by Cat Bruno
When I returned home, William did not rise from the couch, so I called out a greeting and raced to the shower. Over an hour later, I sat next to him. A few feet away, two men discussed Alabama’s new running back.
“We need to call off the wedding.”
The words came as quickly as the thought had. As I showered, washing the remnants of another man’s child from between my legs, the mist that had concealed my thoughts twirled upward and free and escaped between the blades of the exhaust fan.
“Real funny, Dani,” he stated without looking away from the television.
On the geometrically designed table beside him stood a nearly empty bottle of whiskey.
By then, I had nothing left to lose.
“I know about Elizabeth.”
His hands wrapped around my throat with an unordinary speed. He did not squeeze, not yet. Instead, he pinned me to the couch, pushing just hard enough that I could not move, but I remained alert and awake. As his eyes, wet with whiskey and large with anger, looked down at me, I could think of nothing else but the shroud of divinity that I had let go as I showered. I am goddess-born; that did not change. But what had been altered was my decision to live as a mortal, as Dandelion Jackman. And so I released her.
I have been entirely too foolish lately, I admit. Allowing Nemesis to fade was another mistake on a path that has been muddied by my own missteps. As William screamed at me and threatened to destroy my life if I did not marry him, I begged Nemesis to return.
William loosened his hands enough so that I could answer, and I sang the prettiest song. One of contrition and acceptance, a promise to forget and forgive. But I meant none of it.
Not one word. When he released me, I rolled from the couch and crawled to the bathroom.
That is where my true penance came. On my knees, in the shower, half-wet and shaking.
Please come back! I begged. Zeus, god of all gods, grant me immortality once more. Hail to you, the father of all things. Let the muses hear my plea and lift the sounds to high Olympus. Bless me, be kind in your heart and allow me to join your ranks once more. You who is all-wise, see the truth that lies in my heart.
Not to Poseidon or Pallas Athena did I pray. Nor Hera or Selene or the oldest of us all, the Titans. It is Zeus who stills rules the golden heavens and to him alone did I beg an audience. Did the shining-eyed Muses hear me? Did their honey-sweet voices carry my song past the golden gates? When the rains came a short time later, I rushed outside, wearing little more than a silky robe and a thick menstrual pad. Oh how I spun and spun in celebration and gratitude as the skies welcomed me home.
I had been warned, my friends. My immortality taken from me as a punishment and also as a reminder of whom I would become without it. As Dandelion, I bled and wept and nearly died without breath. But as Nemesis, I soared high.
A short time later, I climbed into bed, with my hair dripping and my skin wrinkled. However, I slept well that night, grateful for a second chance.
6 Days until I Do
We both acted as if he did not want to strangle me the night before. Much to my surprise, there was no bruising around my neck, which made it easier for us both to pretend that nothing of the sort occurred. You must be wondering, as I have quite often, why we both chose to stay together. For William, the answer comes quickly, although I never dared to ask. He was days away from getting married and months away from announcing a run for an Ohio State Senate seat. A broken engagement (and who knows what I would reveal) would be the death of his career, whereas a bad marriage was common for politicians. Once, he dared to voice his own concerns regarding our future. Sober, he realized his folly.
Why did I stay? Only for revenge.
That temporary reprieve – when my mortal self emerged and sought peace – had been extinguished when the heavenly waters baptized me with godhood. Almost dying does that, I guess. Nothing in my day to day life changed, however. I met Toby like I promised, arriving with skin that glittered with a youthful glow and another maxi pad between my legs.
While other people went to church or shopping (or, like William, to meet with potential donors), Toby and I shared a few bottles of wine and worked on name placards and wedding favors. Neither of us could resist sampling a few of the chocolates, and so we spent the day sipping white wine (I could no longer stomach red) and ordering food off the Inn’s exquisite menu. Near 6:00 pm, William arrived.
He was not alone, which helped.
“Oh, look who decided to show his pretty face,” Toby cooed as my fiancé and another black-suited man walked across the reception room.
If William was angry by my friend’s words, he did not show it; a toothy smile made his cheeks rise and his eyes glisten.
Leaning down to kiss me, he eyed Toby and teased, “You’ll make me blush if you keep flirting with me like that, especially in front of my very distinguished guest.” To me, he said, “Dani, I’d like you to meet Congressmen Steven Bennett, who has very graciously decided to endorse me.”
I rose quickly to shake Representative Bennett’s hand.
“We met once before,” I told him sweetly, fully aware that he would not recall our brief introduction. “Years ago, when you were campaigning, there was an incident involving one of your offices; some windows had been broken in protest. I was sent to photograph it for the Gazette, and you stopped by.”
Holding my hand a bit longer than necessary, he said, “I remember the break-in, but sadly do not remember meeting you. However, from the looks and sounds of things, you will make one hell of a addition to William’s team.”
A short time later, all four of us walked to the Inn’s restaurant. William reached for my hand as we entered, which I welcomed. For the next two hours, I played the part that was expected of me. I eyed William with an appropriate combination of longing and shyness and spoke vaguely but passionately when addressed. Having not expected William and the Congressman, neither Toby nor I were dressed as we would have preferred. But even that was laughed off. How odd that I enjoyed myself that night.
Did William stop by Elizabeth’s house hours later, after he dropped Representative Bennett at his hotel? Or had he ended things with her? Honestly, I was tempted to take a bus to her house. Instead, I filled the bathtub and waited until foamy, orange- blossomed bubbles covered the water. Once I lay in the tub, I played music on my cell phone and leaned back on a plush towel. For the next hour, I half-dozed, only rousing to warm up the water.
All of a sudden, I woke and sat up forcefully. The movement sent water – the bubbles had dulled – splashing over the tub’s edge. Around me, drum beats banged, slowly and with an odd foreboding. When I tried to rise from the tub, I could not, yet I was still alone in the bathroom. Again I tried to push myself upright, but the water around me sucked me back down. Should I scream or call William? How long would it take Toby to reach me? He, at least, had saved me once before. I could feel my lungs struggling for air, despite my head being above water. My chest burned and ached, as if stones had been piled high there.
What have I done now? I thought with increasing fear.
Streaks of pain, jagged and hot like lightning, blazed down my arm. All I could do was hold myself and rock, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Waves crested around me, inviting me to eternal slumber beneath the sea.
Is this your work, god of the deep? Does your trident strike at my breast and cause these flames of agony? Does your chariot ride upon these waves as you come for me? Who imprisons me in the waters of Lake Lerna, the depths unknown and home to the terrible Hydra? Or do the waves of the Alcyonian Lake flow around me? I have heard the tales of those who have tried to cross its waters; they sink and never rise for breath.
The taste of salt upon my tongue made me cough and gag. I wiped at my forehead with a washcloth in an attempt to dry the perspiration that streamed down my face. Even though the bath waters had cooled, I could not. My hair, which had not yet been shampooed, stuck to the edges of my face and stunk of sweat. My e
yes narrowed as I battled a rising urge to vomit.
And I spun, dizzy and wet, caught in an invisible whirlpool.
It was nearly midnight by the time the current released me. First, my legs softened; my quadriceps ached from being contracted for so long. Slowly, the fiery beams that had shot through my body fizzled, and the heaviness across my chest lifted. Who had yanked the boulders from my body and pulled me from the floodwaters?
Today, as I write this, I still have no answer.
My memory of that night has been grayed over with time’s blanket of fog, but I do recall how I climbed out of the tub as soon as I had regained use of my limbs. William was home and asleep by the time I made my way into the bedroom.
“Where have you been?” he asked hoarsely as I collapsed beside him.
“Sorry for waking you. I fell asleep in the tub.”
“I need to go into the office tomorrow, but plan on taking the rest of the week off,” he told me before sleep embraced him once more.
Several hours later, when it became clear that I could not sleep, I moved to the couch. For another hour, I stared at the television, uninterested in the late night movie that played. When it ended, a rush of commercials aired, none of which I remember. But, then, sometime before dawn, a trailer played for an upcoming superhero release.
The video – an artsy combination of hand-drawn comic strips and fast-paced action scenes – had been shot with low lighting. As a result, the trailer was edgy and shadowy, reflective of a different, darker tone than its predecessors. In the final seconds of the clip, I heard a familiar voice.
Down with money, down with plight. Down with government and their unholy might.
I hadn’t known that the Moon Kings hit had been chosen for the soundtrack. In truth, I didn’t know much about Mickey’s band and had deliberately kept it so. But this was unavoidable. As I replayed the trailer, leaning close to the speaker toward the end, I shivered. The movie was a long awaited one, and the exposure that the band would get could not be overestimated. Glory played atop a scene where no one spoke. Mickey’s raspy crooning was the only sound to be heard as a masked man leapt onto a vehicle with opaque windows and a federal enforcement seal on the driver’s side door.
Rise up, rise up, rise up to seize what is your right. When justice does not come, make it your fight.
Do not think that I do not hate myself, friends. I loved him. I still do. I’ve loved him through many lifetimes, across seas, atop mountains, and beneath earth. In this lifetime, with pale mortal skin covering my body and Dandelion’s blood mixing with my ichor, I could not go to him. And for that, he called upon our gods to punish me. Who else could it be that wished such pain and misery onto me? It was the gods who had set me upon this path and who had given me the sword and scales of justice. My duty has always been to punish those who commit evil deeds. Retribution must come, or balance does not exist. The gods did not punish me for planning to kill William; they wanted me to kill him! No, they punished me for causing heartache to their beloved hero.
I suppose that everyone will despise me by the time my story ends. An executioner has no friends.
5 Days until I Do
Islept through William’s leaving and Toby’s calls and texts. By the time I checked my phone, I had nearly a dozen messages, each more urgent than the one before, to Toby anyway. For me, nothing mattered much. The reception hall would be beautiful, my gown perfect, and the guests well fed and drunk. But I knew I must pretend, so I called Toby back and feigned illness.
“That wine with dinner made me super sick,” I moaned into the speaker as I drove to meet him. “I did have a glass of whiskey when I got home, so maybe it was that.”
Lying to William had become easy, mostly because I mimicked him so thoroughly. But lying to Toby covered me with a coat of shame, like an ice cream cone dipped in butterscotch that melts too quickly.
“Just get here, Dandelion. The cake mock up looks terrible. I don’t know how we are going to work with this baker.”
“Don’t you mean designer?” I teased, remembering how the bakery chef wanted to be identified.
“Well she designed a hot, sparkling mess. Like unicorn vomit or leprechaun shit. There is no way we can publicly display this monstrosity.”
In Toby’s defense, he was not far off in his description, which I learned seconds after I walked into the bakery. He ushered me to the back, behind a wall that separated the storefront from the ovens, and away from the customers. With a wave of his arm that reminded me of a magician about to make his sequin-clad assistant disappear, Toby presented me the cake.
Sadly, it did not disappear, although it did seem to be sequin-clad.
Biting my lip so that I would not laugh, I asked, “Where did the pearls come from?”
Since I kept no pictures of the wedding or reception, let me try to explain this cake in enough detail that you will be able to understand how truly awful it was. That’s not fair of me; some of you might have liked it. To me, the cake resembled something my grandmother would have loved, before depression sapped her senses and painted her life with a swath of gray. Once, though, she adored anything gilded and gaudy. The brighter, the bigger, the better. It was not a preference I shared.
The five-layered cake was made up of circular bases, and each level was smaller than the one it topped. That we had agreed on. Neither Toby nor I could recall explaining that we wanted each layer dipped in gold glitter and completely covered by the nontoxic and edible dust. But that is what we got. Five layers of tiny golden beads and fine glitter carpeted the cake. Then, the designer had added strands of pearls, made of icing and shaped to resemble real ones. The pearls curved around the cake like a seductive serpent, except without any of its venom. There was more. Roses, delicate little things, bloomed all over the bottom two tiers. Red roses.
I hate roses. Plus, the color scheme was white and gold, with some touches of silver. No red, no black, no pink.
Yes, I had briefly thought that nothing mattered, but I did not want a cake fit for a Victorian princess at my wedding. Roses. Pretty, perfectly shaped petals, blood red and satiny.
I’d rather the cake be covered in real blood than roses.
“Toby, don’t you have those pictures on your phone? The ones we found online?”
With only a grunt as a reply, Toby sat on a tall stool and scrolled through his phone. I listened as the shop’s owner apologized and vowed to make another cake in whatever design we chose.
“The cake is beautiful,” I tenderly lied. “It’s just a bit too metallic for my tastes. Maybe reduce the gold dust by half and only cover part of the tiers with the beads. Let some of the white icing show, and get rid of the flowers. Think simple, timeless elegance.”
“Like this,” Toby said quite dismissively as he held up his phone. “Let’s compare. Your cake looks like the bride of C3PO. Now look at this one: classy and rich. See how the gold serves as an accent and not as a blanket? Think less robots and more Greece.”
Despite his razor-sharp tongue, Toby was right. By now, you must understand why I adored his humor so much. He was both sage and jester, wise when he needed to be and amusing at all turns. Like any good wedding planner, he complained so I did not have to. He annoyed the venues and the owners, the musicians and the chefs, and even if the suggestions had been mine, he covered for me. While he discussed the changes that needed to be made, I pulled out my cell phone. Even though I had taken vacation time for the week and the one following, I still checked and answered emails when I could.
My notoriety from the heroin feature had faded some, but I received requests for interviews and permission to reprint the images each day. Most, I approved. But it was not an email regarding the feature that surprised me most that day. The Italian Council of Tourism had contacted me regarding the photograph from Pompeii and wanted to use it for their latest advertising campaign. More, what they offered to buy the image was more than I had ever earned for any of my freelance work, and nearly half of my
full-time Gazette salary. My reply was rapid and brief: Yes, send me the contract details.
“What are your grinning about?” Toby asked with feigned sheepishness.
“Let’s go get lunch. My treat. You pick the place.”
“You don’t want to wait for the cake designer to get here?”
“I think you handled it. I need a drink.”
“Dandelion,” he laughed, “It’s so early.”
Rolling my eyes with intentional drama, I said, “Those roses have me dreaming about a bloody mary.”
Thirty minutes later, we were seated across from each other on the back patio of a Spanish-styled bistro. Between us stood a pitcher of water with slices of floating oranges and a metal basket of flatbread pieces. Convinced by my argument that a bloody mary was necessary, Toby toyed with the celery stalk as we both enjoyed the sunny skies above.
“Have you heard from Matt?” I asked as I wiped tomato juice from my chin.
“That man is crazy, Dandelion. What were we thinking to invite a complete stranger to the lake house?”
Toby was often critical, but he complained in such an entertaining way that it never bothered me.
“That shit with your hand? Jesus, who does he think he is?”
“Oh, don’t be too hard on him. I quite enjoyed it and will never forget what he told me.”
“You’re too nice. I worry about you sometimes. Politics is a nasty game, Dani. You sure you’re ready for it?”
“I’ll be behind the scenes, only parading out for appearances and victory speeches,” I told him happily.
“So you do get it,” Toby chirped.
After we both ordered another drink, his tone became more serious.
“My ex was a speechwriter for Goldsmith.”
“You never told me that!” I exclaimed.
“The less I talk about Damian, the better I feel. Anyway, listen, I was with him for three years and learned a bit about that world. Many of those male politicians are the same. With power comes ego. And with ego comes women. Well, I don’t know which comes first, I guess. Maybe they’re all just those types of men and choose to go into politics for the power. Either way, I know you’re all loved up right now, but I just want to offer a warning of sorts on what you might face. William is hot; you know that. He is charming and flirtatious and pretty well dressed. And an up and coming star, if he wins. There will be a ton of travel, a ton of hotel stays, and a ton of women.”