Devil Mail (3 page)

If she sent him a
formulated message, it would be her third for the evening. She decided to just wait and see what happened as a result of her other two messages and the wink.

Immediately
, on the tail end of that thought, she received a message in her inbox. “Wow! That was quick!” Angela exclaimed. With mingled excitement and nervousness, she clicked the message. It read:

“Hi, my name’s Aiden Jacobs. I’d love to chat, but I’m more of a               telephone person, so give me a call  - 407 555 1559. Look forward to getting to know you.”

Angela concluded that this must be AJ1forever. She de
sperately wanted to call him, but she reasoned that she ought not to appear too keen. The speed and ease with which technology had facilitated a connection with a perfect stranger seemed incredible. She read the message repeatedly.

             
Determined to maintain her dignity and self-respect, which to her that meant pacing herself and not presenting as desperate, she physically logged out of the website, but mentally, she was still logged in. She could think of nothing else for the rest of the evening.

             
After a light meal and some senseless television viewing, whereby she stared at the TV screen without an idea of what she was watching, Angela crawled back into bed. She hankered for a good night’s sleep that would leave her refreshed for work the next morning, but her fantasies kept getting in the way.  Would she and Aiden get as far as going on a date? Where would they go? What would be the first words exchanged between them when they met face to face? What was his voice like - smooth and silky or rough and manly?

             
Hours passed before Angela fell asleep, and when she did, her dreams were merely an extension of the fantasies of her waking hours. She had entered into an exciting realm of possibilities; the ensuing days and events couldn’t come fast enough for her.

CHAPTER THREE

A
ngela awoke before the annoyingly loud buzz of her alarm clock had a chance to startle her into the realization of a new day. Usually, she would lie in bed for a few minutes, read her daily devotional, say a prayer and mentally run through what her day would look like, if all went according to plan. This morning was different.

             
After rising without hesitation, she made herself a cup of coffee, lifted the laptop from where she had left it on the kitchen table the night before, and returned to bed.  Seated upright in the bed, her cup of coffee resting on her night stand, Angela eagerly logged onto the Christian Blend website. Her chest rose with excited anticipation upon seeing the notification that she had received new mail. As quickly as it rose, it sank with bitter disappointment. The new mail was from the Christian Blend staff welcoming her to the online community. 

             
It was worth double-checking to ensure that she hadn’t missed anything. She clicked on her inbox again, went through her messages and winks. Nothing showed up, except Aiden Jacob’s message from the previous night. She clicked through the list of people whose profiles she had viewed, as well as the list of people who had viewed her profile. No one, with the exception of Aiden Jacobs, had viewed her profile.

             
“It’s early days yet,” Angela encouraged herself. She only needed one perfect match to change her life, and who was to say if Aiden Jacobs was not the one. She would respond to his message when she returned home from work later in the evening. She felt too rushed to formulate a good response to him now, and didn’t want to risk making a less than stellar first impression.

             
As she stood in the steaming hot shower, she could hear her alarm clock going off. She wondered if her neighbors could hear the persistent buzzing. Her head bowed forward, the soothing water coursing down and gently massaging her back - she had no intention of curtailing this time of relaxation to go and turn off the alarm.

R
efreshed and charged up for her day, she arrived at work earlier than usual. Her job as a court reporter was rewarding. She particularly enjoyed the courtroom atmosphere where, besides taking a verbatim account of the evidence during trials, she studied all the characters she came across and made her own silent judgments about each case. She loved the fact that she brought an anonymous presence to the courtroom - most people failed to notice her and neither knew nor cared who she was; yet so much hinged on her presence and the accuracy with which she recorded and transcribed the proceedings. She was currently assigned to report on an assault case in which there was no shortage of twists and turns and legal wrangling.

             
In the two years that she had worked for Maven Court Reporters, she had proven her worth. Her reputation as a reliable, conscientious and professional employee had earned her the respect of her employer, and the owner of the agency – Sharon Dumbray. Angela found it difficult to read Sharon, who was not a warm, friendly person, yet not cold, hard or mean either. She was born and raised in Royal Tunbridge Wells, a borough in Kent, lying some forty miles south-east of London, England. Over the course of her time with the agency, Angela had learned that if she did what was expected of her and did it well, she would be rewarded handsomely, but if she ever missed the mark, Sharon would waste no time in letting her know about it.

“Morning Sharon,” Angela called as she entered the quiet office.
  Sharon was sitting at her desk, the door of her office ajar. Her distracted response was muted.

             
“Good morning. You’re early. How was your weekend?”

             
“Very eventful. I went to a friend’s wedding on Saturday. The happy couple met online….” Angela’s reply was targeted and probing.

             
“Is that so? Online…. a precarious minefield if ever I’ve seen one.”  Sharon did not raise her head to acknowledge Angela. Her tone made it clear that she was working on something at her desk and was not going to be interested in pursuing the conversation for much longer. 

             
“How was yours?”

             
“So-so.”

             
“So you would never be interested in online dating then?” Angela pushed a little further.

             
Sharon’s slightly perplexed glance at Angela lasted for a mere second, before she returned to her work. “Well, since I’m married, I think it’s safe to put it about that online dating holds no interest for me whatsoever.”

             
“Of course,” Angela chuckled in embarrassment. As she walked to her office she was tempted to kick herself. What a stupid question. What was she thinking? What was Sharon thinking about her right now? How awkward! She was allowing this thing to consume her.

             
The time for her to set off to the courthouse came mercifully quickly.  By the time she left the office, it was sufficiently busy for her to slip out without feeling the need to let Sharon know that she was leaving.

It was difficult for her to settle into
her routine. As the trial wore on, she struggled to focus, her mind diligently devising numerous possible responses to Aiden Jacob’s invitation to call him. She knew she would not call him straight away. That seemed too ‘forward’ to her. 

“Please read back
, for the court, the last two statements of the witness.” The defense attorney’s request served as a harsh jolt, yanking Angela back into her present reality.  With flushed cheeks, she clumsily fingered her equipment, fully aware that all eyes in the courtroom were on her. With the request vaguely circulating her memory, a desperate, hushed, “Dear God, help me!” prayer seeped through her quivering lips.

An answered
prayer assisted her in locating the sought after questions and answers and regaining her poise, to some extent; yet the subsequent, ‘what on earth is wrong with you?’ looks she received from the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney left her feeling unsettled and inadequate. She, of all people, knew that the trial warranted her undivided attention. She had to pull herself together.

The trial seemed to drag on
for longer than it had on any other day previously. There were fewer recesses too.

“We’ll adjourn for the day,” the judge stated at five thirty.  Those five beautiful words conveyed music to Angela’s ears. She decided not to return to the office,
but called Sharon to give her an update of the day’s events.

The traffic was thick on Angela’s drive home. She hadn’t noticed it ever being this busy. Usually, she would be listening to the radio or singing along to one of her CDs, but today, her
typically controlled composure gave way to impatience and increasing agitation as driver after driver pulled in front of her, blocked lanes, drove too slowly for her liking, or slowed to let others cut in. Just wanting to get home after a tiring day at work was her justification for her annoyance.

The minute she stepped into her
apartment, the telephone rang. Katherine Craddock showed up in the caller ID display window.

“Hi, Mom.”
Her voice was stony.

“Are you okay Ange
l?” Her mother sounded concerned.

“I’m fine
,” she sighed.

“Then why do you sound so jaded? Rough day?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Is everything okay otherwise?”

“Yes. All is well.”

“Nothing new to report?” Mrs. Craddock asked
pryingly.

“Nothing. What
’s Trey up to?” Her tone lacked real concern, and Mrs. Craddock was able to recognize it as the conversation filler and diverter that it was.

Trey was Angela’s three-year-old nephew, the product of Julia’s shotgun
wedding and short-lived marriage, entered into in defiance of everyone who cared about her. Adamantly in love, she had moved to Corning, California with her husband, Trent, where she was certain that she would lead a utopian life. No one could convince her otherwise.

Emotionally drained and stricken,
Julia had just endured an acrimonious divorce from this man, whom she described as a physically abusive monster. He vowed that she would leave the marriage with everything that she had brought into it – nothing.  When she left with Trey, she declared that she had left with the only good thing that came out of the marriage and the only thing worth having. She gladly relinquished any claim on the temporal chattels that Trent would have sadistically used to prolong the divorce proceedings and her pain.

So, Julia, every bit the prodigal daughter, had returned
to the family home in Orlando, to take advantage of her mother’s proffered support, and free babysitting services, until she was able to get back on her feet. Mrs. Craddock had taken the offer of early retirement from an aeronautics company for which she had worked for some thirty years. She was happy to have the time to spend with her grandson and to leave behind the constant training courses necessary for her to keep up with the latest technology.

“You
can always call Trey and speak to him yourself, if you’re really interested.” Angela was in no mood for this conversation, but knew better than to show any form of disrespect towards her mother. 

“Okay, I will.
I’m really tired, so I’ll call you tomorrow, Mom.”

“See that you do. Love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.” The guilt associated with effectively dismissing her mother so that she could check her mail on Christian Blend, lasted for a fleeting moment.

Dinner would be a boxed meal of
chicken parmesan, which Angela hurriedly threw into the microwave while she waited for her laptop to power up.

Mounting
curiosity prompted Angela to click on her new messages with haste. She hoped to see responses from the men she had sent messages to the evening before, but was obviously open to other prospects that were new or that she might have missed in her search.

Angela let out a dishearten
ed sigh upon finding only one new message. She clicked to view the profile of the sender of the standardized ‘
I think we’d be a match made in heaven
’ message, and her disheartenment deepened. A forty-eight-year-old, balding, overweight man with no discernible neck, fancied her. He was a corrections officer, a self-described chivalrous gentleman and hopeless romantic. Admittedly, he was a good-looking man, but he was still forty-eight, balding, and overweight. Angela preferred men with necks. Had he not read her match preferences? He was much older than her stated preference and she had made it clear that she was looking for someone of athletic build. Someone who shared her interest in fitness would be ideal.

The beep of the microwave indicated that her meal was ready. She pulled it out and set it
on the kitchen table to cool, pulled up her chair and sat over it, thinking. As the steam rose, the usually tantalizing aroma of tomatoes and parmesan cheese filled her nostrils; but she wasn’t hungry.

She disregarded the new message and
turned her thoughts back to Aiden Jacobs. The name appealed to her. She wanted to send a skillfully crafted, witty comment, but her disappointment with the responses she had received, or lack thereof, had emptied her mind of all ingenuity. 

Where was
her envisioned wealth of suitable men to choose from? The suggestion that only two men on the internet found her attractive was disconcerting. She was by no means model material, but she certainly was not unattractive. She began to question the verve of her profile, and wondered if, perhaps, it did not veraciously reflect her personality. Regret set in as she recollected the state she was in when she put her profile together.

The doorbell rang
. Angela frowned. She wasn’t expecting anyone; neither did she want to see anyone. She had been waiting all day for this time alone to spend on the website.

“You’re not ready?” her sister, Julia, asked rhetorically as Angela opened the door.

“Ready for…” the sight of Julia’s slim, toned body in spandex rendered the completion of Angela’s intended question unnecessary. She had completely forgotten that Monday night was aerobics night. She could count on Julia to show up every Monday night and again every Thursday night for zumba class. Initially, they had agreed to be each other’s ‘excuse buster’, but the position became redundant after they discovered that they enjoyed the workouts and their time together. “Oh, aerobics.” Julia detected the weariness in Angela’s voice. She stopped Angela in her tracks, placed her hands on her shoulders and eyeballed her.

“D
eath?”

“No,” Angela rolled
her eyes.

“Sickness?”

“No.”

“Disease?”

“No,” Angela laughed and shoved her sister aside. She knew Julia would run through the brief list of agreed exceptions that would keep them away from aerobics or zumba, and none of them applied in these circumstances.