Chapter 9
“Icall to order this first unofficial official meeting about mental matters. Complete with coffee and coven. And calamity. And cookies. I hope.” Lydia rolled her eyes while I attempted to tack on as much alliteration as possible, banging a pretend gavel onto the table beside me.
Her eye roll only spurred me on. I pulled out my best Dwight Schrute impression.
“Tonight’s topic? Men. Mythology. Mortals. ”
“Okay, okay, we get the joke, Simone.” Despite her efforts not to, Lydia laughed. She gave my shoulder a light punch then burrowed into her cushion and propped her feet up. “This is cool.”
Cecelia had strategically placed five recliners in a semi-circle around the fireplace in preparation of our meeting.
Not that we needed a fire. January in Louisiana was not exactly known for brisk weather.
But it was still nice to see it burning.
Somehow, the room wasn’t cramped with the new setup.
We could hear one another without yelling across the space.
We also each had our own mini table with refreshments.
Gumbo, never to be forgotten, napped on a pillow in the center.
No one felt too close or too far away. Lydia was right: this was, indeed, very cool.
Once everyone was settled in, they turned to me and waited. I’d asked for the meeting to discuss everything I’d learned about Cupid and Psyche the night before. But I’d never had to share a client’s information so openly with outside parties, and my palms were a bit clammy at the prospect.
“So you all know I’m treating Cupid, and that his issues are having a negative effect on the supernatural community.
” Lydia made an obscene gesture that I chose to ignore.
“Here’s the part only Brianne knows, and only because I got drunk one night and said too much.
Psyche, his wife of however many thousands of years, left him last October. ”
“She get tired of his bullshit?” Lauren asked.
“Sort of,” I answered. “He claims she told him he’d become too complacent. He admitted to me in our first session that she was, in his words, partially correct.”
“Is it couples therapy?” Lyra twirled her seat so she was facing me instead of the fireplace. Did I mention the recliners spun? Because it was awesome. “Psyche is seeing you, too?”
“Actually, no. She won’t join him. That’s part of the issue.
” I did my own little spin, just for funsies.
“I was very clear that there was nothing we could do in therapy that would win her back. But he claimed he wanted to become a better man. Or god, I guess. I don’t think it helped that, as soon as she left him, well … ”
“Womp womp.” Lydia held her pinkie finger straight in the air, then slowly bent it.
“Crass,” I said, biting back a laugh. “But accurate. Ever since she left, Cupid’s bow can’t shoot straight. Or at all. And since all of us in the supernatural community are linked by our magics, when someone that powerful malfunctions, we all do.”
“Hence the supernatural sex wall.” Brianne crossed her arms over her chest. “I hate this.”
“I think he does, too. His inadequacies affected his confidence. And feeling insecure is a very jarring sensation for a god.”
“I don’t get it.” Lauren crossed her legs and sat upright. “What did he think you could do?”
“He freely admits that he was shallow. He wanted my help to make himself, well, deeper.”
“And he thought being his best self would win back his wife.” Lyra clasped her hands in front of her heart. “That’s kind of sweet.”
“It’s bullshit. He wanted the show of being in therapy to win her back.
” Lydia deepened her voice and flexed her arms. “Look, honey, I’m working hard to be a better man because I love you and you’re worth changing for.
” She rolled her eyes and sat back, satisfied with her impression. “But will he actually change? No.”
“Somebody’s bitter.” Brianne clucked her tongue, looking at Lydia with an expression only a happily married woman can muster. Even if she wasn’t, currently, happily married.
“Actually, I suspect she’s right,” I said. “It’s been three months, and I’m not seeing any real progress from Cupid. It’s beginning to feel like a game.”
“Hold up.” Brianne put her palm out and lifted her eyebrows. Girlfriend was getting her sassy Southerner on. “Are you saying he’s doing all this on purpose? Because if he is, I’m gonna whoop him. God or no.”
“I can’t say, Brianne.” I leaned forward to squeeze her hand. “It could be he’s doing it on purpose, or it could be that he just thinks it’s a funny, but unintended, side effect. He’s definitely pushing boundaries, though. I almost smacked him in our session last Monday.”
“I stopped her.” Gumbo lifted his head to add that piece of input, farted, then went back to sleep.
“The bottom line is we don’t know.” I waved my hand, trying desperately to avoid the stench. “The one thing I know for sure is that he doesn’t realize the ramifications of his actions. He can’t see how deep of an impact this can have on others.”
“Or he doesn’t care.” I gaped at Lyra. It was so unlike her to be pessimistic. “I’m not trying to be ugly, Simone. I just think Lydia and I have a different perspective on this. When you live a long life, you tend to forget what being human feels like.”
“She’s right,” Lydia said. “It’s why Lyra and I were so dismissive of you in the beginning.
We weren’t thinking about what you were going through.
We just didn’t want the Magnolia to change.
” As strange as Lyra’s cynicism had been, Lydia’s regretful tone was even more shocking.
“It was kind of a game to see how difficult we could make things.”
“Which was silly of us,” Lyra added. “Because we’re old enough to know change is inevitable.” Lydia and Lyra exchanged one of their knowing glances. There was something else going on with them that I hadn’t yet put my finger on. I hoped more Reading Room gatherings would help them open up.
“That’s all in the past. We all made mistakes in the beginning.” For a moment, just the slightest of moments, Lydia met my eyes and held them. Her mouth softened and, almost, lifted into a smile.
“I hate to be selfish, but can we get back to the Cupid issue, please?” Poor Brianne. This was probably harder on her than any of us.
“Right, sorry. I spent last night reading as much lore about Cupid and Psyche as I could get my hands on. I’ve never had a, shall we say, celebrity client before.
So it didn’t occur to me until recently that there was other information I could use to resolve our, um, sex wall, besides the information Cupid had already given me. ”
“Do you usually trust your clients?” Lydia asked.
“Why wouldn’t I trust my clients?” To my extreme delight, my plate did, indeed, have cookies. Chocolate chocolate chip. Boo-yah.
“If someone forced me into a room to talk about my feelings, I’d say whatever it took to get myself out of there.”
“You are aware most people come to therapy voluntarily, right?” I cast a sidelong glance at Lyra, who’d begun to shift uncomfortably in her chair. “Some people are evolved enough to face their feelings and grow a bit.”
“Evolved, schmevolved,” Lydia replied. Lyra’s recliner creaked when she shifted again, drawing her sister’s attention.
Poor Lyra’s skin had begun to glow a soft shade of pink, a sign that she was embarrassed.
Lydia must have remembered that her own sister had come to therapy, with me, because whatever barb she was about to throw, she shut it down. “So do you trust Cupid?”
“Trust isn’t exactly what I’d call it. Most patients are reasonably honest with me, yes. But they are coloring what they choose to tell me with their own biases and observations. They’ve run the story in their head, and they’re already casting judgment on the situation by the time I hear it.”
“It’s like that telephone game, where we all whisper a secret and it gets changed by the end of the line,” Brianne said. “Only in our brains.”
“I always hated that game.” Lauren pulled her ponytail holder out to let her hair fall. She twiddled it with her fingers. “I don’t want to whisper in people’s ears. That’s just weird.”
We all shared a chuckle. It really was a weird activity.
“Back to Cupid. Given everything I read, I think he was bored. Psyche left him, which threw him for a loop, and he wanted to shake things up.” I held up a hand to Brianne, who was already raring to attack.
“But deep down, he’s actually afraid to live without her.
He genuinely loves her, maybe even more than he loves himself. ”
“Okay,” Lauren said. “So how does all of that help you?”
“Well, aside from giving me the clue that he might be more in control of this thing than I’d originally believed, it helps me understand her better.
Who here knows the mythology behind Cupid and Psyche?
” I tore off the pages I’d put bullet points on and passed them around, noting their blank expressions.
“Psyche was actually born human, the youngest of three sisters. And the most beautiful woman in all the land.” As I told the story, very much to all of our delight, Cecelia created a multidimensional hologram in the center of the room.
It danced and fluttered, acting out my tale.
“Men traveled far and wide to see her, because of course they did. And then, because apparently beauty was everything back then—”
“Unlike now.” Lauren let out a sardonic laugh. “We’ve come so far.”
“For sure. Anyway, the goddess Venus got angry that Psyche was being worshiped instead of her. So she told Psyche’s parents they had to sacrifice her to a hideous beast. Then she told her son Cupid to shoot the beast with an arrow to make it love her.”
Cecelia’s hologram sent an arrow flying through the air.
“But when he saw her, he fell in love with her. So he had her taken to his home, where he’d visit her every night. It’s a long story with a lot of boning that I don’t want to see here.” I waved my hand at the mini-play.