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Blue Moon 14.2

by Donna Lamb

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Jo wiped her eyes and pulled away from Wrangler Jill. What had been the comfort one woman offers another in distress seemed to be verging on something else. "Um?" said Jo, looking at Jill.

Jill smiled. "Sorry. I didn't think you bent both ways. Too bad for little old me." She called to another woman just entering the emergency room. "Andie come over here and console me."

Andie Moore came over to the pair and gave both quick hugs. "I'm so sorry, Jo. My dad told me how you had just lost your brother a few months ago."

"Your dad?" asked Jo, looking confused.

"Tom Harmon is my dad, we'd been putting this band together for you since the week after Christmas. Then Gogie got shot ... but you showed up with a drummer. And he gets shot...." She stopped talking and they all looked at each other, appalled at what had just occurred to them.

"It's..." said Jo.

"...just like..." said Jill.

"Spinal Tap!" gasped Andie.

They laughed in spite of themselves, but Jo's giggles quickly turned to sobs. "I'm sorry, sorry," she said. Pushing herself away from their embraces, she stumbled through the electric doors to the internal patio where a few lonely smokers sat in exile among the vending machines.

* * *

Richard stepped into the doctor's lounge, on his first assignment as a temporary Guardian Angel 3rd Class, Probationary, feeling more than a bit out of place. A young doctor stepped right through him when he paused to get his bearings. "That's going to take some getting used to," he muttered. He had another surprise coming, watching the young woman walk away. "Well, there's dead and there's dead, I guess," he said.

A burly man in bush ranger clothes sitting with a slender redhead wearing an evening gown waved him over. "Oi! Richard!"

Sophie Drake did a double take when she saw him. "What are you doing here?" she asked. She turned to Ted and demanded, "What's he doing here?"

Richard grabbed a chair from another table, noting that the chair both stayed where it was and came when he pulled it. Turning it around, he sat down on the chair, back to front, and flipped his Escher tie at Sophie. "Shoo! Shoo! Get away!" he said in a firm voice.

"He can't talk to me like that!" she protested to the English-born Clarence.

"He's -- he's -- he, he, he!" sputtered Ted, laughing.

"I'm afraid you might start humping my leg, is what he's trying to tell you," said Richard in a steady voice, looking directly into the emerald green eyes of the Devil in Drag.

Ted howled.

"Ho! Ho! Hee! Hee!" sneered Sophie. "Like I haven't heard that one before. What are you doing here?"

"I'm Jo's guardian angel," said Richard. He narrowed his eyes. "And I'm watching you for tricks. I hear you can do tricks."

Ted, still chuckling, pointed a thumb at Richard. "In the American vernacular -- he's pissed, old girl."

"I thought you were Jo's clarence," Sophie snapped.

"Nope. I'm his." Ted pointed at Richard again before taking another swallow of the really awful coffee served in the hospital lounge. "Glah!" he said. He looked into the cup."Forgot how bad this truly is."

"Ha!" Sophie laughed. "Have you also forgotten you got your client killed? Otherwise he wouldn't be here, because you have to be dead to be a clarence!"

Ted waggled a finger. "Ah, but to quote a famous movie, 'He's only mostly dead.' He won't be really dead until midnight if -- If! -- you refuse to let me grant Jo's third wish and take a thousand years of ..."

Sophie interrupted, "Or if his girlfriend makes a wish I can grant between now and midnight!"

"That's my job," said Richard. "To make sure she does. Otherwise my license to angel gets revoked." He started to rise.

"Jo's in the visitor's patio," said Ted.

"I know," said Richard, sitting back down. "I just came here to do this." He reached across the table, grabbed Sophie's chin in his left hand and slapped her across the face with his right -- hard! -- forehand and backhand. Then he stood and left the room, whistling the melody from "Why the Moon is Blue".

"You took that well," remarked Ted, peering once again into the evil depths of his coffee cup.

"Eh!" Sophie said. She rubbed a cheek. "I had it coming. Besides, I kind of like the kid." She conjured two more highball glasses, full ones, and passed one to Ted.

Ted smiled. "He's my hero, too. Cheers!" He drank.

"Mud in your eye," agreed Sophie.

* * *

In the emergency waiting room, Bugs had pulled his guitar around and began picking out a slow mournful version of "The Fool on the Hill."

"Gimme that thing," Lemon demanded. Bugs passed the guitar over, causing Kylie's eyes to widen.

"Never seen you do that before," she commented.

"Who gives a shit," Bugs muttered. Kylie patted his hand, knowing he was jonesing for a smoke. He'd been quit only six months and sometimes bit his fingers to stop the cravings. Stress brought them back with a vengeance.

"How you got this tuned, Ahab?" asked Lemon. "Oh, open-G. I can do this." He strummed a few chords then began singing softly:

We will meet again. Don't know where. Don't know when.
But we will meet again, some summer day.

"Sunny day," said Kylie, helpfully.

"Who singin' this?" asked Lemon. Pretty soon, everyone in the waiting room was -- quietly, mostly to themselves.

The optimistic beauty of the song struck Richard as he entered from the hall to the treatment rooms. His face twisted up like he'd bit into a lemon and he paused to get control of himself. Then he walked over to Lemon Eater and whispered in his ear. "Gogie's still alive. He's going to make it. I got it on the highest authority."

Lemon nodded, lifting his voice a little.

Richard turned and walked toward the electric-eye-operated door to the patio, glad that his sisters and parents had not yet arrived. He wondered vaguely if the door would open automatically for him or if he would have to walk through the glass and steel itself. The old-fashioned schoolhouse-type clock showed the time as ten to twelve.

* * *

The side of the little hidden patio that would get the most sun held a tiny garden. Jo kicked off her shoes and stepped onto the close-clipped rye grass between the rows of winter-blooming flowers. She shivered, even in Southern California, going barefoot in the winter is cold.

Looking up, she saw a tiny patch of sky holding only a moon that looked just as full as it had the previous night. The surrounding lights of Los Angeles washed out any stars and the moon showed yellow-orange from the downtown smog.

Three smokers drinking Pepsi and vending machine coffee and eating Cheez-Nips watched her, wondering if they'd ever seen her in a movie or something.

"What good are you?" Jo asked the moon. "I keep wishing and w-wishing and nothing happens. I want Richard back. That's all. I just want Richard b-back. I don't want to be a b-boy again or nothing else. I don't care if I never sing again, I just w-want Richard."

She sobbed, putting her hand over her mouth. "Is that too much to ask? I just w-want Richard b-back, if only long enough to say goodbye!"

Behind her, the automatic door opened and she heard Lemon singing and playing. The smokers turned to look but saw no one come through the door.