bone.
Acck. The thought of a date with Angel without intravenous Valium was daunting, to say the least.
But before I could fumpher an excuse, Angel came bouncing back into the room in her new jeans.
“They’re great!” she beamed, a radiant smile lighting up her pinched face. “Thank you so much.”
At the sight of that smile, my heart melted again.
“I was just telling Jaine the good news about L.A. Girlfriends.”
“Yeah,” Angel said. “They want you back. So how about it, Jaine?”
Angel smiled shyly. “Will you be my Girlfriend?”
By now my heart was the consistency of a pint of Chunky Monkey in the microwave.
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll be your Girlfriend.”
“Great! They’re having a sale at The Limited. Wanna go?”
“Forget it, Angel.”
“Hey,” she shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”
Okay, so it wasn’t going to be easy.
But like the kid said, it was worth a shot.