After he and Mick parted company at the Eighth, Zach headed uptown toward her place. He made a couple stops on the way. The first, Teddy’s to reassure Fran that Angel was safe, and to instruct her to tell anyone who might ask that she hadn’t seen her. Snagging lunch for Angel and himself had been an added benefit. Next, he’d swung into a CC’s Coffeehouse for one of the frozen coffee drinks she loved.
He found her sitting cross-legged on her bed, a sketch book in her hands. “Hey,” he said from the doorway. “Can I come in?”
She looked up and her silky dark hair fell away from her face, like a curtain being opened. “Sure.”
He pulled the small, rickety chair up beside the bed. “What’re you doing?”
“Sketching.”
That time, she didn’t look up. He’d assumed he’d find her watching TV or on the internet, not bent intently over the four-by-six inch spiral. “Can I see?”
“You really want to?”
“Yeah, I do.”
She handed it to him, then quickly looked away, as if nervous of what she might see in his face while he looked at them.
The tablet was almost full. He flipped through. Some had been sketched in pencil, others ballpoint pen, still others in marker. As if she had used whatever implement handy that day or moment. The images were dark, poetic. Rife with symbolism and angst: the ugly and the beautiful, life and death, joy and pain.
They were amazing.
Zach told her so and she looked at him almost shyly. “You really think so?”
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. You’ve had lessons?”
“That’s funny.”
“Why?”
“Where would I take drawing lessons?”
“I don’t know. But then I don’t know much about you.”
“If I could be anything, I’d be an artist.”
“From the looks of this, you are. These are good, Angel.”
Her cheeks turned pink and she shrugged. “I just dream them. That’s not being a real artist.”
“Wait, you dreamed these images?”
She nodded. “At night, they grow. When I’m awake, they come to me.”
“Every night?”
“Not every night.”
He handed the tablet back. “What do you mean they grow?”
“I’ll show you.” She flipped back. An image of a heart. With what looked like roots growing around it. She flipped forward. The same image, but with flames in the heart. Then forward again, to see wings. Then next, constellations orbiting the heart in a semicircle.
He tilted his head. There was something familiar about the image, though he was certain he had never seen it before. “Is it finished?”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her side. “But I don’t think so.”
“Is your side bothering you again?”
“A little, not bad. Maybe it’s because we were talking about it.”
“It?”
“My tattoo.”
“You had this drawing tattooed on your side?”
“I thought it was important. In case I lost my sketch book.” She shifted her gaze slightly. “I know that’s sort of weird.”
“I’m not judging you, Angel.”
She sneaked a quick glance up at him. “It doesn’t feel good when people do. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t either.”
She fell silent a moment. “Yesterday, you said we were alike because we’re different from everyone else, same as Brite and Eli are.”
“Yes.”
She frowned slightly, as if she was studying intently on the fact. “I wonder about something?”
“What’s that?”
“In my whole life, I never met anyone else like me.”
“Me either. So what?”
“Why now?”
Her question surprised him. “You really are a little Yoda, aren’t you?”
She laughed and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know about that, but seriously, what do you think? Why now?”
Sixers, he thought, then rejected the answer. “I don’t know. What did Eli and Brite tell you?”
“Just that I was special.” She rubbed her side again. “I already knew that.”
“How bad’s your side hurting?”
“Not as bad as that night.”
“When that thing tried to kill you. The night you met Eli.”
She nodded. “Did you find him?”
“Maybe.” Zach took out his phone, called up the picture. He handed the device to her. “Is that your Eli?”
“Yup. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. How come you didn’t tell me he had eyes like mine?”
She handed him the phone back. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
“I suppose it doesn’t.” He stood. “I brought us some lunch. From Teddy’s. And a Mochasippi for you.”
She burst into a smile and scrambled off the bed. “Great! I’m starving!”
He laughed and trailed her to the kitchen. She dug into the roast beef and gravy po’boy, dunking her chips in the debris left on the paper wrapper. He joined her, amazed at how much she could eat. And how fast. She was slurping her coffee drink before he’d even started the second half of his sandwich. He decided to wrap it back up and leave it for her for later.