GODDESSES INC

3

Mnem swiped her credit card through the machine, picked up her demitasse cup, and joined Inna at the little round table in the corner with a view of FEM. "You knew what was going to happen to me, didn't you?"

"No, not for certain." Inna set down her coffee. Her usual order, a brew spiced with cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger, tasted bitter today.

"You should have warned me," Mnem said, her voice as sharp as the tip of Athena's sword.

Inna's nostrils flared.

"Sorry, I..." Mnem waved her hand, touched her forehead. Don't cry. Don't cry.

Inna nodded. She understood and yet she still felt like punching someone in the face. "You're the mother of the nine muses, I couldn't believe Shee would fire you. What excuse did Shee give you? No, let me guess. No followers. No platform. You're irrelevant."

"Exactly those words." Mnem fought the urge to break into tears, her chest squeezing with the effort to Not Cry.

Inna leaned forward. "What's going to happen to us? This has never been done before. How many of us are going to..."

Die. The unspoken word hung in the air like a toxic fog.

"We will wither away like the Celtic goddess Cailleach until we become old crones." Mnem's espresso warmed her throat, took the edge off the Ugly Cry that threatened to erupt.

Inna frowned. "Cailleach regenerates when she finds a new husband." She touched her forearm. "Will we drop dead in the street and turn to dust? Is this my last coffee? My last day?"

Mnem looked out the window, watched as Scáthach, legendary Scottish warrior, entered FEM. "I don't think Shee knows. If Shee did, Shee would have told us."

Inna lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "Shee is All. Shee knows All. It's part of our punishment."

"My head tells me Shee really has no idea how we will age."

"Your head is mortal now." Inna tapped her own. "Fallible."

Evidently, it was already imperfect in immortality or I would have seen this coming.

Inna sat back in her chair. "My heart hurts, Mnem. Hurts bad. I'm lost. I'm the goddess of the harvest, protection, and justice. Now I'm nothing." Her head dropped into her hands.

Mnem reached out, wrapped her coffee-warm fingers around Inna's elbow. "We'll figure something out. There has to be somebody who knows what we can do."

Inna looked up, tears welling. "Can you talk to your daughters?"

"I intend to." Mnem slid her phone from her Chanel purse and sent a group text. Emergency family meeting. Tonight. My place. "They're all in town this week for some ridiculous Hollywood awards show where actors give awards to their friends." She studied her petal pink-lacquered fingers as they drummed on the table. Youthful hands. Unlined. Smooth. Free of age spots. You can tell a woman's age by her hands and her neck. How does Cailleach deal with it? Wrinkles, body aches, saggy breasts, a double chin, a flabby stomach. Anger roiled in her belly.

"Do you have another source of income?" asked Inna. "Shee said I'm getting the golden handshake."

"What's that?"

"Three months' salary."

"Shee neglected to tell me that." Mnem's drumming fingers quickened. "My olive oil business does well, but I've always given the profits to local charities." The drumming grew louder.

Those charities relied on Mnem's donations. To stop giving, to reduce the amount, felt akin to stealing.

Mnem's phone buzzed, the first of nine responses to her All Daughter message.

"I don't have any secondary income," said Inna. "My country is poor, and there's no Hollywood yam diet."

"Yet." Mnem winked. "Maybe you should start one. I see it now, secret miracle starch found in Nigerian yams melts fat from the body."

Inna managed a smile. She rubbed away the mascara smudged under her brown eyes, looked at the FEM building, and sighed. Then her lips curved into a wicked smile. Her eyes glittering, she turned to Mnem. "We need to take revenge."

"How?"

"Get one of our goddess friends to start a plague. Something with boils and pustules."

Mnem's nose wrinkled. "Plagues are so medieval. Anyway, mortals make enough lab-created ones. They've far exceeded our talents for creating diseases and pestilence. And remember," she gave her a pointed look, "we're susceptible."

Inna gritted her teeth. "Right, I still don't have a handle on the whole mortality thing yet."

"Besides, involving another goddess is risky. What if Shee finds out?" Mnem shivered. "I do not want to go to thatplace."

Inna swallowed.

That place. Worse than Hell. A Nothingness. Only a few had been sent there. Or so was the rumor.

"I'm okay with risk." Inna rubbed her hands together. "In fact, the more I think about it, the better I like taking revenge. We have nothing to lose. We might even redeem ourselves and earn Shee's respect back. Shee might even reinstate us."

"I doubt it. You know how Shee hates upheaval in the world. People start blaming everyone. The government, each other, Herself and Himself."

"Are you kidding? There's always upheaval in the world somewhere."

"I'm talking about the unusual kind. The kind that makes Shee uncomfortable."

Inna stared at Mnem over the rim of her coffee cup, sipped, and set it down with a decided thunk. "Fine. Not a plague, but something." Her finger stabbed at the table. "I'm going to talk to people. Put out some feelers. I still have contacts. So do you."

Mnem nodded. Or was she now goddess non-gratis? "We'll think of something. We're goddesses, after all. I don't care what Shee says, you can't just end our divinity like that." Mnem snapped her fingers.

"Damn right." Inna leaned forward. "Did you check?"

"Check what?"

"That we're really mortal."

"No." The thought didn't occur to Mnem. Why would Shee lie? "Did you?"

"No. I want to, but," Inna picked up her purse, clutched it to her body. "I'm not ready."

"Me neither." I'll never be ready to see proof that I'm actually mortal.

Inna reached her hand over the table and set it atop Mnem's. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For being you. For not joining my sobfest. You know, you have a reputation for being kind of snooty but now I know why. Memory provides the power to reason, to predict outcomes, to think. Your reason blew away the revenge fog from my brain. Thank you." Inna rose from the table and kissed Mnem on the cheeks. "Have a nice life."

"You as well." Mnem looked back at FEM. Revenge. The word took on new meaning. Revenge existed because mortals and immortals never forgot a wrong. That wrong forever carved into their brains.

Except there is no forever for me anymore.