Unfinished Muse

by R. L. Naquin

  I gave the look right back at her. “Yes, but why is he doing it this way instead of on a computer?” I gestured at the chaos on the table. “I could name ten different kinds of software that could do this, and half of them are free.”

  Audrey shrugged. “Some people like to do things old school.” She rested one butt cheek on the edge of the table. “And what makes you such an expert?”

  “I’m not. I’ve just…spent some time working in various offices.” I looked away, not wanting to discuss my past work history.

  She unclipped her bubbles and unscrewed the lid, smirking. “Yeah. I forgot you’re a Lost, not a Legacy. I suppose you’ve had a lot of jobs. I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  There was something incredibly insulting about how she said those words. I decided I didn’t like Audrey any more than she liked me. I said nothing, though. All I had to do was learn the job, then I could ignore her. At least, that was my hope.

  “Carl, you need to relax. Take a deep breath and let the doggies speak to you.” Audrey blew a stream of bubbles directly at the man’s forehead.

  The bubbles popped on his face, and my eyes watered in sympathy. Carl didn’t flinch.

  In fact, Carl didn’t move. He continued to stare at the layout, his expression glassy and far away.

  Audrey made a sound of disgust. “Oh, come on, Carl. I’ve still got one more client to see today.” She cracked her neck, shook out her arms, and took a deep breath. “Carl, you’re brilliant at this. Every issue, you pull it together at the last minute. This is the last minute.” She blew slower this time, creating one big bubble instead of a series of small ones. “Close your eyes and see the layout. See the finished magazine in all its glossy, furry glory. You know how it should look. See it in your mind, Carl. See it.”

  The bubble wobbled toward his wide-open eyes, bumped into his chin and splattered. Carl closed his eyes and rubbed his face, then sat still for a moment with his face covered. When he opened his eyes, he leaped from his chair and spread his arms across the table, gathering all the papers together in a massive pile.

  Audrey snickered. “Every freaking quarter. He falls apart, I loosen him up, and he slaps together the perfect layout. Whatever that is. Let’s go.”

  “Wait—we’re just going to leave?” I watched him slap the table with a series of photos of beagle puppies in birthday hats playing in a kiddie pool. “What if he still doesn’t have it right?”

  “He’ll have it right. Like I said—happens like this every quarter.” She slipped through the door.

  Carl’s eyes were wide and crazed, and he muttered to himself as he placed everything as he wanted it. She was right. He had this. I backed my way out the door and followed her all the way to the car.

  Once we were visible and on our way again, I turned off the radio and wiggled sideways under the seatbelt to see her better. “I have questions.”

  She scowled. “I was listening to that.”

  “Answer a few questions, and I’ll turn it back on.”

  “Fine.” She tilted her head in my direction but didn’t look at me. “Ask.”

  “How do they determine who gets a Muse? Where does the bubble juice come from? If there are only so many of us, and we’re each bound to a city, how is the rest of the country getting inspired? Why does—”

  “Whoa, there.” She held up her hand as if to block the stream of questions. “That’s a lot of questions. And they’re all pretty stupid.”

  I sat up straighter. “Excuse me?” This chick in her skyscraper heels had to be the worst trainer I’d ever had in any of my bazillion jobs.

  “Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” She pulled the car to the side of the road and turned to give me a scathing look. “Seriously. Think about it. Where do we work?”

  “The Muse department.” Where the hell was she going with this?

  She rolled her eyes. “What company?”

  “The Mount Olympus Employment Agency.”

  “So, who do you think is running the show?”

  “I don’t know. Management.”

  Audrey didn’t say anything. She sat there, staring at me, waiting for something. Waiting for me.

  I thought over her last question and realized what she was getting at. “Oh.” My eyes grew wider. “Oh!”

  She nodded and put the car in gear. “At last. A tiny bit of intelligence peeks through.”

  Gods. The whole place was run by gods. Of course it was. As much as I wanted to yank this chick’s hair out for being so smarmy, she was right. I hadn’t been thinking, despite all the crazy things I’d seen.

  “So, gods determine who the client is?”

  She signaled, then pulled away from the curb. “Yes. Well, no. We get our orders from the Fates, actually.” She changed lanes abruptly, and a car honked. “Back off, you moron!”

  The other car went around us, and a lady with two kids in car seats in the back gave us the finger.

  I twisted around and fixed my seatbelt. “And the bubbles come from—what? Or rather, who?”

  “Muses bring it in and refill the dispensers. Usually it’s Polly. She hangs around more than the rest do.”

  It took another minute for me to process what she’d said. “Muses. You mean real ones, not just people doing the job? And Polly’s one of them?”

  “Pollyhymnia. Muse of sacred poetry.”

  For some odd reason, this information made my head spin far more than walking through a door had. Or seeing mythical creatures in my workplace.

  Seriously. Real gods. And I’d talked to one of the nine Muses that morning. I felt a little giddy, as if I’d met a celebrity. How many other gods or demigods had I come into contact with over the last week? Was Mrs. Moros a god? Ben from human resources? Trina’s ex, Ian, from the elevator?

  I opened my mouth to ask, but I was too late. Audrey hit the button and blared the radio to shut me up.

  Fine. I’d ask Phyllis later. And this time, she damn well better answer my questions.

  As we pulled into the parking lot of a burger joint, I decided to try not to ask Audrey any more questions. I’d be better off asking someone else. Let her teach me what she had to teach me, and I’d find a better mentor on my own later.

  We crossed the parking lot, stepped over a curb, and walked diagonally through a small field. I wondered again at Audrey’s ridiculous shoes, but she didn’t seem to be bothered. She strode through the weeds with purpose and out the other side to a paved lot with a small Baptist church in the corner.

  “Here?” I bit my lip. I’d already broken my vow not to ask her any questions.

  “Here.”

  We hit our belts and went up the steps through the door.

  I wasn’t raised in any particular religion. I certainly hadn’t seen the inside of many churches when I was growing up. But I read things. I had a pretty good understanding of the various religions available to choose from.

  The irony of a Greek Muse creating an inspiration for a Southern Baptist preacher’s Sunday sermon on idolatry was almost more than I could bear. I had a lot less trouble staying quiet while Audrey blew her bubbles at him than I’d thought I would.

  In fact, I spent the entire ten minutes we were there with my back against the wall, pressing my lips together.

  The reason we were there for so short a time was Pastor Roy Roberts was incredibly open to suggestion. Carl had only needed a nudge because he knew how to do a layout for his magazine. He just got stage fright before every issue. Pastor Roberts needed every bubble Audrey blew at him, but he sucked them in pretty quick.

  When we arrived, he was sitting at his desk in front of his computer, scratching his chin. “Idolatry. Idolatry. When we…no, that’s not it. If you give a man…” He deleted several lines and began again. “After the fall, Adam…” He groaned and pounded the delete key repeatedly.

  It amused me that he read everything out loud as he wrote it.

  Then Audrey stepped forward with her Transmutational Thought Transfer
ence Bubbles, murmuring words of encouragement.

  From the moment the first bubble burst against the side of his bald head, Pastor Roberts stopped speaking out loud and started typing in earnest. And could he type fast. His fingers flew over the keys at a rate that spoke of countless hours spent typing “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” in Miss Panganini’s typing class. For ten straight minutes he never paused until, with a flourish, he hit a last key and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile.

  Audrey peered over his shoulder and read what he’d written. She grunted. “Nice. He totally switched gears on that idolatry thing and wrote about stealing from your neighbors.” She shook her head. “Pretty big words for a man who cheats on his taxes.” She patted the top of his desk. “See you next week, Roy.”

  She strode out without looking back, and I trotted behind her. The woman could really work those damn shoes.

  On the way back to the office, I stared out the window, lost in thought. A sense of unease worried at my gut the more I went over everything I’d seen that day.

  I’d never finished anything in my life. I was a joke. How was I supposed to be responsible for helping other people finish what they needed to do? There was no way I could do this.

  I was doomed to fail before I’d even begun.

  ~*~

  It took most of the weekend for Phyllis to talk me down from my doom cloud.

  “You’ll do fine,” she said for the fifth time. “But you’ll have to buy a whole new wardrobe if you don’t put down the ice cream.”

  I sat curled on the sofa eating mint chocolate chip straight from the carton. With a really big spoon.

  “So what? The dress code didn’t say anything about the size of my ass.” I waved my spoon in her general direction. “Besides, I might as well eat all the ice cream I can before I get sent to the Underworld. I bet it’s super hot down there.”

  Phyllis let out an exasperated sigh. “That’s Hell, darling, not the Underworld. And I can’t believe you’re throwing in the towel before you’ve even started. You don’t even have your first client, and you’re already resigned to failure.” She clucked a non-existent tongue. “I thought with everything that’s happened in the last week, you’d have given up on giving up by now.”

  I grumbled vague noises into the carton cradled in the crook of my arm. “Oh, sure. I should embrace my deity heritage. Throw off my pathetic past as a loser and become a demigod, capable of changing the lives of the regular mortals around me.” I swirled the melting ice cream so it resembled a thick milk shake. “Maybe if I knew who my father was, I might be able to do that. But I don’t even know who I am, Phyllis. And until I do, I can’t even eat in the big kids’ cafeteria. How sad is that?”

  Usually, smooshing the softened ice cream made it more appealing. This time it looked like unappetizing goop. I dropped the spoon into the carton and contemplated how much effort it would take to go into the kitchen and put it away.

  “Wynter.” Phyllis’ voice was gentle.

  “What?” Mine was more on the petulant side.

  “I know this whole thing is frightening. And I know how hard it’s been for you, always moving around, never fully committing to anything or anyone. But I need you to trust me on this. You’re going to be fine. This is your fate. Fate will never steer you wrong.”

  I sighed and pulled myself from the couch to head into the kitchen. “I know you believe I can do this.” The spoon made a jarring clang when I dropped it into the sink. “I just wish I could.”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. I believe in you enough for both of us.”

  Chapter 9

  To my utter dismay, one day of training was all they gave me.

  I came in Monday morning, fully expecting to go on another ride-along with Audrey, only to find an assignment in my inbox and Audrey nowhere to be found. I grabbed the paperwork out of the tray and took it to Polly’s office.

  Her door was open, and she looked up when I knocked. “Did you get your assignment?”

  For a moment, I stood there like an idiot, unable to speak. I’d forgotten until that moment what Audrey had told me. Polly was a real Greek Muse. Daughter of the gods. Possibly responsible for the words of Homer and Shakespeare. I swallowed hard and held up the papers I’d brought with me. “Now what do I do?”

  She drew her thick eyebrows together in a quizzical look. “You go to the address and create an inspiration. There isn’t much to it. Audrey showed you how and when to use your tools on Friday, right?”

  I was too flustered to form a sentence to object at first. One day of training seemed ridiculous. I had zero confidence in my own abilities. “What if I do it wrong?”

  She shrugged. “As long as you remember to go invisible, no harm done. Try again tomorrow.” She frowned when I didn’t move. “You’ll be fine. Go.” She shooed me away. “Motivate. Inspire. Provoke art. And close the door, please.”

  Scowling, I made my way back to my desk. I sat for a few minutes thinking about how hard I was going to suck at all this. Then I pulled myself together and used the outdated computer in front of me to map the address on my assignment.

  At least I could figure out where I was going.

  My client was a guy named Alex. He lived in Topeka, a short distance from my apartment. I punched the address into my phone’s GPS so I wouldn’t get lost, then scanned the sheet to find out what Alex’s project was. My mouth opened in disbelief.

  “Toothpick art? Seriously?” I leaned back in my chair and threw my hands in the air. “Whatever happened to poetry and ballet? This isn’t even a thing.”

  Kayla walked past, reading an assignment of her own, and stopped to glare at me over the half-wall of my cubicle. “What’s got your knickers in a twist?”

  My voice sounded whiny, even to myself. “They gave me toothpick art. That’s not even real.”

  She gave me a disgusted look. “Did you think you were going to start off helping someone write the Great American Novel or something? You have to begin at the bottom. My first assignment was for a graffiti artist.” She started to walk away, then stopped again to look back at me. “It’s not like you ever finish anything yourself, anyway.”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? I would have asked her, but she was already gone. She wasn’t wrong, but she wouldn’t know that. She’d just met me.

  Muttering, I did a quick search on the computer. To my surprise, toothpick art was a thing. An impressive thing, in fact. I clicked through pages filled with incredible works of architectural art.

  “Ha. Fooled you, you cow. This is a great assignment.” I really wanted to believe that.

  After a few minutes, I logged off and went to the prop room for my gear. I clipped the belt around my waist and loaded it with a fresh bottle of bubbles and the Beastie stuff Audrey had failed to demonstrate or explain. As I turned to leave the room, I found my way blocked by Dave and Jeremy.

  Seriously. For an office full of people who were supposed to be inspirational, the employees in the Muse department mostly seemed to be a pack of crap-weasels. They were worse than the folks I’d worked with for two weeks at the DMV.

  I really needed to rethink my life choices.

  Dave stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned. “Hey, chicky. Ready for your first solo?”

  I took a deep breath, counted to three, and let it out. “I am, yes.”

  Jeremy snickered, and it was every bit as creepy as I’d expected it to be. “Can we watch?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Watch what?”

  “You,” Dave said. “Solo.” He turned to Jeremy, and they high-fived each other.

  It occurred to me that I should say something to my boss. Or maybe march down to Human Resources and file a complaint. I’d never been very good at following rules like that. I knew if guys like that weren’t reported, they’d continue their bad behavior, and girls who were easier to shake up would end up targets.

  But it might also be the case that this was some so
rt of hazing ritual. Everybody but Trina seemed to hate me already for some reason, and frankly, it was my first real day on the job.

  I shoved past them, elbowing my way through. “Not till you have notes from your mommies. You’re not grown up enough to even talk to me right now.”

  Whatever reaction they were expecting from me, that wasn’t it. I left the office without hearing another word out of them. Tomorrow I’d probably have another problem from them, but for now, at least I was away from them.

  “Crap-weasels.”

  Halfway down the hallway, I’d cooled off enough to realize I had no minder. Nobody was watching over my shoulder or tracking my hours. And Polly didn’t seem at all concerned about how long it took to inspire this guy Alex to get his work done. If I didn’t get him motivated today, I could do it tomorrow. The sudden freedom felt like an elephant had stepped off of my chest and let me breathe.

  That didn’t mean I meant to totally slack off or anything. But at least I could stop somewhere and get coffee on the way. I was, for all intents and purposes, my own boss during the day.

  I stepped into the half-full elevator, golden tool belt jingling on my hips, and pressed the button for the lobby. One floor down, a few people left, and a few more got on. The doors closed, the elevator moved, and the doors opened. I marched out, confident and full of myself.

  A split second later, I realized I was on the second floor, not the lobby. I groaned. I could spin around and hit the button. The doors had only begun to slide shut. If I were super quick, they’d open again and let me in.

  Of course, then everyone inside would know I’d prematurely jumped out of the elevator.

  Opting out of the embarrassment scenario, I moved forward with purpose so the last thing the folks in the elevator would see was me getting on with my business. Or pretending to, anyway. Once the doors closed, I stopped and looked around.

  The second floor was neither wide open like the lobby, nor a maze of hallways like the fifth floor where I worked. The main hallway was wider and led to a central waiting area that branched off in several directions. Also, I smelled coffee.