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Well, I never had guests. And did people really notice shit like that? The couple on the TV certainly seemed to, shooting unimpressed looks at the porch steps as they walked up them and shook their heads with abject disappointment.
Suddenly, the image changed to a familiar demiurgus with giant, jewel-crusted earrings and teeth so white they made me wince.
“Well now you don’t have to be!” he said enthusiastically, flashing the camera a gigantic, stretched grin. “Hi, I’m Lixi Gablar here with the ScrubShoes, a revolutionary new product that will change your cleaning habits forever!”
He held up a pair of hideous plastic shoes with actual scrubbing brushes for soles. I pursed my lips as I eyed them. Should I start cleaning my porch steps? I never even looked at them, so they were probably pretty gross. Probably the worst ones on the street.
“These sturdy, attractive shoes will complement any outfit! Simply pop them on and clean your porch steps on your way out. No mess! No fuss! No hours of scrubbing on your hands and knees. These couldn’t be easier to use. Here, let me demonstrate…”
I fiddled with my phone as Lixi put the ScrubShoes on and shuffled his way over some demo porch steps, which were coated in a thick layer of grime. They did cut through the dirt pretty easily. He looked a little silly, like he was skiing in place.
“And these don’t just clean the outside of your house!” he said enthusiastically. “The intuitive soles have brand-new technology that automatically detects the surface they’re on, making the bristles softer for indoor flooring!”
What? I snorted. Could bristles really do that?
Could they?
“Cut through kitchen grease with ease! Pick up pet dander and hair without having to lug out that unwieldy vacuum!”
I mean, I didn’t have any pets, and who let their kitchen floors get all thick with grease anyway?
“Once you own a pair of ScrubShoes, you won’t need any other cleaning products for your flooring, indoor or out! And right now, I’m offering these at an absolute steal! While these babies would usually cost you seventy-nine-ninety-nine, I can give them to you for not seventy-five-ninety-nine, not sixty-nine-ninety-nine, not even fifty-nine-ninety-nine! Call now, and you can own your very own ScrubShoes for just thirty-nine-ninety-nine! That’s right, just thirty-nine-ninety-nine to revolutionise your cleaning routine and grab yourself a stylish new pair of shoes in the process!”
I was already dialling the number before he’d finished speaking. That did seem like a pretty good deal. And maybe Tim would use them. Maybe my floors got dirtier than I realised.
Or maybe they’d just sit in my Room of Shame with the rest of the useless stuff I’d ordered in an attempt to fill the lonely void. Meh. Whatever.
Chapter Seventeen
Beryl
Okay, Beryl. Time to start being more proactive. Time to find out if you actually have a personality.
Back at the cult, I’d felt so much more interesting than everyone else around me. All the people floating around with dreamy smiles and a total willingness to just do what was expected of them. In there, I’d felt confident and self-assured, maybe even a little bit smug that I was duping them all.
After two weeks out here in the real world, it seemed like all my confidence had melted away. Suddenly, I felt like the blandest person ever. Like I’d never even developed a personality. Like I was just beige.
I admired Greid so much. He thought he was a total mess, and in some ways, he was a bit of an adorable mess, but he was brimming with personality. He was funny and interesting and just as cute when he was grumpy in the mornings as he was all lazy and content at night while smoking and eating and watching TV.
He had such a cool business, and I had spent every day for the last two weeks growing more and more dejected as I trawled through job listings on the computer in his workshop. He’d had to teach me how to use it, but after that I’d done my best to stay quiet and out of his way.
Which was hard. When I was feeling particularly frustrated by the endless lists of previous experience requirements and “essential” skills, I’d abandon the computer and wander over to see what he was doing. He never seemed to mind, always shyly showing me and getting embarrassed when I gushed over how gorgeous the pieces were.
He looked adorable in the big magnifying lenses he wore while doing intricate metalwork. He usually whipped them off self-consciously when I spun around in the desk chair, but sometimes he forgot and would look up and blink at me owlishly, his yellow eyes comically large on his face.
I loved spending all day with him, even when we weren’t talking and were doing our own thing. I was trying not to let my fruitless job search get to me. One morning a couple of days after our outing, I’d forced myself to walk to the coffee shop alone while Greid was still asleep, happy to be able to treat him with the little cash I had. I’d made the same trip every morning since, and each time it got a little easier and more enjoyable. I was somewhat friendly with the baristas in there now, and they didn’t seem to suspect in the slightest that I’d recently been in a cult that worshipped their kind as magical sex wizards.
Not that I would ever offer that information to anyone.
Greid and I had settled into a routine, and honestly, I felt closer to him than I ever had to anyone else, with the exception of my aunt. We spent pretty much all our time together, and he was much more relaxed around me now than he had been at the beginning. Last weekend, we’d gone out again for the day, this time to a small park—not the big one right next to the cult’s hill. We’d eaten tacos from a street vendor on a bench under a big tree that was shedding all its golden-brown leaves. Then he’d taken me to the space museum, and we’d gone into the planetarium to watch a showing on astronomy. Because it had been fairly empty and we’d sat right at the back, Greid had sneakily lit a joint and relaxed into his reclined seat, looking half asleep by the end of it.
I was pretty sure he was still asleep right now as I padded down the stairs and headed for the front door. I smiled as I pulled on my new boots. Greid had given them to me a while back, along with a new coat and a SIM card for his old phone. My instinct had been to refuse the gifts, but he’d looked so worried I wouldn’t like them that I just couldn’t bring myself to. I’d given him a big smile and said I’d pay him back for them, which had made him shake his head frantically and mumble something I hadn’t been able to catch.
Grabbing my key, I smiled again. After I’d started going to the coffee shop every morning, Greid had given me the spare key and made a little keychain just for me. It was tiny strands of metal intricately twisted together to form a B, with little stones wound throughout. I’d been desperate to hug him when he’d handed it to me with a shy expression, but I still didn’t know if he’d be comfortable with that.
After pulling on my warm coat, I slipped out of the house and quietly closed the front door behind me. The two old demiurgus across the street who seemed to live permanently on their stoop—with cigars permanently in their mouths—waved at me, so I waved cheerfully back.
By the time I reached Deep Brew, my cheeks felt flushed from the cold. It was definitely getting chillier, and the blast of warm, coffee-scented air hit me as I stepped inside.
