Margin of Eros Read online

  Talk about buried treasure.

  39.

  Trash cans were in short supply at Olympic studios. Ever since the crazy environmental makeover, the only place that anyone was supposed to dispose of, say, a coffee cup was in the ‘landfill’ compartment of the convoluted trash sorting system in the employee kitchen. As with other employees, Violet had a small box for ‘paper recycling only’ beside her desk, but this inevitably got filled with tea bags and apple cores which made the box soggy and attracted small flies from outside the hermetically sealed building, despite this being a physical impossibility. Likewise, the trashcans in the kitchen became so cross-pollinated that there was little risk of any actual recycling taking place. When the system was first set up, some wag from the development department had been audacious enough to go to Home Depot, purchase an identical bin and label it ‘story ideas’, but was swiftly rewarded for his originality with a week’s severance pay.

  When Henry presented Violet with the uneven bundle of papers and its cover note, presumably from Kurt, her first instinct was to toss it in the recycling box next to her desk – not because she thought it deserved to be reincarnated as abrasive toilet paper, but because she thought it was a pile of garbage that deserved to be buried in the desert under leaking batteries and disposable diapers. Although – now that she came to think of it – the toilet paper would have been equally appropriate. However, as she had just thrown a banana peel and half a diet jello cup on top of a pile of query letters, she hesitated for a moment to consider whether, in the event that she needed to fish the script out, she really wanted it covered with squashed fruit and low calorie dessert.

  ‘I’m going to Los Feliz to get Mexican,’ said Hermes, letting go of his side of the script so that it slid out of his hand and landed with a soft thump onto a copy of The Hollywood Reporter. ‘Want anything? I’m pretty sure they do vegetarian.’

  Violet shook her head. Maybe she should just get a t-shirt: I EAT MEAT. No, perhaps not. ‘Can I actually trust you to come back?’ Henry had a habit of disappearing for the afternoon and while it had never bothered Violet before, with Aaron away and the country cousin now requiring supervision, she suddenly felt the need to impose some kind of schedule.

  ‘Of course I’m coming back,’ said Hermes, a little crossly. ‘Anyway I’m leaving, er, him –’ he pointed at Eros, momentarily forgetting the pseudonym they’d agreed on, ‘as security.’

  ‘Leo,’ prompted Violet and Eros at the same time. Eros giggled.

  ‘Right,’ said Hermes, ‘Leo.’ He glared at Eros, who stopped giggling. ‘See you in twenty minutes,’ he added. Violet nodded, knowing full well that this meant an hour and twenty.

  Workstations were also in short supply at the studio. Since Aaron was in Las Vegas for the foreseeable future, Violet figured that the best place for the cute-but-clueless cousin was close by, where she could keep an eye on him. Of course, Aaron would hit the roof if he found out that she has let an intern into his office, let alone log onto his computer, but that was partially why she did it. It was painfully obvious that Leo wasn’t exactly Harvard material – or even high school equivalency material – so whatever nepotism had scored him the usually competitive intern position deserved to be punished, ideally with industrial espionage but at the very least with a greasy keyboard. Since Henry was on his way to Los Feliz with a pocket full of pesos, the greasy keyboard was already covered. As for the espionage, it was going to take more than a little prodding to get the cousin to accidentally leak a copy of Last Saddam Standing onto the internet.

  ‘Leo,’ said Violet, trying to think of a way to put it as tactfully as possible, ‘How are your math skills?’

  ‘Euclidean, Pythagorean or Archimedean?’ asked Eros.

  Violet blinked. Like most people, she had forgotten most of the math she had learned in high school and had slept through most of the statistics classes she had taken in college. The extent of her mathematical muscle flexing these days was calculating a fifteen percent tip without the use of a calculator. All she had been trying to ascertain was whether Leo had the necessary skills to organize a 120-page script into numerical order. Now she had the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that she might have just patronized someone who had put himself through MIT playing blackjack. ‘Er,’ she said, flushing slightly.

  ‘I’m just kidding,’ said Eros. ‘I can count, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Violet, making it abundantly clear that this was precisely what she had meant. Leo was smiling at her now, with the kind of wicked innocence of a Miss Universe playing mind games. Violet had never thought of herself as judgmental but she had obviously decided, based on a few earlier moments of shyness, that Leo was as thick as pig shit. Or goat shit, as Henry would say. And clearly, he was anything but. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, handing him the script, ‘I’ve had a bad week.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Eros, ‘although it seems to be getting better now.’ He looked up at her through his outrageously curly lashes, eyes like the deep end of the pool, shooting her with a thousand tiny splinters of gold. Violet did a double take. Oh god, she thought, with uncanny prescience, not you too. She didn’t think she could take another invitation to the rest room, or even another penis in her inbox. Smart she could handle. Another Henry she could not. ‘Just put the script in order,’ she snapped, ‘and make the corrections. Do you know how to use Final Draft?’

  Eros’ heart sank. ‘Yes,’ he said softly. Actually he had no idea, but he couldn’t take another minute of Violet standing next to him. He could have kicked himself. It stood to reason that most men would hit on her within ten minutes of making her acquaintance. Eros had lasted half an hour, but that was only because Hermes had told her he was a virgin, throwing him off his game.

  His game. Who was he kidding? He knew as much about seducing someone like Violet as he did about screenplay formatting software. Which, judging by his inability to open the latest version of Foxhole Fury, was pretty much zero. Clearly there was not much he could do on the computer until Hermes got back and gave him a crash course in Intern 101. Trying hard to contain his frustration, he leaned back in the executive leather chair belonging to his (by all accounts) father, put his feet up on the desk and began to nimbly sort through the script. From what he’d heard about Ares’ films, he knew that it probably didn’t matter at this point whether he got a few pages out of order, or even left some out altogether. But in the interests of convincing Violet that he was vaguely competent, he thought he should follow her instructions to the letter. The entire exercise took him exactly four minutes. And then, because he had nothing better to do, he started to read the script.

  From her vantage point outside the office, Violet had been watching Leo struggle with, then abandon, the Foxhole Fury draft on the computer, even though she had written down the exact file path for him on a fuchsia turtle. It was unusual to come across a young man of Leo’s age who didn’t know a great deal more about computer operating systems than he did about classical music, say, or cunnilingus. Although why she had fixated on those two particular aspects of human endeavor, she had no idea.

  Chewing on the end of a turquoise Sharpie, she briefly considered emailing the link to Aaron so that Leo could open it directly from his inbox, but quickly discarded that idea on the grounds that she didn’t want to risk an X-rated reply. Obviously, this was a crazy thought and she had no idea why she had suddenly become so fixated on Leo’s sexual equipment and/or technique, other than his obvious connection with Henry, who hadn’t known her for more than half a day before he was standing to virtual attention in an email attachment.

  Not fixated, she told herself. Fascinated. No, curious. And in her curiosity she felt mild anxiety. For the past two weeks, she had been waiting for communication – any communication – from Hunter, and although she was desperate for contact, the thought of receiving some kind of dirty email from him caused her to cringe internally. From Hunter, she wanted romanc
e. Hearts and flowers, stringed instruments and schmaltz. It was not a concept that had ever attracted her before, and she had no idea why it had suddenly become so deeply desirable. At the same time, here she was, feeling mildly intrigued about the prospect of an unsolicited penis from a virtual teenager, possibly a mathematical genius, possibly not. Of course, Violet was not to know that a penis arriving in her inbox was the last thing she need ever fear from the intern know as Leo. Shrouded in modesty, his G-rated genitals rubbed against the inner seam of his pinstriped boxers, fresh out of the packet. ‘Goats bollocks,’ he muttered under his breath, flipping another page of Foxhole Fury.

  Violet was so distracted by her internal chatter that it came as quite a surprise to discover, upon returning from the kitchen some time later with a cup of Earl Grey tea, the flashing icon of a personal mail message.

  ‘Oh,’ said Violet, when she clicked on her inbox. For some inexplicable reason, she had convinced herself that the message would be from Leo. Now she felt like a kid with a much more expensive birthday present than the one she’d been expecting – grateful for the bicycle, but disappointed to miss out on Ballerina Barbie.

  The email was from Hunter. Of course it was. The man who had caused her to develop a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome in her right wrist from her repeated assault on the ‘refresh’ button all week. Quickly, she scanned the email. ‘Oh,’ she said again.

  Eros looked up from the script. He didn’t have X-ray vision, but he did have a sixth sense when it came to the victims of his arrows. Hearing the ping of Violet’s inbox while she was in the kitchen, he’d known instinctively that the email was from the movie star. He’d been hoping he was wrong, but since he never was in these cases, knew he wasn’t. He looked back at the script, seeing nothing. The character Eros assumed to be Hunter’s – Hawke Johansson (‘a six-foot ex-Marine with a hardened, battle-weary exterior and piercing, intelligent eyes’) – had just confronted his one-time mentor, a ‘Clint Eastwood type’ now living in a monastery in Tibet. Or – as Ares’ scribbled red corrections now stipulated – an ashram on the edge of Lake Tahoe. Tap tap tap, said Violet’s keyboard. Eros stared at the page, his beautiful golden skin creasing with the effort. He refused to look up. He refused to care.

  CLINT EASTWOOD TYPE

  I have looked deep into your eyes. And I have found forgiveness.

  HAWKE

  I’m wearing contacts.

  (aims weapon)

  And they’re disposable – just like you!!!

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,’ said Eros.

  Violet looked up from her screen. ‘Everything OK?’ she asked.

  ‘This script is a pile of goat shit!’ Eros called back, trying to sound cheerful. The effort required made his throat feel strange, as if someone was holding his mouth open and flicking at his tonsils with a rubber band. If this was what Hermes meant by ‘playing it cool’, then Eros couldn’t help thinking that, as a strategy, it was fatally flawed. Violet was so preoccupied by the movie star’s email that he could grow horns and start snacking on the furniture for all she would care. And yet, he couldn’t stop staring.

  Through the glass wall, Violet smiled and nodded in what she hoped was a neutral yet encouraging way. The goat shit again. She was beginning to think that they were a very strange family. Certainly, Henry had a tendency to draw out eye contact beyond all accepted North American conventions, and his cousin was clearly versed in the same tradition. As the moment extended, Violet had an odd feeling of vertigo, as if she was being drawn towards him, then gently pushed away, swelling and contracting on the edge of a bubble. And then suddenly she was dizzy, caught in a kind of hyperopic whirlpool, spinning into his blue eyes until, with a physical effort she managed to wrench her gaze away. With her heart racing, she stared at her stapler. My god, she thought, again, this Hunter thing is seriously messing with me.

  Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply through her nose and out through her mouth, aiming for somewhere south of transcendence but north of neurosis. And when she eventually felt her pulse descend from a jagged mountain range to a rolling hillside, she turned her attention back to Hunter’s email.

  It wasn’t exactly the Hallmark card she had been hoping for. Confusingly brief and militaristic in structure, she had absolutely no idea how to interpret it, let alone how to reply. 0800, wrote Hunter, thanks for the other day. 1030 still on the ranch. 1700 finished filming. See you in Vegas. Little wonder that the stuttering paragraph she had begun in reply was shaping up as the worst attempt at literary seduction in the history of the world. In need of a distraction, she turned back to Leo.

  Who was still staring at her. This time, however, he quickly looked back at the script, evidently embarrassed or at least shamed into productivity.

  ‘Want a hand with that?’ Violet called out. The smile that spread across the intern’s face in response was the kind of advertisement for work satisfaction that recruitment companies would pay for in uncapped bonuses. But it was not a smile of profit, nor of toil and reward. It was the joyful, boundless smile of an infant. Or more accurately, it was the smile of a young god, finding out for the first time that love is more than just an archer’s paradox.

  40.

  ‘Fifty-three thousand, eight hundred and forty-eight,’ said Hera, pulling the scroll from the ancient machinery as it chugged and spluttered over the parchment. Another of Apollo’s brilliant ideas, the machine had been expertly translated into a practical piece of equipment by Hephaestus’ metallurgical mastery. Nicknamed ‘the Valentine’, it was a kind of romantic seismometer, capable of recording the intense emotional spikes of Earthly love with pinpoint accuracy. As expected, the Valentine had traced a fairly neutral line since Eros’ banishment, but small peaks from previous couplings provided a residual reading of those still officially ‘in love’. In the greater Los Angeles area, the number was a little over fifty thousand.

  ‘Great Zeus,’ said Zeus. In times of crisis, Zeus had the tendency to refer to himself in the third person, often in the context of an exclamation relating to his own magnificence. It irritated Hera no end, but she knew better than to suggest that he stop. ‘Fifty-three thousand?’

  ‘Eight hundred and forty-eight,’ Hera added reassuringly. But her husband was not reassured. Taking a long sip of his Piña Colada, he made some mental calculations. ‘That’s all?’ he said, crunching on a piece of ice. Actually, the number failed to account for Ares, Eros and Hermes, so the true figure was actually a little higher. But Zeus wasn’t to know that.

  ‘And falling,’ sniffed Hera, a little petulantly. She didn’t like being yelled at, but ever since the banishment, Zeus’ mood had relocated to the realm of the shadow shifters. He yelled. He fornicated. He yelled and he fornicated. Yet neither nor both seemed to provide him with any relief from his lunar gloom.

  ‘How is that possible?’ said Zeus. ‘There were over a million of them a month ago. And now there’s only, what, five percent of them left?’

  ‘It appears,’ said Hera, running her finger over the list of names, ‘that the flow-on effect was stronger than we expected.’ Towards the bottom of the list, she found Violet’s name, superimposed over a strong, healthy spike. All things being equal, the annoying mortal should be one of the last to fall off the roller coaster.

  ‘What do you mean, flow-on effect?’ Zeus had never really troubled himself with the day-to-day operations of the population project and his eyes tended to glaze over as soon as anyone mentioned declining birth rates. But now the situation had become so serious that even he couldn’t fail to take an interest.

  ‘Obviously, Eros was never responsible for every single romantic relationship on Earth,’ said Hera. ‘He just strategically ignited a few passionate unions to get things moving. To stimulate the market, when and where it was needed. Left to their own devices, the mortals are still capable of falling in love. As are we.’ She looked pointedly at Zeus over her cherry rimmed spectacles. It had been a long time since sh
e and the Mighty One had created the kind of thunder and lightning that sent palace dogs howling into the throne room, but this was just the kind of crisis that could precipitate such an electrifying event. And if there was ever an immortal who knew how to work a crisis, it was the goddess of marital discord. ‘We simply underestimated the extent to which passion begot passion. Conversely, we also underestimated the extent to which the lack of affairs would stimulate the divorce market.’ She sighed theatrically, tossing the parchment aside and collapsing onto a pile of silk cushions, her voluptuous curves arranged to full advantage. ‘Turns out, our grandson was exceptionally good at his job. Who knew?’

  ‘Then Eros must go back to work immediately!’ said Zeus.

  ‘No, no, no!’ said Hera. ‘That’s the last thing we want. Market confidence is low, that’s all. Another Valentine’s Day, and we’ll be back in business.’

  Zeus scratched his beard with a swizzle stick. ‘What date is it on Earth?’ he asked.

  Hera reached for the love list and glanced at the date. ‘September fourth,’ she said.

  ‘And when is this Valentine’s Day?’

  ‘A-hem,’ said Hera, pretending to sneeze into a fold of her tunic and thereby avoid the question.

  ‘I SAID WHEN IS VALENTINE’S DAY!’ boomed Zeus. He was getting angry, which unaccountably made him want to take the form of a young bull elephant and have his way with the herd. At his age, such transitions were not only tiring, they were unseemly, ending as they generally did with a narrow escape from a safari park with a tranquilizer dart in the gluteals. Scars didn’t heal as quickly at six millennia as they did at two, and his ancient hide was beginning to resemble a shredded cabbage. It would be much, much simpler, if everyone around him just humored him with a little deferential obedience.