Send An Angel
by
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Juliana steeled herself and approached him. Her smile wouldn't work, and it wasn't the cold. She couldn't look him in the eyes; she stared at his snow-crusted shoes. Why couldn't she just die?
Her voice squeaked when she spoke. "Hey, Mister, would you--?"
"No," the handsome man growled, "I'm not interested in sex-for-hire."
"–Have any spare change." Her mouth dropped open. "Neither am I."
He stared at her.
She jerked her hands out of her pockets. Who did he think he was? What did he think she was?
"No. I don't have any of that either. Leave me to hell alone."
"With pleasure!" Juliana rammed her cold hands back into her pockets and backed until her shoulders hit the wall of the abandoned store. Hunched over, feeling as if she'd bee kicked, she stared at the man. Her head vibrated from side to side; her body shook all over. He'd thought she was a whore. Did she look that bad? She wanted to hit him, to pound on him, shred him like she had the newspaper with her picture on it.
He got a bright red poinsettia plant from the back seat, and set it on the hood while he retrieved a ceramic coffee mug from the front. Carrying both, he tromped through the slush to cross the street. He didn't look back at her.
He brought bouquets Sundays. This was a Friday, but it was Christmas Eve. He was bringing a plant for his late wife. And what the hell did she care?
He looked so sad. She felt hurt and angry, but she couldn't hate him. Look what she'd become. Juliana threw her blonde hair to shake snow from it, and in a gesture she tried to hide, wiped tears from her cheeks and the corners of her green eyes with her sleeve. "It's sweet. He really loved her."
What would it be like to have a man love you that much?
Piles of snow on this side of the street were broken where storeowners had cleared parking space for customers. On the other side of the street, the sidewalk by the cemetery lay hidden beneath a mountain range of crusted snow. Here and there an icy path, like a frozen stile over an old stone country fence, gave access to the graveyard.
Mr. Major, who had to be six-two, had no trouble with the snow bank. The power in his strides and body movements showed, even in his topcoat and hunched against the storm, She made a silent bet that even naked, he'd have no love handles. She blushed at the image. He thought that was how she expected to see him, for money.
"How can you feel sorry for a bastard who yells at you when you only ask him for change? It's cold. I'm hungry." Bette shivered harder. "Most of all, I need a drink."
"Leave 'im alone." Juliana hugged herself, but it was against a cold deeper than the storm. "It's Christmas. She's dead. We're alive. And wasted."
Bette stared at Juliana a moment, but didn't speak. She turned just her head and watched the big man move.
Juliana had seen his eyes when he wasn't angry, gray with flecks of blue. Tonight they were so cold they made the storm look warm. He never smiled.
During the two months she'd lived in the transient hotel, he'd left a bouquet every other Sunday. The tombstone showed Susan Major had died two years ago Valentine's Day. His wife's grave; what a shaft to lose her on the day dedicated to love.
He came alone and wore a suit. But Juliana had seen children's coats in his car. "Sometimes I wish I was dead, too," she said.
Betty didn't glance at Juliana. "Don't do a crying jag on me, kid."
As Steve Major got the poinsettia plant he'd bought that day, one of two women, the pretty blonde he'd noticed before, approached him from the front of the transient hotel. She asked for money.
He thought she was propositioning him. In the club he managed, he'd just listened to a thinly veiled suggestion that he accompany a regular couple and her visiting sister to dinner, then to an out-of-town party. He'd been primed for another invitation. No thank you. When he was ready to date again, he'd know it. It certainly wouldn't be a sorry hunk of humanity like the blonde.
What right did she have to waste herself with alcohol while Susan rotted in the ground? All his frustration broke loose, and he let it whip her. "Leave me to hell alone!" he snarled and stalked away.
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About the Book
In SEND AN ANGEL, Juliana, once a singing star, faces two demons: alcohol and her mother's critical voice. On Christmas Eve, her mother uses Juliana's alcoholism to keep her from her daughter. Steve Major is raising his three children by himself. He directs the musical reviews for a dinner club, but nothing works right since Susan's death, nearly two years ago. He's afraid to love again. Something happens though when he rescues her from an icy gutter on Christmas Eve and takes her to his office in a nightclub.
Juliana's daughter and Steve's younger two ask for an angel. The angel pushes Juliana down into an icy slush-filled gutter to get them together. Steve discovers a vulnerable woman who is more than the street person he thought. She discovers a man who knows how to love and be supportive of a woman. With behind the scene encouragement from Alexandre/Alexandra, the angel, Juliana tackles her sobriety. Before she can manage that, she must learn to shut off her mother's voice and listen to another. First it's Steve's and the minister's voices, then she learns to trust her own voice.
The next Christmas, when Steve's show is in trouble, Juliana realizes not only that she can sing again and does not need to drink, but that on stage she is "home." Steve has written the title song, which she sings; he has recovered. She will always be an alcoholic, the angel tells her in the end, but "the pain you have gone through gives your music a depth and compassion you never had before." All four children know they've found an angel; her's is sure it's Steve; his children know it's Juliana.
A romantic theme carries through SEND AN ANGEL, but I believe Juliana's growth and how Steve learns to risk love again move it above the romance genre into the realm of women's mainstream fiction. It is written to show how Juliana, with the support of Steve and her daughter, learns to address her real problems and conquer them. The anticipated readers are women mid 20's to early 40's; I believe the pace will also appeal to men that age.
About the Author
Since he can remember he's been making up stories. As the oldest grandchild he told stories to the younger kids at family get-togethers at the old farm in Michigan where he was born and grew up. He has been an avid reader from about the fifth grade when he discovered the school library. He enjoys most genres, but he tends to write most in the areas where he has worked for a living. His undergraduate work was in physical chemistry, but his graduate work was in psychology. During the years he has worked for a living, he spent ten years as a county social worker. In that capacity he worked with people with all kinds of problems, some of which they brought on themselves and some of which they were saddled with from having loved the wrong person. The next twenty years were in probation. There he worked with essentially the same people–the ones who hadn't dealt with their problems before they got crosswise of the law. In that arena also, he spent as much time counseling the wives, husbands (occasionally), and children and parents (often) of those who had messed up. In too many cases the reason was substance abuse/dependency. So he wrote about people who have that problem, love the person who has that problem, or was victimized by those with an addiction. His characters are those people because all of us are romantics, whether or not we believe it, he has to put a romance into his stories. Send An Angel is a summary of many of the people he met in his life. Vital statistics: He was born May 25. He has a son and daughter, Larry, 35 and Lacey, 28. His wife is a program analyst who works in their (Contra Costa) county government and for the state of California. They live in a house he designed. He is 5' 8" and weighs about 165 pounds.