GODDESSES INC

19

"Well?" asked Mnem while driving home from window shopping with Inna, Naret, and Axie.

"Well what?" Calliope's voice was far away, even though she was across town in the home of a New York Times bestselling author who couldn't finish his novel series.

Mnem called Calliope once a week for a daughter update. Mnem was not a meddlesome mother and mortality didn't change that.

"Did you girls put your nine gorgeous heads together and come up with a plan for my life?"

"We tried, Momma. We really did. But..."

"You've got to be joking. You're the muses! Not one of my fabulous goddess daughters has any ideas?" Anger and sarcasm made her voice as sharp as a xiphos, a warrior's double-edged sword. Mnem gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white.

"Not ideas you'd like."

"Try me."

"Do you want to be a history teacher?"

"Heavens, no. Grade papers and read essays? Sounds like Hades."

"What about a research assistant for the ancient history department at a university?"

"Too much researching."

"You're not making this easy." Calliope's voice was as gentle as a summer Aegean breeze. "If it's any consolation, we heard FEM fired others."

Mnem slammed the breaks at the crosswalk to let an old woman pushing a wire utility cart shuffle across the street. That might be me in a few decades. Haggard. Badly dressed. Wearing comfort shoes with arch support. She shuddered. "Who? Give me names."

"I don't know. That's the rumor going around. MAS fired gods too. If any goddesses know what's happening, they aren't talking. Everyone's on edge. They're worried about who's next and wondering what the criteria for being fired is."

No longer being relevant. "You girls have nothing to fear."

Mnem's daughters were always in high demand.

"Momma, we decided it's not your fault."

"It's all my fault."

"Not really." Calliope's voice shifted, tightened with conviction, like an attorney speaking to a jury. "You were assigned the goddess role. You didn't choose it. Just like we didn't choose ours. FEM made you the goddess of remembrance, knowledge, history, and art."

"I am the daughter of Uranus and Gaia."

"This isn't about them," said Calliope. "Did FEM foresee that your role would wither like a grape on a vine? If Shee did, then why didn't Shee help you? Many companies retrain their employees. FEM chose not to help. Have you looked at social media lately, Momma? Memory, wisdom—mortals don't remember what they posted a day ago. Opinions and positions change faster than Hermes flies around the globe. Our current world conceals all our most sacred values."

Mnem tapped the accelerator. "You're right. I hadn't thought about it like that."

"I believe—all my sisters do—that those values are still there, buried deep under a techno pile of crap."

"Thank you. I feel better. Not inspired though."

Calliope laughed. "Where are you right now?"

Mnem told her the cross streets.

"You're not far from Gallery Hall. How long has it been since you were there?"

"Years." Mnem remembered the art museum's grand opening. A CEO of something or other took her to an event many years ago. It was all premium alcohol, artisan-crafted cuisine, and society gossip. The art was a backdrop. Mnem recalled slipping away to the antiquities wing to admire the larger-than-life Greek statue of Aphrodite—in truth, she's a petite little thing—and to marvel at the ceremonial basin carved with a hippocampos and two wave-riding nereids. The CEO....