"Is that it?"
"No," I said. "Only angel with glorious eyes, stunning figure and long golden hair need apply. Require brilliant curiosity, hungry capacity for learning. Prefer professional in several creative and business fields, experience in top management positions. Fearless, willing to take all risks. Happiness guaranteed in long run."
She listened carefully. "The stunning-figure-long-golden-hair part. Isn't that too earthy for an angel?"
"Why not a guardian angel with stunning figure and long hair? Does that mean she's any less angelic, any less perfect for her mortal, any less capable at her job?"
Well, why can't guardian angels be that way? I thought, wishing for my notebook. Why not a planet of angels, lighting each other's lives with adventure and mystery? Why not a few, at least, who could find each other now and then?
"So we create whatever body our mortal finds most delicious?" she said. "When teacher is pretty, we pay attention?"
"Right!" I said. "Just one second . . ."
I found the notebook on the floor by the bed, wrote what she said, put a dash and an L-for-Leslie after it. "Do you ever notice, after you've known someone for a while, how their appearance changes?"
"He can be the handsomest man in the world," she said, "but he turns plain as popcorn when he has nothing to say. And the plainest man says what matters to him and why he cares and in two minutes he's so beautiful you want to hug him!"
I was curious. "Have you gone out with many plain men?"
"Not many."
"If they get beautiful to you, why not?"
"Because they see Mary Moviestar all spifflicated and pretty, on her marks for the camera, and they figure she only looks at Harry Handsome. They rarely ask to go out with me, Richard."
The poor fools, I thought. They rarely ask. Because we believe the surface, we forget that surfaces aren't who we
are. When we find an angel dazzling of mind, her face grows lovelier still. Then "Oh, by the way," she tells us, "I have this body ..."
I wrote it into the notebook.
"Someday," she said, moving the tray of breakfast to the nightstand, "I am going to ask you to read me more notes." In the act of moving, the sheet fell away again. She raised her arms, stretching luxuriously.
"I won't ask now," she said, moving closer. "No more quizzes today."
As I could no longer think, that was just as well.
twenty
JL T WASN'T music, it was saw-edge snag-metal discord. She had barely turned from her stereo controls, from fine-tuning the volume as loud as it could go, than I was a kettle of complaints.
"That's not music!"
"PARDON ME?" she said, lost in sound.
"I SAID THAT'S NOT MUSIC!"
"BART6K!"
"WHAT?" I said.
"BELA BART6K!"
"COULD YOU TURN IT DOWN, LESLIE?"
"CONCERTO *FOR ORCHESTRA!"
"COULD YOU TURN THE VOLUME DOWN JUST A LITTLE BIT OR A LOT? COULD YOU TURN THE VOLUME DOWN A LOT?"