The stupidest angel: a heartwarming tale of Christmas terror

edge. The jetsam of divorce can be embarrassing, so you couldn't fault someone a bathtub or fruit bat rescued out of love's shipwreck, but he might have mentioned he was a cop before he suggested burying her ex and going to dinner.

    "No, no, not a real cop. I'm here working for the DEA." Tuck moved closer to her on the couch.

    "So you're a drug cop?" He didn't look like a cop. A golf pro, maybe, that blond hair and the lines around the eyes from too much sun, but not a cop. A TV cop, maybe – the vain, bad cop, who has something going on with the female district attorney.

    "No, I'm a pilot. They subcontract independent helicopter pilots to fly agents into pot-growing areas like Big Sur so they can spot patches hidden in the forest with infrared. I'm just working for them here for a couple of months."

    "And after a couple of months?" Lena couldn't believe she was worried about commitment from this guy.

    "I'll try to get another job."

    "So you'll go away."

    "Not necessarily. I could stay."

    Lena moved back toward him on the couch and examined his face for the hint of a smirk. The problem was, since she'd met him, he'd always worn the hint of a smirk. It was his best feature. "Why would you stay?" she said. "You don't even know me."

    "Well, it might not be about you." He smiled.

    She smiled back. It was about her. "It is about me."

    "Yeah."

    He was leaning over and there was going to be a kiss and that would be okay, she thought, if the night hadn't been so horrible. It would be okay if they hadn't shared so much history in so short a time. It would be okay if, if…

    He kissed her.

    Okay, she was wrong. It was okay. She put her arms around him and kissed him back.

    Ten minutes later she was down to just her sweater and panties, she had driven Tucker Case deeply enough into the corner of the couch that his ears were baffled with cushions, and he couldn't hear her when she pushed back from him and said, "This doesn't mean that we're going to bed together."

    "Me, too," said Tuck, pulling her closer.

    She pushed back again. "You can't just assume that this is going to happen."

    "I think I have one in my wallet," he said, trying to lift her sweater over her head.

    "I don't do this sort of thing," she said, wrestling with his belt buckle.

    "I had a test for my pilot physical a month ago," he said as he liberated her breasts from their combed cotton yoke of oppression. "Clean as a whistle."

    "You're not listening to me!"

    "You look beautiful in this light."

    "Does doing this so soon after, you know – does doing this make me evil?"

    "Sure, you can call it a weasel if you want to."

    And so, with that tender honesty, that frank connection, the coconspirators chased away each other's loneliness, the smell of grave-digging sweat rising romantic in the room as they fell in love. A little.
    * * *
    Despite Theo's concern, Molly wasn't at the old chapel, she was getting a visit from an old friend. Not a friend, exactly, but a voice from the past.
    "Well, that was just nuts," he said. "You can't feel good about that."

    "Shut up," said Molly, "I'm trying to drive."

    According to the DSM-IV, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, you had to have at least two of a number of symptoms in order to be considered as having a psychotic episode, or, as Molly liked to think of it, an "artistic" moment. But there was an exception, a single symptom that could put you in the batshit column, and that was "a voice or voices commenting on the activities of daily life." Molly called it "the Narrator," and she hadn't heard from him in over five years – not since she'd gone and stayed on her medication as she had promised Theo. That had been the agreement, if she stayed on her meds, Theo would stay off of his – well, more specifically, Theo would not have anything to do with his drug of choice, marijuana. He'd had quite a habit, going back twenty years before they'd met.

    Molly had stuck to the agreement with Theo; she'd even gotten decertified by the state and gone off financial aid. A resurgence in royalties from her old movies had helped with the expenses, but lately she'd started falling short.

    "It's called an enabler," said the Narrator. "The Drug Fiend and the Warrior Babe Enabler, that's you two."

    "Shut up, he's not a drug fiend," she said, "and I'm not the Warrior Babe."

    "You did him right there in the graveyard," said the Narrator. "That is not the behavior of a sane woman, that is the