Touched by Angels (Angels Everywhere #3)(4)
“She needs an army. I don’t mean to discourage you,” Gabriel said, feeling mildly guilty, “I’m sure we’ll find a more appropriate assignment for you. A less complicated request,” he muttered more to himself than to Shirley.
As he recalled, a prayer request had come in that morning from a teenage girl in Boston who needed a date for prom night. Surely Shirley could scrounge up a decent young man. As for Goodness and Mercy, why, there were any number of less demanding requests with which to occupy them.
“Give me a minute,” he said, flipping through the unwieldy book, finding a page, and running his index finger down the large number of entries. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something appropriate for each of you.”
“No arguments?” Goodness asked, her eyes wide with surprise.
“Wow, maybe we have proven ourselves.”
“I want to talk to Goodness about Hannah Morganstern,” Gabriel said, his brow creased with contemplation.
“Yes,” Goodness answered excitedly.
“Her family owns one of the most popular delis in all of New York,” the Archangel went on to explain.
Goodness and Mercy looked at each other and squealed with delight. The two joined hands and danced a happy jig around his desk, kicking up their heels.
“What about me?” Mercy asked, breathless with excitement.
“Jenny Lancaster,” Gabriel said decisively. “She moved to New York from Custer, Montana, three years ago, hoping to make a name for herself on Broadway.”
“Has she?”
“No,” Gabriel said with a sigh of regret. “It’s time to go home, only she can’t bear to face that. You see, she doesn’t want to disappoint her family, and I’m afraid she’s stretched the truth and told them things that weren’t altogether true. You’re going to have to help her make the decision.”
“I can do it.”
“Without moving the Statue of Liberty?” Gabriel demanded.
“That’s kid stuff,” Goodness muttered.
“Maybe so, but is Rockefeller Center safe?”
The two found little humor in his question. It was then that Gabriel noticed that Shirley had disappeared.
“Where’s Shirley?”
Goodness and Mercy glanced over their shoulders. “I haven’t a clue.”
“I didn’t see her leave.”
Gabriel had a sneaking suspicion he already knew where the prayer ambassador had disappeared to. “Wait here,” he instructed impatiently. He raised his massive arms and with one wide, sweeping motion parted the clouds of heaven and descended from paradise to the mundane world.
He found Shirley right where he suspected: in an inner-city classroom, keeping a close watch on a young, inexperienced schoolteacher.
Brynn finished her lunch and poured herself a cup of coffee. Standing at the window, she looked out over the concrete jungle that made up the city.
St. Philip’s, the cathedral located across the street, had once been the pride of the diocese. The stained-glass windows, depicting the Stations of the Cross, had aged badly over the years. A flight of concrete steps led to the eight-foot-tall double doors. The church was a magnificent piece of Gothic architecture, but like Manhattan High, it had fallen upon harsh economic times.
When Brynn had first been approached about this assignment, she’d visited New York City and loved it. There was a rhythm to the city, a musical beat that had set her heart to racing.
In her mind’s eye came a picture of prosperity and abundance. Not of wealth or riches in the monetary sense, but of purpose. The feeling had stayed with her in the days that followed, and when she’d penned her name to the contract, Brynn had felt instinctively that she was doing the right thing.
Following the break, Brynn headed down the crowded hallway. Several students leaned against their lockers in passionate embraces. This was a foreign element to Brynn, since she’d attended a parochial girls’ high school as well as taught in one. It was a bit of a shock to discover how friendly students were allowed to get in the school hallway.
A ruckus broke out at the end of the corridor, and several heated words in Spanish flew at her like fiery darts. Brynn’s knowledge of the language was limited, but she was well aware the two boys weren’t exchanging pleasantries.
After making her way to the problem, she found Emilio Alcantara and an African American she didn’t know staring each other down. A crowd had circled around the two.
“Is there a problem here?” Brynn asked, maneuvering into the tight circle.
“If you know what’s good for you, Teach, you’d better leave,” Emilio advised.
“I can’t do that, and now I suggest you two boys give it up and go about your business. Fighting isn’t going to solve anything.”
The black boy looked at her with such unadulterated hatred that for a wild second Brynn was caught speechless. She’d never had a student, or anyone else, look at her in quite that way.
A shiver ran up her spine when she noticed both boys had knives. She grabbed Suzie Chang, the shy girl from her class, by the shoulder. “Get help immediately,” she ordered, her heart in her throat.
Suzie took off running.
By then the Hispanic youths had lined one side of the hallway and the blacks dominated the second half. The two ethnic groups glared at one another, waiting for an excuse, any excuse, to fight. The atmosphere was explosive, the tension as tightly strung as a fiddle.