“I’ll watch them for you.” Hawthorn stood off to one side. My gatekeeper. My guide. “Are you ready?”
I nodded.
The door opened, and I stepped inside.
HOW TO BE HUMAN™
Barbara Ashford
Is there anything more pathetic than a menopausal faery?
Yes. A menopausal male faery. Leading a motivational seminar for humans. At the New Rochelle Radisson.
For two hundred years, I had thrilled audiences with my interpretations of Lear and Othello, Hamlet and Brutus. Now I was instructing them in the fine art of How to Be HumanTM. A 21st century Charon, a fairy ferryman, guiding them across the River Shticks to the Wonderful World of Self-Actualization.
“True is it that we have seen better days.”
But at least my new audiences loved me, too. Two hundred people filled the Empire Ballroom, shining faces lifted to mine like flowers seeking the sun.
Except Penny, my magenta-haired personal assistant. She was leaning on the wall by the display table, mouth agape in an enormous yawn.
Focus, Finn. You’ve got magic to do.
I could not afford to become distracted. My recent seminars had been marred by minor slip-ups: the occasional lapse of concentration; the momentary flash of impatience; the errant surges of power that shorted out electrical devices, set off sprinkler systems, and—on one memorable occasion—catapulted several members of the audience into orgasm. But I was on track today. In the groove, in the zone, in the money.
My gaze swept the Empire Ballroom. Rapt expressions—check. Heartfelt nods—check. Tears glistening on flushed cheeks … yes, it was time to wrap up my Sermon on the Self-Help Mount and send them off with some well-chosen platitudes.
Blessed are the cheese makers, indeed.
I detected an uneasy shift in the collective bliss, an unexpected spike of confusion. I shot a quick glance at Penny. Her mouth still hung open, but now she was gawking at me.
Dear gods, had I spoken aloud?
Something prickled in my armpits. Sweat. I was sweating like a human.
The overhead dome lights began to flicker. Heads tilted skyward. Murmurs rose from the crowd.
I was losing them!
I wrestled for control of both my power and my audience and desperately ad-libbed, “Monty Python’s Life of Brian offers us many moments of pure silliness.”
Heads jerked back toward the dais. Tentative smiles blossomed on a few faces.
“But the movie also teaches us an important lesson …”
“Do you want what’s in the box or what’s behind the …” No, you idiot. That’s Monty Hall, not Monty Python. Think! You chose the name Phineas for a reason.
The lights returned to their normal brightness, and I smiled with renewed confidence.
“… and that lesson is: always look on the bright side of life.”
The appreciative chuckles offered new proof of Barnum’s perspicacity: there really was a sucker born every minute.
Right. Time to get back on script before my glamour eroded completely. Serious expression. Firm nod.
“Our time together may be ending, but the journey has just begun. Hold on to the openness of mind and heart and spirit that brought you here.”
It’s easy if you buy my CD: How to Be HumanTM. On sale today for only $14.95.
“Embrace your higher self.”
It’s easy if you consult my How to Be HumanTM daily affirmation cards. Business, Love, and Self-Esteem sets only $9.95 each. Boxed set—$26.95.
“And remember our five touchstones.”
A graceful wave of my hand and the phrases I had been drumming into their empty heads since 10:00 A.M. promptly appeared on the giant projection screen behind me:
Halt Hurtful Habits.
Unleash Your Potential.
Manifest Your Possibilities.
Affirm Your Transformation.
Nurture Your New Self.
Utter drivel, of course. But sprinkle it with a little faery dust and they lap it up.
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
“Maintain the unshakeable belief in your power to fulfill your destiny. And when you stumble—as we all do …”
Cheese makers, anyone?
“… just pick yourself up, dust yourself off …”
And sign up for my advanced weekend seminar: How to Live Human TM.
“… and proclaim to the world that you are a glorious, accomplished, authentic human being!”
I flung out my arms as if to hug the whole sorry lot of them. Braced for their reaction, I barely winced when they leaped to their feet, applauding and whistling. When I was young, the turbulence of human emotions merely fed my power. Now, I had to shield myself to prevent such displays from overwhelming me.
I descended from the dais, cringing inwardly as I accepted the clumsy embraces of my fans and made approving noises about their “transformations.” My senses reeled from their aroma, that oh-so-human tang of sweat and excitement and flesh. A depressing reminder of my own mortality. True, I would never suffer the indignities of physical aging. My flesh would remain firm, my hair black and glossy. But as my power waned, so would I. Until I simply … faded away.
The tales never mention that when they describe my kind as ever-young. Or the humiliation of leaving your clan to spare your kinfolk the unpleasant spectacle of your final passage. Why else would so many fae abide in this world? Not because of some fatal attraction to humans as the tales would have it. But those, of course, were written by humans. What did they know?
My spirits rose when I spied the hotel’s special events coordinator hovering in the doorway. Elena? Helena? Something. My memory was becoming as unreliable as my power.
I freed my arm from the claw-like grip of a portly woman wearing an “Ask Me How to be HumanTM” T-shirt and sauntered across the ballroom.
As soon as I’d met Elena/Helena/Something, I’d decided to invite her to my room tonight. I was always keyed up after a seminar, and sex provided a relaxing antidote. I’d learned long ago to avoid liaisons with my personal assistants. And certainly, there was little about Penny to tempt me. She was as alluring as a rack of antlers. Too skinny, too young, too many piercings in far too many places. And that dreadful hair.
Elena/Helena/Something, on the other hand, was exactly the kind of woman I enjoyed: attractive in a vaguely Caribbean way, conservatively dressed in a charcoal business suit, black hair tightly coiled in a bun, friendly but not overtly sexual in her manner. There was little sport in seducing a willing human. The challenge lay in chipping away that initial reluctance. A little power, a little charm and her skirt would be up, her panties down, her long hair veiling my face like a dark waterfall, and heigh-ho, Silver! Away!
My smile grew more intimate, my gaze more compelling. I could sense her growing interest, smell the delicious musk of feminine desire.
To my dismay, that fragrance triggered a precipitous surge of power. Before I could suppress it, Elena/Helena/Something was standing very close, clinging to my arm, wetting her lips with a decidedly gristly-looking tongue. Her strident laughter grated on my ears and her incessant head-tossing set her four hoop earrings and my nerves a-jangle.
Silently cursing, I reined in the power, thanked Elena/Helena/Something for all she had done to ensure today’s success, and fled, leaving Penny to pack up the merchandise.
I hurried up the wide carpeted stairs to the lobby, then followed the fire stair up four flights to my floor; after my humiliating performance with Elena/Helena/Something, I simply couldn’t endure the prospect of being trapped inside the elevator’s steel cage.
Safe inside my room, I stood before the window, uncomfortably transfixed by my reflection in the glass. I looked so ordinary in my black jeans and pale blue cashmere sweater. I might actually be a man.
“O, that way madness lies; let me shun that.”
Turning off the lights banished my reflection if not my melancholy, and allowed me to enjoy th
e beauty that was nighttime New Rochelle: the white glow of passing headlights, the warmer patchwork of lamplight from nearby apartment buildings, and the multi-colored brilliance of a CVS pharmacy, an Enterprise Rent-a-Car, and a Taco Bell.
I yanked the drapes closed and turned the lights back on. A cool shower refreshed me, as did the four pints of milk I had stocked in the small refrigerator. Far too restless to retire for the evening, I considered a brisk walk to the Long Island Sound. The fresh air would soothe me. And that open expanse of water. There might even be a park. Any small patch of green would do.
But that was impossible. There were other fae in the city. Young ones. I’d sensed them when I ventured outside during the lunch break. The last thing I wanted was to encounter fae adolescents. They could be so cruel, flaunting their ripening power to humiliate the old.
Gods. In the course of an hour, I’d shrunk from mighty Charon to Betty White. I, who could have been as great a violin virtuoso as Paganini, as dazzling a pianist as Liszt, as acclaimed an actor as Gielgud or Olivier or Booth. Edwin, of course, not his hapless brother. I would have eclipsed them all if not for the need to conceal my power.
A need that had inhibited my ascent as a pabulum peddler as well. I could never aspire to the heights—or the speakers’ fees—of a Wayne Dyer or a Zig Ziglar. Finn Shepherd was doomed to play the straw-hat circuit of self-help, not Broadway.
The curse of the fae—always to skulk in the shadows. But not, I vowed, in a hotel room.
I strolled through the lobby without attracting more than a passing glance from the few people I encountered. The pretty gay boy playing the grand piano brightened as I approached, and I lingered to listen to his rendition of “You Do Something to Me.” But when he segued into “Send in the Clowns,” I dropped a five-dollar bill into his porcelain dish and headed to the bar, hoping for more interesting fare in the City Martini Lounge.
Instead, a collection of paunchy middle-aged businessmen clustered around the central bar. In the adjacent seating area I saw a man and woman on what appeared to be a dismal first date and two fortyish women with big hair and embattled faces who assessed me with the narrowed eyes of desperation.
And Penny.
She fixed me with her annoyingly direct stare as I threaded my way through the maze of impossibly small café tables and climbed onto the stool opposite hers. I glanced quickly at the drinks menu, shuddered at the list of specialty martinis with names like “Panties Off!” and “Horny Ape,” and ordered a single malt whisky.
Penny contented herself with slurping a martini roughly the same color as her hair until the waitress departed with my order. Then she rolled her eyes.
“Blessed are the cheese makers?”
My withering look had no apparent effect on her. I’d never been able to decide if Penny possessed some strange immunity to my power or if she was simply oblivious to everything. I’d tested her extensively during her interview. Hiring someone with a high tolerance to glamour avoided the potential for annoying personal entanglements and uncomfortable questions.
Even during these last six months, dear dense Penny merely saw the outward manifestations of my power surges—the errant sprinklers, the power outages—and failed to identify me as the cause. Far more difficult to hide something like the cheese maker debacle.
“My mind wandered. It happens.”
“Yeah. More and more frequently.”
I accepted my single malt whisky, downed it in one gulp, and handed the glass back to the waitress for a refill. Penny began whistling. “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” of course.
“Yes. Thank you, Penny. How did we do on sales?”
“Thirty-three copies of the book. Fifty-four CDs. Ninety-eight sets of affirmation cards.”
A good haul, but not spectacular. Especially since forty percent of the proceeds would go to my business manager. A regrettable necessity for someone who possessed no official identity. I suppose I could have found a shady lawyer to manufacture the requisite documents, but it was easier to pay Sheldon to handle everything. The fae are notoriously lazy when it comes to such details. That was one of the reasons I valued Penny; in spite of her many flaws, she was good with accounting and travel arrangements and other mundane tasks.
Penny sucked down the last of her grotesque drink—the sound unpleasantly reminiscent of a death rattle—and asked, “So what is it with you lately?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Last weekend you went off on some tangent about Edmund Booth.”
“Edwin.”
“Tonight it was Monty Python. I’m just asking ’cause I want to be prepared for tomorrow’s seminar in Stamford. What’s it gonna be? The Three Stooges?”
“I’ve been working too hard.”
Penny snorted.
“As you might have realized if you bothered to attend any of my recent seminars instead of slinking off to … wherever.”
“Maybe I’ll start sitting in again. Your senior moments sure liven things up.”
“They are not senior moments!”
Penny flinched. The big-haired women twisted around to stare at me. Everyone was staring at me. All conversation in the lounge had ceased. Even the piano had gone silent. And I was sweating. Again.
The soft patter of footsteps broke the appalling silence.
“Everything okay here?” our waitress inquired nervously.
My withering stare proved more effective with her. She visibly recoiled, trembling. Aware that I was only making matters worse, I suppressed my annoyance and offered her a repentant smile.
“Another whisky, please. A double.”
As she retreated, Penny whispered, “Jeez, I was just kidding. Lighten up, will you?”
“Forgive me. I’m a bit … tired tonight. You have no idea how exhausting it is to say the same things over and over again.”
Penny muttered something under her breath. Once, I would have been able to make out the words. Now, I had to ask, “What was that?”
Her defiant glare took me aback. “I said, ‘Especially when you don’t mean any of them.’ ”
I mentally counted to ten before asking, “What does that have to do with it?”
“Why the hell do you think I skip out as soon as you start lecturing?” she demanded in a fierce whisper. “It’s not what you say. I mean, it’s mostly stupid stuff that people should be able to figure out for themselves, but it’s not lies or anything. But you don’t believe a word of it. And you obviously think everyone in the audience is a sad, lonely, desperate loser.”
“They are sad, lonely, desperate losers.”
“Then you should feel some compassion for them! Not contempt.”
I couldn’t very well tell her all fae felt contempt for humans. So I merely said, “I do feel compassion.”
“Bullshit.”
I stared at her, astounded by this unexpected rebellion.
“You don’t care about the people who come to you. You don’t care that they need your help.”
“I help them.”
“You don’t even look at them. Do you have any idea how many are coming back two-three-four times?”
Repeat business. That was encouraging. I couldn’t understand why Penny was scowling.
“Don’t you get it, Finn? It wears off! For a little while, they think they’re on to something. And then that good feeling just … vanishes. Some of them notice as soon as you leave the dais. For others, it probably takes days.”
Well, that was only to be expected. Some humans were more susceptible to faery glamour than others.
“And they’re so desperate to recapture it that they come back again and again. Don’t you see anything wrong with that?”
On the contrary, it seemed ideal. But clearly, that was the wrong response.
“I see that they haven’t fully absorbed what I’ve attempted to teach them and are eager to try again.”
“Why don’t you just shill your self-help crap on the Home Shopping Network? A
t least that way, I wouldn’t have to watch what you do to them.”
If only I could. Unfortunately, faery glamour tended to interfere with the operation of cameras. The photographer who had shot the glossy headshots that adorned my merchandise had spent a full day retouching them before he’d managed to remove the rainbow of light obscuring my features.
Mercifully, the waitress’s arrival gave me an excuse to avoid a response. I sipped my drink, enjoying the heat that blossomed in my belly. For all their failings, humans did have a few gifts. Distilling whisky was one of them.
Penny regarded me with a stony stare, arms folded across her meager chest.
“If you disapprove of me so much, I wonder why you remain.”
“Because I’m stupid. I keep hoping you’ll change.”
Another thing to which the fae could not aspire. Oh, we made minor accommodations to pass in this world, but the only genuine change we underwent was the one that had begun draining my power and my life force.
Penny’s head drooped, affording me a view of her blonde roots. I’d seen her with so many different dye jobs that I’d forgotten her real hair color.
Summoning a magisterial calm, I told her that we were both tired, that the schedule in recent months had been arduous, that next week would give us a much-needed break during which to review our options.
In the middle of my monologue, Penny’s head came up. To my astonishment, tears glistened in her eyes.
“Fuck you, Finn. I don’t need to review my options. I quit.”
She fumbled in her belt pouch and produced a red-and-white brochure that she slapped onto the table. Then she hopped off her stool and clumped out of the lounge.
Heaving a long-suffering sigh, I picked up the brochure. It was a train schedule for the Metro-North New Haven line. Did she actually expect me to take a train to Stamford? When she knew that riding on trains and planes made me queasy? And what about my merchandise? How was I supposed to lug five enormous boxes on public transportation? Her selfishness was simply unbelievable!
The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity Page 13