Matching Wits with Venus Read online

  Matching Wits with Venus

  By Therese Gilardi

  Published by Astraea Press, LLC

  www.astraeapress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  MATCHING WITS WITH VENUS

  Copyright © 2011 THERESE GILARDI

  ISBN 978-1-936852-09-3

  Cover Art Designed By Elaina Lee

  Edited By Stephanie Taylor and Audrey Jamison

  To Stephen, Henry and Charlotte

  With thanks to Stephanie, Jane, Elaina, Alice and Elise

  Chapter One

  In the valley below the thirty foot white block letters that spelled out HOLLYWOOD, between Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” museum and a string of psychic reading rooms, sat a glass-front shop with a rose-colored door. Above the storefront’s small bay window a pink and purple sign proclaimed Happily Ever After By Amelia. Inside, Amelia Coillard stretched out her hands to receive a large almond vanilla pie.

  “It took me all night to make this,” a tall woman wearing an enormous pear shaped diamond on her left hand said, “But I wanted you to know how grateful I am. Really, Amelia, you’re the best. David and I want to invite you to our wedding. On June twenty-first.”

  Amelia bowed slightly and smiled.

  “Glad we could help Susanna. Don’t forget to tell your friends about us.”

  The woman nodded, then strode past the wrought iron café table where Amelia interviewed clients, out onto the empty sidewalk.

  “We’ve got another wedding, “ Amelia called out to her assistant Jennie as she stepped into the back room and placed the pie on a distressed pine sideboard, next to the boxes of chocolates, baskets of figs, bottles of champagne, potpourri sachets and bundles of beeswax candles she’d received from satisfied clients.

  “Let me guess,” Jennie replied, rubbing her hands together. “The summer solstice.”

  Amelia nodded.

  “Flowers in bloom, longer days, baby animals at the zoo. It all means only one thing: June brides. I don’t know how people can be so hopeful.”

  “Hmm, well you’d better get ready. Your first client will be in to fill out her patented personality profile in ten minutes. You know, she actually asked me if I’d mail her the profile and let her fill it out at home! As if we’d release your proprietary secrets!”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you to look after me.” Amelia chuckled.

  She reached inside the little cupboard in the corner and withdrew the fitted white crocheted sweater she’d gotten two years ago at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. The seller had told her the cardigan had been part of the trousseau of one of the old stars who’d lived up in the Hollywood Hills. Amelia wasn’t sure she believed the woman’s story, but the sweater’s delicate pattern reminded her of wedding lace, so she wore it every time she met with a client. And, though she never told Jennie, Amelia was convinced that the sweater from another woman’s trousseau was as close as she’d ever come to clothing herself in bridal wear.

  While Amelia was pulling the sweater over her black mini-dress and adjusting her wavy auburn hair over its pearl trimmed collar, she saw a photo smiling out at her from the back of the cupboard. Inside the silver frame stood an extremely thin young man, his eyes protruding below penciled on eyebrows, a blue bandana wrapped around his head. As Amelia reached out to caress the photo she heard someone rapping on the back window.

  “Justin,” she called out to the young man in the red and black leather jacket, torn jeans and scruffy tennis shoes.

  Justin’s long hair needed a trim and he could use a shave, as well as a bottle of sunblock. Like many of the others who bedded down on the streets around Hollywood and Vine, his face was testimony to the hard realities of living rough under the merciless California sun.

  “I’ve got something for you,” she said as she opened the door.

  Amelia scooped up a napkin, fork and bottle of water from the table that held her teakettle. She handed them to Justin, along with a plate bearing half of the almond vanilla pie.

  “Thanks Amelia.”

  “Have a good day.”

  Amelia watched as Justin disappeared into the alley. She gazed up into the hills in the distance, at the faded ocher stucco mansion that stood atop the highest point. Long verandas seemed to wrap around the house, though it was impossible to know for certain if they ran across the back of the home, since the far side of the walled property was not accessible by road or foot. It sat atop a fault line; no one dared venture onto the rocky terrain for fear of disrupting the crusty earth beneath the bougainvillea bushes.

  “Don’t,” Jennie said softly as she sidled up next to Amelia a moment later.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t go down that path, Lia. It’s not going to take you anywhere you want to be.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Come on, let it go.”

  Amelia sighed.

  “Do you have any idea how many cakes, cookies, tarts, baskets and bouquets I left on those stone steps? Do you know, I used to climb up to that gate every year on Christmas Eve and what should’ve been my parents’ anniversary and leave her these hand-written letters I’d actually sealed with a kiss. I taped those little Hershey’s candies to the envelope when I was little and then, in high school, I slathered red lipstick on my lips and ran my mouth across the back of the envelope. I can’t believe I was so stupid!”

  “We all do dumb things.”

  “Yeah but come on! Believing in the existence of an ancient Roman goddess AND that she lived right in my own neighborhood? Talk about desperate.”

  Jennie laughed.

  “It does sound absurd when you put it that way. Plus everybody knows that house has been abandoned for decades. Why they don’t add it to the Haunted Hollywood tour is beyond me.”

  Amelia nodded. As she took a final look at the mansion Amelia thought she saw a flash of light shoot out from its left flank.

  ****

  Inside the ocher palazzo Venus flicked her cream colored scarf over her slender shoulders as she peered through the ultra-powerful telescope she had trained on Happily Ever After By Amelia.

  “You have to do something about that woman or before you know it they’ll be tearing down all those statues of me and calling her the goddess of love.”

  Venus turned away from the window and looked at her son. Cupid was sitting on the edge of a pink silk sofa, a thick clutch of papers between his muscular hands.

  “If you’d just take a look at these spreadsheets, I think you’ll see I’ve discovered a way to streamline everything. I’ll be able to shoot twice the arrows in half the time if I don’t have to keep backtracking. All you have to do is make your matches in a more geo-centric manner.”

  Venus held up her manicured hand.

  “When I want your advice I’ll ask for it.”

  “Mother, please. I’ve given a lot of though as to how we can modernize, maybe even….”

  “Modernize?”

  Venus stared at her son, who was looking back at her with eyes the color of Lake Cuomo. He opened his mouth again, revealing the slight chip on his front tooth. It was the only flaw on his perfectly proportioned face.

  “I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense. Whe
re are your arrows?”

  Cupid shook his head in disgust and tapped his foot impatiently against the floor, whose planks were made of wood imported from Italy.

  “Cupid! Where’s your quiver?”

  Cupid pointed at the monogrammed leather case lying against the wall, beneath the portrait of Venus that Remus had commissioned after she’d matched up the first inhabitants of Rome. Light glistened off the tips of the golden arrows poking out of the top of the quiver.

  “Now listen to me. I want you to shoot this Amelia with the most powerful arrow you’ve got.”

  “Mother, I’ve got a better idea.”

  Cupid began to leaf through the stack of papers.

  “I said, shoot her! Do you hear me?”

  “What do I have to do, wait another century or so until you’re willing to see me as something more than your arrow boy?” Cupid muttered.

  Venus pretended not to hear her son. Cupid tossed the documents onto the cherry wood coffee table in front of him, grabbed his quiver and strode across the large living room. His best friend Inuus, a perpetual houseguest for the past hundred years, was standing in the doorway.

  “Watch out,” Cupid said, looking over his back, “She’s in rare form.”

  Inuus clapped Cupid on the shoulder.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Cupid,” Inuus said as he entered the room. “Anything I can do to help?”

  Venus smiled as she sat on her pink sofa.

  “You’ve always been such a good boy, Inuus. Like a second son.”

  She motioned for Inuus to join her.

  “We think alike, you and I. We both recognize the perils of the modern age, with its dating services, fertility drugs and performance enhancement pills. We both grasp how all these mortal tools can threaten the position of gods like you and me. We both know how important it is to eliminate all of our competition, before it’s too late.”

  Inuus nodded.

  Venus patted his arm then stood up and motioned for him to follow her to the telescope.

  “I’ve got a job for you, Inuus, a very important job.”

  Venus looked into the telescope and panned the scene below until she spotted Amelia, who was standing in the window of her shop.

  “Look,” she said, handing the telescope to Inuus. “That’s the one causing all the problems.”

  “She reminds me of those jazz singers I used to listen to in Paris in the forties,” Inuus said as he studied Amelia’s petite frame.

  Venus frowned. She grabbed the telescope back and scanned the street in front of Happily Ever After By Amelia. Tourists in sun visors, carrying large maps and water bottles, were beginning to appear on the pavement alongside panhandlers and the young men who sold homemade CDs for five dollars. Off to one side, Venus noticed a homeless man leaning against a brick wall.

  “See that man in the red and black jacket?” Venus asked, as she thrust the telescope back into Inuus’s hands.

  “Uh huh,” Inuus replied.

  “I want you to hire him. I don’t care how you do it. Offer him food, money, whatever he wants. Just make sure he agrees to follow this matchmaker and agrees to never leave her sight.”

  Venus rubbed her hands together gleefully.

  “That way he’ll be the first thing she sees after Cupid shoots her with his arrow. That man will be the one Amelia falls in love with.”

  Inuus looked at Venus and cocked his head.

  “That’s the match you’re making for her?”

  “Don’t question me, Inuus,” Venus snapped. “I know what I’m doing. When people see she’s chosen a homeless man for herself, her matchmaking business will be finished.”

  Chapter Two

  “What do you say to some chariot racing?” Cupid asked moments later as Inuus caught up with him in the rear staircase that led down to the elevator at the back of the mansion. The lift, the gods’ version of a rocket ship, would take them anywhere: across town, across the globe, even into the underworld, in a matter of minutes. Jupiter had installed the intricate network of underground transports centuries before mortals invented rocket ships.

  “Sounds good,” Inuus replied.

  Cupid slung his battered quiver and arrows over his shoulder then rubbed his hands together in anticipation of a round of chariot racing.

  “So, when’re you gonna visit that matchmaker?” Inuus asked as Cupid pressed the red button marked “Roma”.

  Cupid shrugged.

  “Don’t know. Not for a while. I’ve got to do some target practice down at the range first, be sure my aim’s perfect.”

  Inuus rolled his eyes.

  “Since when have you ever missed your target?” Inuus grumbled.

  Cupid pretended he didn’t hear his friend.

  “I can’t wait to get back to Italy,” Inuus said as they shot through the center of the earth.

  As soon as they arrived, two manservants hurried forward with their chariots. Cupid and Inuus decided to remain invisible so they could make their run through the Italian capitol unimpeded by all of the tourists, traffic police and hucksters dressed up as Roman gods. As usual Cupid was faster, though he slowed his horse and let Inuus pull ahead on occasion. They spent several hours racing their chariots along the streets of Rome, into the Coliseum, through the catacombs and around numerous statues and frescoes devoted to Venus. They sped past two fountains and several restaurants named in her honor.

  “I get so sick of seeing my mother’s face everywhere I go,” Cupid said as they stopped for a drink at a small café owned by the goddess Pomona. “I’m tired of her always telling me who I should shoot. I’m sure I could make better matches than the ones she’s put together lately.”

  Inuus nodded absently. Cupid laughed to himself as he watched Inuus. Cupid knew his friend was watching a couple of young Spanish women haggle with a sketch artist, thinking about how pretty they were.

  “What do you say we make ourselves visible, go show them Rome?”

  “You go ahead,” Cupid replied.

  “Really? You never say no to a pretty woman.”

  Cupid laughed and nodded.

  “No, really. There’s something I have to take care of. Go ahead, I’ll pick up the tab.”

  “You staying here in Italy for a while, not going out to do your mother’s work with that matchmaker?”

  Cupid closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and began sunning himself like a lion.

  “I’ll get around to it sometime next week. My mother worries too much.”

  “Yeah. All right then. Wish me luck.”

  Inuus snapped his fingers and a red motor scooter appeared in front of the café. He snapped his fingers again and made himself visible atop the Vespa’s sleek seat, in a pair of tight Levi’s, black leather jacket, and Ray Ban sunglasses. He grinned at Cupid as one of the Spanish women looked at him and smiled.

  Cupid paid the bar bill then sat back against the seat and studied the crowd of tourists. After he was certain Inuus could no longer see him, Cupid made his way across the Italian capitol to a large shooting gallery. Poor boys from various Roman neighborhoods, clad in dark blue athletic outfits that bore a small gold crest, stood in front of large bulls eye targets, quivers poised, arrows at the ready. They smiled when they saw Cupid appear.

  “Ah, our patron saint!” Signor Morgiari called out as Cupid approached.

  The old man reached out and clasped Cupid’s hand.

  “Still after this many years, I am amazed at your generosity and the fact that you never fail to teach the boys how to shoot.”

  “I couldn’t do this without you, Marcello. Don’t you ever forget it,” Cupid replied. “Just promise me you’ve kept your vow to keep my involvement secret.”

  “Of course,” Signor Morgiari said. “Still, how many would be shocked to learn of your input.”

  Cupid laughed. “I think you’re right about that.”

  After he spent several hours helping the boys perfect their shots, Cu
pid had himself transported back to his mother’s Hollywood home. Upon his arrival, Cupid climbed the stone staircase at the back of the palazzo to his suite of rooms and opened the door to the massive wardrobe Venus had commissioned for him by one of her favorite craftsmen. The closet was full of sixteenth century hunting chaps, togas, and silk smoking jackets, perfectly tailored suits that had been custom made for him by the same Saville Row designers who outfitted the British royal family. It held row after row after row of Shetland wool sweaters. A grateful Scottish sheep farmer’s wife had knit them for Cupid seven hundred years ago after he’d brought love to all eight of her daughters.

  Cupid pushed past all these garments until he got to his California collection, which consisted of several shelves of jeans, t-shirts embossed with the names of various bands he’d seen perform at the Hollywood Bowl and at his favorite club in Venice Beach, and a few sports coats for those chilly winter days. He slipped his toned legs into a pair of dark jeans, strapped on an expensive pair of black leather shoes and a complementary belt, and pulled on a crisp white button down shirt that highlighted his healthy complexion.