LONG WAVES OF onyx hair draped over a round glass tabletop as the onlooker peered down into the depths of a faraway scene. Her voluptuous lips parted in a sigh, just heavy enough to cause her aquamarine silk chemise to flutter over her shapely breasts. She breathed in deeply, taking in the salt sea air that wafted through her open dwelling.
‘What do you see, my lady?’ a young woman in a filmy white toga asked.
‘I see my next adventure. I am being called from across the waves and beyond our time.’
‘Yes, my lady. What will you require for your departure?’
The lunette gazer looked out between the white marble columns of her abode and into the ocean and sky, where no horizon line could be determined. Both were the identical shade of azure as far as she could see. ‘A small bowl of sea foam and some leopard print pumps with kitten heels. The rest will take care of itself.’
‘Very well, my Lady. I shall arrange it.’ The young woman bowed and backed out of the temple as a well-built man wearing a feather-crested helmet and a black leather breastplate over a short red tunic entered. A sword with an ornately carved hilt hung at his left side, and the fantastic muscles in his arms and legs rippled beneath his olive skin as he walked closer.
‘Off to right another path of true love, my lovely Aphrodite? When will you return to Mount Olympus?’ he asked the lady, who was still observing the scene in the glass eye.
‘Very soon, for this will be a short trip.’ She took his hand, pulling him closer for a kiss. ‘Ares, my love, I will miss you.’
The soldier cleared his throat and frowned. ‘Is this another quest for mending some earthling error, or pursuing a new mortal lover for yourself?’
‘The first, my hero.’ The regal brunette barely glanced up at him and continued to stare into the seeing-eye. She watched an older man who was inside of a large store display window adding the final touches of glamour to a fashion mannequin and noted with what quiet ardour he fastened a choker of silver beads at the back of her neck. ‘Hello, Gabby,’ he whispered, taking her slender fingers in his and kissing her hard, plastic cheek.
With a bowl of sea foam and the requested shoes in hand, the Goddess of Love walked outside past the marble columns and disappeared somewhere between the ocean and sky.
A burst of waves heaved upward nearly to the top of the nymph statue that graced the fountain display in front of the Plaza Hotel. Seafoam bubbled beneath a female figure standing in the pool on a large half shell. It was nearly lunchtime, and Fifth Avenue was abuzz with shoppers and people crisscrossing paths to their favourite weekday eateries. Bicyclists dodged the screeching tires of yellow cabs, and strollers stepped over sleeping bodies buried under their makeshift bedrolls as they focused on their mission at lunch hour in Manhattan. Barely anyone noticed the wet blond in a black sundress getting out of the water and stepping into a pair of pointed-toe leopard print pumps. She swayed down the avenue, freely swinging a small envelope purse by its short leather strap as she went. ‘What’s up with the big seashell in this fountain?’ she heard one man ask another. Looking back, they only shrugged and kept walking. ‘Hey, it’s New York, ya know.’
‘Scuze me,’ the wet lady called out as she overtook a group of young men just in front of her. She smiled, her red lipstick glistening in the noon sun. ‘Can yuz tell me how far it is to Saks?’
One man in a khaki suit with slicked-back hair grinned and pointed ahead. ‘Just a few blocks down on your left, Miss.’
‘You look beached, babe,’ one of the others chimed in. ‘What happened? You fall in the fountain?’
‘Shoowa,’ she said. ‘Now youz guys have a nice day,’ she simpered, speeding up and feeling their eyes on her hips as she walked towards her destination.
By the time she stood at the front doors of Saks Fifth Avenue, her bare arms and legs, along with her little black dress, had fully dried under the summer sun and faint breeze. The only thing that maintained a splash of water was her hair, worn Cleopatra style, just falling at her shoulders in crimped platinum strands, with long bangs at her dark eyebrows. ‘Can I help you?’ asked a lady behind the glove counter.’
‘Yeah, I’m here for a job...’
The saleslady directed her to the elevator at the back of the store and said, ‘Second floor.’
‘Gee, thanks!’ The would-be employee took a detour around the side where the display windows were being changed out. She peeked in each one until she saw the man from her looking glass on his knees, holding several straight pins between his lips as he fidgeted with the hemlines or straps of the mannequins’ showy party dresses. He was handsomer than she had noticed during the glass-viewing, slender, with silver intermixed in his perfectly coiffed dark hair, ocean blue eyes and straight, lips that twitched at one side when he took a pin from them and stuck it the dresses wherever he needed some adjustment. He looked tired and irritated amidst the celebratory props in the arrangement of tables with champagne bottles and glasses, elegant party favours wrapped in white paper and silver ribbons, and a tiered cake topped with a crystal Lalique bride and groom. The goddess stopped and smiled at him. ‘Looks like wedding season, right?’
The man gave her an annoyed sigh and said in a tight voice, ‘May I help you, madam?’
‘Ya got any chewin’ gum?’ she tittered.
With that he groaned and turned his head back to the hemlines and straps, but the sun-kissed young woman stood in place, still smiling.
‘Madam, if you don’t mind, I’m working,’ he said, blinking several times with a shake of his head, and began to change up the champagne assortment. She stood there until he looked back. This time he turned and nearly lunged at her as if to shoo her away, but then paused, his gaze fully on her, and with a friendlier tone said, ‘You look like that singer from the eighties, the new wave band.’ He snapped his fingers as if to hasten the memory. ‘What was it? Oh, Blondie, was their name.’ He looked at her more intently, and his lips curled into a hard smile. ‘The singer’s name was Debbie.’ Something in his eyes lit up and a burst of vitality seemed to speed through his limbs as he stepped down from the window, now smiling openly.
The transformed goddess surveyed him more closely. ‘Oh, yeah?’ she said.
‘I guess you’re too young to remember, but you must have seen her pictures.’
‘Maybe. I think I’ve heard that one song recently, goes like this,' and she sang Blondie’s Heart of Glass lightly.
The window dresser chimed in, his eyes sparkling. ‘And what’s your name, Miss?’ he asked, putting aside his straight pins and taking a step nearer.
She chuckled and drew a chicklet of liquorice gum from her purse. ‘You can call me Debbie,’ she said, chewing the piece with gusto, as he perused her slim figure, her heart-shaped face and shimmering hair. ‘I’m gonna work here,’ she told him. ‘At the makeup counter.’ She cracked her gum and grinned. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Sam Pyeson. You can call me Pye. I’m getting ready to retire from this store in a couple of weeks, but I’ll show you around when you get started.’
‘Yeah, shoowa, Pye. Thanks!’ She waved her fingers and sauntered towards the elevators. ‘Toodles for now.’
‘Say, Debbie, come back later and I’ll show you my special mannequin, a real stunner I’ve been working on.’
‘You got it!’ Debbie pointed a finger at him and blew a small bubble with her gum. ‘See yuz.’
‘Oh, one more thing.’ Pye lifted a finger and dashed to a counter a few feet away, picking up an item and handing it to his new friend. ‘Put these on before you start working. This’ll finish off your look.’ It was a packet of black fishnet stockings. ‘Like the old days,’ he said, with a nervous gulp, his eyes darting over her face as she cocked her head a little, looking straight at him and toying with the idea of kissing him.
‘Thanks,’ she said, her fingers gliding over his as she accepted the gift.
After a quick trip to Personnel to speak with a plump, balding man in his shirt sleeves and loosened tie, she landed the job at the makeup counter. ‘Sandra will take you around the department and show you how to ring up the purchases, okay?’
‘Okay, Mr Brown.’
The personnel manager eyed the new employee and added, ‘Good to have you on board. I’m sure you’ll be a whiz at helping the customers choose the right products.’
Debbie took a quick breath and said, ‘I won’t mess anything up, Mr Brown, Girl Scout’s honour.’ She raised a hand and winked.
At the end of this first day of training, a cheerful Debbie waited for the window dresser to take her to dinner. He had stopped at her counter with the invitation just before five that afternoon, and she noticed how he had looked at her, his eyes roaming excitedly over her face as they spoke. ‘Okeydokey, six o’clock,’ she answered with a thumbs-up, then picked out a jasmine fragrance and gave a squirt to her wrists.
At the appointed hour, Pye appeared at her station just as she was applying more lipstick and checking her eyeliner. ‘Ready?’ she asked, her eyes glittering.
‘Almost, but first I gotta introduce you to someone.’ He took her hand and walked swiftly to one of the display windows at the front of the store, took out a key and stepped inside the case, motioning for her to follow. ‘This is Gabby,’ he said, taking the hand of a tall, well-crafted mannequin, with thin, finely chiselled lips and long blond locks pulled back into a Barbie doll ponytail. Several other models stood in front of her, all wearing brightly coloured short dresses, carrying straw beach bags and towels printed with seashells and flamingos. These other mannequins looked decidedly different, with arms and legs that were more crudely fashioned, their eyes hard like one would expect a prison inmate’s to be, cold and empty, and each one’s lips turned slightly downward in miserable pouts. Gabby was elegant, with a long neck and lovely throat showing well-shaped collarbones and a gracefully moulded chin. ‘I found her in a garbage bin in the basement a few months ago. The management was going to throw her out in favour of these newer dummies that barely look like a woman. They told me it was the clothes that were important, not the model’s beauty, so they let me have her.’
‘This gal’s got sparkle,’ Debbie tittered. ‘Looks like a real doll.’
‘She’s my angel. Look at how I’ve refurbished her, with skin as perfect as the day she was first made.’ He ran his fingers over her arm and squeezed it. ‘I gotta get her out of here before we go. Do you mind? I only live a block over.’
‘Woo-hoo, posh neighbourhood, Pye! You got a girlfriend or a wife waitin’ for ya when we show up?’
His face tightened as well as his fingers as they smoothed Gabby’s dress. He shook his head. ‘No. I gave up on women a long time ago.’ There was a dark glint in his eye as he spoke.
‘You made friends with me easy enough,’ Debbie said. ‘You shouldn’t give up, Pye. Love is for everybody.’
‘Well, you’re so beautiful and friendly. You remind me of the days, a few decades ago, when I used to go to clubs and see the bands downtown, like Blondie or Lemur and Flamingo at CBGBs. The waitresses sometimes got up and sang for goofs. They all wore snagged stockings or fishnets with their ratty short skirts. Sometimes I’d meet a nice girl at Max’s, my other favourite rock club.’ He turned back towards his refurbished doll with a wistful look in his eye. ‘We all had a lot of fun back then.’ His voice trailed off like a radio being played in the background somewhere far away.
Pye gently patted Gabby on the hand as if she were alive, and it brought a sombre air to the goddess’ mood. ‘Let’s get Gabby home, okay?’ she said softly as they carried the mannequin out and locked up the display case, wondering why she had been called away from Mt. Olympus.
It seemed he had some plan he was determined to stick to. Yet she had felt his yearning from her temple at home, wandering between the lustrous white columns by the sea, a sea that was always cobalt blue and melded with the sky, often pondering how she was cursed to bear the burden of being Aphrodite, Goddess of Love. Pye’s spirit had called to her for help, so she popped out of the Plaza fountain, rebirthing herself out of sea-foam and was delivered on a great half-shell to guide him to Love, as her persona demanded for she, the timeless Aphrodite was well equipped with wise words for these suffering mortals and their heartaches. She wavered in her thoughts of the many foolish relationships she had involved herself in over the centuries. Was she really equipped to give adequate guidance to this man? Surveying him and the tenderness he showed the inert model, the Goddess of Love, now Debbie, renounced her own frivolity, understanding it was not a mere flirtation he needed. The poverty of loneliness had gnawed away at his resilience.
She helped Pye carry the figure out, head first, and then down the block on 51st Street to a basement apartment in a pristine brownstone, simply embellished with crown headers at the window tops. They walked down the few steps to the basement level. Pye cradled the doll’s head in his hands, whispering, ‘We’re home now, Gabby, really home,’ as if to steady her through this transition to a new territory. He opened the door. The stale, dank odour from within the basement gloom barely escaped outside as they carried the object into his living room, where Pye adjusted her legs and hips before seating her on a brown leather couch.
He stood back and admired his new companion with crossed arms and a wide grin. ‘Well, what do you think of my new lady friend?’ He leaned over the mannequin and straightened its ponytail.
‘She’s a beauty, Pye, but she’s not a companion.’ Debbie spoke softly, realising he was under a spell of his own making. He never took his eyes off the plastic doll and seemed to fall deeper into his reverie. Debbie cleared her throat and ventured another thought. ‘I mean, she can’t talk to you.’
Pye instantly whipped his head towards Debbie, his eyes squinting. ‘Well, that’s about to change.’ He walked a few steps over and picked up an Echo device that was sitting in an open box on an end table and held it up, shaking it emphatically. ‘I have a friend that can modify this and hook it up to her, and with Alexa’s voice, we can converse about a whole lot of things,’ he said with widened eyes racing between Debbie and the dummy. ‘I fixed her, you know. She was nothing without my help, and now she’s a perfect creation.’ His words wobbled in a high-pitched whine between his stiffening lips.
The Goddess of Love was running out of words for this lost soul and wished she could evaporate and end up back on her Mount with her divine cronies and their imperfections. ‘Pye, I think you could meet a nice lady if you opened your mind to it. I’m sure I know a few I could introduce you to. Gabby’s only a plastic statue…’
‘Don’t say that about her!’ His nostrils flared, and he opened his mouth to speak again, but no words came forth, only sobs. ‘I love her,’ he cried, putting his hand over his face as tears poured out. ‘I know, I know what you’re saying, but I haven’t met another woman like her, as exquisitely beautiful and calm, who I actually felt loved me, too, because I saw the beauty in her and saved her.’ He dropped down beside the lifeless mannequin and took its hand. ‘I wish she were real. Oh God, I wish she were alive.’ His rant crumbled into a whimper.
Debbie knelt down and took Pye’s other hand. ‘Let me help you, my new friend. I promise you I can.’
‘You must think I’m a nut-job idiot,’ he blurted out loudly as his sobbing intensified.
Debbie reached into her purse and dabbed his reddened eyes with a blue handkerchief. ‘No, I think you need love, real human love. Please let me help you, will you?’ She squeezed his hand and kissed it. ‘No one wants to be lonely, Pye, and Gabby’s just something you distracted yourself with.’
He put his arms around the silent model and whispered between sobs, ‘Thank you, Debbie, but it’s hopeless. I just can’t face another aborted romance.’
‘I’ll come see you tomorrow morning, okay, Sunday, and I’ll bring some latte and Danish and then we’ll get a plan.’
Pye nodded, and Debbie reluctantly let herself out, her eyes glancing down at the silly leopard pumps as she walked across the block and back up Fifth Avenue to the Plaza Hotel. She rang the bell and inquired about a room for the night. ‘Just tonight, Miss?’ the man at the desk asked.
‘So far as I know.’ He gave her a key and pointed the way to the elevators.
At ten o’clock the next morning, she was out the door and walking towards the brownstone with a pastry box and a bag containing two iced lattes.
‘Hey, good morning, Pye,’ Debbie said as he let her in. She was relieved to see the mannequin had been removed from the couch, but said nothing about it and playfully held up the bag of treats she had brought from the Plaza. In the musty atmosphere, she began to sneeze, hastily cracked a window and said, ‘Let’s get a little morning air in here.’ She spread her packages out on the coffee table with napkins and stirrers for the tall lattes, the aroma of the freshly baked goods finally pushing out the close air of the apartment. ‘You feelin’ better this morning, Pye?’ Debbie said sweetly, handing him a drink. He nodded with a nervous twitch of his lips and sat down with her on the couch. ‘How about I plan a little dinner this evening for us with a few ladies I know? I think you’ll like them,’ knowing she would have to work some celestial magic to get Hera or one of the other goddesses to drum up some earthly female friends at the last minute. But as a goddess, she had come across more difficult feats than this. All would be well as long as the confused window dresser consented.
Pye took her hand and said, ‘Debbie, you are a wonder. I wish I’d met you years ago, when I was younger. I’ve never met anyone as kind and lovely as you in all my life. You would have been the girl of my dreams, but love just didn’t happen for me, you see…’ He was quite calm, and even wore a slight smile, but his eyes grew vacant.
Debbie interrupted. ‘Stop, stop, it’s never too late for love, and I’m sure I can help change your fate.’ He pursed his lips, got up and went into the next room, a small dining area, and flipped on a light. There, under the glow of a modest brass chandelier, sat Gabby at the table dressed in a man’s plaid flannel robe.
‘We stayed up all night talking. My friend came over and worked up Alexa for us.’ He picked up the Echo device from the table and held it out to Debbie. It had a charging cord attached to it, which extended all the way up into a newly made imitation port behind Gabby’s ear. Pye seemed completely unaware that Gabby lacked any brainwaves to send to the Echo Dot. ‘It was the most wonderful night I’ve had in years.’ He bent over and kissed his inanimate creation on the lips. The Goddess of Love put her hand over her mouth and suppressed a gasp. ‘I’m gonna be okay now, Debbie, so don’t you worry about me.’ He flipped on the device and listened to it purring the words, ‘I hope you slept well, Pye. It was so wonderful snuggling beside you. What’s for breakfast?’ He stood with his hands on the back of one of the dining chairs and rocked back and forth, saying no more, but relaxing into a stupor, staring at his lifeless companion, lost in a world of his own, completely unconscious of Debbie’s presence only a few feet in front of him, her eyes blinking in astonishment at his catalepsy.
Debbie walked back to the Plaza fountain and stepped into the water just as a few people with Styrofoam cups sat down at the edge of the pool and began to sip their coffee. ‘Look at that loony lady getting into the water!’ one girl yelled out. But before her friends could take note, the lady in the black sundress and fishnet hose disappeared in a flash of golden light, a flurry of cooing doves ascending after her. Laughter from below echoed far up into the sky as the goddess was tossed by the summer breezes back to her homeland.
‘How did you fare, my beauty?’ Ares said as he entered the house of Aphrodite. ‘Did you solve the mortal’s love problem?’
‘I was unsuccessful, though I tried.’ She placed her hand on his armoured shoulder and drew him in for a kiss, then leaned back and searched his eyes. ‘No, I did not invite him to enjoy my kisses.’
‘Yet you seem sad today, as though you were suffering a loss of love.’
‘He suffered a loss of love, and I felt its sting. Look.’ Aphrodite took his hand and led him to the glass reflector and stared down at Pye, who was talking to his imitation woman.
Ares noted the scene curiously. ‘So you were able to teach him nothing from your divine wisdom? I sense resolution in his demeanour.’
‘Resolute, indeed, for it was I that learned a vexing lesson. As gods, we cannot force these humans to see the folly of their ways.’
‘Nor they, ours,’ laughed Ares, entwining her in his arms.
Celeste Plowden has been a fabric designer, real estate title examiner, fine artist, showroom model, blues singer, dog lover, and student of early modern history, writing romance tales with dark connections to supernatural beings in historical settings in places she has lived, New York and London. Amazon best sellers: Mirth, short stories; The Harpsichordist, vampire novel; Blue Jay’s Nightclub, A Romance of Prohibition New York. Short stories for ezines, Siren’s Call, Schlock. Achilles Anthology, Flame Tree; Beyond The Veil Anthology, Dragon Soul Press; Wolfsinger Publications Search for Any Key, anthology. She holds a BFA, Art History, minor, English literature, further studies at Parsons School of Design, NYC.
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