by R. L. Naquin
The first order of the day was always breakfast. It would be nearly an hour before she herself could eat, but again, experience taught her there was an order to things, and doing them out of order had dire—and loud—consequences. The living room was large and cluttered but had very little furniture other than a rocking chair and countless tables of various sizes. Every surface held a cage or two, a tank, a Habitrail. Birdcages hung from the ceiling, and floor space was reserved for larger habitats. Gerbils, hamsters, and domestic rats gathered in neat rows along one wall, with a chinchilla, guinea pig, and two rabbits claiming the space beneath them. Doves, canaries, zebra finches, and parakeets swung overhead. Two enormous fish tanks stood side by side along another wall, their occupants a bright kaleidoscope of slow-moving confusion. Further along the wall sat a third, smaller tank that housed frogs and turtles in a mixed terrain of both water and dirt.
Marian pulled the blinds open around the room and dragged covers off the birdcages. As if by magic, the room came alive with joyful twitters, squeaks, grunts, and chatters.
For the next hour or so, she busied herself dispensing various types of seeds, vegetables, fruits, worms, pellets, and flakes. She had a kind word for the occupants of each domicile, forgetting no one, but she was not prone to cuddles or baby-talk and did her work with single-minded efficiency. As always, she ended with the fish tanks, being a firm believer in the old adage “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” Fish hardly ever make a fuss at the chow line.
When her work was complete, she moved to the kitchen and put a teakettle on to boil and bread in the toaster. As she waited for her breakfast, Marian noticed a faint tapping coming from the window over the sink, as if a bird were trying to peck its way in. Curious, she moved the yellow curtain aside. There stood the little man from yesterday, a defiant look on his face as he peered back at her. His lips were moving in agitation, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Moving the latch to the side, she lifted the window and leaned close to the screen.
“Yes?” she asked.
“It’s about time, woman,” he said. “I’ve been banging on this thing all morning. Are you going to let me in or what?” Marian stood a moment, considering it. His manners certainly hadn’t improved, but he seemed to be harmless. She took a moment to slip back to her bedroom and retrieve the pot of gold. The night before, she had replaced the twine with a black silk cord to make it more comfortable to wear. Placing it over her head, she returned to the kitchen and opened the back door.
“Would you like some breakfast?” she asked as he trudged in and shinnied up a chair leg.
“It’s the least you can do,” he said. His breathing became labored as he pulled himself up the linen tablecloth. She watched in fascination, wondering whether she should offer to help or if he would be insulted. It’s probably a no-win situation, she thought. He’d be insulted either way. She shrugged and turned her back, deciding she’d better make some eggs to go with the toast or he’d raise a stink that she was trying to starve him.
“My name is Marian,” she said. “Not ‘woman,’ if you don’t mind. How do you want your eggs?”
For a moment, the man seemed to be at a loss for words. “Uh…scrambled…please?” he said. There was a long silence. “Todd. My name is Todd.”
Marian paused with her spatula raised. She turned and looked at him. “Todd?” she asked. “Todd?”
“Yes, why?”
“Well, it just seems so…I don’t know.”
“You look disappointed.”
“No, it’s not that, it’s just…you’re Irish, right?”
“So Leprechauns are all supposed to be named Patrick or Seamus?”
“No, I…yes. I’m sorry. I’ve insulted you. I sincerely apologize for my oversight, Todd. It’s a very nice name.”
She turned back to the stove. In a few minutes, she had slices of toast cut in quarters and a generous helping of scrambled eggs heaped onto a cake plate. Filling a shot glass with tea, she added this to the plate and carried it over to the table. She pulled a few of her collected boxes from the closet and selected two of varying sizes. Together, they made a pretty good fit as a table and chair for a man about a foot and a half high. A linen napkin draped over the little makeshift table added a bit of elegance and she moved the plate of food to it. She filled her own dish and sat at the other end of the table. As Marian scooped eggs on her fork and brought it to her lips to blow on it, she glanced at Todd. He was just sitting there, staring at his breakfast with a sheepish look.
“Is it ok?” she asked. Her face colored as she realized his problem. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think…” She cast her eyes around her kitchen, grasping for a solution. “Of course you can’t eat with your hands. How could I be so inconsiderate?” Marian was mortified. Her first Leprechaun and she was a horrible hostess. Leaping to her feet, she was a flurry of activity, opening and closing cupboards, rummaging through drawers, slamming them shut and muttering to herself when their contents proved useless.
“No, no…it’s fine,” Todd said, making an effort to be heard over the chaos. “Sit down. I’ve got it.”
Marian turned and looked at him, doubt and embarrassment mingling on her face.
“Just sit down,” he said again.
Using a segment of toast, he shoveled eggs over a second slice, added the first piece to the pile and made a sandwich. He looked up at her and smiled. “See? It’s fine. Now sit down and eat your damn breakfast, woman.”
She lifted an eyebrow.
“Marian. Sit down and eat your damn breakfast, Marian. Happy?”
She was, in fact, very happy. Marian had lived alone since the death of her husband eight years before, and kept pretty much to herself. They’d owned several car rental agencies together, and after Hank’s fatal accident while parking one of the rentals, she’d wanted nothing more to do with the business. Between the considerable insurance and the money from selling off the stores, she had plenty to keep her and her collection of animals going indefinitely. With the exception of trips to the grocery and pet stores, Marian didn’t see many people anymore, and until Todd came for breakfast, she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed having company around.
“So, tell me about Leprechauns,” she said, sipping her tea. “It’s obvious that I’m woefully ignorant, and I don’t want to insult you again.”
Todd belched. “What do you want to know? That’s a broad subject and I’m not Wikipedia, you know.”
“Wait, you have computers?”
“Oh, we have a lot of things. Why do you think they call it Microsoft? We had it first. There was a lot of debate over whether to call it ‘Macrosoft’ when they brought it to you people.”
“I see,” Marian said, disbelief clearly painted across her face.
“Look,” he said, scraping together a second scrambled egg sandwich. “I can see this is hard for you to believe, but my family’s been in this country for six generations. You’re not living in a log cabin and making your own cheese, so why should my family be living in hollow trees and dancing jigs all day? I’m just saying we’ve advanced right along with you.”
Marian considered this for a moment while she chewed. “Would you like more toast?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he said, licking his fingers.
“So…Leprechauns are modernized. Then what’s with this thing?” she asked, patting the pot of gold around her neck.
Todd’s eyes narrowed. “That,” he said, “is my heritage and my magic. When we come of age, we have to design a pot to hold our inheritance of gold. When the design is approved, a master jeweler creates it. At the ceremony, the pot, the gold, and the Leprechaun are joined, and it becomes the source of magic for that Leprechaun. He…or she…must then find a hiding place for it, because anyone who captures the pot of gold captures the Leprechaun. In order to get it back, the Leprechaun must grant one wish in exchange.”
Marian leaned forward and eyed Todd with suspicion. “One wish?” she
asked. “I always heard it was three.”
Todd sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, in the old days, it was three. You want three wishes, you have to go to Ireland. After six generations of dividing it up between offspring, there’s not nearly as much to go around.”
“Ah,” she said, leaning back and nodding her head. “That explains it.”
“Explains what?” he asked, his face turning pink.
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“No, say it. You were wondering why it was so small, weren’t you!”
“No, of course not!” Marian had always been a terrible liar. She fiddled with a stray tendril of hair and made a show of trying to pin it back on her head. She glanced at him and saw he wasn’t going to let it go, so dropped her arms to her lap in defeat. “Yes, fine. You caught me again. I’m the unwitting victim of propaganda and stereotypes. I’m sure the size of your pot of gold is in no way a reflection on you personally.”
Todd puffed out his chest. “Damn right it’s not.” He held out his shot glass. “Could I get a refill?”
Marian busied herself with the tea to cover the awkward silence. She set it carefully back on his table and took a deep breath. “So. One wish, huh?”
“Yes,” he said. “One wish. I guess if they were small, I’d have enough juice to grant three, but they’d have to be really small. You know, like ordering a pizza or refilling the toothpaste. It’s up to you.” He shrugged. “In the meantime, I’ve gotta go to work.”
“You work?”
“Yes, I work. Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said this morning? Thanks for breakfast. I’ll be back for dinner around six. I’ll bring my own utensils.”
Marian sat stunned as he slid down the tablecloth, hopped off the kitchen chair, and left through the open back door. Huh, she thought. Dinner. I should go to the grocery store.
~*~
Todd arrived just after six as he’d promised. Marian had spent the day cleaning cages and worrying over what to cook for an uninvited Leprechaun, and finally decided to keep it simple. In all honesty, she was glad he was coming but didn’t want the grumpy little bugger to know it. Still, he seemed to appreciate the meatloaf and mashed potatoes in a way that made Marian wonder when his last home-cooked meal had been.
“So,” she said, trying to sound casual and not at all like she was prying. “Won’t your family wonder why you’re not eating at home?”
“Dead,” he said, shoveling potatoes into his mouth. “All dead, except for my brother, Ted, and my sister, Peggy. They moved to Chicago.”
“Why didn’t you go with them?” Marian’s brows knit in concern. No wonder he was so grumpy. She took a closer look at his frayed jeans and disheveled hair. She shook her head and mentally chided herself. He was a grown man—uh, Leprechaun—and she was not going to turn this into some warped version of “The Shoemaker and the Elves.” The mental picture of her trying to sew clothes for him made her smile until she realized he was scowling at her.
“Why bother asking me a question if you’re not going to listen?” he said, growing red in the face. “And what are you smiling about?”
“I’m sorry, Todd. I got distracted for a moment. What did you say?”
“Nothing important.” He was sulking now, pushing his fork across the empty plate. “I was just saying that Chicago is too cold. I like the weather in California.”
Marian smiled. “Me too,” she said, clearing the plates. “There’s cake, if you want some.”
~*~
After dinner, she set the dishes in the sink to soak, then wondered what would come next. She and Todd spent an awkward moment looking at each other and then at the kitchen clock, making noises like it was getting late.
“I guess I’ll get going then,” Todd said.
“I suppose,” Marian said. “Or…I was just about to watch the news…if you’d like to stay for a bit?”
Todd brightened, then composed himself into a carefully crafted expression of boredom. “I suppose I could stay for a little while.”
She led him through the living room to get to the family room and he stopped in mid-step. His jaw dropped and for a moment he stood speechless as he looked around at the menagerie.
“What the hell is all this?” he said with dismay.
Marian was uncomfortable and defensive, but entirely aware of how odd the room looked. “It’s my collection,” she said. “This is where all the homeless animals come.”
Hands in his pockets, Todd took a stroll around the room. He peered into the cages on the floor, then shinnied up a table to wander across it, letting out a low whistle. “So this is what you do all day?”
“Yes,” she said. “Mostly. I don’t know where half of them come from. They just show up in a box on my doorstep. Apparently, people have decided it’s my job.”
Todd stiffened and eyed the shadows with suspicion. “So, you’re a widow and you have all these animals.” A rabbit below him twitched, rattling its cage, and Todd jumped back from the edge of the table, visibly shaken. “Just how many cats do you have then, and why haven’t you warned me?”
“Cats?” she said pulling herself up straight, more offended than she’d been in her life. “Now who’s full of stereotypes? A woman living alone must have dozens of cats, is that right? Perhaps you’d like to see the pink tutu I made for the guinea pig? Come around next week, I’m nearly done teaching Hamlet to the mice. We’ll be ready for their first performance on Tuesday. And have I, in any way, given you a reason to doubt my sincerity as a hostess? Did anything I’ve done so far make you think I wouldn’t take your safety into account, even if I did have cats?” Marian fumed at Todd, her arms folded across her chest. “I am not a crazy cat lady.”
Todd stood considering her for a moment, head cocked to the side. “Hamlet?” he said. He snorted, then started to giggle.
Marian’s lips twitched. Todd covered his mouth but couldn’t keep his laughter from erupting through the cracks between his fingers. Marian, attempting to retain what little dignity she had left, tried to contain her amusement. Her shoulders shook like a diesel engine, until the pressure bubbled up and escaped in a breathless cackle. This caused Todd to double over, holding his sides. They continued for some time, hooting and chortling, not even sure what had been so funny in the first place, each feeding off the other. When their laughter finally ran out of steam, Todd wiped his eyes and cleared his throat.
“So…no cats then?” he said.
“No,” she said. “I’m allergic.”
This caused an aftershock of hilarity, not as severe as the first, but no less cleansing. When they’d pulled themselves together, they moved to the family room and caught the end of the news, followed by reruns of sitcoms, then Letterman. They talked all evening, arguing over politics, talking about their families, Todd’s dissatisfaction with his job as a telemarketer, the embarrassing antics of young starlets. Marian didn’t want the evening to end, but they both needed to be up early the next morning. She saw him to the door and thanked him for coming.
Todd smiled up at her, then frowned, eyeing the pot dangling around her neck.
“Decided on a wish yet?” he asked.
Marian shifted from one foot to the other. “No,” she said. “See you at breakfast?”
His eyes lit up. “How about blueberry muffins?”
“Muffins it is.”
He nodded. “See you at breakfast.”
“Unmatched Cupid”
A Mount Olympus Employment Agency Short Story
This story is a quick peek into the world of the Mount Olympus Employment Agency series. I originally wrote it for the 2013 Valentine’s Day project for the Here Be Monsters website. The only requirement for the project was to match the theme “Heart-shaped Box.” I ran with it, and the box itself barely played into the story. I’m a rebel like that.
Ellen flounced into the office, rosy cheeked and self-satisfied. She hung her wings on the hook beneath her name, and rang the bell next to the wipe-off
board. The entire freaking office went wild with applause.
Except for me. Oh, I gave a polite clap, sure. But I didn’t bother to offer even a fake smile, and had she deigned to look my way, she’d have seen the poison darts I was pretending to shoot at her out of my eyeballs.
Because Ellen was obnoxiously petite, the bosslady had set up a stepstool for her. I watched barely five feet of bubbling cuteness climb the step to draw another tick mark beneath her name on the board. She flashed a grin over her shoulder at the rest of the room, then added two more ticks.
The room erupted again. She smoothed her little pink-and-white cardigan, then hopped down.
I stared at my computer screen in despair. I wasn’t cut out for this. Every match I tried to make blew up in my face. I was the worst matchmaker in the Cupid department. And if I didn’t make a match soon, I’d be demoted and transferred to somewhere far worse.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have taken the job if I’d had any other choice. There were only two ways into the Mount Olympus Employment Agency: you could be sponsored and brought in by a blood-related god—like Ellen did—or you could have unknown god blood somewhere in your heritage and hit rock bottom in your life.
That was how I got there. Apparently, I was related to some minor god, and when I found myself homeless, unemployed, and alone—boom. Some bum I’d never met before grabbed me and dragged me into an abandoned building. Except the building was different inside—huge, clean, and filled with people. I couldn’t say which was more terrifying, abduction by a bum or the magic office, complete with gorgon receptionist.
I suppose I could have run, but I didn’t have much choice. I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t get to choose my new profession, either. They made me a cupid. And I sucked mightily at it.
I pushed my sweaty bangs away from my eyes and focused on the screen. It was no use. I’d been trying to fill the grid for so long, I’d lost track of where I’d started. Better to start from scratch. Tapping the reset button, I watched the sixteen portraits of lonely men and women shuffle like cards and spread themselves to the edges of my screen. The grid in the middle emptied its rows and columns for me to refill.