The Olympian Book Club

It was a simple grocery run, until someone invoked the pantheon. A short fiction story. POV: 1st person

Clearly, she knows who I am. Her boyfriend’s reaction to me, and mine to him, at our almost bumping heads in the baking aisle must have made it obvious. I should have gone to a different supermarket. I knew it, but I was in the neighborhood.

She doesn’t say hello or introduce herself. He’s clearly not going to do so. Instead, she says to me “Oh, you’re so pretty!”

The words just hang between us. The ridiculousness of it! She is our daughter’s age. An under twenty-six year old telling an average fifty-six year old that she’s pretty. Where am I supposed to go with that? Thank you? No, I’m not? You are too?

Is it a power game, a pity move, her insecurity, or a hook for mine?
All these thoughts, reactions, responses, choices when I just want to get my microwave rice and salami and go home. In the space that my indecision has created, I have a spontaneous download. It’s Aphrodite. I am not just channeling the ancient greek goddess, I am her.

My smile is beneficent. My eyes are wide, soft, and lovingly encompassing all that is her as I lean in ever so slightly and very, very gently (because I know I have the power to kill her with my love), and I say:

“Yes”.

Suddenly, it’s Olympian Book Club and they’re all inside me, taking turns to posses me, hold me, let me feel and be and express through me. There’s a straightening of my back, which pulls my face back out of her personal space, and Athena in me says:

“I’m also incredibly smart”.

Just as soon as it’s done Dionysus nudges Athena aside firmly but kindly with a side hip move, a sassy wave and a whispered “I got this, honey.” This new God makes me drop my weight onto one leg, tilting my hips sideways and I tell his truth:

“And wickedly funny”. (He doesn’t just mean comedic fun, but we don’t go into details.)

There’s a hush as the final Goddess graces me with her presence. It’s Hera. Even Aphrodite moves a little to the left to give her more of the stage. She’s not the most important on Olympus, but she is the most important here, now.

Hera, the wife of Zeus. Zeus, who slept with anything in a skirt, or feather, or even hiding as a tree. Zeus, whose infidelities spawned most of Olympus, actually. Hera, his wife, not happy with that but forever holding and wielding the power of the ultimate wife. Hera can kill this child who wakes up each day with this old, fat stranger she’s standing next to. The same old, fat stranger who I was wife to for nearly three decades. And he’s as much a stranger to me as he is to her, so we have that in common. Hera, who I’m afraid of, because she’s the jealous type and so much of Olympus’ fuel is the war in her marriage, as so much of my kingdom’s was.

Hera looks down on this girl who says that I am pretty, for whatever reason she had, for whatever response she wanted. This babe who has just been over-loved by Aphrodite, overpowered by Athena and tossed off like a one-liner by Dionysus. This sacrificial lamb to my ego, should I choose, just choose, to deliver the final blow with all the power of the archetypal wronged wife.

Not because this little thing is sleeping with a single man to whom I was once married, because that’s none of my business. Hera is not here because of the infidelities that to the best of my knowledge this one wasn’t party to.

Hera is here for the same reason as the others. The words that called Aphrodite originally, who then summoned the others. The audacity to say to her lover’s ex wife “Oh, you’re so pretty”. The temptation of Hera is to take that as a challenge, a much deeper, more primal challenge than it would ever be to Aphrodite.

But Aphrodite has met the challenge with love.

And Athena and Dionysus have soothed the ego with truth and humor.

So Hera, (and I, because I am Hera), smiles ever so slightly.
Not as much as Aphrodite
Not as little as Athena
Or as conspiratorially as Dionysus, but a little, and we say:

“And I am wise enough to not have a conversation that I don’t need to have”.

I turn, then, and walk away. With my back turned I say under my breath “You stay until I get to the end of the aisle, okay? Because if you leave now and I trip over my feet and fall on my face I. Will. Never. Forgive. You!”

I make it out of the supermarket, goddess grace intact, get in my car, turn the ignition and wonder out loud “Where do I go now?”

A slightly muffled yawn comes from the back seat.
Artemis sits up, all bed-hair and groggy eyes and says, “The 7-11. I still need my salami.”