Elliot went back to his cubicle, and Phil dialed Teri’s cell number. She didn’t answer. Her battery was probably dead, too. He decided not to panic. There was no need for it yet. All the smiting had been annoying, a string of bad luck from an angry prosperity god. Nothing life-threatening to this point.
His imagination worked against him. He could see the wheel coming off her car, sending her skidding into the path of a speeding semi. Or her tripping at the top of a flight of stairs and falling. Or getting electrocuted by a fax machine. Or a million other grim possibilities. It was all luck in the end. If probability had it in for you, there wasn’t much you could do to stop it.
He pushed aside his concerns and let work occupy his thoughts. He kept glancing at the clock. A minute after she should’ve made it to work, he called. She wasn’t there yet.
He waited fifteen minutes, then called again. Teri still wasn’t in.
Phil started getting nervous.
“Problem, buddy?” asked Elliot, his head poking above the cubicle partition.
“It’s nothing.”
“Are you sure? You aren’t typing. Normally, the clickity-click of your keyboard is like a machine gun.”
Phil’s hands rested in his lap. “It’s fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. He should’ve listened to Teri when she said no to getting a god. And he shouldn’t have listened to her when she’d said she’d changed her mind. Now she was the victim of an angry raccoon god, and it was all his fault. If he hadn’t brought it up in the first place then everything would have been fine.
The phone rang. He answered it so fast, he didn’t even realize it was to his ear until he heard Teri’s voice.
“Phil, has something gone wrong? Are you okay?”
He slumped in his chair and blew out a calming breath. “I’m good.” He pondered the jelly and ink stains on his shirt as he formulated his next sentence. If Teri hadn’t figured out what was happening by now, there was no reason to upset her. He could appease Lucky on his own time, and she might never know.
“I just called to say I love you,” he said.
“Uh-huh. Love you, too.”
The line was silent as Teri formulated her own reply.
“So we’ve been smote, right?”
“I’m fairly certain we have been,” he agreed.
“Damn. And to think I was feeling sorry for that little bastard.”
Phil winced. “Honey, I don’t think it’s a good idea to profane our new god right now.”
“Sorry. I knew this was a bad idea. Why didn’t you talk me out of it?”
“Why did you talk me into it?” he replied.
“We have to fix it. Maybe we could renounce him.”
Phil said, “I don’t know. That costs a lot of money. Lawyers in the Divine Court aren’t cheap. Plus it takes time. Sometimes months.”
He imagined having another day like this, one right after another. Even if it didn’t eventually kill him, he wasn’t looking forward to it. Teri had the same thought.
“So we appease him, right?” she asked. “That shouldn’t be too hard. He said we could just call him when we were ready to commit.”
“I left the number at the house.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said through clenched teeth. “It was just some bad luck.”
“I suppose you’re going to blame Lucky for that, too.”
“This is no big deal,” he said. “We can handle this. It’s just one bad day. Tonight, you’ll pick me up-”
“Yes, about that. Someone else will have to take you home tonight. I ran over a hubcap, and it broke my axle.”
“Damn it, do you know how much that’s going to cost us?”
“More than a jar of pennies,” she replied. “I don’t want to talk about it. I just want this fixed. Now.”
He heard a thud on the line.
“Ow, son of a bitch! My paperweight just dropped on my foot. Jeez, that hurts. Phil…”
“I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”
“Make it quick, okay?” she said. “I have an important meeting at two and I know if I end up setting the boardroom on fire it’ll probably earn me a write-up.”
He hung up and tried to save his work. Sickly green filled his monitor and smoke rose from his computer. Phil quickly unplugged it.
Elliot popped up. “Do I smell something burning?”
Phil waved away the smoke. “I need to borrow your car.”
Elliot narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why don’t you have yours?”
“Flat tire.”
“This isn’t wrath-related, is it?”
Phil considered lying, but he wasn’t very good at it. “Maybe.”
“Forget it.”
“Remember that time I caught you and Ginger in the broom closet during the vernal equinox party?” said Phil. “And your wife was about to discover you, too, if I hadn’t stalled her, if I remember right.”
“That’s no fair. I was drunk. It was just a little making out anyway. Nothing serious.”
“I’m sure Amy would’ve been fine with seeing you and Ginger dry-humping next to the mops.”
Elliot threw his keys at Phil.
“We’re even now. But please be careful with that car. I just bought it, and my insurance doesn’t cover acts of gods.”
4
Bonnie would later think about how random it all was, and how an entire life could change because of a stolen motorcycle. They never found the thief. She sometimes liked to believe that it was destiny, that an emissary of fate had snatched her prized Harley as part of a larger plot. Perhaps right now the cycle was being used to tow the sun across the heavens, too. She could live with that.
She knew better. If there was one thing her dealings with the divine would teach her, it was that there was no larger plan. Mortals might not like that. Gods might do their best to deny it. But Whim was the true ruler of the universe. Bonnie had bought her Harley on a whim. Someone had stolen it on another whim. It was a whim of public transportation that there was a bus stop just a block from her apartment, and a whim of nature that the morning was so beautiful she left early to sit on the bench and enjoy the crisp weather.
A lone woman occupied the bench. She was disheveled, with dirty brown hair. She wore a dress that must have been beautiful a decade ago, but now was tattered and dirty. She sat slumped. Her face was hidden and she wore gloves, so Bonnie couldn’t guess her age. Bonnie wondered if the woman was homeless or a burned-out hippie or something else. Bonnie had expected more people since it was the morning commute, but maybe the woman had scared them away.
Bonnie almost walked away but decided she was being judgmental. She wasn’t going to let a snap judgment ruin her day.
“Hello,” she said as warmly as she could.
The woman turned her head. Her hair fell across her eyes and obscured everything but her chin. It was smooth and pale. Too pale. As if her skin had never been exposed to sunlight. Or any light at all. Like an albino. She didn’t smile.
“Hello.” There was a slight rasp in her flat voice.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” The woman raised her head. Her hair clung to her face, refusing to show any more of it. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Bonnie decided the woman was weird, but harmless. If she did scare away the other commuters, it just gave Bonnie more room on the bench. She sat down. A chill passed through her.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” said the woman, shaking her head.
“I’m sorry?”
“You shouldn’t have sat there.”
The woman sighed deeply and a frozen wind swept across the bench. The birdsongs turned shrill. Darkness blotted out the sun, and a gray shadow fell across the bus stop and only the bus stop. The rest of the world was just as bright and warm as before, but the miniature eclipse enveloped the stop in raw, all-consuming hopelessness. There was no other word for it.
The darkness passed. It didn’t fade so much as bleed into the ground and slide into place as the woman’s shadow. The cold lessened but didn’t disappear. Bonnie jumped off the bench and rubbed her hands together.