Queen of the Clueless (Interim Goddess of Love)

by Mina V. Esguerra

  I just remembered what else Ms. Farrah was.

  Devoted to me.

  "Ms. Farrah, does Ms. Cabral have a boyfriend?"

  "I don't know, Hannah. I don't really know her very well."

  I smiled sweetly. "Can you find out please, if she's with anyone right now? If she's seeing anybody, and how long she's been seeing him?"

  When you've poured your heart out to the goddess of love, you can't say no when she asks you to do something.

  When I ask you to do something.

  "Sure, Hannah," Ms. Farrah said. "I'll find out for you."

  "Thank you so much," I said, unplugging the flash drive and placing it in her hand.

  I held my breath as Ms. Farrah went back into her office, half expecting her to turn around and ask me why I had just ordered her to snoop like that.

  But she didn't.

  Chapter 12

  Confirmed: something was wrong with me.

  Because I was obsessing over whether a certain teacher was seeing a certain student? No, of course not.

  It was the fact that Sol and Diego walked into the Guidance Office together and I totally ignored it. Because Sol and Diego were not friends. Diego was not friends with anybody. Sol actually had a tiny crush on him, but they weren't on speaking terms at all. And yet they walked in together, and he stood there quietly as Sol dropped a wad of paper in front of me.

  "Why are you still here?"

  Oh crap. Three hours had apparently passed, and I was still in there. Browser tabs full of Denise Cabral's various internet footprints. There was a blog about her year of traveling and volunteer work after college graduation, a photo blog that hadn't been updated in three years, and an essay she wrote about introducing grade school kids to history, blah blah blah. No real dirt, nothing scandalous, nothing but admirable achievements and a life full of relevance.

  Sol's concerned voice dragged me out of the vortex of this. "I can't believe you cut GenPsych. Ms. Sanchez gave the final project group work and everything!"

  "I'm sorry, I was busy with important stuff."

  "GenPsych is important, Psych Major," Sol said, rolling her eyes. "You can't keep your precious clerk job here if you drop out of school. Priorities."

  I wanted to tell her that I knew all about priorities, sister. Like, I only cut class because of Goddess duty, and that was a totally unselfish reason to cut.

  "Did you spend the whole time stalking Ms. Cabral?" Sol said, a little too loudly.

  Okay, so maybe this particular cut was not so unselfish. "Why do you know her?"

  "I know people who've taken her class. And she's the prettiest teacher in school. Why are you looking her up?"

  No, it didn't work out this way. I analyzed people, not the other way around. "Am thinking of taking her class, and shut up."

  Sol shrugged, and thrust a bracelet—with the largest, gaudiest charms I'd ever seen—in my face. "Look at this. Look at this!"

  "Shiny."

  "Neil gave it to me! He was so excited about it. I have a strange feeling that someone else actually owns this ugly thing, and they'll think I stole it. I thought you were going to talk to him, Hannah!"

  "Talk to who?"

  She blinked at me. "Neil. I thought you were going to pull your guidance office mojo on him and get him some help."

  The words started coming out, and my brain only got to process it as I was hearing it. "Neil doesn't have a problem, Sol. He just really likes you. He's just doing things to make you happy."

  "What are you... What?"

  "You should never doubt him, that's all. He really cares about you. The fact that you suspect him of stealing is such a betrayal, you know."

  Wow that was weird.

  Diego folded his arms and leaned his weight against the short bookshelf near the door, but he didn't say anything.

  Sol gasped a little. "You know what? Borrow someone else's notes. I can't believe you're taking his side."

  I couldn't believe it either.

  She turned toward the door so fast that she collided right into Diego, but his eyes stayed on me.

  "New Girl, you're coming with me," he said, and it was an order.

  Chapter 13

  Sol

  Now that was annoying.

  For two people who'd only known each other for almost two years, Sol thought she had Hannah all figured out. They weren't opposites. Hannah was level-headed, and so was Sol. It was why they remained friends, because Sol had no patience for anyone who tipped too far one way or the other.

  She knew Hannah didn't think her long-distance relationship with her now-ex was going to last. Not that she said anything blunt about it, but she didn't have to. Talking about everyone else's relationships, from Ted in PE to Tamara in English, said a lot about how Hannah viewed love. She was usually spot on.

  Except when it came to her own misguided crush on the upperclassman, but even Hannah knew that.

  So maybe the reason Sol had taken her time telling Hannah about the problem with Neil was because she knew what Hannah was going to say: dump him. And Sol knew that Hannah would be right, so she didn't open up until she was ready to hear those words herself.

  But Hannah, surprisingly this time, didn't say it. "The fact that you suspect him of stealing is such a betrayal"? What? That didn't sound like Hannah at all.

  It sounded like the most weak-willed part of Sol, the part that kept saying she had a good thing right now and should be more patient about it.

  Love was sacrifice, after all.

  While Sol was walking from the strip mall, where she had dinner, to her apartment, her phone buzzed three different times. Two phone calls and a text message. She didn't even peek at it, and spent the time climbing up the stairs guessing who it was.

  Phone calls from Neil and her mom maybe.

  Text from Hannah most likely.

  It wasn't until she had showered and slipped into an old high school PE shirt did she actually check, and returned the first call.

  "Hi, babe," she said, trying not to sound tired of everything.

  "I wanted us to have dinner. You done?" Neil said.

  "Yeah, sorry, I didn't hear my phone." Sol also had three thousand pesos in her bag, which she was going to use to pay some bills this week, and she didn't want to suddenly lose it.

  She felt awful thinking that.

  "I love you," she hastily added. "I just... I didn't see you on the way out so I just went ahead and ate."

  "I hope you'd called me. We could have tried this new place in Alabang."

  "Too far, and I have some work to do anyway."

  "You've thought about telling your mom already, right? Or haven't you?"

  Sol had thought about it, but decided to pretend she hadn't. "Um, I'm calling her on her birthday anyway, I can bring it up then."

  "When will that be?"

  "Friday."

  "Sure. If you think that's best." It was just days away, but something in Neil's voice said it wasn't good enough.

  "I have homework. See you tomorrow?"

  "Love you."

  "Yeah. Love you."

  Then Sol returned the next call. "Hi, Mom." But she didn't say anything about moving in with her boyfriend.

  The text message was also from Neil, asking where she was. No text from Hannah, but that was fine. She didn't want to argue with Hannah tonight.

  Because maybe Hannah was right.

  Chapter 14

  A few months after I had gotten my scholarship at Ford River, it was decided that I would go live with my mom's sister, Tita Carmen. She had coincidentally just purchased a home near the campus, and the arrangement would save me the trouble of passing through the worst traffic jam in the universe just to go to school every day.

  Her house was nice. It was new, and I had my own room, and the gated subdivision had its own clubhouse and a pool, one I had never used until that night. Not really a swimmer.

  But Diego was right. It was quiet down here. I stayed at the shallow end, trying to
sit upright while under four feet of water, and noticed right away that the low murmur (part voice, part eerie hum) that was constantly in the background was gone.

  After month and months of working with Quin to be more acutely aware of thoughts and feelings, a break was nice. As soon as my head went underwater I only heard my own thoughts. Not that comforting given my state of mind right then, but at least I didn't have to deal with the rest of the world too.

  I lifted my head to take a breath, and promptly got splashed on the face as Diego swam past me.

  "I told you, peaceful," he said, another lap later.

  "When I'm not inhaling your water, sure," I retorted.

  "I can't believe Quin didn't tell you about this earlier."

  "I guess Quin doesn't tell me a lot of things." That was bitter, and meant to be, but I tugged at the strap of my swimsuit just then so I wouldn't have to look at Diego. Not just because I didn't want to start the Quin/Ms. Cabral conversation, but it was actually getting difficult to talk to him while in a pool together and not check him out. His body was insanely ripped, wet hair slicked back and not wildly curly, so yeah, this was suddenly all attractive to me.

  Diego wasn't my type though, as conversations with Sol in my bedroom with tubs of ice cream already established. He just felt like too much of everything.

  He inched closer to me now, gliding, very sure of himself. My knees trembled and I wrapped my arms around them to keep them steady. No one else was at the pool tonight. We had it for another hour, and then the clubhouse would close, but Diego said it was enough time. I wondered what the guards thought of us, two college kids hanging out at the pool at night. It would have been nothing, except I caught a glance at myself in the mirror and my three-year-old boring black one-piece suit looked sexy all of a sudden. I had picked up some curves between last summer and now.

  So the two of us walking to the pool together, it didn't look innocent to me. Nothing Diego did ever looked innocent.

  Diego nudged my bare shoulder with his. "You ready?"

  "For what?"

  "To talk."

  Not what I expected him to say. Not even in the top ten of things Diego would say.

  The problem of Neil, as far as our resident college gods were concerned, was they weren't sure what he was exactly.

  He was a thief, sure. He was responsible for all three of the reported thefts on campus and then some, but he wasn't going around picking people's pockets. Neil was asking for things, and people were giving them to him. It might have started with small things, and then later he had upgraded to cash and fancy gadgets. The thing was, even if you had him on camera doing these things, you would just see him asking for something and the person actually willingly giving it. Then forgetting they did, so they would go reporting it as stolen, if it was valuable enough.

  "Isn't that just like what we do?" How we treated those devoted to us.

  Yes, Diego said, and he was annoyed by it. Neil's "talent" wasn't special. Unlike, say, authority over love, work, dreams and the waking world, those were some of the things that were split up and assigned a god each. No sharing, so the gods fought if they wanted more.

  The ability to compel and command human beings was something every god could do. It was the most basic of powers. They didn't fight over this, ever.

  "Surely you've encountered special human beings before," I said. "People who can have that same effect on other people."

  "You're not just another person now, New Girl," Diego said.

  And if it has come to the point that gods had the power to compel each other then all was not right with things. Those were not the rules by which they had been abiding.

  He added, "And your boyfriend doesn't want to spend time doing something about this anomaly."

  "Who?" I had to ask. For some reason, Robbie was the first person who came to mind.

  "Neil," Diego said, missing my confusion entirely. "Quin doesn't want anything done to Neil. I think it's irresponsible to let him walk around. He'll be dangerous, once he realizes the extent of what he can do to people. Or to gods."

  "Is Quin spending all his time with the history teacher now? While you and I are talking about saving the universe?"

  Diego shrugged. "Do you want to know what I want to do?"

  "Please."

  "I want to get my hands on this guy and find out how to shut him off. What do you want to do?"

  I paused, and dunked my head under water again. It was too big a question for me, and I instinctively wished Quin was within earshot so I could ask him. But first and foremost, my friend was in love with this "anomaly," and I had to keep her safe.

  Diego dipped under as well, and we just floated there watching each other. My vision was blurry, but my mind seemed clearer.

  Chapter 15

  "...I don't know. Maybe I'm imagining it? Because when his friends are around, nothing. It's like I don't exist."

  "Do you think he's being mean about it?" I asked, discreetly checking my phone for the time. My next class was in ten minutes. "Because he could just be, I don't know, a guy. Sometimes they just act like idiots around girls."

  Mara, the same girl I practiced my powers on recently, the one who was waiting for a phone call from Franco, shook her head vehemently. "No, he's not mean. He's super nice to me, every time. He just never follows through. He'll say he wants to see me at the reality show launch, but then he won't bring it up again next time I see him..."

  I might have yawned a little bit, but quickly bit my lip to hide it. See, Mara was pouring her heart out to me just then, as anyone devoted to the Goddess of Love should, but I had heard this before. Apparently, so many students at Ford River—or at least the ones who would summon me—were pining for someone. Unrequited Love City. At first it was easy to sympathize (I was Mayor of Unrequited Love City), but after a few months, it got old.

  The answer was simple. Did he/she like you or not? Most often the person who summoned me didn't want to know the answer. They wallowed in the not knowing, because deep down they knew it was all they had.

  Mara was cute and all, and she didn't deserve this. Because I knew the answer.

  I knew that Franco didn't like her that way. He liked someone else, but if it didn't work out with Sunny (and Tia and Charmaine), then he would actually bother to ask out Mara. He wasn't trying to be hurtful. He was being a guy.

  As we sat on a bench under the walkway connecting the West and South buildings, Mara told me her tale, and I saw into her memories of loving this guy. From last night's long talk with her best friend, to last week's series of small humiliations when he would ignore her on campus, all the way back to when they first met while campaigning for Student Council together.

  I mean, this wasn't an emergency. How long did I want to let Mara feel like this?

  Also, I had a class in eight minutes.

  I gripped her wrist, so quickly that she let out a little yelp. "Mara," I said, looking right into her eyes, "Franco doesn't like you that way. You're Plan C at best. You're going to forget this crush you have on him, and enjoy the rest of the school year, and by this summer you'll wonder why you ever devoted this much energy to him."

  Petite Mara seemed to shrink even more before my eyes, but she didn't resist me.

  I was her goddess.

  "Okay," she said, her voice small. "That makes sense."

  "It does. And you have a class right now, don't you?"

  "I have to go," she said, smiling weakly.

  There was something about her as she walked away. She looked defeated. She'd feel better in the morning, I knew it, once she realized what a burden I had lifted from her shoulders.

  "You could have done that better." And beside me all of a sudden, Quin's voice of judgment.

  I shrugged, looking up at him like I had it all under control. "Someone needs to tell her to stop. A clean break is better."

  He didn't join me on the bench. In fact he looked a little tense. "It was callous. Different people cope in different way
s."

  I tried to shake that sad look on her face from my memory. "She'll live."

  "Hannah, did you command Farrah Flores to spy on Denise?"

  I felt my face heat up. "I asked her to find out if Ms. Cabral was seeing anyone."

  "Why would you do that?"

  Oh wow. He looked this close to angry. I coughed to hide what might be a stutter. "Maybe it's for a project. I kind of make it my job to know these things now, right? Why should it matter to you?"

  "Farrah Flores entrusted herself to you on faith. You do not abuse that for selfish reasons."

  Great! Callous and selfish and it wasn't even three p.m. yet!

  "I wasn't being selfish," I said, with more conviction than I thought I could have. "At some point you're going to have to stop watching over me so closely. I need space to make my own decisions."

  "You shouldn't lie to me."

  A chill went down my spine and I physically fought not to let it show. "I'm not lying to you."

  "Hannah, you can't do this if you don't trust me."

  What did Ms. Farrah do? Because the request itself wasn't an invasion of privacy. What was so horrible about finding out if he and Ms. Cabral were a couple? Because if he was hiding something from me, then shouldn't I be making all the fuss about trust?

  "Are you protecting her so she won't lose her job?" I blurted out.

  Quin's expression changed. I pushed some kind of button. The fact that I got any kind of reaction from him made me tipsy with power, and I let this out too: "Because other students are talking about it, Quin. I mean, if you wanted to protect her, you should be giving this pep talk to a few dozen other people. Just so the rumors don't reach the Dean of Student Affairs. I mean, to everyone else you're still a student."

  When I was saying that, I was imagining I was Vida. Confident, cold Vida, who didn't think I was ready for this.

  Behind his head, a bolt of lightning streaked somewhere over the hills. It was sunny where we were, but overcast on the other side of the creek.