“What did you do?” asked Bonnie despite herself.
“Oh, I just kept him from making any mistakes until he realizes he really does love me. Lucky always did fancy the mortals a bit too much. I just helped him to understand how fleeting their affections were.”
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you? To him. That’s why he wasn’t surprised to see you.”
“It was your idea to talk to him,” said Syph. “Really, it’s your fault.”
“I notice you didn’t mention the restraining order-”
“Voluntary territorial division,” corrected the goddess.
“This is what you do? You follow this god around, ruining his love life, along with whatever random mortals you come across?”
“You make it sound so…”
“Pathetic?” interrupted Bonnie.
“The pursuit of love is never pathetic.”
Bonnie laid her head on the wheel and laughed for a solid minute.
“And to think that I was actually feeling sorry for you earlier tonight. Now I find out you’ve devoted your endless life to making everyone as miserable as you are.”
“You don’t understand, Bonnie. The path to true love is never easy. Not even for immortals. He loves me. I know he does, even if he doesn’t. If I can help him to realize that then everything will work out the way it was always meant to.”
“Okay, you’re creeping me out now. Do you have any idea how unbalanced that sounds? You can’t make someone love you.”
Syph chuckled lightly. “Don’t be absurd. Of course I can. I’m the goddess of love.”
“More like the goddess of stalkers,” replied Bonnie. “Did you ever stop to think that if you’d just let this go, stop fixating on this one rejection as the defining moment of your unending life, that you might be able to leave this trail of doom and gloom behind you? Maybe what happened to you has nothing to do with Lucky. Maybe it’s your own damned fault for refusing to move on.”
Syph’s brow furrowed. Her jaw clenched.
“You just don’t get it, do you? But you’ll see. I’ll show you.”
She stared straight ahead at a little old lady carrying a bag of groceries in front of the parked car. The bottom of the sack fell out, spilling oranges, a carton of eggs, and a jar of jelly that shattered on the pavement.
“Oh for cryin’…” Bonnie exited the car and helped the woman salvage what groceries she could. When she returned to the car, the goddess was gone. Gone, but not forgotten. The heaviness still weighed on Bonnie’s heart. And three words were burned into the pleather cushions of the passenger seat.
I’ll show you.
14
Over the next few weeks, things fell into place for Teri and Phil.
Lucky spent less and less time at the house. His dates with Janet grew more frequent, and he usually slept over at her place four or five times a week. They spent more time with Quick than with their own god. Sometimes they would go days without seeing Lucky at all, with only rumpled Hawaiian shirts in the hamper to tell them he’d popped in for a visit and grabbed a shower and something to eat before heading back to Janet’s place.
When they suggested that Quick use the guest room, he refused. The room was more than just a closet full of Lucky’s clothes and an unused bed. It was the shrine to their god, the sacred space devoted to his appeasement. Even if he didn’t use it for much, it still counted as tribute.
Quick was stuck on the sofa, but he was quiet and a decent cook. And he was considerate enough to leave the house every so often to give them their privacy. Usually, he’d just go for a slither around the block for a few hours or sit in the backyard with a glass of tomato juice and a book. It wasn’t very godlike behavior, but he had long ago abandoned the ways of tribute and favor.
“I’m just trying to get my head together,” he’d explained. “I don’t really need to mess around with that game right now.”
Both mortals knew that Quick was just making excuses, but they saw no need to push things. He was immortal. He had plenty of time to “find himself.” It really was none of their business. They just chalked up the serpent god living in their midst to more tribute for Lucky, and as long as Quick was willing to do the dishes every now and then, they didn’t feel too put out.
Janet and Lucky’s relationship changed from infatuation to genuine affection much faster than either was willing to admit, but Teri noticed. At her lunches with Janet, she’d catch Janet smiling wistfully and wouldn’t have to guess what or who she was thinking about. More and more, the discussions became about something “cute” Lucky did or some romantic gesture or just something funny he’d said. Teri considered putting in a discouraging word, but she didn’t see the point in throwing cold water on it just because it was most probably doomed to an ugly end. Most relationships were, when she really thought about it.
It was hard to be negative, though, when good luck was in their hip pocket. Everything started going right. It wasn’t big or obvious, but it was noticeable. Aside from the twenty to thirty bucks of loose change Phil and Teri found every day, there were other subtle benefits. Any supermarket line they chose was always the fastest. Even the most crowded restaurant just happened to have a table available upon their arrival. They were always the twentieth caller to the radio contest, found things on sale just when they needed them to be, and rarely had to deal with traffic jams. Lucky didn’t fix their lives, but he did remove all those little annoyances that made the bigger problems harder to focus on. Phil took advantage of this to just relax while Teri found she could accomplish so much more.
There were still the quirks of luck. Phil stepped in gum at least once a day, and Teri found that her shower would inexplicably blast her with cold water about once a week. But these were just annoyances, and nothing compared to the frustration that a single bad day could create.
The strangest thing was the animals: the birds, squirrels, stray dogs and cats that appeared around them. Always red. Always speckled. Always with the large blue eyes.
Lucky told them it was nothing to worry about and that the animals would go away eventually. They just needed to give it some time.
But the animals kept coming.
Phil and Teri grew used to seeing them. In the end, they seemed less threatening than the daily gum on Phil’s shoe, so after a while, both mortals stopped really noticing.
And life, blessed by good fortune and serendipity, was good.
Phil had seen the Supervisor walking the office before. He’d nodded to her a few times. And once, he’d even shaken her hand while passing by as introductions were being thrown around. But she was too far above him on the corporate ladder to have any deeper interaction on those few occasions when she descended from the seventh floor. She usually appeared like a phantom from a special elevator, spoke to one of the fourth-floor department heads, and disappeared whence she came. Which was why it was surprising when she took a sharp right down Phil’s row of cubicles. Everyone kept their eyes on their work as she proceeded down the aisle.
He bent over his keyboard and squinted at the screen as if his life depended on it. It was several moments before he realized she had paused by his cubicle.
He glanced from the corner of his eye to be sure, not willing to look away from his work for fear of getting caught slacking off. In his peripheral vision, she was a blurry shadow, the living embodiment of all the nebulous dangers that lurked, barely seen and never spoken of, waiting to devour careless members of lower middle management who revealed just how redundant their positions were.