Part 24 (2/2)
Hearing her name, Ruth joined the huddle in mid-stretch. ”What have you done now?”
”Me?” Vivi asked. ”All I said was . . .” Vivi repeated the conversation.
”That poor girl,” Ruth said. ”What should we do?”
”I'm not sure,” Melanie said as cla.s.s drew to an end. ”But we can't let her leave upset.”
Angela tried to slip out with Lourdes and the s.h.i.+pleys, but Ruth waylaid her near the exit. Melanie slipped an arm through Angela's. Ruth flanked her other side and they escorted her to the kitchen. Vivi brought up the rear.
Quietly Melanie pressed Angela into a seat at the table, then sat beside her. Ruth took a seat opposite. Vivi lowered her bulk into the remaining chair. ”Should I get the rubber hose? Maybe a bare lightbulb for the interrogation?”
No one laughed.
”I know Vivi's sorry for what she said,” Melanie began. ”She didn't mean . . .”
”I can apologize for myself,” Vivi said. ”Angela, I'm sorry I said what I did. I just haven't been able to figure out what you're so intent on hiding. I mean if I still had a body, I wouldn't be wrapping it . . .”
Melanie shook her head at Vivi. ”We don't mean to pry,” Mel said. ”But none of us wants to see you upset. Is there something we can do to help?”
Angela sat for a long moment. With all three of their gazes on her she might as well have been under the glare of the bare lightbulb. She clutched her purse tightly in her lap. ”No, I'm the one who should apologize. I'm just a little sensitive about my weight.” She hurried on before they could protest. ”And I'm just getting kind of emotional with the wedding so close. And . . .” She hesitated. ”. . . I'm worried that James won't . . .” Angela snapped her mouth shut, but Vivi had interviewed enough people to know when someone actually wanted to spill all.
”What is it, Angela?” Melanie asked gently, perhaps sensing the same thing. ”Can't you tell us?”
Angela drew a deep breath. Vivi watched her teeter between fear of rejection and the relief of unburdening. Finally, she spoke. ”I've been . . . dishonest. There's something I have to tell James before I can marry him. But I'm afraid if I do, if I'm completely honest like you said, Melanie, I'm afraid he won't love me anymore.”
They all looked at each other and then at Angela.
”He doesn't even know who I am,” Angela said so quietly they had to lean closer to hear. ”He has no idea.”
”You're going to have to explain that,” Vivi said. ”Because now I'm thinking that you've decided to wear a burka instead of a wedding dress, but you're afraid it won't match James's tux.”
Melanie and Ruth exchanged glances. Angela almost smiled.
”And I'm worried that you're in the Witness Protection Program. Or running from the law for a crime you didn't commit,” Ruth said.
”Whatever it is,” Melanie said as they all processed that one, ”there's nothing you could tell us that would make us think less of you. Nothing. And I'm sure James feels the same way.”
Angela closed her eyes briefly. Just when Vivi thought she might just get up and leave, she reached into her purse and pulled out a photograph. Slowly, she held it out for them to see.
The photo was old and faded and had clearly been handled a lot over a long period of time. A large, shapeless body swathed in black dominated the center of the frame. Two flabby white arms were folded against a shelf of a chest and several chins drooped over a linebacker-sized neck. A full moon of a face perched on that neck. The head was topped by a shock of carrot red hair.
”What is that?” Vivi asked.
”It's not a what.” Angela's face scrunched up in an effort to hold back tears. ”That's the problem. That's not a what. That's me!”
ANGELA DRESSED EXTRA carefully for her Valentine's dinner with James. With Vivien, Ruth, and Melanie's a.s.surances ringing in her ears, she pulled a black sleeveless c.o.c.ktail dress out of the back of her closet and slipped it on. She fastened her good string of pearls around her neck and stepped into a pair of black heels. She smoothed her palms down the silk that skimmed over her hips, not as big as usual but not too tight, either.
Tucking the dog-eared photo into her s.h.i.+ny black clutch, she vowed that this was the night she'd tell James everything. But her heart sped up at the sound of the doorbell, and her palms turned sweaty when she went to answer the door.
His gaze was admiring and his kiss warm as he helped her into the car. But she barely heard what he said during the drive to the restaurant, because she spent the whole time trying to remember when food had become her refuge and the reasons why that had happened.
Should she tell him that by middle school when other girls were agonizing over their hair and their clothes, Angela was thinking about her next meal? Or should she simply whip out the photo and show it to him?
Somehow she made conversation through what turned out to be a six-course meal. They talked about his upcoming trip to the West Coast, and she told him something funny Brian had done during that morning's photo shoot. For once she didn't have to worry about portion control or eating slowly enough to allow herself to feel full. She moved her food around a good bit, but could hardly eat a bite. She thanked him for the beautiful jade earrings he gave her but didn't put them on.
”Are you all right?” James asked over the flickering candle when she failed to raise her winegla.s.s in response to his toast. ”You have the strangest look on your face. Is everything okay?”
It was the perfect opening and she told herself it didn't matter where she began the story; it only mattered that she told it. But when she opened her mouth to begin, nothing came out. The black evening clutch sat on the edge of the table. She thought about reaching for it, but James covered her hand with his and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze.
”Ang?” he said quietly. ”You know I love you, right?” She nodded and swallowed, trying to find her voice, still thinking that she could get it together, but all she managed was, ”I love you, too.
”James, I . . .” she began, knowing there'd never be a perfect time for what she wanted to say. Knowing how much better she'd feel once she'd told him about Fangie.
a.s.suming that he reacted the right way.
”James, I was . . . I wanted . . .” she said just as the waiter came over to recite the dessert menu.
”Do you want to share a chocolate mousse or a Death by Chocolate?” James asked after the waiter had described each selection in detail.
For perhaps the first time in her life the promise of chocolate meant absolutely nothing to her. ”No, I want to . . .”
”Go?” he said, although that wasn't at all what she'd been about to say.
He winked at her, then waggled his eyebrows. ”I have something better in mind for dessert anyway.”
Angela took a deep breath in an attempt to steady her nerves. James was so fabulous. He would understand about Fangie. He would. He'd slayed his own dragons and he would respect the fact that she had slayed hers. Brian and Susan and Melanie had urged her to just tell him. But now he was motioning for the check and staring into her eyes while they waited for it.
She couldn't tell him. She just couldn't take the risk. Even if he understood, could she bear to see the vision of herself change in his eyes? Not after she'd worked so hard to become that person.
And so she remained silent as James took the receipt and helped her into her coat. On the way home he teased her with the details of what he intended to be her ”final” Valentine's Day present. After he'd carried her over the threshold and placed her gently on the bed, he delivered everything that he'd promised. But although Angela sighed more than once with pleasure, she kept her confession to herself.
NOT EVERYONE IN Atlanta got multiple o.r.g.a.s.ms and jewelry for Valentine's Day that year. No one in Melanie Jackson's house got either, though Shelby did receive a candy thong from Ty Womack, her date for the upcoming prom-something Vivien discovered by accident when she reached under her niece's bed looking for the pot and pan that Shelby had stolen out of its last hiding place inside Vivien's suitcase.
Once again she debated what, if anything, to say to Melanie. But she was afraid if she said something to her sister what little rapport she'd established with Shelby would be eliminated. And she felt a growing need to be there for the girl. She worried it over and over throughout the day and still couldn't reach a decision. It was just one of the many things that preyed on her mind.
She and Stone traded emails on Valentine's Day, both of them sending love, Stone promising that he'd be back in Kabul within the next few days and would reach her by phone then. Even his email sounded weary. The journalists had been found hacked to bits, and Stone had been forced to report the gruesome details after their remains were verified.
Vivien cried when she read his email and again when she watched his live shot from the site. The weekly rants of Scarlett Leigh seemed small and petty in comparison, and not for the first time she missed her former life. And especially the sense of righting wrongs that used to be a part of her investigative work.
So thinking, she went back through the GBI case file, J.J.'s Day-timer, and credit card and phone bill receipts, looking for something she might have missed. Once again she came up with absolutely nothing.
31.
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