Love, Love, Love

by Deborah Reber

  The desk clerk tore through the envelope and opened the letter. “It’s from a certain Laura Ann Sweeney of Denton, Ohio. It says, ‘Jupiter, send me a boyfriend!’”

  Mercury bolted upright in his wheelchair. “What? A mortal actually made a plea to Jupiter to find her a boyfriend?”

  “That’s what it says here,” answered Randolph. “Do you want me to throw it away?”

  “No, no!” answered the elder. “This is a Heroic Task, and this Laura Sweeney appealed directly to Jupiter, king of the gods! We can’t ignore it. Where are the others?”

  “Some of them are out by the pool.”

  “And the big guy?”

  Randolph looked over his shoulder. “Jupiter is in the sauna. Do you want me to tell the others?”

  “No way. This is my job,” insisted Mercury. “I’m the messenger god.”

  “I’ll push you out,” offered Randolph.

  Mercury brushed him off. “No, get me my walker … and my winged slippers.” As the desk clerk hurried inside to fetch the articles, the elderly god rose uncertainly to his feet. “How long has it been since anyone appealed to the gods?” he mused. “Don’t they know we’re retired?”

  “Semiretired,” corrected Randolph when he returned with the winged slippers and the chrome two-wheeled walker. “You still have a lot of Heroic Deeds left in you!”

  “Yes,” said Mercury, lifting his chin, which was covered in the stubble of a snow-white beard. “We used to find True Love for mortals all the time. In fact, often we put on disguises and supplied all the love they needed by ourselves.” He chuckled with some fond ancient memories.

  Randolph placed the walker and the slippers in front of the aged god and stood back. Mercury gripped the arms of the walker to steady himself as he slipped his wrinkled feet into the magical winged footwear. “There, that’s better.”

  A moment later the desk clerk stumbled backward in awe and alarm, because the centuries began to melt away, revealing an elderly but handsome god. After a while, he didn’t look a day over two thousand, though he still had most of his aches and pains.

  Gripping the message from Laura Sweeney in his hand, Mercury used his walker to shuffle out to the pool area. On the West Coast, the sun was just beginning to go down, and a soft golden glow suffused the blue pool and the marble pillars that surrounded the water. A warm breeze brought the smell of nectar mixed with Metamucil.

  As Mercury approached the swimming pool, he heard the whining voice of Juno, Jupiter’s wife. “I told Venus, ‘I can’t possibly have another lift and tuck,’” she complained, “‘or my armpits will be under my ears.’”

  Diana nodded, although the elderly goddess of the hunt seemed to be half-listening as she painted her toenails with a long peacock feather. Half a dozen of the graceful birds wandered the grounds, and they outnumbered the gods in attendance. Fat Apollo grumbled under his breath when his foe, Vulcan, made a good shot on the shuffleboard court. In the pool, Neptune splashed around, trying to climb aboard an inflatable raft, but slipping off each time.

  None of them noticed the messenger until he had shuffled up right in front of them. “Mercury!” exclaimed Vulcan with surprise. The misshapen god of the forge limped toward him and glanced at his winged feet. “What are you all dressed up for?”

  “This!” he crowed, waving the slip of paper in the air. “A mortal has beseeched Jupiter for help. It is a matter of True Love … a Heroic Task.”

  Apollo wheezed. “Are you sure we didn’t get that message by mistake?”

  “How many Jupiters are there?” asked Mercury.

  “Just one,” came a raspy voice, and they all turned to see their frail leader, wearing a white terry-cloth robe that seemed to blend in with his long white beard. “Or two, if you count the planet Jupiter. Did we get any royalties from all those planets they named after us? Not a drachma.”

  Mercury bowed to the elder with the long white beard. “Sire, a mortal has pleaded for your help. Just like the old days—a quest for True Love!” Breathlessly, he told their leader everything he knew about Laura Sweeney and her search for the perfect romance.

  “We must handle this correctly,” said Jupiter excitedly. His flip-flops smacked the soles of his feet as he paced beside the pool, and he tugged thoughtfully on his flowing beard. “We can’t take any chances—we must assign this delicate task to the right hero.”

  “You mean Venus?” asked Diana, who was always a bit ditzy.

  “No! No! Spare us!” cried all the gods at once, jumping to their feet with alarm. “Not Venus!”

  Everyone glanced at Vulcan, the brilliant but ungainly god of invention. After all, Venus had wronged him the most. “My ex-wife? You’d be crazy!” he answered. “The less she knows about this, the better.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jupiter, with a wave of his bony hand. “I do not intend to involve Venus, even though this would be easy work for her. Out of spite, she would thwart this mortal because she asked me first.”

  “Her son,” suggested Mercury. “Cupid could perform this deed for you.”

  That brought another scowl to the king’s cracked lips. “Yes, matters of love are in his domain, but that cherub is a mercenary and will exact a stiff price.”

  “Get a grip, husband,” said Juno. “If not Venus or Cupid, who will help this maiden? You? Mars? Who?”

  Jupiter looked around at the elderly gods gathered beside the sparkling pool and shook his head. “Where is Cupid?”

  Apollo pointed over his shoulder and sneered. “At this hour, he likes to hang with mortals at Pinkie’s Pool Parlor.”

  “I might have known.” Jupiter heaved a sigh and cast his eyes at Mercury, who was still holding the request from Laura Sweeney in his hand. “Mercury, shall we go fetch him?”

  “I have my winged shoes on, don’t I?” answered the messenger god with a sniff.

  Jupiter snapped his fingers. “Apollo, summon your chariot. But the black limo, not the Hummer.”

  Twenty minutes later Jupiter and Mercury hobbled into a pit so dank and obscure that Mercury had to light his magic torch just to look around. A rat scurried off along the brown and yellow baseboards, chirping angrily at them, and a putrid draft brought the foul odor of cheap cigar smoke and the aged dust of pool chalk. A maze of dark, rectangular tables confronted the gods, and from somewhere in the bowels of Pinkie’s Pool Parlor came a burst of raucous laughter.

  Jupiter sneezed, rattling his crown around atop his snowy white mane of hair. He wiped his nose with his long beard and growled, “That mold is playing Hades with my allergies. I say, Mercury, remind me why we’re doing this?”

  “Laura Sweeney wants a boyfriend, and she appealed directly to you.” The frail god clicked his winged slippers and stuck out his chin importantly. “I told everyone about it, and they think we need this heroic task to give our existence a little purpose.”

  Jupiter groaned and rubbed his rheumy eyes. “Yes, but to bring Cupid out of retirement? I don’t know. The world doesn’t need him anymore—they have chat rooms!”

  Mercury shuffled forward and prodded his old associate in the ribs with a bony elbow. Chuckling, he suggested, “Maybe the mortals need a little more of that old bolt of lightning. You know, that insane, short-circuit jolt that Cupid’s arrow used to bring them. We could watch it all in the reflecting pool.”

  Jupiter nodded and squared his scrawny shoulders. “Lightning bolts,” he repeated, as if reminding himself of the mission. With determination, the two elders moved into the dark pathways between the felt-covered slabs of slate. After negotiating the maze, they reached a small circle of light in the far corner, where four men were huddled around a pool table.

  Holding court and waving a cigar in the air was Cupid, and his gravelly voice cut through the clack of balls and drone of conversation. The aged cherub, wearing a pith helmet, multipocketed field vest, and stylish hunting clothes, looked ready to go on safari.

  His three scurvy companions spotted the aged visi
tors first, and one brute looked up and laughed. “Who are you guys? Man, the homeless soup kitchen is four doors down.”

  “We’re not lost,” said Mercury indignantly. “We’re here to talk to your friend.” He and the king of the gods turned their attention to the short, squat player with the big cigar.

  “I told you guys to leave me alone,” said Cupid, while he studied his shot and avoided looking at them. “I’ll join the association of retired people when I’m ready, and not before!”

  That joke brought a chuckle from the other players, but they scowled when neither Jupiter nor Mercury found it amusing. “Yeah, make an appointment,” growled one of the men. “He’s busy right now.”

  As if to prove it, four-foot-tall Cupid stood on his tiptoes, bent over the rail of the pool table, and made a respectable shot, sinking the four-ball in the side pocket.

  “You can only stay here if you rent a table,” said the smallest of the three mortals, a weasel in a striped suit. “And that costs twenty bucks … each.” His friends tried to keep a straight face, but two of them laughed.

  Jupiter scowled and scratched his long beard. “We really need to talk to Cue here. That is what you call him … Cue?”

  The diminutive god sank another ball and laughed. “What else would they call me? I’m a pool player. We’ve got no business together, Old Man. That partnership closed shop … long ago.”

  “One of our old customers,” said Jupiter in a hoarse whisper, “has just asked for our help.”

  That revelation caused Cupid to miscue and awkwardly strike the white ball, sending it on a pathetic spin that avoided every other ball on the table. “Hey!” growled one of the mortals. “You spoiled Cue’s shot, and I’ve got five hundred bucks riding on him! You guys need to get out of here, and I mean right now.”

  The big human hiked up his jeans and moved threateningly toward the frail elders. “Manny, wait a second,” called Cupid, trying to warn his associate.

  Jupiter lifted his hand and made a fist, and the entire building began to shake as if besieged by an earthquake. As dust and pieces of plaster rained down on the players, Manny backed up, and his two friends shouted and ran for the exit. Jupiter lowered his hand, having made his point, and the building stopped shaking.

  “Whoa!” exclaimed Manny, his mouth agape. “That must’ve been a five or six on the Richter Scale!” He looked at Cupid and waved his arm. “Let’s get out of here, Cue!”

  “You go,” answered the cherub, chomping on his cigar. “I’ll protect these two old codgers.”

  “Don’t wait too long,” urged Mercury with a pained grimace. “My bones are aching … I feel another one coming on.”

  The man ducked, looked around furtively, then dashed for the exit. When the door opened, a ray of sunshine invaded the darkness of the pool hall for a moment, then the gloom rushed back. Marooned in a pool of golden light, the three ancient gods stood, waiting.

  Shorter than the others and technically a cherub, Cupid still looked young enough to be taken for a mortal. He waved his cigar around the gloom, dispensing smoke like smelly incense. “Okay, you guys have my attention. Who asked for what?”

  Excitedly Mercury explained about Laura Sweeney beseeching Jupiter to find her a boyfriend. “A true heroic task!” exclaimed the messenger god, who enjoyed explaining matters. “And we figured you would be the perfect one to help this teenager in Denton, Ohio.”

  The cherub chuckled. “Did you try my mom yet?”

  Jupiter turned as pale as his beard at that question. “Uh, no. She’s still upset about that thing between you and Psyche.”

  “Ah, Psyche,” mused Cupid with a wistful smile. “The only woman I ever really loved. You and my mom should not meddle in other people’s love lives. That’s my job!”

  “That’s why you’re the perfect one for this heroic quest,” insisted Mercury, trying to steer the conversation back on track. “Please tell us you’ll do it … for our reputation.”

  Cupid shook his head and chomped on his cigar. “I’m not sure about coming out of retirement, Big Guy. Look at me—I haven’t strung a bow in years, I’m a little out of shape, and I don’t know squat about modern teenagers. For the last two hundred years, I’ve only seen the insides of pool halls and casinos. I’d have to get into Laura Sweeney’s life and get to know her in order to pick the right love for her. That’s a lot of work.”

  “All right,” muttered Jupiter with a scowl. “I know something you want. I’ll give you back the power to be invisible, even though you misused it.”

  The fat cherub whirled around, sputtering. “You never should have taken it away from me! When I’m invisible, my job is a slam dunk, but nooooo! You had to run me out of business, you meddling old geezer!”

  “We all ran out of business at the same time,” insisted Jupiter as he leaned over the pool table, looking all of his four thousand years despite the terry-cloth robe he wore elegantly. “Laura Sweeney is a true fan of ours, or we wouldn’t know of her plight. Help her, Cupid, not me. In return, I will give you the cloak you once wore.”

  “Which my father made for me,” muttered Cupid. The cherub blew cigar smoke from the side of his mouth and watched it curl upward into the ancient stains on the ceiling. “How is dear old dad?”

  Mercury cleared his throat to show his discomfort with the subject, because no one really knew who Cupid’s father was. Plodding Vulcan was as likely a candidate as most of the other gods and half the mortal world, but the Olympians had a hard time imagining wayward Cupid as his son. Nevertheless, Vulcan had been Venus’s husband at the time, and so they behaved as father and son.

  The messenger god could see that Jupiter was tongue-tied at the question, and he answered impatiently, “Your sire is excited by this deed, as we all are. He says he can help you with a disguise.”

  “A disguise?” echoed Cupid, breaking into a mischievous laugh. “Yes, Vulcan can work wonders with his special clay. To get me into high school, this will have to be a very special disguise.”

  Mercury felt a sudden chill on his spine. He had always considered Cupid to be one of the more unstable demigods, and it didn’t surprise him that he was still a favorite of the mortals. He has to be half-mortal, thought Mercury with a sniff of disdain. This bargain is going to be trouble, but the pact has been made.

  The king of the gods and the grizzled cherub, who had once been young and lovely when known by the name Eros, gripped each other by the forearm. Overhead the clear California skies growled with an unexpected burst of thunder.

  Several days later, Mercury and Jupiter were sent e-mail messages to meet Vulcan by the swimming pool at midnight. Since this was past the bedtime of most of the elderly gods at Mount Olympus, the two cronies had the shimmering water hole to themselves. Or so they thought. When Mercury caught sight of a slender figure breaking the surface of the illuminated water, he grabbed Jupiter’s frail forearm.

  “Who’s that swimming in our pool?” asked Mercury with indignation. “Another rotten neighborhood kid, I suppose.” Jupiter shrugged, and both of them squinted into the darkness.

  When the mysterious swimmer emerged from the water and climbed up the ladder, Mercury gasped. Even in the suffused light from the pool, he could see it was a maiden of unearthly beauty. After tossing back her glistening blond hair, she wrapped a silky robe around her body and strode toward them. Jupiter gripped the messenger god’s forearm, trying to steady himself.

  The girl was young, and her beauty was brought down to earth by a wide-eyed innocence and appealing trust. “Hello, my lords,” she said with a lilting voice and a graceful curtsey. “My master will arrive any second, and he is eager to see you.”

  “And Cupid arrived at Vulcan’s laboratory, as planned?” asked Jupiter.

  “I believe so, because Vulcan has been occupied,” answered the fair maiden.

  He must be sorely occupied to leave you alone, thought Mercury. The messenger god wanted to say something witty to this marvelous creature, but
he was as tongue-tied as a mortal. A shuffling of footsteps could be heard on the walkway, and he turned to see the slow arrival of the god of invention, Vulcan.

  “Hello, Brother!” called Jupiter as the hunched, deformed immortal hobbled toward them. “We were just being entertained by, uh … by your lovely assistant. What is her name?”

  “I haven’t named her yet,” replied Vulcan, making it sound as if such details were a bother. Mercury cringed, because there were often disastrous results when Vulcan fabricated a female. He shivered at the memory of Pandora, who had let her wicked curiosity ruin the world. This time, he hoped, Vulcan’s art would have less drastic effects.

  Jupiter finally said, “I had hoped to find Cupid here.”

  “That is no problem,” said Vulcan with a wink at his fair assistant.

  The girl chuckled, her voice sounding like wind chimes; then she punched the frail god in the ribs and nearly doubled him over. “I am Cupid, you old sot.”

  Jupiter groaned and peered at her in amazement. Mercury felt his stomach knot and shrivel, because no good could come of this ruse. “Nice disguise, huh?” asked Cupid, turning about and giving them a good look at the rest of “her” godly figure.

  Mercury gulped. “I think, uh … you had better be very careful in that disguise.”

  “I’m the god of love,” sniffed Cupid. “I know my business.”

  Vulcan wagged a crooked finger at her. “Remember what I told you—this maiden disguise is only good for twenty-five days. On midnight of the twenty-fifth day, the clay will dissolve, leaving you with your regular appearance.”

  “You worry too much,” said Cupid with a charming shake of her hips. “Twenty-five days will be plenty of time to handle this job. Now where’s my bow? You refurbished it, right?”

  “Yes, yes,” answered Vulcan wearily. “New string, fewer jewels, and pearl inlay. I still couldn’t make it look like a modern bow, but it no longer looks like a one-string harp. And your arrows have all been refletched.”

  “Good.” The blond enchantress moved close to Jupiter and batted her lashes at him as her dazzling blue eyes drilled into his. “Jupiter, from you I need a nice purse full of credit cards, car keys, and other useful goodies. I’ll need a few days to set this up—I’ll start school next Monday.” She frowned, and a cloud crossed her precious face. “Uh-oh, do I have to deal with … feminine products?”