Authors: S. G. Browne
Tags: #Humorous, #Romance, #General, #Contemporary, #Fiction
Fated (18 page)
I talk to a forty-two-year-old pathological shopper and explain to her how owning six major credit cards, four of which are maxed out, isn’t the best way to plan for her financial future.
I stop a twenty-nine-year-old dog walker who has just blown two days’ pay on a single pair of jeans and tell him that Darwin would probably put him in the gene pool of humans unfit for natural selection.
I ask a married couple with more money than integrity if their wealth wouldn’t be better spent feeding homeless children rather than feeding their insatiable appetite for designer furniture and imported caviar.
I’m not making a lot of friends.
Convincing humans to give up their self-destructive consumer lifestyles is harder than I thought. Of course, it would be easier if Common Sense were still around, but she disappeared during the Vietnam War and hasn’t been heard from since.
And it doesn’t help that I have to compete with Flamboyance and Vanity.
They’re walking along the promenade on the other side of the Champs-Élysées, working the tourists and the locals like politicians collecting votes. Vanity is wearing a flattering skintight black Donna Karan dress with a plunging neckline and a knee-high hem while she convinces a trio of college girls that they need an entire wardrobe makeover. Flamboyance, on the other hand, wins over his converts as he preens and parades around like Mick Jagger in his leather pants and satin shirt.
The thing about Vanity is that she’s a hypochondriac.
The thing about Flamboyance is that he’s a misogynist.
As I watch the two of them move through the crowds, convincing humans of their needs and desires and the importance of style over substance, a husky voice behind me says, “Not as easy as it looks, is it?”
I turn around, knowing who I’ll find sitting on the bench before I see Destiny in a red leather V-neck zippered jumpsuit by Guess and a pair of matching thigh-high patent-leather boots.
“What’s not as easy?” I ask, trying to pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about.
“Oh, come on, Faaaaabio,” she says. “I’ve been watching you for the past half an hour, trying to convince your humans to change their ways. It’s admirable. Pointless, but admirable.”
I’m not sure what bothers me more: the fact that Destiny has been watching me for the past half an hour without my knowing it or that she thinks what I’m doing is pointless.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Slumming,” she says. “Seeing how the other eighty-three percent lives. I don’t know how you put up with them, Fabio. They’re all just so . . . ordinary.”
That may be true, but they’re still my humans and I don’t appreciate having them judged by an immortal entity who’s had sex with every Deadly Sin.
“They’re not so bad,” I say. “You just have to get to know them.”
Destiny brays laughter.
While part of me can’t believe I’m defending my humans, a larger part of me can’t stand Destiny’s contempt for them.
“They may not be destined to save someone’s life or to win a Pulitzer Prize or to discover a cure for AIDS, but they all have some redeeming value,” I say. “Once you get past all of the failures and the hangups and the self-destructive behaviors.”
“This isn’t like you, Fabio,” she says. “You used to be so objective. So unemotional. Why do you suddenly have such an interest in your humans?”
“Maybe I’m tired of watching them screw up their lives,” I say. “Maybe I want to help them find their dreams.”
Again, Sara’s words coming out of my mouth.
“You know you’re asking for trouble, Fabio,” she says. “Interfering is a big no-no.”
“Yeah, well, you haven’t exactly been following company policy with Sara,” I say, before I can help myself.
“If you realized how special she is,” says Destiny, “you’d understand.”
“I know how special she is,” I say.
“You have no idea,” says Destiny. “You’re in over your head, Fabio. You need to get out before you end up getting hurt.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“You know it can’t work,” says Destiny. “You can’t have a relationship with her. It’s not only against company policy; it’s impossible.”
“I’m fine,” I say again.
For a few moments we say nothing, just stare at each other—me standing there wishing she’d go away and her standing there like a giant red exclamation point.
Destiny cocks her head at me and smiles.
“What?” I say.
“I miss you, Fabio,” she says. “I miss all the good times we had.”
“It was just sex,” I say.
“Maybe,” she says. “But it was good sex.”
I can’t really argue with her on that one.
She continues to stare at me, her head cocked, that Cheshire-cat grin plastered on her face.
“What?” I ask again.
As if I didn’t know.
She slides up to me, her long, firm, leather-clad legs less than an inch from my man suit, one hand pulling down her zipper, exposing a mountain range of cleavage.
“I can’t,” I say, closing my eyes. I’d swear it’s my imagination, but she smells like cinnamon.
“Come on, Faaaaabio,” she purrs, her breath brushing tantalizingly past my ear. “For old times’ sake?”
I just shake my head and hold my breath and think about Gluttony. When I open my eyes, I expect to see her standing naked in front of me, that seductive smirk on her face. Instead, I turn and see her red, leather-clad body sauntering away up the Champs-Élysées toward the Arc de Triomphe.
CHAPTER 26
After I finish
up in Paris, I spend a few hours in England dealing with an assortment of losers and has-beens and members of Parliament, then take a tour of the Tower of London. The tour guide, a wannabe Beefeater, gets so many facts about the Tower’s history wrong that I have to start correcting him. By the end of the tour, I’m asked to never come back. Just as well. The place was much livelier when people were actually getting beheaded.
up in Paris, I spend a few hours in England dealing with an assortment of losers and has-beens and members of Parliament, then take a tour of the Tower of London. The tour guide, a wannabe Beefeater, gets so many facts about the Tower’s history wrong that I have to start correcting him. By the end of the tour, I’m asked to never come back. Just as well. The place was much livelier when people were actually getting beheaded.
From England, I head to Belgium and Germany, then make a pass through Austria, Hungary, and Greece on my way to South-east Asia before swinging through Australia and then doubling back to China and Russia. A quick jump over the Bering Strait and a whirlwind jaunt across Canada and before you can say, “Destiny is a redheaded bitch,” I’m back in New York in time for my dinner date with Sara.
Santa Claus doesn’t get around this fast.
Of course, he’s leaving all the good little boys and girls the material possessions they’re expecting to receive for their impeccable behavior, while I’m filling the stockings of my charges with suggestions for how to hold down a job, why it’s inappropriate to have sex with your mother-in-law, and when to stop investing your retirement account at the roulette table.
Not every human is open to my suggestions. Some of them are so set in their ways and so convinced of their own infinite wisdom that they brush me off or call the cops or attack me with pepper spray. Still, in spite of the dismissals and the near arrests and the feeling of having my face drenched in gasoline and set on fire, I’ve discovered just how hungry most humans are for someone to actually take an interest in their lives. To give them some direction. To provide a sense of purpose. To offer help and comfort—even if it is sprinkled with phrases like “embarrassment to intelligent life” and “worthless waste of carbon.”
Sometimes it’s hard to hear the truth.
But at least I feel like I’m beginning to make a difference rather than just standing back and watching my humans ruin their lives. I know the circumstances of their fates aren’t supposed to be participatory, that their paths are supposed to be determined by their uninfluenced choices, but why should Destiny’s humans get to have a say in their futures while mine are stuck with their crappy fates?
“You’re mumbling again,” says Sara.
I look up from my sixteen-spice chicken and realize I’ve been voicing my private thoughts out loud again.
“What did I say?” I ask.
“Something about fate and destiny,” she says, taking a bite of her grilled lamb porterhouse chops.
We’re at Mesa Grill—a loud, popular Southwestern dining establishment named the best American regional restaurant in New York for five years running. Personally, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. As far as I can tell, my sixteen-spice chicken is at least three spices short of its advertised seasoning. At $27 for the entree, that comes to $1.69 per spice, which means I should get a refund of $5.07.
It’s not the smartest thing for me to be seen out in public with Sara. You never know when you’ll run into Integrity or Gossip. But Sara started to complain that after nearly three months together, we haven’t had a date that’s taken place outside of our apartment building.
So because I want her to be happy, I booked us a table at the Mesa Grill for dinner. Not exactly a hole-in-the-wall, but I figured if I’m going to go out in public, I might as well get it over with. Besides, it’s not as if I’m trying to hide my relationship with Sara from Destiny. And realistically, I can’t expect Sara to be content with sex, cable television, and take-out Chinese forever. Plus Sara’s refrigerator was empty and she needed some leftovers.
“So what were you mumbling?” asks Sara, taking another bite of her porterhouse chops with garlic mashed potatoes.
“It’s nothing,” I say.
“It’s not nothing,” says Sara. “You talk about it all the time.”
“Talk about what all the time?”
“Fate and destiny,” she says. “It’s almost like an obsession with you. You even talk about it in your sleep.”
I hadn’t realized I talked about it that much. And I had no idea I talked in my sleep.
“I’m not obsessed,” I say. “I’m just . . . preoccupied.”
“Why is that?” she asks.
Another thing about mortal women: They ask a lot of questions. Which can prove to be a challenge when you’re trying to avoid telling the truth.
“I don’t know,” I say. “You’re the one who started it.”
There. I’ve deflected blame. That should solve the problem.
“Me?” she says. “How did I start it?”
“When you asked me if I believed in destiny,” I say.
“Yes, but when I asked you how come you knew so much about fate and destiny, you told me it was a hobby of yours.”
I don’t know why I let myself get painted into a corner like this. I mean, it’s not like I couldn’t see it coming.
Suddenly I’m not interested in the rest of my thirteen-spice chicken.
“Listen,” says Sara, reaching across the table and taking my hand. “I’m just trying to understand you. To get to know you. To discover the person inside. And I can’t do that if you keep me at a distance.”
She’s right. But I don’t know how to discuss this with Sara without explaining who I am and what I do. Of course, I haven’t exactly been adhering to company guidelines lately, but being the kind of honest she needs is asking for trouble.
So I have to improvise.
“You remember how you said you thought we were destined to meet?” I ask.
Sara nods.
“What made you think that?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Just a feeling. Like there was some greater purpose for our meeting. Something unique. Something . . .”
“Special?”
Sara nods and smiles.
I reach across the table and take Sara’s hands in mine. “If you ask me, what’s special about us is you.”
Which isn’t me improvising or trying to change the subject or angling for a blow job. It’s just the honest-to-Jerry truth.
“And what you said about thinking you and I were destined to be together,” I say. “I think it, too.”
And the thing is, I realize I really do.
Sara smiles again, then leans across my thirteen-spice chicken and kisses me before returning to her porterhouse chops.
The remainder of the meal passes without further conversation about fate and destiny, though Sara does make a comment about how she’d much rather be destined than fated any day of the week, which does wonders for my ego. It also reminds me that it’s time for us to get out of here. It’s almost impossible to go out to a restaurant or a bar in Manhattan and not run into Inebriation or Anxiety or one of the Deadlies. So far, I haven’t seen anyone else, but I don’t want to push my luck by complaining about my spice-challenged chicken or ordering dessert.
On our way out, Sara stops and gives her leftovers to a homeless woman on Fifth Avenue, which means we’re going to have to get some pizza or Chinese delivered so Sara has something to eat for breakfast. While Sara’s fishing a twenty out of her wallet to give to the woman, I turn around to find Destiny staring at me from inside the Mesa Grill.
Destiny is on the other side of the window wearing a formfitting red silk sweater, skintight red jeans, red leather tennis shoes, and a red beret. If she weren’t invisible, every single human male in the restaurant would either be asking Destiny for her number or getting slapped by his date.
Other books
Viper (Second Wave Book 1) by Mikayla Lane
Elemental (The Keeper of the elements) by Donovan, Shayne
Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney
The Setup (The Dark Billionaire, #1) by L.N. Pearl
Word & Void 02 - A Knight of the Word by Terry Brooks
The Mandie Collection by Lois Gladys Leppard
When Love Calls by Unknown
The Fabled Beast of Elddon by David Barber
Flowing with the Go by Elena Stowell
Smoky Joe's Cafe by Bryce Courtenay
