10.26.1999

I Fall to Pieces

Wow! So much has happened since I posted on my blog. At first, I had to admit that I didn't understand why anyone really wrote a blog, but now I realize that it's just to get things off your chest that you can't tell anyone else. Well let's see, where did I leave off? Oh yeah...

A couple of days after I bumped into Angel, I figured that he was probably beating himself up over almost knocking me down and spilling coffee on my only good white shirt, so I headed over to his office. I noticed the black letters on the door, the classic private eye office in all those old movies. I opened the door and walked into the room. It was pretty plain. Stale coffee was in the coffee pot and papers were laid out all across the desk.

I looked around and noticed there were two desks. One out front, the one that had all the scattered papers on it, and another one in the back hidden in the dark. I continued to look around, my eyes skimming over the papers that fluttered to the floor as I brushed my hip up against the desk. I bent down to pick them up, reading the words 'stalker', 'neurosurgeon' and 'Pardell Paper Products' from the stack. I neatly arranged them on the desk and finally called out Angel's name.

He appeared almost out of thin air from the back office. He looked like he had just pulled an all-nighter. "Cordelia? Can I...can I help you?"

"I should be asking you that question," I replied smartly, looking down at the scattered papers.

He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, not shyly, but more like he was trying to get a crick out of his neck. "Yeah, sorry about the mess. The guy I hired to help me out quit about two days ago. I'm right in the middle of a case and so I didn't bother to clean up the mess."

"No biggie," I replied, going around the desk and pulling papers into random folders. I was going to write something across the top and as I started looking for a pen under all those papers, I realized that they really didn't stop. It was like an illusion and there was a never ending stack of papers. "You gotta pen?"

"Um, what are you doing?" he asked, his eyes a little big at the fact that I was just putting myself in charge of cleaning up his mess.

"Well it looks like you need some help and I have the day off. I was coming over here to collect on my dry cleaning—"

"Oh right! How much do I owe you?" he asked, cutting me short.

"Nothing. I wanna help you and by you letting me help, you're paying me back." He gave me a blank stare like he didn't understand the words coming out of my mouth. I gave him one of Cordelia Chase's classic thousand watt smiles. "Aha!" I yelled, finally finding a marker to write across the top of the folder. "So what big case are you working on?"

He shook his head, realizing he couldn't fight with me any longer, and walked around the other side of the desk showing me what job he was working on.

Turns out Angel was trying to figure out some woman named Melissa's stalker. He assumed it was a surgeon, but he couldn't get a clear shot of who it was and Melissa was just a little freaked that I felt like someone was always watching her. I ended up staying at Angel Investigations until seven o'clock when I realized that I was going to be late for my other job. I promised Aura that I would fill in for her while she went on a romantic date with her boyfriend. Lucky her.

"Oh shit! Shit, shit, shit!" I screamed, causing Angel to jump slightly. I grabbed my things off the couch and started to pull on my jacket when my purse strap got caught on the arm.

"What's wrong?" he asked, standing up quickly.

"I'm going to be late for my job! I have to get home and change still! Sorry to cut this short but I gotta go," I yelled grabbing the doorknob and yanking the door back so quick there was a rush of air that hit me in the face.

"Where do you work?" Angel asked abruptly.

It stopped me in my tracks. Didn't he realize I was going to be late? Didn't he realize that I didn't have time to answer out-of-the-blue questions. But I still stopped to turn and look at him. "Caritas, the club downtown. I'm a waitress. Maybe you could stop by sometime." I always fallfor the tall, dark and handsome ones. His facial expression changed and for a moment I was sorry I mentioned where I worked.

"You work at that place? But those little outfits are so..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Comes with the territory. I guess I'll see you later Angel." A thought came to me. "Here," I said walking over and grabbing that marker. I wrote down my number on one of the manila folders. "If you want, call me."

He nodded and I left practically running for the street.

posted by shoegalCC at 12:10 AM