I looked over at Cain, who shrugged as if to say, “I didn’t sleep with either of them. What do you want me to do?”
“Touché. I like this one, Adam. She’s got claws of her own.” Eve smiled, and I suddenly thought I knew what a canary felt like when it caught sight of the cat a second too late.
“And I’m not afraid to use them, sweetie. Now, you might have had him first, but I had him last. And if you want to exercise some prior claim, we might need to step outside and have a little discussion.” Myra looked Eve right in the eye and didn’t flinch. I’d never had two women fight over me before, but I thought that might be interesting, if hard on the décor.
Eve looked Myra up and down once more, then let out a long laugh before pulling her into a big sisterly hug. “Prior claim? Good Father, honey, I’ve been done with that one since before your ancestors crossed the friggin’ land bridge. He’s all yours, although why you want him is beyond me.” All my thoughts of the two of them in a wading pool full of pudding vanished with Eve’s laugh, but on the bright side, no one was likely to get kicked in the head while she was amused.
“Well. I’m glad we got that situated.” Myra looked a little confused as she sat back down next to Emily.
“You said a couple of questions, Mom. What was the other one?” Cain interjected before the evening could get any more surreal.
“You. How is it that the two of you are in the same room and no one is bleeding from every orifice?” She looked from Cain to me and back again.
“We talked. A lot. Then, we got drunk together. I think we might have gotten in a bar fight, or played pool, I can’t remember which. Then, we drank some more. By the time we got sober, we were all right again,” I said.
She looked at me for a long moment, realized that it was just stupid enough to be true, and took another long pull off her beer. “I bet I’m gonna need another one of these before you get started on the rest of it.”
Cain went to the fridge for another round and brought out a bottle of tequila and a couple of limes to go with it.
What can I say? Every family has their traditions; ours just involve large quantities of fermented beverages.
Chapter 18
“All right, spill,” Eve said, after we all did a shot and tossed our limes over the balcony rail. Well, all of us except Michael, of course, who had another glass of wine. Douche.
“So I was playing blackjack in Las Vegas when all of a sudden…” I recounted the whole deal to Eve, from my hauling ass out of Vegas to meeting Myra again, to punching Michael in the nose, to Cain and me trying to kill each other, to Emily calling us on our shit, to getting to New Orleans. There were a few moments where I was pretty sure she was going to try to kill Michael, and at least one or two real tears throughout the story, but we got through it without any broken furniture or bloodshed, which told me I was getting better at that sort of thing.
The sun was coming up when I finished our little tale, and Eve looked up at me with eyes that had seen centuries of sunrises and said, “Now what?”
“What do you mean, now what?” I was a little confused from the booze, the late—or early—hour, and the kick to the head.
“Now what do you want me to do?” she asked.
“I want you to go with us to find this guy, whoever he is, and be there when the Choice is made.” I was a little puzzled by her question.
“No.”
“Huh?”
“No. I’m not going. It was great to see you again. Well, not really, but that’s what we’re supposed to say when we see someone we don’t like to see because they dredge up too many bad memories, so I’ll go ahead and succumb to the social mores that I live nearest.” She picked up her bag and headed toward the door.
I grabbed her arm as she passed. “Wait a minute. You can’t just leave!”
She whirled on me. “Oh yes, I can. Remember, I’m the fucking poster child for free will. I’m the one who made the first big Choice, and I’m not going to lay that burden on some poor schlub who has no idea what it’s all about. I can live with what I’ve done. Father knows I’ve had plenty of practice, but I’m not going to put that on anyone else. And if you think, after all these years, that I’m going to go dancing to the tune of some hoity-toity angel again, maybe you never knew me after all.” She tore her arm loose from my grasp and headed out the door with the morning sun making a golden silhouette of her hair.
I watched her go, again, and felt the same sense of loss that I had all those years ago when she had looked me straight in the face and told me she never wanted to see me again. She’d walked out in a blaze of golden hair and sunlight then, too. Eve always knew how to make an exit. As I leaned on the doorframe, I felt a hand in mine. I looked back at Emily as she pulled me into the apartment.
“It’ll be okay, Dad. She’ll be back.”
“I don’t think so. You don’t know her like I do.”
“I know more than you think. And I’m pretty sure you haven’t seen the last of Eve.”
I patted her on the cheek, kissed the top of her head, and went back to Cain’s guest room where Myra lay curled up in a sheet. After closing the door, I turned on the ceiling fan, stripped down to my boxers, and lay down beside her for a few hours of sleep. She grabbed my hand and wrapped herself in my arms. I smiled a little as I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 19
I love the dreams about the Garden. It’s the only time I get to go back there, and those are the dreams I hate to wake up from. In this one, everybody was there. Me, Eve, Cain, Abel, Myra, Emily, all my children and wives from thousands of years, and all of Eve’s husbands and babies, too. I sat under the Tree and watched Emily pose while Cain painted her portrait. She perched on a rock, barefoot with shorts and a t-shirt on, with a flower stuck behind one ear. Cain looked more at peace than I’d seen him in many years while he mixed paints on a little palette and dabbed a little yellow here, a little blue there, a swath of green over there. Abel stood watching proudly, the love he had for his brother shining in his eyes. Eve lay next to me on her stomach, leaning on her elbows while she twisted flowers into a garland. We were at peace, all of us, a huge, ridiculous family, and even Lucky wasn’t looking to spoil anything. He just sat on a tree limb watching the children play. It was as if his rebellion never happened, as if Eve and I had never eaten the fruit, as if nobody had ever made any Choices.
Of course, just as I reached down beside me to take a drink from the frosty glass I had resting on the ground, I heard a voice.
“All right, Sleeping Beauty. Time to make the donuts.”
Sometimes having kids is a pain in the ass. Now, try having kids that are thousands of years old. The whole ‘respecting your elders’ thing goes in the shitter when you’re one of the three oldest people in the world.
“Fuck off, Cain. We’re sleeping,” I mumbled.
“Unless you’ve got a mouse in your underpants, Papa, there’s no ‘we.’ And since you’re swearing at me, you’re obviously not sleeping,” my smartass kid replied. Correct that. My eldest smartass kid. All my kids have had a wicked wit that I attributed to Eve. After all, that type of cynicism could never have come from yours truly. I then realized that the little shit was right; I was alone in the bed. That was never an ideal waking situation, but it became even less so when you didn’t go to sleep alone, and had no real reason to anticipate waking up that way.
I looked around the room for Myra, then heard the squeal of a water pipe as the shower kicked on to reassure me that I hadn’t been abandoned.
“Okay, darling child of mine, I am indeed awake. Now, what can I do for you?” I rolled over to face Cain, who stood in the doorway, already dressed for the day. He had gone native upon returning to New Orleans, wearing flip-flops, white linen pants, and a beige linen shirt. With his hair smoothed back into a loose ponytail at the base of his neck, he looked like he could have stepped out of an Anne Rice novel. I envied him his sense of style, just a little. I’d always leaned a little more t
owards biker chic myself, and I probably looked like Sam Elliott after a three-week bender given the few hours of sleep I’d grabbed.
“Well, Paternal One, I thought it might be a good idea for you to accompany me to meet mother for breakfast.” Something in his eyes told me I needed to get dressed, and pronto.
“Where is she?” I asked as I pulled on pants and caught the t-shirt Cain tossed to me. I reached into my bag for some deodorant, and paused for a moment before I went over and knocked on the bathroom door.
“Just a minute,” Myra called from inside.
I went in anyway and closed the door behind me. I thought I heard Cain’s muffled reply, so I stuck my head back outside the bathroom and said, “Excuse me?”
“I said, she’s in jail. And we’re going to go bail her out. Now, brush your teeth; your breath is peeling the paint.”
I ducked back into the bathroom where Myra was just turning off the water.
“Adam, dear, I know we were close a while back, but do I really need to clarify that ‘just a minute’ does not mean ‘come right in and watch me shower’?”
I did take a moment to notice that she really was a well-assembled woman as I squirted toothpaste all over the faucet.
She laughed, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
I remembered what drew me to her in the first place. Aside from the obvious attractions, all of which were on display at the moment, she had a laugh like crystal bells. Even if I could never touch her again, I’d do my best to hang around just to listen to that laugh, and to try and talk her into letting me touch her again, of course.
“I’m sorry, Myra. I’ve gotta brush my teeth and run. Apparently, Eve’s in trouble, and Cain says we can get her to talk to us if we bail her out.” I brushed my teeth and tongue, and headed back out into the bedroom. I pulled on my boots and was just heading out when I heard Myra behind me.
“Take Emily.”
“I don’t know how good an idea that is, Myra. Eve’s pretty pissed at me for a lot of things, and she can be pretty nasty.”
“Look. We all know how this works. I make a logical suggestion, you make unreasoned objections, and eventually, Emily and Cain chime in, with the odd annoying aside from the angelic asshole on the sofa, and you end up doing what I say anyway. Since we’re short on time, why don’t we just pretend to go through all the tedious bits and skip right to part where you do it my way.”
“I make it a point never to argue with a MILF in a towel, so you win.”
Cain snickered, Emily blew orange juice through her nose, and Myra blushed all the way down to the tops of her breasts, which was where the towel started. She flipped me the bird and closed the bedroom door after herself.
I headed for the door, saying to Emily, “Come along, kiddo. You know she’s right.”
“When did you make up that rule?” Cain asked as we headed down the stairs.
“About ninety seconds ago.”
“Ahem. Adam?”
I looked up and saw Michael leaning over the balcony railing. “Yeah, Michael. What is it?”
“What’s a MILF?”
Emily, Cain, and I walked down the street, laughing our asses off at the perplexed Seraph.
Chapter 20
It was noon by the time we got to the police station, and the desk sergeant appeared glad to see us. Or more to the point, he seemed glad to see anyone who would agree to take Eve off his hands. We paid her fine, collected her belongings, including that ridiculously large bag, and waited on the sidewalk for her.
It took about twenty minutes, but she finally tromped down the steps, grabbed her bag from Cain, and started walking off down the street. “Thanks for the bail money, kiddo,” she tossed over her shoulder without breaking stride.
We caught up to her after about a dozen paces, and I blocked her path on the sidewalk. She stepped around me into the street and kept on going.
After a few fruitless attempts to stop her, I stopped. “Go ahead. Keep running, Eve. But no matter where you go, there you are. And you can’t outrun you, no matter how far you go.”
She stopped, and her head dropped. She slowly turned, and walked back to me. She got right up in my face and, in a voice dripping with chill, said, “Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck your archangel, fuck your new kid, fuck your latest love story, fuck your Choice, fuck living forever, fuck the rest of humanity, if that’s even what we are anymore, and fuck the Father.”
I didn’t know my hand had moved until her head rocked back with the force of me slapping her. She raised her hand to retaliate, and I caught her wrist.
I leaned close enough that I could feel her breath on my face. “You can say whatever you want about me, you can even talk shit about Myra and Emily. They can take care of themselves. But you will not disrespect our Father in my presence. No matter how you may feel about the mess we got ourselves into, no matter how much help we may have had from that douchebag angel, he is still our Father, our Creator, and he deserves your respect.” I kept right on going without giving her a minute to get a word in. “Now, get your head out of your ass for a minute. There’s something going on here that’s bigger than both of us. I don’t understand it completely, and I’m not going to pretend for a minute that I trust Michael, but right now, we need him. I’ve got a real bad feeling about whatever this Choice is, and if we’re gonna get through this, I need people with me that I can count on. And you’ve always been at the top of that list. No matter what’s happened over the years, I know deep down you still care about me, and I will always, always care about you. And that’s the kind of backup we need.”
She stood there for a long moment before she looked up at me, nodded, then said to Cain, “I’m gonna head back to my place to pick up some things and some different clothes. I can catch a cab back to your place, or you can wait for me while I pack. I’ll call in to work and tell them I’m quitting. They won’t miss me; they always said I was high maintenance.”
“You? Can’t imagine.” I grinned.
She punched me lightly on the arm. “I’ll see you back at Cain’s. And tell the floozy I’m sorry I was a bitch.”
“I’ll pass the word.” She walked off up the street, and I turned back to the others.
“Do you think she’ll show?” Cain asked.
“Yes.” Emily didn’t have the slightest hesitation in her voice, and I had learned to trust her when she used that tone. I nodded to Cain and we headed back to his apartment.
As we walked, Cain looked over at me and asked, “How are you set for cash, Dad?”
“I’ve got about six hundred on me. Why?”
“Because all my ready cash just went to pay off a drunk and disorderly charge on Mommie Dearest, and since I share your distaste for traditional financial institutions, I have a modicum of concern as to how we’re going to finance our little world-saving endeavor.” Given his word choice, my son had obviously been spending too much time around pompous Archangels, not that there was any other kind.
“Hmm. That’s a good point. Em, I don’t guess your mother won the lottery since I skipped town, did she?”
“Yeah, of course she did. That’s why we were both waiting tables. To keep it real.” She made some type of odd gangster hand signal, then laughed at the confused look on my face.
“So, how much money do we have, then?” I asked.
“Well, there’s your six hundred, plus about four hundred between Mom and me, and Cain’s now broke, so that just leaves anything Michael and Eve have.”
“Since Michael has been an incorporeal ball of self-righteous energy for most of his life, I’m guessing there’s not much earning potential on his resume. That leaves Eve. And that means we’re screwed,” I answered.
“What makes you say that?” Emily asked.
Cain answered, “Mom doesn’t believe in money. She keeps only the bare minimum to support herself and gives the rest away, usually to the most deplorable people she can find. She might have fifty bucks on her, and that would be from last
night’s lap dances. There’s not going to be much in the rainy day fund at Casa de Eve.”
“All right then, I guess it’s time to make money the old-fashioned way,” I declared.
“Bash people in the head with a rock and take it from their still-warm corpses?” Cain asked.
I glared at him. “Tacky, son. Really, really tacky.”
“Sorry, Pops, old habits die hard. So if larceny and skullduggery wasn’t what you had in mind, how exactly do you plan to fund the next leg of our road trip?”
“The same way I’ve supported myself for the past twenty years. Blackjack. Come on, kiddies. Papa’s gonna take you to the casino. If you’re real nice, I’ll give you twenty bucks to play the slots.” I headed down to Canal Street and turned left toward the casino, my two children in tow. I looked back at Emily, “By the way, did you bring ID?”
The Chosen Page 9