Part 16

Anja Krebber (25/08/2002)

"You?" she snorted.

What does one answer to a question like that? I kept my mouth shut.

"What do you want?" A voice like fingernails on a blackboard.

A shower? Clothes? Cup of coffee? "Could I talk to Beth, please?" Please? I must be completely out of my mind. Or drunker than I'd thought.

"She ain't in." Make that iron nails on a blackboard.

"Who is it, Mom?"

"And anyway, she ain't talking to you." On third thought - make it steel bolts.

I inserted my foot in the crack between door and frame. "Beth!?" I hollered.

Pressure was exerted on my poor extremity - rising pressure, the kind a glacier exerts on the ground it moves over. I winced but held my ground. The booze might dull my battle-instincts, but it sure did its bit towards painrelief as well.

"Leo?" Bells and angels this time. "Leo, is that you? 'scuse me, Mom. Mom!"

The glacier withdrew, muttering imprecations.

"You need to take your foot out, so I can open the door?"

Do angels ever lie? I decided to take the chance, felt like a widow on welfare, when the door closed, heard some clinking and muffled voices on the other side. Then the door opened again - wide as the gates of heaven, and there she stood.