The Last Adventure of Constance Verity (4 page)

“We both know it doesn't work like that. If I go with you, you're just as likely to have something weird happen. I don't think your friend Dolores has ever forgiven me for ruining her baby shower.”

“Ruining? If you hadn't been there, we'd all be brains in jars right now.”

“I don't think that's the way she sees it,” said Connie.

It was a complicated question. Did Connie cause strange adventures to happen by her mere presence, or did the universe compel her to stumble across them? She hadn't ever figured it out, but she couldn't blame Tia's friends for being paranoid. If she showed up with Tia, half of them would probably make excuses to leave. The other half would politely pretend not to be expecting disaster to strike while jumping at every sudden noise.

“Have it your way,” said Tia, “but you better not start your adventure without me.”

“Wouldn't dream of it,” said Connie, though she had considered it.

They parted ways, and Connie went back to her apartment in the better part of town.

Mr. Prado was there to greet her. He usually was. He owned
the building and spent much of his time in the lobby, reading books, waiting for someone to walk by so that he could start up a conversation. Connie suspected he only owned the building to be able to corner people on their way to the elevators.

He perked up at the sight of Connie. “If it isn't my favorite tenant. Tell me about the wonderful new job you found today?”

“No job today,” she replied.

“Oh, I'm certain you'll find something soon. Unless you end up getting involved in one of your digressions. I wouldn't be too concerned. I'm sure something will pop up soon enough.”

Connie stepped into the elevator.

“You had a package delivered earlier,” said Prado. “Don't worry. Refused delivery, as you requested. It was a most peculiar shape though, and it was singing. I do wonder what was in it.”

Connie had stopped wondering years ago. She was always getting mysterious packages. Two or three a week. In her youth, she'd opened them with zeal, ready to dive into whatever strange exploit they'd begin. She'd since soured on those little enigmatic gifts.

“Thanks, Mr. Prado. You're a lifesaver.”

“Anytime,” he said as the elevator doors closed.

Connie's place was a jumble of boxes, packed with the treasures of an extraordinary life. Some might mistakenly believe her to be a hoarder, but she had room for all the stuff if she could find the time to unpack it. Adventuring was time-intensive, and there weren't enough hours in the day to
fight dragons and settle into any kind of routine. That was why Grandmother Willow's blessing had been a curse. Being a part of both worlds meant something had to suffer, and as much as Connie tried to avoid it, it was the ordinary world that usually fell by the wayside.

She unwound with a long bath and a beer. She sat on her couch, surrounded by her souvenirs, and tried zoning out by watching TV.

It didn't work.

She was more wound up than she'd thought. The idea that this could be her last hurrah made her eager to get on with it. She'd never been terribly patient. She was a woman of action, and when she set her mind on something, she usually did it. But she'd promised Tia that she'd wait.

But she wouldn't wait in her apartment. She decided to go out. She had no solid plans, but she'd figure something out.

While she was locking the door to her apartment, the door across the hall opened and a woman exited.

Connie nodded to her. “Hello.”

“Hello,” said the woman. “Did you just move in?”

“No, I've lived here for a while,” said Connie.

Suspicion crossed the woman's face. “Huh. I thought they just used that place for storage.”

It wasn't far from the truth.

“I guess we haven't met before. I travel a lot. Don't spend much time at home. I'm Connie.”

The neighbor squinted. “You look familiar. Are you famous?”

“I won the lottery once,” replied Connie. It wasn't a lie. She didn't add that it led to her discovery of a lottery-fixing scheme and a shootout in a zeppelin. It just kept things simple.

“Oh, yeah. I'm Dana.”

She appeared ordinary. A little too ordinary. Connie's suspicions popped up. A lot of ordinary things in her life weren't ordinary.

Dana, whose hand had been out there for a few seconds, pulled it back. Connie reached for it.

“Sorry. I'm a little distracted. Connie.”

They shook hands. She measured the handshake for anything suspicious. Spongy android flesh. Room-temperature undead. Too-hot lava person. An electrical zap. The pinprick of a hidden needle filled with poison. All the usual stuff.

Dana's cell rang. She turned her back on Connie.

“I'm on my way. So what if I'm late? It's a poetry slam. They'll start without me. Yeah, yeah. I'll miss out on a few of the clever capitalism/slavery metaphors shouted by people in quirky hats.”

She ended the call and grunted.

“Poetry slam?” said Connie.

“It's a showcase of the self-important and the uninspired. Although once in a while, someone comes up with something good if you're willing to wade through the bullshit. Or so I'm told. Hasn't happened yet, but . . .”—she crossed her fingers—“but my boyfriend is a hipster, so I'm stuck.”

“You could always break up with him,” said Connie. “Then
again, taking relationship advice from me is probably a bad idea.”

“Believe me. I've thought about it. But he's actually very sweet. I go to his poetry slams. He doesn't tell me I'm a pawn of the patriarchy for shaving my legs. Not often, anyway.”

“Sounds reasonable,” said Connie.

“A girl learns to make compromises. It was nice meeting you.”

Dana walked toward the elevator.

Connie paused before the open door to her apartment.

She called to Dana. “I've never been to a poetry slam.”

“Oh, it's dreadful,” said Dana with a smile. “Not for the faint of heart.”

Connie chuckled. “That's one thing I've never been accused of.”

The coffeehouse was the kind of place people who were too cool for Starbucks went, where they ordered the same sort of complicated, overpriced coffees they could get at Starbucks but at an even more overpriced cost with the assurances that the cow that the milk came from lived on a private farm where it was fed only the finest feed and massaged twice a day.

Connie had never cared for coffee. She could drink it. After living off moldy bread and troll blood for a week, she could pretty much drink anything. Literally. A side effect of the blood was an immunity to all poisons, a talent that came in handy in her day-to-day life.

She ordered an apple cider, and the barista glared like
she'd asked for a bottle of freshly squeezed toddler brains.

“We have over two hundred varieties of coffee,” he said.

“I don't like coffee,” she replied.

The barista steadied himself with two hands on the counter as if mortally wounded. “You just think that because you haven't had good coffee.”

“If you don't want people ordering the cider, why is it on the menu?”

He ignored the question. “We have coffee that doesn't taste very much like coffee.”

“How much is not very much?” she asked.

He considered the question. “A little bit like coffee. But we can put chocolate into it. Whipped cream.”

“Yeah, I'll have that, then,” she replied, “but without the coffee.”

“We have an artisan blend that tastes almost exactly like hot chocolate.”

Connie wasn't interested in this fight. She should've just ordered a fucking coffee, but she was terrible at walking away from battles.

“Look, Jonathan—”

“It's Jone-athan.” He pointed to his nametag.

“It's not spelled Jone-athan.”

He fixed her with a look reserved for poseurs and idiots.

“Fine. It's your name. What do I care?” she said. “Jone-athan, I just want something to drink that isn't coffee. I know that this offends your sensibilities, and I'm sure that any one
of your coffees is this glorious wonderland of flavor experiences that will delight my senses now and forever. But I'm a Philistine, an uncultured fool who has been despoiled by a culture that loads me up with sugary beverages and processed foodstuffs. I could no more appreciate your unparalleled coffee nectar than I could understand the genius of whatever art-house auteur director you currently love or whatever obscure musical group you and exactly four of your friends listen to. I will never be cool like you. I will never understand the secret beauty of this world the way you do. So, give me a cider and your pity and/or contempt, and we can both get on with our lives.”

Jone-athan's smirk faded. He shrugged. “Whatever, lady.”

She bought her drink and joined Dana at a table.

“Cider?” asked Dana as she sipped at her coffee. She frowned and stuck out her tongue. “Well, good for you. I've never been able to stand up to Jone-athan.”

“I've slain bigger monsters.” Connie smiled as she sipped her bland cider. “When's Willis up?”

Willis, Dana's hipster boyfriend, was a tall, good-looking guy with a bad haircut and questionable taste in pseudo-African fashion, but he was nice enough.

“Soon. He's getting ready. Something about cleansing his aura, aligning his chakras. I'm sorry about that lecture he gave you about truth versus art. He's not as annoying once you get to know him.”

Connie wasn't so sure about that, but he was mostly
inoffensive. He genuinely seemed to care about Dana too. He wasn't Connie's boyfriend, so she didn't see a reason to care. It was simply nice to be out among ordinary people.

Except it put Connie on edge. She'd worried, in the last ten years or so, that her hypervigilance would become a problem. It was justified by her life, but it did make enjoying the quiet times more difficult. Like noticing a briefcase sitting, unaccompanied, by the bathroom for the last six minutes. Or the guy with the eye patch at the corner table who hadn't actually done anything suspicious, but she'd always had bad luck with people wearing eye patches, so she couldn't help but be wary.

“Oh, Byron's here,” said Dana, snapping Connie out of her danger sense.

“Byron?”

“My brother. Didn't I mention him?” She waved to a tall man.

“No, you didn't,” said Connie.

“Well, he wasn't sure he could make it. He doesn't always.”

Byron walked over. Connie deduced he liked jazz and was something of a cinephile. His favorite food was anything fried, and he loved to dance. She silenced her inner detective.

Dana introduced Connie. She shook his hand. It wasn't android-spongy.

Byron wasn't handsome, but he was cute. A little pudgy. His left eye was a little bit lazy, but he probably hadn't realized that yet. His tie was askew, though that was probably a fluke, given the tidiness of the rest of his appearance.

Connie frowned, telling her detective to shut up.

“Something wrong?” he asked, catching the frown.

“No. Just distracted by . . . stuff,” she said, then after a pause, added, “Poetry, right?”

He sat. “What'd I miss? Don't tell me I missed the bird guy.”

“Bird guy?” asked Connie.

“You'll know him when you see him,” said Dana. “His soul is a bird. Hope is a bird. Love is a bird. Basically, everything's a bird. Except hate. Hate is a Camaro, for some reason.”

“Guess I should get a coffee,” he said. “Where'd you get that cider?”

“They sell it,” said Connie.

Byron appraised her as if meeting Beowulf in the flesh. “I bet Jone-athan didn't like that.”

“Don't like coffee either?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I should order something.”

“I'll take care of it,” she said.

“You don't have to do that.”

“It's no problem.”

He glanced over at Jone-athan, who sat beside the espresso machine like a judgmental gargoyle in flip-flops. “If you insist . . .”

“Just saving the day,” she said. “It's what I do.”

They shared a smile. He was definitely cute.

She faced down the guardian of all things cool and environmentally responsible, and returned with a cider for Byron and a vegan cookie that tasted surprisingly good.

An elderly woman, complete with shawl and walker, took the mic and began reciting an ode to sexual awakening. Dana distracted herself with her phone while Byron listened intently. Connie found the part about receiving her lover's warm seed into her welcoming petals a bit unsettling and chuckled to herself.

Byron didn't.

As the woman started talking about rough hands caressing secret places, he noticed Connie watching him.

He laughed. “Sorry. She's one of my favorites.”