The Weight of the World (24 page)

“Stop
it!” Frank growled.

Evan
froze.

“This
is my job. I'm not going to fight you, Fuller.” He set Evan down
hard and Evan stumbled. He caught himself on the hood of the car and
stood erect. “I need this job, alright? I'm going to be a father.
So how about you give it up and go home.”

“Are
you even sorry?”

“Devon's
probably the one who should be sorry. I didn't do anything wrong,”
Frank said with a shrug. He turned back to the car and picked up the
wet cloth.

“Bullshit.
You knew it would hurt me, but you didn't care.”

“I
guess I didn't,” Frank said without looking back.

Evan
wiped his nose. He turned and marched back to his bike, his dignity
thoroughly shattered.

Devon
sat on her bed, staring at the contacts list on her phone. She knew
she had to call him before he saw the blog post, but she was afraid
of the conversation that would follow.

Her
phone rang, startling her and causing her to drop it off the bed.
Devon dug it out from underneath and answered it.

“Evan?”
she asked.

“So
when were you going to tell me?”

“Evan,
I was just about to call you.”

“Sure.”

“No,
really. I was.”

“You're
supposed to break it off before you sleep with another guy.”

“Evan,
I'm sorry.”

“I
should have never let you in.”

“Evan,
I didn't mean to--”

“Don't
talk to me again, okay? Just... I'll see you at Pantheon meetings,
but don't ever talk to me again.”

The
line went silent. Devon sat with her hands in her face. She had felt
so blissful about patching things up with Frank, but she had really
never meant to hurt Evan. He had been good companionship when she was
down; she should have left it at friendship.

She
got up and opened the bedroom door and walked straight down the hall
to the back of the house. She stormed onto the patio and slammed the
back door behind herself. Adam was just coming out into his own yard
with a copy of
Time
magazine in his hands. “Everything alright?” he asked.

“Not
really. It'll be okay.”

“Oh...”
he stopped at the fence. “Devon, listen, are you guys going to talk
to me about what's going on? That dog and then Astin seemingly
healing Teddy. I know you know more than you're telling me.”

Devon
sighed. She wasn't sure she needed the added stress of this right
now, but maybe it was a good distraction from her own guilt. “Come
on over here. I'm not having this conversation outside,” she said.
“I'll tell you everything.”

“
The
dice of Zeus always fall luckily.”

-Sophocles

xix.

On
the good advice of a craftier God,

Zeus
carved a wood avatar of a woman

and
dressed her in the finest marriage garments.

He
purveyed a lie.

When
the villagers would question the wagon,

Zeus
would tell them his bride was Plataia

and
claim she was the daughter of Asopos.

The
joyous news spread.

So
when Hera heard this, she was on the scene;

and
when she tore the dress to find the dummy,

she
was relieved to learn her husband's deceit

and
forgave his gaffe.

“
Thus
every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance,
nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.
”

-Aristotle

XIX.

June
Herald lived by a very strict code. She had a set of fairly
conservative morals and the only thing that cracked her decorum was
ambition. June Herald knew what she wanted and stopped at nothing to
get it.

The
mix-up with Minnie was an unfortunate setback. Their friendship was
likely irreparably damaged. There was nothing for it except time and
the apology June was too proud to deliver. That night she had gone
home and mulled it over and realized that, despite their past
problems, she still wanted Zach. She wanted Zach to realize what he
had lost.

It
had been so easy to blame everything on him. He had cheated, and
there was still no excuse for that. Perhaps, however, there had been
warning signs. Perhaps their relationship hadn't been so perfect when
he'd thrown it all away. June now realized that she might have been
more to blame for the distance between them in those last few months.
This revelation still didn't excuse the cheating.

June's
moral code would have to waver in the name of vengeance. She had
tried to lash out at the wrong person. It was Zach who needed to be
sorry. She had spent centuries punishing other women for the things
Zach did-- for the things Zeus did.

June
took the pins out of her hair and checked her lip gloss in the mirror
on the driver's side visor of her car. She took a deep breath and
stepped out of her car.

June's
summer attire consisted of neat skirts and capris pants. She wore the
same kinds of blouses that she wore during the school year, but with
short sleeves and without adding layers. Today June had plucked out a
teal blouse that had a neckline too low to wear to school, and she
had dressed it down with a pair of indigo dress jeans. It was as
casual as June got.

She
marched up the brick driveway to the Mercer home. Lewis was in his
“cave,” a hang out spot he had made in one of the bays of the
family two-car garage. The door was half-open to allow the air to
move, but keep the sun out. June looked around the street and then
ducked under the door. Lewis was sprawled on an old plaid sofa with
an X-Box controller in his hands and a headset on. The old
tube-television in the garage did poor service to the high-definition
graphics on the racing game he was playing.

“Are
you sure you've never had kids?” he asked someone he was playing
against online, “Because you drive like somebody's grandpa.”

June
cleared her throat.

Lewis
looked up. He looked back at the TV. He looked back at June and
dropped his controller. “What are you doing here?”

“I
came to talk,” she said. June was starting to wonder if she should
just turn around and quit while she was ahead.

“Gotta
go, man. Peace,” Lewis said as he turned off his headset and his
X-Box.

June
took a deep breath. All she had to do was picture Zach with any one
of the floozies she had ever suspected, and she had her motivation.

“Talk
about what?” he said, trying, lazily, to sit up.

June
didn't give Lewis much warning. Before he could get up, she had
pushed him back down and climbed in his lap.

“What
the--?”

June
went in for the kiss. Lewis was quick to turn his head and dodge her,
but speed wasn't worth much, pinned beneath her.

June's
lips were now at his ear. She tried to think of something sexy to
say, but June and seduction did not go together. There was a pause, a
moment of hesitation before she whispered, “Lewis...” and then
came up dry on what to say next. Just his name might have been
enticing, but it carried the tone of an opening clause. When nothing
came after, it seemed incredibly out of place.

“June,
get off me,” Lewis said.

“Come
on, Lewis. Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like?”

“No!
You dated Zach for like... ever and you never let him past second
base. What are you doing here?” he managed to wiggle out from under
her and stand up.

June
was pretty infuriated that Zach had shared details of their intimacy
with Lewis, but she figured she should have known. She, too, stood
up, more angered at the rejection than anything. “What, are you
gay?”

Lewis'
eyebrows went up and he just stared at June for a while. He blinked a
few times before speaking. “First of all, that's a really offensive
question, June,” he said. “Second of all, you've seen me with
girls.”

“Right,
like that means anything.”

“Whatever
you say, June. My sexuality is really none of your business. Just
know that it doesn't include you.”

June
pulled a cloth-covered hair elastic out of her pocket and busied
herself with making a ponytail. She was pretty embarrassed. She
stopped when her hair was up and stared at him hard, trying to create
that same surge of guilt that had worked on so many others this
summer. Lewis stared back. “What?”

Crap,
she thought. It figured that neither of her powers worked on members
of The Pantheon. “Nevermind.” June turned for the garage door.

“June,
seriously, are you going to tell me what this is or am I going to be
confused for the rest of the day?”

June
looked back at Lewis. She wondered if her dignity could really sink
any lower today. “Just, don't tell Zach, please.” She ducked
under the half-open bay door and ran back to her car.

“
It
is one thing to conceive a good plan, and another to execute it
.”

-Aesop

xx.

Apollo
broke the tree line at the sea shore

and
watched as tall Orion dove from the cliff

and
boldly splashed into the ocean below

for
a morning swim.

As
he was plotting ways to keep the hunter

from
taking his twin sister's maiden virtue,

Artemis
came upon the shore and greeted

her
brooding brother.

An
idea came to Apollo as he watched

the
distant, blurred form of Orion below.

He
told his sister of a master archer

and
boasted of him.

When
Artemis insisted that she was best,

Apollo
proposed a challenge of her skill.

Pointing
to a distant target far below,

he
dared her to shoot.

Artemis
did not know that it was a friend,

or
even a person in the distant sea.

She
notched a long arrow and drew it back,

aimed,
and took the shot.

The
swift arrow flew true and struck its target.

Orion,
the hunter, screamed as he perished.