Matching Wits with Venus

by Therese Gilardi

  Finally, Stella had spoken.

  “You keep her. She’d only slow me down, just like you have.”

  With that Stella had turned on her kitten heel and left. A feather from the burgundy boa she insisted on wearing all the time hovered in the air. The wind carried it over to Amelia’s plate, where it landed atop her meatball.

  “I hate her!” she’d cried.

  Amelia shook herself. She looked at the sketch next to the door, the one she’d retrieved from the trash, which reminded her of Vermeer’s painting of “The Lacemaker”. It had inspired her most powerful sestina. She was certain Cupid had made the drawing.

  She sighed as she brushed a hand across her stomach. Although she would never know if Cupid had made the drawing, just like she would never know what would have happened between them had Bacchus not mentioned Cupid’s arrow injury, she was certain she could no longer carry so much regret. She knew that if her father were here, he would tell her she must forgive Venus or she would destroy herself.

  “Fine.”

  They sat in silence. Amelia looked over at her notebook. Its pages reminded her of all the pilgrimages she’d made through the streets of West Hollywood, carrying the gifts and handwritten notes, always sealed with a kiss, that she would lay at the foot of Venus’s stone staircase. She turned to the Roman goddess.

  “I guess I should tell you that I didn’t believe in you. I didn’t think you even existed for all these years. After all, I left offerings and letters at your gate and you ignored me. Pretended I didn’t even exist.”

  “That’s not true!” Venus cried. “That’s not true at all! You were very special in my mind, a girl with a great capacity to love. That’s why I sent you Daniel.”

  Amelia sat up.

  Venus nodded.

  “I felt terrible seeing how you suffered over your parents. But you see, it was beyond my control, just as it was out of my reach to give you a long life with the man you loved. I am the same as you, Amelia: I am a matchmaker. No less and definitely no more. I have no more power to ensure happiness after the match is made than I have the ability to stop the tides of the Pacific from sweeping across the sands. Again, let me say how very sorry I am for all of the pain in your life.”

  Amelia sat back against the couch. She was tired, overwhelmed by everything Venus had said. Gerard was right; she must understand and forgive. She thought about the years of bitterness toward Venus, all misdirected.

  “Here Amelia, I’ve made you some tea.”

  Concordia was carrying the butter colored mug Cupid had won for her at a stand on the Santa Monica Pier, the one he’d given her that time he’d shown up at her house dressed in yellow and white, carrying a lemon meringue pie, because it was her favorite.

  The pain of losing him overwhelmed her. She pulled her slender fingers over her face and began to sob. Venus nodded at Concordia, who reached down and awkwardly patted her shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said as her tears spattered onto her lap. “It’s just, well I would have liked to have been related to both of you.”

  “You are and you always will be,” Venus said. “Please, dry yourself and look.”

  Venus placed the large bag she’d been carrying into Amelia’s lap.

  “Open it. It’s for the baby.”

  Amelia untied the white ribbons. She tore away the pastel wrapping paper that lined the bag and reached inside. She found a small quilt.

  “I’ve seen this before.”

  Concordia looked at Venus in shock. She’d never known her mother to be even remotely sentimental. Indeed Venus never seemed able to recall in what centuries her children had been born.

  “I know where,” Amelia said. “This was in the painting. The portrait of you in Jupiter’s library.”

  “That’s right. This is my childhood blanket. You remember using it after Cupid, don’t you Concordia?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Thank you,” Amelia said as she ran her hands across the small quilt.

  “There’s something else you need to know Amelia,” Venus said, taking a deep breath. “I must say, seeing your skills has not been easy for me. I’m not used to being beaten by a mortal. But you see, you’ve done it, with my own son. You’ve bested me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Concordia asked.

  “My arrows. Aphrodite has confessed. The reason for the sterile spring, which was already in process by the time Cupid made your acquaintance, is because Aphrodite infiltrated my supplies. It seems she’d spent the past thousand years developing a potion that would neutralize my arrows. So you see, when Cupid shot himself he did nothing more than break the skin. You made your own match, the way you made all those others. With your cunning and skill.”

  Amelia sat up straight.

  Venus smiled.

  “Hard as it is to admit you and Cupid fell for each other without any help from me.”

  ****

  Cupid stared at the bowl of broth and cup of tea that had been slipped under his door by the same monk he’d tackled in order to escape his mother’s imprisonment in the remote monastery. It was ironic that this would be the place where he would come to learn to live without Amelia. He had no desire to live without her, no real desire to go on at all without her.

  But he’d felt her body stiffen, heard her gasp in horror when they’d learned that theirs had been a match made via his mother’s arrows. She’d made it clear that such a union would repudiate all that she’d believed since she was small, the foundation for not just her business but for her whole life. He couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t ask her to make such a choice.

  “I hope you find peace,” was all that the young monk said to him as he’d led him to his cell-like room.

  He would be free to come and go as he pleased, encumbered only by his own memories, for as long as he wished. At first, he’d just lain on the floor, depriving himself of even the remote comfort of the thin cot across from the heavy door. But slowly he’d begun working in the garden, digging, plowing and kneading the soil until he was so doubled over from exhaustion that he had no choice but to sleep. At night, he saw her face, just as he had when he’d stayed here the first time and dreamt of the day they would be together again.

  His days and nights slipped into a slow melancholy string of regret. The only relief came in the form of meals, when he would force himself to concentrate on the feel of the salty broth and sticky rice in his ration bowl. Even then, he often thought he could feel her there in the room with him, laughing and waiting for him to take her hand.

  A tray was waiting for him right now, just beyond his reach. Cupid stared at it for a moment, then dragged himself to the heavy wooden door and pulled it open.

  He rubbed his eyes; perhaps it was time to seek help. Surely he was hallucinating, imaging it was Amelia standing before him in a pink t-shirt, her belly large and round.

  Epilogue

  “It’s going to be an especially busy spring in local maternity wards, veterinary clinics and national parks as Mother Nature makes up for last year’s drought,” Samantha Yolandez, still wearing her safari jacket, said into her microphone. “We’re coming to you live from the recently dedicated Gerard Coillard Memorial Animal Sanctuary, where we’re awaiting a number of special deliveries. No doubt, you all remember what a beloved scientist and animal activist Dr. Coillard was….”

  Amelia reached down and snapped shut the laptop on which she’d been streaming the evening news. She looked around Venus’s cream-colored living room. Against the far wall, Cupid and Inuus were engaged in one of their marathon chess matches while Concordia watched, edging her chair ever so slightly toward Inuus’s as often as possible.

  Jennie and Justin, who had donated his jeans, the rest of his wardrobe, except his black and red leather jacket, and a sizeable check to a half-way house that sheltered those who’d found that their financial resources had run out before they’d had the chance to live the Hollywood dream, stood outside on the terrace,
hands intertwined. They’d been a couple ever since the night Justin had helped Jennie clean out the office ahead of Mr. Ataria’s eviction notice. Justin had been restored to his old position of problem-solver in the film community, where he was developing what he called the ultra sensory film experience. Even Randi now had him on speed dial.

  Amelia returned her gaze to the room Renaldo had softly lit with dozens of lavender and gardenia scented candles. On the coffee table in front of her sat a leather bound edition of her sestinas. Jupiter had given her this copy, a duplicate of the one that sat on the bookshelves in his library, below to the portrait of Venus as a girl. The collection of twenty-five poems had won numerous literary prizes. The poem that had been inspired by Cupid’s drawing of the Vermeer painting of The Lacemaker had even been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

  To her relief, Amelia found she’d been wrong to fear that afraid her mother would feel threatened by her success. Not only was Stella telling everyone she knew that her daughter had been nominated for the Pushcart, but she’d managed to convince Amelia to let her use her poems as the basis for a one-woman show. Amelia had agreed, on the condition that Stella use her southern accent when she took the stage.

  Amelia turned to her side, where her mother sat cradling a delicate baby wearing a long pink and white dress. Annabelle had Amelia’s slightly square jaw, Cupid’s blonde curly strands and his eyes, which were indeed the color of Lake Como. Amelia had verified that herself, when she and Cupid had taken their honeymoon trip to the Italian Lake District.

  She reached over for her daughter’s tiny hand. The baby had been born a mortal, after a nine-month gestation. Candelifera had been right; because Amelia had attracted Cupid, the child assumed her form. However, the fact that Annabelle was mortal was completely irrelevant to the Roman gods and goddesses, who were totally enamored of the little girl. She spent her time freely bouncing between the upper and under worlds; Enrique even installed a special baby seat in Venus’s elevator.

  “Annabelle reminds me so much of you,” Stella said wistfully. “I wish your father was here to see her.”

  Amelia squeezed her mother’s arm then wandered over to the window where Venus stood gazing out of her telescope. The Roman goddess was looking at the building where Amelia had re-opened her business. Amelia had brought in so much foot traffic that Mr. Ataria had asked to buy the property from her at inflated value in exchange for renting her a space at a below market rate, an offer she promptly declined. Business was overflowing. Even Esmeralda had been drafted to handle some of the spillover.

  “Your mother’s looking well,” Venus said, turning away from the telescope.

  Amelia shook her head.

  “I don’t know. I think she’s lonely.”

  “Why don’t you fix her up with one of your clients? According to every magazine in southern California, you are running the most successful matchmaking business in L.A.”

  “That’s kind of you to say. But there’s somebody else I’d like to have make her a match. Would you?”

  “I thought you didn’t care for my methods,” Venus said with a slight smile.

  Amelia took a deep breath.

  “You made her a true love match. Like you said, it wasn’t your responsibility to see it through to the end.”

  Venus squeezed Amelia’s arm.

  “I’ll see what I can do. Now if you’ll excuse me, I just saw Mercury heading up from the elevator.”

  Amelia reached for the telescope. She ran her slender hands along its sleek edges and refocused its lens. She sighed contentedly as she saw it in the distance, the sign that broadcast the life she had created: Happily Ever After By Amelia.

  About the Author

  Therese Gilardi’s work has appeared online in “Literary Mama”, “The Dirty Napkin” and “The 13th Warrior Review”. Her poetry, essays and short fiction have been published in literary and parenting magazines and in the books “Knowing Pains” and “So Far and Yet So Near: Stories of Americans Abroad”. Therese lives in the hills above Los Angeles with her husband, children and various pets. When not writing Therese can be found prowling the Rose Bowl flea market in search of the perfect white lace sweater.

  Astraea Press, LLC

  Where Fiction Meets Virtue

  www.astraeapress.com