Crazy Cupid Love

by Amanda Heger

  Her mother nodded. “We found some great old photos when we were cleaning it out last summer.”

  Ever since Eliza could remember, her parents had owned the little cabin on the outskirts of town. While she was growing up, her family spent a few weeks there every year—whenever both her parents could get enough time away from the business. They’d go waterskiing, build giant sandcastles, and see who could eat the most hot dogs from the stand on the beach. The rest of the year, they rented the cabin out to tourists. That rent had put both Elijah and Eliza through college. But last year, without any warning, her parents had sold the cabin to a property developer.

  So long, childhood memories.

  But it felt good to have a little piece of that back. Eliza stood and wrapped her arms around her dad. He felt thinner than she remembered. “Thank you,” she said.

  He patted her arm. “It was your mother who found them.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  She nodded and handed Eliza a piece of cake. “Of course.”

  “Even then I was the better-looking twin.” Elijah kicked back like he was totally nonplussed, but she could see his emotions in the way he cocked his chin ever so slightly.

  “Sure you were.” Eliza reached into the plastic grocery bag at her feet. “Here. Your real present is on its way.”

  Elijah glanced at the unsigned card and broken candy bar before raising an eyebrow.

  “Don’t ask,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m definitely asking. But first…” He stood and picked up a box half-hidden behind the counter. “I think I really outdid myself this year.”

  “What exactly is that supposed to mean?” Over the years, her brother had given her dozens of gag gifts. A subscription to the jelly-of-the-month club, a singing telegram, two live chickens. Eliza couldn’t imagine him outdoing any of those.

  He dropped the giant box onto the table. “Let’s just say Mom and Dad weren’t the only ones who wanted to revisit the good old days.” He gestured toward the box with a flourish. He’d wrapped it in old newspaper comics and sealed it with duct tape.

  “I’m going to regret opening this, aren’t I?” she asked.

  “Definitely.”

  “There’s nothing alive in here, right?”

  Elijah shrugged.

  She narrowed her eyes and stared at the box, trying to discern whether this day could get worse. Not a chance. Eliza stood and grabbed a knife from one of the drawers before sliding it straight down the middle of the duct tape. With a tug, she pried open the box and squinted into the shadows. Tufts of multicolored crepe paper. A string. A tail. Her cheeks burned, and she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Seriously?”

  Her brother gave her an all-too-innocent look. “What?”

  “What is it?” her mom asked.

  Eliza pulled the “gift” out of the box and set it on the table for all to see. The two-foot-tall donkey piñata stared back at her. The dopey smile on his pink, green, and yellow face was almost a taunt. I can ruin your whole life if you let me.

  “Elijah,” her mother whispered. “You know Eliza is sensitive about birthdays.”

  “I can still hear you, Mom.”

  Eliza sighed as she studied her brother’s gift. Not only was she sensitive about birthdays, she was particularly sensitive about birthdays involving piñatas. Twenty-one years ago, on her eighth birthday, she’d stood in her parents’ backyard among a utopia of cake and presents. While her entire second-grade class watched, her father covered her eyes with an old necktie and handed her Elijah’s old Louisville Slugger.

  “I want to go first,” Elijah had whined.

  “Relax,” their dad had said. “You’ll get a chance.”

  “One! Two! Three!” Her classmates shouted along as her father spun her round and round. For one terrifying moment, all the cake and ice cream Eliza had shoved down her throat threatened to come back up. But she was not about to puke in front of everyone. Especially not Jonathan Ellis, the love of her eight-year-old life.

  Eliza had focused on the grass tickling her toes over the edge of her sandals. With a deep breath, she set her jaw and cocked her elbow back.

  “Eliza!” her mother shouted. “Wait—”

  But it was too late. The adrenaline and sugar flowed through Eliza’s veins. She took the biggest swing she could muster.

  Thwap.

  She should have known better.

  Piñatas weren’t that soft. The collective gasp of her classmates wasn’t filled with excitement. And, most importantly, Eliza was a klutz with a high probability of having “the knack.”

  But she didn’t know better. Instead, Eliza tore the necktie away, blinked hard against the sunlight, and dove to the ground to collect her hard-earned candy.

  Where bright boxes of Nerds and tiny Hershey bars should have been lay little Johnny Ellis curled into the fetal position. He clutched his left arm against his body, and his eyelids fluttered before they opened wide and met Eliza’s.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Her brain flicked back and forth between a half dozen scenarios involving an ambulance, Jonathan’s parents, and whether kids could do jail time for assault with sports equipment. Then a hand closed around her ankle.

  “Eliza,” Johnny whispered. “You’re pretty. Really pretty. I got you a present for your birthday, but I want to get you another one. A better one.” His whole body blushed. “Do you have roller skates? We should go to the skating rink. They have a couple’s skate. You hold hands. I want to hold your hand.” The questions and proclamations kept coming, faster and faster, until Eliza’s head spun with them.

  Her mother pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. Her dad let out a whoop. Her classmates stared at her in waves of alternating shock and horror as Eliza’s worst fears were confirmed: she, like both of her parents, was a Cupid.

  And that’s when the vomit flew. All over Johnny, all over herself, all over everything and everyone within a three-foot radius. She’d become the laughingstock of Gold Lea Elementary, a title that stuck even harder after an embarrassed and overcompensating Jonathan Ellis told all their classmates that he’d seen her running around in a diaper while shooting neighborhood dogs with her bow to make them fall in love with her.

  Eliza shook her head, forcing away the memories. Twenty-one years later and the sight of piñatas still gave her the willies.

  She put the donkey back in the box and shoved it across the table. “Nope. Not happening. Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Come on,” Elijah said. “Don’t you want to face your phobia?”

  “Not even a little.”

  “What if there’s something awesome inside?”

  Eliza crossed her arms. “Is there?”

  Her brother shrugged.

  Eliza had never, not once, been able to resist one of Elijah’s stupid games. And he knew it. But maybe today would be the day. A new year in her life would be the perfect time to square her shoulders, ignore Elijah’s—

  “Really, really awesome,” Elijah said.

  Or maybe tomorrow was the day. No one should have to exercise self-restraint on their birthday, after all. And who was she to look a gift horse donkey in the mouth? She closed her eyes as she lifted the piñata back out of the box. Holding it as far from herself as humanly possible, Eliza gave it a shake.

  Wsssh, wsssh.

  She shook it again. There was definitely something inside. A lot of somethings. Before her brother could get any big ideas about blindfolds or baseball bats, Eliza opened her eyes and flipped the donkey on its back. She punched in the trapdoor on its stomach and reached her whole hand inside.

  Elijah reached for the donkey. “Hey! That’s cheating!”

  She pulled it away, and inside the piñata, her fingers closed around something flat and thin. Plastic maybe. “What is this?” She p
ulled her hand back, but she couldn’t get the base of her thumb past the donkey’s stomach. “Shit. My hand’s stuck.”

  “Kids,” her mom chided.

  “Sorry, Mom,” they said in unison.

  Eliza let go of the thin pieces of plastic and yanked harder. The base of her thumb scraped against the opening but didn’t quite come out. She tried to make her hand as small as possible. No dice. “Here.” Eliza turned to her brother, piñata hanging off her fist like a bizarre sock puppet. “Help me pull.”

  “Kids,” her mom said again, this time her voice raised a notch. “I think—”

  At that moment, Eliza and Elijah each pulled. The donkey ripped straight down the middle, its contents exploding across the kitchen table, pelting them like shrapnel.

  Condoms. A shower of condoms. All colors. All sizes.

  “Very funny, Elijah. So mature,” Eliza said. She picked up the nearest condom to throw it at him (also very mature) but stopped short when she saw the label. “Fried chicken flavor? Really?”

  “Look at this one.” Elijah held out a green package.

  “Dill pickle,” Eliza read. “No thank you.” She inspected a condom labeled “sweet tea,” another that claimed to be “fish and chips,” and one marked “peach cobbler.”

  “Where the heck did you get these?” she asked, pocketing the peach cobbler and hoping her parents didn’t notice.

  “I have my sources,” Elijah said.

  “Elijah! Eliza!” their mother shouted, her tone sharp and frantic.

  Eliza whipped around. Her father’s face was so pale he looked nearly transparent, and his eyes bulged from their sockets. “Dad?”

  He clutched his shoulder and slumped toward the table.

  Eliza’s brain screeched to a halt. She forgot about the condom-filled piñata. She forgot about the half-eaten birthday cake. She forgot about breathing. All she could do was watch the life slowly drain from her father’s face.

  “Tim, Tim.” Her mother’s eyes glazed with tears. “Oh gods. It’s happening again. Oh gods. One of you call 911.”

  Oh no, not again.

  Eliza numbly fumbled for her phone, but Elijah already had his to his ear. “Yes, this is Elijah Herman. My address is 342 Coronado Avenue. I think my father is having a heart attack.”

  Chapter 2

  Cupid Rules of Professional Conduct § 7.1. Persons engaged in Cupiding shall be prohibited from advertisement as Dr. Love, the Heart Doctor, or similar monikers unless separately licensed with their state of residence to practice cardiology.

  Eliza’s flip-flops smacked worn linoleum as she paced the waiting room floor.

  Thwack, thwack, thwack. Turn. Thwack, thwack, thwack. Turn. Thwack—

  “Eliza, please.” Her mother didn’t look up from the stack of forms in her lap, but her voice shook like a skyscraper mid-earthquake. “I can’t think.”

  Eliza couldn’t think either. And she definitely couldn’t sit. Her mind spun a hundred and eighty degrees every second, whipping her insides around with it. Her father had made it through this the last time. Certainly that meant he could make it through again. Or maybe his luck had run out. Had she told him how much she loved him? Was it even possible to tell him how much she loved him?

  Her dad had always been her rock. The one she’d gone to with scrapes and bruises as a kid. The one she’d spilled her heartaches to as a teenager. The one who’d never gotten angry or pushed back when she’d announced her intention to quit the Cupid business. He’d simply accepted her, flaws and all, like he always had.

  Eliza glanced at her brother. He took up two chairs in the corner, his legs stretched across them both. He clenched his hands into fists as he glared at the swinging door separating them from the emergency room. Eliza didn’t need to ask what he was thinking. The lines across his forehead said it all.

  Thwack, thwack, thwack. Turn. Thwack, thwack, thwack. Turn. Thwack—

  “Eliza!” her mother and Elijah said in unison.

  She forced her feet to still, but the wave of adrenaline-induced panic wouldn’t cooperate. She twisted her hands into fists and stared at the television on the wall. An infomercial blared from the speakers, and Eliza tried to wrangle her nervous energy into making out the words. If she could force even .000001 percent of it into paying attention to the TV, it would be a small, sweet relief from the anxiety pounding at her temples. And then maybe time would begin to move again.

  “The Mandroid 3000 is a very personal assistant,” the pretty blond on the television said. “Its appearance is fully customizable, right down to its shape and size. The all-new operating system also makes the Mandroid capable of interaction and learning new skills. And if that weren’t enough, the responsive touch screen…”

  Nope. Eliza turned away, her brain sprinting back to its rabbit hole of anxiety. They’d been in the waiting room for nearly an hour now with no news. Was her father somewhere in the back, cracking jokes and eating Jell-O with the nurses? Or was he already making his way across the River Styx?

  Thwack, thwack, thwack.

  The burn of her mother’s glare seared her skin. Eliza ignored it. Instead, she marched to the check-in desk. “Hi. I was wondering if there are any updates on my father? Tim Herman. He came in—”

  The nurse straightened her bun and gave Eliza a sympathetic smile. “Nothing yet, but I’ll tell the doctors he has family waiting for an update. As soon as they know something, I’m sure they’ll be out to talk with you.”

  Eliza thwack, thwack, thwacked her way back to her brother. He raised his head, and the tears lingering at the corners of his eyes nearly broke her. “I can’t believe this is happening again,” he said, and the pain in his voice did break her.

  The last time she’d almost lost her father, she’d been sixteen. All four of them were at the lake house, and Eliza had sat curled up on the couch with a book while her mom drank wine on the porch. Elijah and her dad had gone off on some beach excursion that involved ATVs, sand, and a sack lunch—all recipes for disaster as far as Eliza had been concerned. The last thing she needed was to run over someone’s foot and end up with an inadvertent admirer.

  Eliza had been so deep into her true crime novel that she didn’t look up when the front door swung open. “That was quick.” She was mid-page-turn when her brother’s voice rang out.

  “Call an ambulance, Liza. Now.”

  The moment she saw her brother’s face, her stomach lurched and her book hit the floor. Whatever had happened was bad. Very bad.

  A phone call, a rush of panic, and an ambulance ride later, the three of them had sat in this same waiting room while her dad had bypass surgery.

  “He was okay then, and he’s going to be okay now,” Eliza said.

  Elijah nodded, but he looked less than convinced.

  Just then, a woman in green scrubs and a white coat came out from behind the Employees Only door. “Family of Tim Herman?”

  Eliza instinctively grabbed her brother’s hand. They were pretty different as twins went, but in all the ways that mattered, they were better than identical—they were complementary. Like popcorn and M&M’s. Ice cream and potato chips. And Eliza knew her brother needed her as much as she needed him.

  “Right this way.” The doctor led them through a maze of cubicles, stretchers, and harried nurses. At the end of the labyrinth, she held back a curtain and nodded for them to pass through.

  “Dad.” The word rocketed out of Eliza’s chest, taking all her breath with it. But her dad wasn’t in there. The bed sat empty with only a pile of her father’s rumpled belongings in the center. All the blood rushed by her ears, dulling every sound except the manic thumping of her heart. “Where is he?”

  “No one told you?”

  Oxygen ceased to exist. Eliza ceased to exist.

  The doctor shook her head. “My apologies. Someone was supposed to talk w
ith you already. Cardiology just finished his catheterization a few minutes ago. They found a blockage, but they were able to place a stent—”

  “He’s alive?” Elijah asked.

  The doctor nodded. “And we’re cautiously optimistic. He’ll be out of recovery in just a little while, and then we’ll move him to the cardiac unit until tomorrow at least. You’ll be able to visit him once he’s awake, but we do have a limit of one visitor at a time. When he goes home, I’d like to enroll him in a cardiac rehabilitation program.”

  Eliza’s mother covered her face with her hands and sank into a nearby chair. “Oh, thank the gods.”

  “Again, I’m so sorry,” the doctor said. Her cheeks pinkened. “Truly, truly sorry. I’ll talk with someone to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

  Elijah let out a long, low breath and dropped Eliza’s hand. The room filled with oxygen again. Her father was going to be okay. He father was really going to be okay. And she could tell him how much she loved him. She slumped into the nearest seat—a wheeled stool meant for a medical professional—and immediately rolled it over the doctor’s toe.

  The woman let out a yelp, and the smallest shimmer floated up from her foot.

  “Don’t look at me!” Eliza screeched. Which, of course, only drew the pretty doctor’s gaze straight to Eliza.

  Elijah shot up from his chair. “Holy shit, Eliza. What are you doing?” he demanded. “Look away.”

  But it was too late. She could feel the doctor’s stare.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Eliza squeezed her hands into fists, Don’t look at me still echoing through her brain. What was wrong with her? Clearly, the stress of this day was making her too stupid to live.

  Please don’t match me. Please think I’m a hideous hosebeast. Please. With the right—or in this case, wrong—mix of hormones and pheromones, this whole thing would stay a simple accident. But if their hormones and pheromones matched—a complex, confusing, poorly understood phenomenon called attraction—being injured would cause her to fall into deep and serious infatuation with the first person she saw. It would be Old Man Vannerson all over again.