Queen of the Clueless (Interim Goddess of Love)

by Mina V. Esguerra

  With Diego at my side, so many things about this job were easier. First of all, no training. If he could do something, he would do it, and not just watch from the sidelines as the newbie struggled.

  So he found out exactly where Neil was right then (East building, waiting for Sol to come out of our history class) and we plotted to intercept him.

  "Can I take him?" I said, as we crossed the field and neared our prey.

  "Take him where?"

  "Can I be the one who talks to him?"

  Diego wasn't one for talking. I could imagine what he had planned for Neil already, once he saw him. Probably a punch, a chokehold, a "Stop stealing from people, asshole!" and he would consider his work done.

  But that meant I didn't get to speak to him, and I didn't get the opportunity to make him my bitch. I mean, devotee.

  Which meant it'll be harder to convince him to stay away from Sol.

  "You really want to do this?" Diego asked.

  "Yes please."

  "But you're not very efficient. This is my job too."

  "You can back me up all you want, but I want to take the lead."

  He was skeptical, and I couldn't blame him, but I matched his look with what I hoped looked resembled defiance.

  "Fine," Diego said. "You do the talking."

  "Can you, you know, go to the cafeteria? Just for a few minutes?"

  "That's not backup."

  "I don't want you hovering around judging how I talk to him."

  "I won't judge."

  He would so judge, and I didn't want him to jump in and interrupt me before I got the chance to claim Neil. "Please."

  Diego shrugged. "Fine. Call me when you're done."

  I watched him back away from me, and then walk toward the cafeteria, and then enter the building, before I started on my way again.

  Neil had his back turned to me, but I recognized that shock of hair anywhere. It was deliberately wild, sort of a fake mohawk created with hair product, and it stuck out against the background of cork boards that he was facing.

  I had it all planned out: I would ask him about Sol, maybe mention her ex to introduce doubt, and then wait for him to admit any insecurities about their relationship. If I couldn't get Sol to summon me, I could probably get him to do it. A confession of feelings would make him mine.

  I could tell him in plain words that it would be best for everyone if he and Sol broke up.

  And, stop stealing.

  He turned and faced me a split second earlier than I was expecting, and my momentum was thrown off a bit.

  "Hi, Neil," I said.

  "Hi, Hannah," he said, and he reached over to shake my hand. "I'm Neil."

  I blinked. "I know," I said.

  I didn't think about it too much. I shook his hand.

  His fingers felt a little cold.

  "Why are your fingers—"

  For half a heartbeat, everything looked so bright. No wait, white.

  Chapter 9

  "...I know it sounds weird, but I swear it works. It's my sister's new favorite thing. And I think you should try it. I wouldn't mind taking you. The closest I think is in Alabang, but I can ask your tita if you're worried that she won't let you go with me. Or we can go after a school thing, like your museum trip? Will she be okay with that?"

  The weird thing was? I heard every single thing Robbie said. I was aware of where we were, and what I was doing. In fact, I might actually have been talking back, and to him it probably looked like we were having a perfectly normal conversation. Except? I didn't know how I got there.

  It was like being in one of my goddess dreams. But this wasn't a dream, because it was humid and I was sweating, and my dreams were never as uncomfortable.

  "Sure," I heard myself tell him. "Of course she will. She likes you."

  Did I just say yes to a date with Robbie?

  It wasn't that I didn't want to go out with him, but it was totally weird that I seemed to be there and not there while this was happening.

  We were sitting on the steps of the front porch of my aunt's house. I lived with her during the regular school year, because it was just a short walk from her house to Ford River. My home in Manila was too far and stressful a trip, but I still went back to visit my mom every two weeks. Or she'd come over and see me.

  It was right on that porch where Robbie and I had a moment, months ago, when he had saved me from a riot at a seedy club and drove me home. It was the right place to be having another one, and Robbie probably knew that when he asked me out.

  His face lit up as I kind of said yes. He was about to say something else, but it got drowned out as a car screeched to a halt right in front of us.

  Quin and Diego practically leaped from the car. If they were that coordinated on the basketball court, we'd win more games.

  "Robbie, Coach is looking for you," Quin said. That was all it took for regular mortal boy to stand up, wave goodbye to me, and leave me alone with my two gods.

  "Hannah?" Quin's face hovered above mine, and it was full of concern.

  "What did he do to her?" Diego paced in the background, entering and leaving my peripheral vision.

  "Nothing, if you had just stayed with her." Quin was talking to Diego but concentrating on something else, like he was pulling light out of the sky, and it formed into a ball in his hand. I couldn't help but stare at the glowy thing, and then it kind of exploded in my face.

  I squealed, and jumped, half expecting something to feel a burn. Instead I landed right into Quin's arms, and my mind felt free and clear.

  "What just happened?" I asked. (And let me just say, Quin's embrace felt exactly like it did in my goddess dreams. Not that I was sure it was him there with me.)

  "I already told you how it happened."

  "Tell me again."

  "I said hi to Neil. And then he said hi. And then he shook my hand. And then everything sort of faded to white, but only for a second. I think we... We were talking, and then Robbie dropped by, and asked if he could walk me home, and now we're probably going to this restaurant that serves peanut butter spaghetti. That was real, right? Because that just sounds weird now."

  I was trying to recall if Diego had ever been here at the house before. Tita Carmen greeted him with less warmth than what Quin usually got. Diego didn't even sit down; he was standing by the living room window the entire time, and even said no to my aunt's offer of cupcakes. I thought that was rude.

  "It's the handshake," he said.

  Quin, sitting across the table from me, kept his eyes on my face the entire time. I noticed. It was a bit intense. "Of course it's the handshake, but how could he have done it at all? You were aware of everything that was happening?"

  "Yes," I said. "Except, I kind of knew that I was also separate from it somehow. Like my goddess dreams."

  "Goddess dreams?" Quin's voice perked up a tiny bit.

  I coughed. "Yeah, I told you about the dreams, right?"

  "Not in much detail."

  Well yeah because of the PDA. "It wasn't like the dreams, just the feeling of being in a dream." Don't blush, don't blush. "Like I was watching myself. And I had a plan, I was supposed to talk to him about some things, and I ended up not talking about them at all."

  "Does he know you're a goddess now?"

  "I don't think so. I haven't even told Sol."

  "Coffee, Quin?" said Tita Carmen, from the kitchen.

  "Yes, Tita, also for Diego please," Quin answered.

  "So is he one of us?" I asked, nearly whispering. "One of you, I mean? Who else could have messed with my head like that, right?"

  Quin shook his head. "If one of the other gods showed up here, we would have known."

  "Maybe he's good at hiding."

  Quin didn't buy that. "None of us can hide from one another."

  Diego shook his head. "You'd like to think so."

  Tita Carmen, a more petite version of my mother, arrived with a tray that had three mugs. We were silent as she served each of us. I could
n't wait until she left, because I wanted to hear Quin and Diego argue again. I was learning a lot more from it than a regular training day.

  Quin remained silent though, just watching as Tita Carmen returned to the kitchen. He stirred, maybe to speak, but instead tapped my wrist. Reassuring, but not informative.

  So I spoke up. "Maybe he's a new guy? Because it's possible, right? If you could make me into a goddess..."

  "He is not a new god," Quin said, as if the very idea were crazy.

  "Well he's something." Diego straightened up, ready to go. "I'll find out what."

  "What do I do?" I asked.

  "Nothing," Quin said. "Stay away from him."

  "But if he's a dangerous new god I have to keep him away from Sol—"

  "Hannah, stop it. You can't do anything about this. You're going to have to let me handle it. And he is not a new god, absolutely no way, because if he were he wouldn't have been able to overpower you. You would be a generation above him. That's just how it works."

  Does it? I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn't wind up arguing. Because you broke the rules already when you brought me along for this ride. You mean no one else can do the same?

  Chapter 10

  Peanut butter spaghetti sounded like something I would like, in theory. I liked peanut butter. I liked Filipino-style spaghetti, especially when it was unapologetically sweet and artificially red, with foreign elements like hotdogs thrown in. But now that I was chewing the mashup version, I wasn't sure how to feel about the entire thing.

  "Do you like it?" I asked dinner companion/date Robbie, who was chewing thoughtfully over on his side of the table too.

  "Oh I do," he said. "I'm just waiting for you to throw up, or something."

  "I'm fine," I said super enthusiastically. "I don't hate it... It's just..."

  "I get it."

  "I haven't decided yet." I didn't want to be a whiner on my first date, ever.

  Not that he ever said the word. And I wasn't saying it either. But as far as I was concerned, it may as well be, since it had all the signs.

  Weekend, no school or any school activity.

  He picked me up from my tita's house.

  I wasn't wearing flip flops or sneakers.

  He paid for the meal.

  The fifth sign? He thought this was a date. He was thinking about it so much, I could hear it between chews.

  It was probably why I wasn't nervous at all on this momentous occasion. It kind of boosted the ego, knowing exactly how much he liked me. It was a relief too, after being friends with Quin for a year and not knowing why he was hanging out with me, what his intentions were.

  On the other hand, regarding Robbie, all his intentions were being beamed right into my ear:

  She looks perfect.

  I want to kiss her.

  I wonder if she'll let me have her leftover spaghetti.

  Transparent as the ice water in my glass. It was comforting. Some of his thoughts were kind of weird, but overall, comforting.

  It just occurred to me that, if I stayed Goddess of Love all my life, I wouldn't need to be nervous at a date ever again.

  "Did you audition for the reality show?" he asked, because his brain prodded him to say something.

  "Of course not."

  "What do you mean, of course not? You'd be great at it."

  "A camera crew wouldn't want to follow me around. I'm sure they'd get a queen bee like Vida anyway."

  "No they didn't. I can't believe you don't know this yet! They got Kathy Martin."

  "As in Kathy Martin my friend?"

  One thing I should say about the celebrity culture of our small school: Vida Castillo, senior, was as good as royalty as we got on a daily basis. Kathy Martin, on the other hand, was practically invisible. At least, she was a shy and pleasant person who didn't really stand out, when I first met her. Except that, last year, she seemed to have come out of her shell and got herself noticed by several guys, one of whom started sending her gifts anonymously. Turned out it was Jake, a cute guy in our class, and they were dating exclusively right now.

  I kind of helped them out there.

  But the main thing was? Good for Kathy. Not invisible after all.

  "Vida auditioned, but they didn't get her," Robbie said.

  "Wow," I said. "She must be pissed about that."

  Robbie gave me the dirt about how he saw Vida storm into the gym and yell at Quin. "It's just a television show," Quin had said. Which of course made her turn into a shade of red and she made just as loud and angry an exit. You'd think that Vida would act with more subtlety, but I guess she thought of the world—especially a small college like Ford River—as her playground. We didn't deserve common courtesy.

  "Why would Quin have anything to do with it though?" Robbie wondered. His confusion was understandable; he didn't know his friends were gods. To him, they were probably just acting strange.

  "He's not very exciting," I offered. "He wouldn't understand why being on TV would matter to anyone."

  "How long have you two been friends?"

  The question was perfectly casual, but something in his tone just completely changed.

  He was nervous.

  Don't say he's an ex don't say he's an ex bounced around his head.

  "Just a year or so," I said, and I sounded perfectly casual too. "He just needed my help with, um, a project."

  "I just noticed you two are really close," he added. "He comes over your house often, right?"

  "Homework."

  "But he's a senior. You help a senior with his homework?"

  I coughed. "He's a bit slow. His English grammar kind of sucks."

  You help with homework every day? was the next thought in Robbie's mind, so quickly that it felt like a slap.

  Before I knew it, I had reached across the table and taken his hand. My fingers wrapped around his, and I smiled.

  Relax, and it was a message from my mind to his, bypassing my lips entirely. You have nothing to worry about.

  (Because Quin wasn't a threat, or because Robbie had no chance against him so why bother worrying? Hannah, don't be mean.)

  It had an effect, instantly. Not that the worry went away, but I had distracted it with the equivalent of something shiny. Robbie's mind cleared up.

  Now why couldn't I have done that to Sol, and that easily?

  Quin would have been so proud of me.

  "Yeah, I guess I'm just wondering why he needs so much tutoring," Robbie said. "He's been hanging out with that cute young teacher lately too. But the guys at the team don't think she's helping him study. If you know what I mean."

  Wait a freaking second.

  "What?"

  Chapter 11

  I'm touching a cloud. I'm actually touching it.

  So it doesn't really feel like cotton candy in my hand, which is kind of disappointing.

  "It's just fog," he tells me. Of course it is. I didn't know that for sure until right this second. City girls don't know a thing about this kind of fog.

  Or being so high up that when the fog thins in places, all you see are tiny trees and they're so far away.

  My heart thumps extra every time I see it, like it's squealing. OMG OMG OMG

  "You know what our problem is?" I say to Quin, who is here beside me but feels like he just arrived, "Forgetting."

  "It's not really forgetting."

  "I don't remember what I did to make Aman so angry."

  "You didn't do anything. There's nothing to forget."

  I continue, "And you don't remember all of this. Won't remember all of this when it counts."

  "That's not how it works."

  The conversation, yet again, is incomprehensible to me. When I dream I only know that I am not Hannah. I don't look like Hannah, don't have her legs, or hair, or feet, or hands. I am someone else, someone infinitely more important. If only because I am being honored with Quin's attention in these unidentifiable places and times.

  "Maybe I know some things you don't," I s
ay, and it's one of those rare times when the goddess says what Hannah feels exactly.

  Quin sighs. "I wish you would just tell me what to do then."

  Ugh. Twenty-four years old. Denise Cabral, history teacher, on her second year of teaching at Ford River, currently taking a master's degree in education.

  I mean, she was barely out of school herself! Ford River tuition was so expensive and this was the kind of educator they were getting? What made a twenty-four-year-old think that she could teach us anything?

  So that was how I spent my work hours at the Guidance Office that Monday. Snooping around the online teachers' profiles and finding out everything I could about Denise Cabral.

  The photo that was attached to her profile was a simple shot, probably taken during one of her classes, but I did recognize her. I never took a class with her, but I had seen her around. She was very pretty.

  Mature. Smart-looking.

  How long had she and Quin been hanging out? Why didn't I know about it?

  Because you were so self-absorbed with your goddess drama. Yes, that, and I may have forgotten that life went on and there were six billion other people in the world. It wasn't like I spent twenty-four hours a day with Quin. Of course he had the time to hang out with other people.

  So so so so embarrassing. Cannot believe he never mentioned this. Haaaate.

  But no, this wasn't surprising really. This was Quin, after all.

  "Hannah, are you done with the flash drive?" Ms. Farrah Flores, guidance counselor, asked me, her face appearing right above the screen of the laptop I had been staring at.

  "I'm not, just a sec, sorry sorry..." I wasn't done with it because in the middle of copying the files (actual work) I wandered onto the faculty online portal.

  "It's okay. You're looking up Denise? Why, thinking of taking her class?"

  Busted. "Um, yeah."

  "She's great. Students love her. You'll enjoy her class, I'm sure."

  "I don't know about that."

  "Well, you and I get along."

  Ms. Farrah was so nice. I mean, she wasn't even thirty yet, and so intelligent, and pretty, and sometimes I really felt like she was more a friend...

  (Okay, so she was a lot like Denise Cabral, but Ms. Farrah was happily engaged—she told me the whole story herself—and not hanging out with college boys, as far as I knew.)