Devil Mail (15 page)

“Not while I’m eating my dinner, thank you.” Mrs. Craddock shot Julia a disapproving look.
Angela didn’t appreciate the comparison either.

“You went with them last night after the poetry slam?”
Angela asked with wide-eyed surprise, and a little envy. 

“Yes, after Judith dragged you off and a couple of the others left, the rest of us went for dessert and a walk in the park.”

“Hmm…pity there was no one there to drag you home. I put Trey back to bed at twelve thirty this morning when he woke up asking for his mother.” Mrs. Craddock deliberately did not look at Julia as she spoke.

“I’ll leave him next door the next time I go out then,” Julia replied resentfully.

“Right, because it’s better that he wake up the neighbors at twelve thirty.” Mrs. Craddock’s sarcasm pierced Julia.

“They love having him over, I don’t think they’d complain.”

“I love having him, and I’m hardly complaining; I just think a single mother with a child at home should not be traipsing around the park at midnight.”

“Okay, I’ll stop going out with the singles then. I’ll stay home and take care of my child and grow into a shriveled up old maid.” Julia’s irritation was close to becoming anger, not helped by her mother’s calm
perpetuation of the irksome conversation.

“No one’s suggesting you do that. You just need to know that there are boundaries of respectability.” Mrs. Craddock would have the last word. Julia had had enough and Angela calculated that only a fool wou
ld set foot in the midst of that dispute.

They had come full circle – a heated conversation followed by a chill in the atmosphere – just like
the previous Sunday. Angela left slightly early again. The guilt she felt for not intervening on Julia’s behalf or staying longer to take some of the heat off Julia soon evaporated when she remembered that Julia had spent time with Kieran in her absence. She didn’t even get a chance to discover what they talked about over dessert or while they walked in the park. She didn’t know why the knowledge of the director’s advances towards Kieran should upset her, but it did.

CHAPTER TEN

T
he Monday morning drive to the Lake County trial was a pleasant one. Angela expected the trial to wrap up today, right on schedule. Two sisters had been charged with a string of armed burglaries in the Lake County area, dating back eighteen months.  During this time, they had allegedly amassed close to $400,000 in stolen money and valuables leaving their elderly, infirm and disabled victims to try to piece their fear-riddled lives back together.

             
In line with expected professional conduct, Angela remained outwardly dispassionate, but internally she was repulsed by the unrepentant attitude of the accused, who yawned loudly and giggled throughout the trial. Her disgust turned to pity when she considered that terrible circumstances in life must have seared their consciences to such a degree. The jury handed down a guilty verdict, which evoked no emotion from the accused, and a sentencing hearing was set for later in the month.

             
Angela made her way back to the office singing along with the radio. Thick dark clouds had presaged rain in Lake County, but by the time she crossed over county lines into Orange County, the sky was clear and the sun high and hot. It was such a beautiful day. She wondered what might be occupying Kieran’s time that afternoon. None of the conversations on Saturday night revealed the location of the office that he was setting up. She probably would have driven by there to catch a glimpse of him if she had known the address.

             
The drive to aerobics class with Julia on Monday evening brought about the perfect opportunity for Angela to catch up on the details of the events that took place on Saturday night after she left. “So how was the restaurant and Lake Eola on Saturday night?”

             
“It was a lot of fun; a few of us got to know each other better. I didn’t know Paula was divorced. I thought she had never been married. She was telling us about some things that she went through in her marriage that made mine look like a walk in the park. I tell ya, she’s one strong woman to come out looking so good.”

             
“Really?” Angela was not the least bit interested in Paula’s life story. “What about the guys?” she asked, trying to steer Julia in the desired direction.

             
“Did you know David was a dentist?”

             
“No.” Neither was she even vaguely interested in David’s story.

             
“I know, he’s so humble and unassuming; you’d never guess he had a killer sense of humor. He was cracking us up with stories about his clients and their poor dental hygiene. I think he’s pretty well off too – he paid for everyone’s dessert.”

             
“Wow, generous!”

             
“He’s really nice; I think he’s just shy.” Julia smiled fondly. Angela’s internal voice yelled, ‘
Well put him in your pocket and take him home then, but for goodness sake, get to the point!
’ Nice, funny, generous or not, David reminded Angela of a stunted chipmunk with far too much body hair. She remembered seeing the unsightly hairs on his back peeping up from the top of his T-shirt; she wasn’t sure if they were making plans for a family reunion with the hairs at the back of his head, or if they were waging war against them to see which army would conquer the tiny bald territory that remained between them at the nape of his neck. This was at the church picnic last year, and the memory was still as vivid as if it were yesterday. She shuddered. Julia continued to sing his praises without realizing that Angela had zoned out.

             
“Did Kieran find him funny?” she asked in the middle of Julia’s retelling of a second funny story from David’s repertoire.

             
“We all did. He was hilarious!”

             
“Did Kieran talk much about himself?”

             
“No, not much, he mostly listened.”

             
“Did he say
anything
?” This was like getting blood out of a rock. Was Julia doing this deliberately?

             
“Ooh, look at you! When Mom asked you about him you said he was just ‘okay’, but you’re keen on him aren’t you?”

             
“Sounds like I wouldn’t be the only one if I was, right?”

             
“Oh, the director? It was shameful. She hustled by everyone to sit beside him at the restaurant and sometimes when someone else was talking, she’d try to engage him in their own little private conversation. Goodness knows what she was saying to him. It was the same in the park – she’d speed up or slow down to make sure she was walking beside him all the time. You know how rambunctious her laugh usually is, right?”

             
“Uh-hu.”

             
“Well, she kept putting on this dainty little feminine laugh every time someone said something funny. Her whole act was so sickening!”

             
“What was his reaction?” Angela felt a tinge of resentment towards the director, but throughout the evening while she was present, Kieran only had eyes for her; he hadn’t shown the slightest interest in Sasha, so perhaps she had no real competition for his continued attention.

             
“I don’t know if he even noticed, but it was obvious to me.”

Angela drifted off into thought, recalling all that
Kieran had said to her at the bowling alley and the coffeehouse. “Do you like him?” Julia’s opinion was important to her.             

             
“Yeah, he seems nice enough; and those gorgeous eyes!”

             
“I know; he’s quite handsome.” Angela allowed a very slight smile to occupy her face.              

The usually grueling aerobic
s routine was a cinch as she tuned out the music and disconnected her thoughts from the muscle burn, tuning only into thoughts about Kieran, which was madness because she had only just met him. But he definitely had that ‘je nais se quoi’ quality that would keep her guessing and thinking about him and about what might be.

              She was glad for a day in the office on Tuesday to catch up on the mounds of paperwork that she had. “Liz, with us both being out of the office so much over the past week, I never did get a chance to catch up with you about the trial you covered for me.” Angela caught Liz scurrying out of the office. Liz hadn’t called her as Sharon had suggested.

             
“Guilty, but their sentence is likely to be on the more lenient side. The female defendant was remorseful and the judge seemed sympathetic. One thing I….” Liz’s eyes shifted past Angela’s shoulder. “What’s the matter Kerry?” Kerry was the young receptionist who had only been employed at Maven for two weeks. Sharon had mercilessly let the former receptionist go after she failed to heed warnings about spending too much time on her cellphone during work hours. 

             
“There’s a man in reception asking for Angela. He said she has something for him.”

             
“Me? Who could that be?” Angela walked back to the reception area with Kerry and Liz in tow. She turned on her heels as soon as she caught sight of who it was. “I don’t have anything for him,” she said over her shoulder and headed back to her office. The almost audible rush of blood swirling in her ears raised her temperature. She wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt.             

             
Liz followed her back to her office. “Who is he?”

             
Angela gathered her thoughts. “Just some guy whose deposition I took recently.” She chose not to expound further, since Liz was one of the most prolific gossipers that she had ever come across.

             
Kerry popped her head around the door. “He said he won’t leave until you speak to him.”

             
A worried look came over Liz’s face. “Listen, Sharon’s not in yet and I have to leave. Is he trouble Angela? Should I call the police?”             

“No, I can handle him
.” Angela’s assurance was enough to convince Liz to leave the office. Not wanting to be alone with him in her office or to speak to him in reception in Kerry’s presence, Angela held the front door open and gestured for him to step outside. “What are you doing here?” Her vocal inflection spelled out her irascibility.

             
“Well, since you took my deposition, they had to give me your details so that I could get my copy. And since you won’t take any of my calls, I had to find some other way of getting to you.”

             
“This is crazy.”             

             
“I want to explain everything, and I need to you hear me out.” Aiden grasped her arm lightly. She didn’t understand how his touch could induce such fire within her, but it managed to rekindle something that she’d much rather leave in the ashes.

             
Had she not turned away, she would have lost the nerve to say what then proceeded from her mouth. “The time to explain was when I asked you about the skeletons in your closet. It’s passed now. Besides, I’m seeing someone else.”

             
“Whoa, you don’t waste any time do you?” He was clearly taken aback. “I guess I didn’t mean as much to you as I thought.”

             
“Nor me to you.” Angela stepped back into the office, closed the door behind her and did not look back. She was glad that she has stunned him, but didn’t know why she had used such drastic measures to do it. Why did she say that she was seeing someone else? More disturbing was the fact that the lie rolled off her tongue so naturally. She despised liars. How did
she
get here?

             
The confrontation presented a dark cloud over Angela’s head for the rest of the day. Hardly able to concentrate, she left work early, claiming to be taking the work home to finish. Sharon generally had no qualms about where, or when her employees worked, as long as the work was produced in a timely and professional manner.

             
It was no better at home; in fact it was worse. Angela paced aimlessly from one room to the next picking up a magazine, flipping through it and resting it on the coffee table, picking up a book, staring unseeingly at the words, then replacing it on the night stand, reaching for her work and putting it back, deciding that she would only make a mess of it if she tried to do it in her present frame of mind.

Was she being too hard on Aiden? He was just the last in a string of men who had hurt her and she wanted so desperately to halt the destructive cycle in her life, and get out of bad relationships sooner rather than later.

A pep talk from Judith would have been the best medication for Angela’s troubled spirit, but she did not pick up when Angela called. She had known Judith long enough to be able to apply a ‘what would Judith say?’ analysis to the situation. However, she hadn’t gotten far when the telephone rang. Her heart leapt when she saw the name appear on the caller ID. “Rachel!” she cried, “You’re back!”

             
“Yes, I am.”

             
“How was it?”

             
“Australia was quite the adventure. You’ll have to come over for lunch one day so I can tell you all about it. There’s so much to tell.”

             
“I’d love to. And how’s married life?”

             
“It’s awesome!” Rachel sighed. Angela drew out of Rachel many details of her new and exciting life, and not one to dish out advice unless invited, Rachel listened as Angela filled her in about her online dating fiasco, now overshadowed by the sudden appearance of a new single man at her church. “These are exciting times for you, Gel!” Her words made Angela smile. Rachel was the only one who could call her Gel and get away with it. “I hope it works out for you. You deserve to be happy,” Rachel said like the true friend she was. It didn’t matter that they didn’t speak to each other or see each other every week; whenever they did meet, they seemed to pick up from wherever they left off. What was important in their relationship was each knew the other was there for support at any time of the day or night, and only something like a honeymoon could interfere with that.

              Angela planned to attend the mid-week service at church for obvious reasons. A good many work hours stood between her and Kieran. She knew it would be futile to try to work from home again, so she went into the office, closed her door and resolved to make up lost ground. She rolled her eyes when she heard a soft knock at the door. “Yes?” It was a strain for her to sound welcoming.