Page 58 of Midnightsong
Twenty-Four
Angie
Angie lied in bed after takingKaden back to the sea, having tossed and turned for three hours, wrapped up in her comforter and sheets like a croissant. When she turned again to face her window, her rectangular digital alarm clock flashed 4:00 AM at her in glaring, red, block numbers. She was going to be a zombie salmon when she went to class tomorrow, which started in five hours. And she had to be at the aquarium afterward.
She needed the melatonin to kick in, stat. Even still, only a boatload of caffeine would help her survive the day and afternoon.
Silvery threads of moonlight filtered in between her blinds, the thin strands of light doing her no favors in her futile quest to sleep.
Lulu must have sensed her distress because her cat came to her two hours ago and refused to leave her side, pressing her back to Angie’s chest.
The pillows beside her still held a light dusting of Kaden’s crisp, fresh scent, each whiff a sharpened knife piercing her heart. Why didn’t Kaden tell her once he felt symptoms, or at least once he found out about his condition? They had been together for two years and had seen or spoken to each other the majority of that time, and she freely confided in him. She thought he freely confided in her.
Apparently, she was wrong.
She faced her Mama withering away once, and now her lover was going to face the same fate, if he didn’t find a cure soon. She couldn’t help her Mama and blamed herself for not being able to find a cure for her from mermaids, at least until she was a teenager.
It shifted to blame on herself when her Mama passed, that she wasn’t around enough to spend her last days with her.
The clock blinked at 5:00 a.m.
Angie’s ringtone blasted through the apartment. With bleary eyes, she reached for it.
Gaisi, she had forgotten to turn her phone on sleep mode last night. It came from a number she didn’t recognize, and she fell back into bed, her arm over her forehead. She was woken up three hours after she finally fell asleep by a spam caller. Great.
She had to get out of bed anyway, so with a pained groan, she slid out around Lulu, who had made Angie’s bed her own.
After she was done washing up, she peeked at her phone. The voicemail icon stared at her with a bright red “1” on it. She hated unread notifications, and she tapped it while brushing her hair, putting the message on speaker and resting her phone on the sink.
The call was not a spam call, and she stopped, her brush halfway stuck in bits of her tangled bedhead.
“This message is for Angie Song. I’m Maya Chang from the Seattle Morning Show. I apologize for the last-minute call, but we’ve had a last-minute cancellation and if you are still interested, we’d like to invite you to be a guest on next Thursday’s show for our community spotlight segment. We saw you and your friends on a segment of Pacific Pulse, and we would be excited to speak with you more about your passion for raising awareness for merfolk. Please give me a call back and let me know if you’re able to make it.”
Beep.
Angie stared at her phone as she brushed her hair and tied it into a loose ponytail. The Seattle Morning Show was a popular channel broadcast to the Greater Seattle area and if she could get on it, even for a fifteen-minute community spotlight, she could get her name, her face, and her cause out to a wide audience.
Except she had Dr. Williams’ class that morning. She called his office, putting her ear pods in as she got dressed and walked to her car, backpack hanging off one shoulder.
He picked up after two rings. “Ty Williams.”
She opened the driver’s side door of her car and slid in. “Hi, it’s Angie. I’ll be in class soon, but I got an invitation to be on the Seattle Morning Show next Thursday. I know we have a quiz then, but could I be excused and make-up the quiz? I think this would be a great way to get our cause out there. I wanted to let you know as soon as I found out.”
There was a pause at her professor’s end as she started up her car, mounting the phone on its dashboard stand. She stared at the phone. Had the call been dropped?
No, his name was still on the screen as “Dr. Williams’ Office”.
“Sorry, I was looking over some class materials.” Shuffling noises came from his end, followed by footsteps, and a stretch of silence.
Was he going to reply to her? What if he wouldn’t excuse her?
“Okay, I’ll excuse you from the class, since you let me know early. But you’re on your own to make up the material you missed.”
Angie let her head fall back on the head restraint, letting out a relieved exhale. “I understand.”
“As for the quiz, come to my office an hour before you leave for the show and you can take it then, alright?” A door slammed, wherever he was now. Her heart soared. “Thank you! See you in class soon.”
Angie’s heart was palpitating by the time she stood in the morning show’s green room a week later, their stylist putting the finishing touches on her hair, a neat partial updo with wispy strands framing her face.
