“Of course. I’ll be totally fine. I’m good at keeping myself entertained.”
“Are you sure?” I asked doubtfully. “Maybe I could finish early and—”
“Seriously, Greid, I’ll be fine.” She hesitated. “I should probably start looking for a job. Um… do you get a paper delivered here? So I can look at the listings?”
“No, but…” I almost offered her my laptop, but I pretty much exclusively used it to watch porn, so it felt way too risky. “You can use the computer in my workshop if you want.”
“Won’t that disturb you while you’re working?” Beryl was drooping a little, clearly too tired to have this conversation now. I waved my hand.
“Nah.” Yes. Her being in my workshop with me would absolutely distract me. “But we can work it out in the morning.”
“Okay. Thank you for dinner, again. Do you want me to help blow out all the candles?”
“No, it’s fine.” I gave her a tiny smile. “You go to bed.”
“I’ll blow out all the ones on the stairs.” She hesitated, then gave my arm a gentle squeeze. “Night, Greid.”
“Goodnight, Beryl.”
I watched her pad out of the living room in her too-big slippers and giant onesie, every cell in my body screaming for her to come back. Once I could hear her shuffling up the stairs, I went around the living room extinguishing all the candles, then went into the hallway to do the same.
You’re too needy, I thought as I shut my bedroom door and started stripping off. She’s been here a couple of days and you’re already craving her company all the time.
My room felt kind of sad and lonely as I shifted into my true form and stretched out my back. I crawled into my unmade bed and immediately picked up the TV remote. I could still feel the gentle weight of Beryl’s head on my lap. The softness of her curls slipping through my claws.
My insides went all weird, so I turned on the TV to ignore it. Flicking straight over to late-night infomercials, I settled back and tried to keep my mind blank. But my interest was piqued when an ad for a new product came on.
“Do you wish there was an easier way to clean your front porch steps?” an overly animated voice asked as black-and-white footage played of an elderly human lady scrubbing her front steps and huffing with exertion, wiping her brow with the back of a rubber gloved-hand.
I cocked my head. I mean, I didn’t actually clean my front steps. Didn’t the rain just do that?
“Are you embarrassed when your guests arrive and have to walk up discoloured, moss-covered steps to get to your front door?”
Well, I never had guests. And did people really notice shit like that? The couple on the TV certainly seemed to, shooting unimpressed looks at the porch steps as they walked up them and shook their heads with abject disappointment.
Suddenly, the image changed to a familiar demiurgus with giant, jewel-crusted earrings and teeth so white they made me wince.
“Well now you don’t have to be!” he said enthusiastically, flashing the camera a gigantic, stretched grin. “Hi, I’m Lixi Gablar here with the ScrubShoes, a revolutionary new product that will change your cleaning habits forever!”
He held up a pair of hideous plastic shoes with actual scrubbing brushes for soles. I pursed my lips as I eyed them. Should I start cleaning my porch steps? I never even looked at them, so they were probably pretty gross. Probably the worst ones on the street.
“These sturdy, attractive shoes will complement any outfit! Simply pop them on and clean your porch steps on your way out. No mess! No fuss! No hours of scrubbing on your hands and knees. These couldn’t be easier to use. Here, let me demonstrate…”
I fiddled with my phone as Lixi put the ScrubShoes on and shuffled his way over some demo porch steps, which were coated in a thick layer of grime. They did cut through the dirt pretty easily. He looked a little silly, like he was skiing in place.
“And these don’t just clean the outside of your house!” he said enthusiastically. “The intuitive soles have brand-new technology that automatically detects the surface they’re on, making the bristles softer for indoor flooring!”
What? I snorted. Could bristles really do that?
Could they?
“Cut through kitchen grease with ease! Pick up pet dander and hair without having to lug out that unwieldy vacuum!”
I mean, I didn’t have any pets, and who let their kitchen floors get all thick with grease anyway?
“Once you own a pair of ScrubShoes, you won’t need any other cleaning products for your flooring, indoor or out! And right now, I’m offering these at an absolute steal! While these babies would usually cost you seventy-nine-ninety-nine, I can give them to you for not seventy-five-ninety-nine, not sixty-nine-ninety-nine, not even fifty-nine-ninety-nine! Call now, and you can own your very own ScrubShoes for just thirty-nine-ninety-nine! That’s right, just thirty-nine-ninety-nine to revolutionise your cleaning routine and grab yourself a stylish new pair of shoes in the process!”
I was already dialling the number before he’d finished speaking. That did seem like a pretty good deal. And maybe Tim would use them. Maybe my floors got dirtier than I realised.
Or maybe they’d just sit in my Room of Shame with the rest of the useless stuff I’d ordered in an attempt to fill the lonely void. Meh. Whatever.
Chapter Seventeen
Beryl
Okay, Beryl. Time to start being more proactive. Time to find out if you actually have a personality.
Back at the cult, I’d felt so much more interesting than everyone else around me. All the people floating around with dreamy smiles and a total willingness to just do what was expected of them. In there, I’d felt confident and self-assured, maybe even a little bit smug that I was duping them all.
After two weeks out here in the real world, it seemed like all my confidence had melted away. Suddenly, I felt like the blandest person ever. Like I’d never even developed a personality. Like I was just beige.
I admired Greid so much. He thought he was a total mess, and in some ways, he was a bit of an adorable mess, but he was brimming with personality. He was funny and interesting and just as cute when he was grumpy in the mornings as he was all lazy and content at night while smoking and eating and watching TV.
He had such a cool business, and I had spent every day for the last two weeks growing more and more dejected as I trawled through job listings on the computer in his workshop. He’d had to teach me how to use it, but after that I’d done my best to stay quiet and out of his way.
Which was hard. When I was feeling particularly frustrated by the endless lists of previous experience requirements and “essential” skills, I’d abandon the computer and wander over to see what he was doing. He never seemed to mind, always shyly showing me and getting embarrassed when I gushed over how gorgeous the pieces were.
He looked adorable in the big magnifying lenses he wore while doing intricate metalwork. He usually whipped them off self-consciously when I spun around in the desk chair, but sometimes he forgot and would look up and blink at me owlishly, his yellow eyes comically large on his face.