Matching Wits with Venus

by Therese Gilardi

  “That’s DOCTOR Gerard Coillard,” Trudie replied.

  “Y’all will have to excuse me. I mean Dr. Gerard Coillard.”

  Trudie narrowed her eyes. She’d spent the first eighteen years of her life in Mobile, until she married Allen and he was shipped out to Camp Pendleton six weeks after their honeymoon in the Ozarks. If there was one thing she knew, it was Alabama accents. Alabama accents and the inventory of the prop shop where she’d worked nights while she put herself through nursing school. They’d put her in charge of all of the medical costumes “on account of the fact that she knew what real medical professionals looked like” thanks to her internship at the hospital.

  She studied the women in front of her. They were both wearing scrubs from the D-7 lot she’d acquired eight years ago when they’d closed that hospital for indigents. Even the stethoscope hanging from the older woman’s neck had been purchased on her watch.

  The small, auburn haired woman looked at her and smiled. Trudie looked into the young woman’s eyes. She saw goodness, of that she was sure. Years of working in a psych ward had honed her ability to distinguish the good people from the bad.

  Trudie smiled slightly. Whatever game these two were playing it would serve her supervisor right to come back and find they’d been admitted to the ward. What could she say? It was she who would have been remiss in her duty, taking unauthorized leave to run out to that kitchenwares store in Beverly Center.

  Trudie returned the young woman’s smile.

  As Trudie said, “Y’all will need these,” she noticed the look of fear in the older woman’s eyes. Clearly she hadn’t expected to meet up with a Southerner, who would recognize that her accent was a fraud.

  “Y’all sound just like my mama’s people,” she said, as she handed visitors’ badges to the two women. “And may I suggest, y’all might want to take the staircase that leads directly to the parking lot when y’all have finished with your business.”

  Stella exhaled.

  “Thank you,” Amelia whispered, as she turned and followed her mother to her father’s room.

  ****

  After meeting with her father Amelia knew there was another person whose assistance she would need. She sent Cupid a text, asking him to meet her at her favorite diner. He was waiting for her when she arrived.

  “I’m glad you thought I could help,” Cupid said as Amelia slid into the banquette across from him.

  Amelia sighed.

  “When I went to visit my father, I swear I could taste the regret that hung in the room.” Amelia shuddered.

  “There’s no way I’d ever want to end up like that. I realized that people can be very imperfect, just like life. The important thing seems to be that you just have to force yourself to keep moving forward.”

  “You know I’ll do whatever you want,” Cupid said moments later as he glanced around at the other diner patrons and leaned across the wide Formica table. “Tell me how we’re going to save the world.”

  “After we eat,” Amelia replied, as the waitress with hot pink hair and two studs in her left eyebrow placed an enormous plate of chili cheese fries in front of her. “You know nothing comes between a pregnant woman and her food.”

  “I’ve missed you,” Cupid said tenderly as they finished their meal.

  Amelia smiled. She’d been right to invite Cupid back into her life. Seeing her father in the hospital where Daniel had died had made her realize how lucky she was to have found love twice in her life. She knew she owed it to herself, to Cupid and most of all to the baby to allow herself to bask in its glow. She looked at Cupid. As soon as he winked, she knew she’d make the right decision.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Zeus was displeased. While it was true he’d been looking for a way to regain his power for the last several thousand years, he prided himself on being a man of honor, someone who would never attempt to seize the reins of control through the use of cheap trickery. It was this sense of chivalry that had gotten him through those first humiliating centuries under Roman rule; at least he’d been able to tell himself and anyone who would listen that he’d been a sporting man. Actually, he thought to himself, not dissimilar to those mortal knights who came after him or those World War I soldiers who’d shared Christmas with their enemies before resuming their slaughter. But now Aphrodite had ruined all that.

  And she hadn’t even had the courtesy to inform him of her misdeeds herself.

  He’d learned about the way she had wormed her way into Venus’s lodge in Calabria, where the Roman goddess dipped her gold tipped arrows into the aphrodisiac potion that drove recipients of its slings to fall in love, purely by accident when he overheard a dinner conversation between Aphrodite’s confidante, Persephone and her latest lover.

  According to Persephone, under the pretext of planning a “birthday surprise for my dear friend and colleague” Aphrodite had conned the guards into leaving her alone with the elixir, which she’d promptly neutralized with a potion of her own. Except for those matches that had been made by Amelia and the handful of other exceptions that had always existed.

  Zeus’s first instinct upon hearing of Aphrodite’s outrageous behavior had been to send a messenger with a letter of apology to Jupiter, but it was already too late. The natural world was already beginning to fall in on itself. It was only a matter of time until the mortal world followed suit. Furthermore, Aphrodite had already taken action in her plan to retake her position as goddess of love. She’d convinced her followers to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the Roman gods. These were the battles that resulted in the earthquakes in the upper world.

  He sighed. He knew Jupiter would see him as somehow responsible. What really smarted was the knowledge that this was true. If he hadn’t been so distracted trying to develop the perfect blend of feta cheese for the chain of tavernas he hoped to open across Athens, Aphrodite would never have been able to stray so far from his control. As it was, he had to play the hand fate, or Aphrodite, had dealt him. Reluctantly he picked up his scepter and headed over to conference table where his generals were arguing over battle strategies.

  ****

  It was one of those postcard perfect mornings in Malibu, when the beach held only sand, shells, and a solitary sailboat bobbing in the distance on its way to the Channel Islands. Cupid stood near the edge of a bluff overlooking the sea and inhaled the full morning air. Amelia watched him, silhouetted against the sky. She reached for her tiny pocket notebook and jotted down a few impressions of the early morning images. As Cupid turned around she slipped the pad into the pocket of her jeans. She felt her face flush with pleasure as he looked over at her and smiled.

  “Do you know how perfect you are?” He asked as he pulled her toward him.

  “I’ll bet you say that to all your women,” she replied as she nestled into his chest and breathed in the musky citrus scent that always clung to everything he touched.

  He put his hands around her and caressed the back of her neck. “Only the good ones.”

  Amelia laughed, though it was still there, hanging between them, the knowledge that he’d had scores of partners before her and would have more after she’d exhausted a mortal lifespan.

  “You know I mean it,” he said softly.

  “I really have never met anyone so fascinating,” he said a moment later. “I think it’s your ears.”

  Amelia laughed and the gloom that hung over them evaporated. “I see you’re developing quite the sense of humor.”

  He shrugged. “It’s how I learn English these days, listening to comedians on the Net.”

  “Well I’m glad you’re able to find things funny,” she replied.

  Cupid frowned.

  “I’m not so sure we’re going to be laughing by the end of the day.”

  “You think it’s going to be that bad?”

  Cupid tilted his head to the side and grabbed his chin.

  “I don’t know what to expect. I never saw any of the old wars. They were before my time. But
look at what the Greeks are doing to us now.”

  Amelia nodded. She thought about all of the destruction she’d seen on television last night. If Samantha Yolandez had not provided commentary, Amelia would have assumed she was watching footage of the latest big budget end of the world epic being shot by one of the big movie studios.

  Modern Italy was looking more and more like it had centuries ago. Bridges had been blown up, power lines cut, and all but emergency services suspended. And even those were not guaranteed. The airports and hospitals were operating on skeleton crews as those who could fled the cities for the relative safety of the countryside where at least they didn’t have to fear the collapse of nearby tall buildings whose foundations were being eroded thanks to the omnipresent tremors bubbling to the upper world from the raging wars below.

  “I know it’s going to be all right,” she said, as she studied Cupid’s worried face.

  Cupid looked at Amelia. She stuck out her jaw firmly and folded her arms over her swollen belly. She suspected he was worried that, although she’d been able to best Venus at the matchmaking game, this was different. Aphrodite and her minions had none of the old code of honor about them that had marked prior conflict between the Romans and the Greeks. She smiled and gave him the thumbs-up sign.

  As soon as Cupid walked away, Amelia collapsed onto a grassy knoll. She lay back, looking up at the sky. When she was little, Gerard had told her the names of the different types of cloud formations and their patterns. She squinted; nimbus was the only world she could recall. What if it happened today, that she forgot everything Gerard had told her on the day she and Stella had made their stealth visit to his room in the locked ward? Her entire plan was dependent on remembering his instructions step by step.

  “I’d offer you a penny for your thoughts, but then I’d have to know for sure how worried you are,” Jennie said, lying down next to her.

  “You’ve got that right,” Amelia said, rolling onto her side. “I’m afraid. I’m not up to this.”

  Jennie reached over and pulled a piece of grass from Amelia’s hair.

  “I know you, Lia. You’re like a corn kernel. Give you enough pressure and you’ll pop into action.”

  “I feel like that’s some kind of reference to my current state,” Amelia said, fondling her stomach. “Geez, I never have been able to make a joke.”

  “Well we’ll work on it when this is all over. Maybe take a comedy writing course or hit the Improv or something.”

  Amelia grimaced.

  “You know I can’t imagine what’s going to happen next. I’m adrift.”

  Jennie knelt and then pulled herself to a standing position. She reached down to help Amelia to her feet.

  As she stood up, Amelia had the sensation a small wave had washed through her. She stood still, looking toward Cupid, who was standing next to Justin, sorting through dozens and dozens and dozens of gold-tipped arrows that rested in piles next to the little outbuilding, the sun glinting off their sides. The queer feeling, like she’d been gently tapped from deep within the walls of her body, happened once more. She put her hand on her belly and smiled. It was the sign she needed, a kick of confidence from her baby.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “Vee! Vee! Can you hear me?”

  “I think so,” Venus replied, her voice shaking as she moved toward the sound of Mercury’s voice.

  Dust fell from the narrow roof over her head at such a clip Venus feared she was going to be buried alive. It had been loosened by the intensifying earthquakes that resulted from the fighting between the Roman and Greek gods.

  “Merc!”

  Venus fell into Mercury’s arms as he finally pushed his way into her cell. Gently, he used the sleeve of his tunic to brush the dirt from her face.

  “Are you all right?”

  She nodded.

  “I kept my mouth closed and covered my nose with my sash so I breathed in as little of this,” she pointed at the dust floating in the air, “as possible. What’s going on?”

  “I had a small arrow tucked inside my tunic that they didn’t find. I sent it to Jupiter through the window of the holding room where they had me wait ‘til my cell was ready. I assume these walls are collapsing because he’s bombing his way in.”

  “Bombing our own land? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Mercury chuckled. “You’d think not, but it’s an old, mortal trick. I guess they’re teaching us all kinds of things right now. Strange time in our history, learning from the upper world.”

  Venus licked her lips, which tasted of dust.

  “When the wall of my cell fell, I felt along its seams until I made my way to you. I heard those ‘guards’ from Aphrodite’s brigade bragging about where they were keeping you.”

  Venus looked up at him.

  “Thank you. But now what do we do?”

  “I think we hide. Bury ourselves in the catacombs while the Greeks are distracted from the collapse.”

  Mercury stuck out his right hand, like he had the day when they’d married. Venus locked his fingers through his and they made their way wordlessly toward the maze of tunnels beneath the eternal city.

  ****

  They’d timed it perfectly, Amelia thought to herself, as she watched Cupid and Justin put the final touches on the golden arrows.

  Cupid, Justin, Jennie and Amelia had spent over a dozen hours on the Malibu hilltop, scanning the horizon to ensure that none of Aphrodite’s interlopers lurked on the beaches or boats below, fine-tuning the computer program Amelia had developed on her laptop, and inputting the audio signals Justin had mixed at the recording studio whose security Inuus had managed to penetrate.

  It had been a playful day. They’d fed each other olives, slices of mozzarella, and marinated tomatoes beneath a high sun, made garlands out of the pastel wildflowers that grew behind Mercury’s outbuilding, and tossed a Frisbee around whenever the gravity of the task at hand had threatened to overwhelm them.

  But now it was time to act. A full moon hung over the horizon, its blue light casting eerie shadows on the receding waves. It had been Gerard who insisted that their plan would work best if executed during that lunar phase, a time he called “Venus’s little helper”, which was his code phrase for a natural aphrodisiac.

  Cupid cracked his knuckles. He and Justin had spent several hours loading arrows into the quivers he and his team of handpicked sharp shooters were going to release at midnight. First though, Concordia would have to return to Malibu from the underworld with a report about whether Aphrodite and her army had begun to make matches. Although this was unlikely, since the upper world still seemed barren of new animal life and Amelia appeared to be the only expectant mortal, it was a possibility that would alter their plans. In order to succeed, they would need to begin to populate the world with creatures whose first loyalty would be to the Roman gods and not the Greeks.

  “If you’re playing like we used to, I assume you’ve got good news?” Cupid said as someone covered his eyes from behind.

  “How’d you know it was me?” Concordia asked as she pulled her chunky hands from her brother’s cheeks.

  “You’re the only one I know who always smells like biscotti.”

  Concordia touched her wide hips as she reached for the sachet of cookies she kept in the lining of her dress toga.

  “A goddess has got to be prepared; you never know when you’ll be called into action,” she replied, a slight edge to her voice.

  Cupid held out his hand for a biscuit. “So what’d you learn?”

  “There’s no sign whatsoever that Aphrodite has made one single match. I wormed my way into the mortal world and spoke with veterinarians and zookeepers as well as all of my contacts in our world and I tell you, there are no mothers-to-be anywhere. Seems that instead of resuming her mantle as goddess of love. Aphrodite’s been sitting for a lot of formal portraits and commissioning a new wardrobe so she’s all ready for the day of her official takeover.”

  “Good.
One less thing to worry about.”

  “And, I poked around asking after Mom and Mercury. Seems they’ve been together all right.”

  “Concordia! You could’ve gotten yourself nabbed.”

  “Don’t worry. People always dismiss me as some…substantially sized goddess who’s all about compromise. They have no idea.”

  Cupid grinned.

  “No they don’t.”

  “Yeah. Well anyway, you won’t believe how the Greeks are acting, like the battle’s already been won. Laying around, not even bothering to keep their weapons within reach.”

  Cupid grinned.

  “They’ll never know what hit them when Inuus and his army arrive. Come on.”