WHO: Apollo WHEN: Friday, 25th Feb WHERE: Bushwick, Brooklyn WHAT: Apollo's still on his mission WARNINGS: None
The signs tell him where to go. Not every day, not every week, but with a frequency that is slowly increasing as the day of Brody’s shooting is dragged further into the past. The strongest signs, as always, are the ones he wants to follow anyway. The ones that hint at answering the question: how do I get closer to my daughter?
So he takes a walk around Bushwick, inspecting everything with a close eye. Here’s where his daughter grew up, and now the area’s growing up itself. He knows the signs of a city developing, knows what a hot yoga studio next to a struggling family owned laundromat means, especially when there’s a new clothing boutique having a soft launch on the other side, filled with trendy young professionals sipping early afternoon champagne, and across the road (he’s done his research) one of the women who made a name (and a fortune) for herself redeveloping large swathes of Greenpoint has bought out the leases of the entire block. A smart investment, though it would have been smarter half a decade ago, prices have been jacking up and up over the last few years.
He gets himself a seat outside in the winter sun at one of the new café slash gallery slash craft beer embassy, and over hot coffee and hotter food he emails the bank back, and the realtor. Or to be specific, he emails Trev Costello, class of ‘83 and Carter Cargill, class of ‘05, because since its inception in the seventies (the most recent lot of seventies) hundreds of his boys have graduated, and Apollo’s network of favors spans into most industries, now.
And some of his other gods wonder why he puts so much energy into the frat. It’s not only fulfilling as fuck, it’s useful. Everything in his life is easier because so many people like him so much.
He’s polishing off an email when a voice interrupts him. “I know who you are.”
She sounds pleased with herself; looks it too, when he turns his head toward her. She’s a mortal woman, not as young as most women he spends his time with, but she’s dressed like her age is news to her. Though she’s wearing a thick coat against the cold, it’s open, and tight jeans and a tighter top accentuate her curves, and the heels she’s wearing work the same magic on her calves. There’s a silver cross hanging around her neck which puts him off a little, though the décolletage it sits on is very nice, warm and brown and inviting. “Do you now?” He smiles with curiosity at her, and shuts his laptop to give her his full attention, which pleases her.
“You’re Archer Goldenhawk,” she says, and his smile widens and he uses one foot to push out a chair at his table. She’s carrying a takeaway coffee cup but he’s not at all surprised at how quick she is to take up the offer of a seat across from him. “I knew it,” she continues, taking his smile as agreement. “You used to hook up with my daughter.”
“You’re old enough to have a daughter I hooked up with?” he asks. It’s a cheap, easy line served with a warm dose of humour that has her laughing. He knew it would. It’s the tight top that’s a dead giveaway; it screams flirt with me, it promises to flirt back.
And he loves his queen too much to break her heart by cheating but flirting is just talking. Why wouldn’t he make some woman’s day?
“Ooh, you’re dangerous, aren’t you?” she teases, and he smiles with a bright innocence. “I’m Jem, Jem Campbell.”
“Ah, Lyra’s mom,” he says, sending the fates a couple of quick mental finger-guns, and she places a hand on her chest and nods, as if it's a title she wears with some pride. “It’s a pleasure. Lyra’s great.”
“She’s the light of my life,” Jem says. “Wonders never cease, around her, do they?”
“No, they do not,” Apollo says, thinking of the Thanksgiving night when she told him Rosario knew he was her father. Absolutely wonderful.
Maybe she sees something of that in his face, because she leans in. “Have you experienced it, something wonderful?”
“Absolutely I have,” Apollo agrees, and it’s true, because even before Thanksgiving, he did have a lot of fun with her daughter in the time before Rosario turned her off him.
"Tell me," Jem's saying, leaning conspiratorially across the table. "Do you believe in God?"
Well, there's a question. Apollo raises his eyebrows, but because he's also Archer Goldenhawk he doesn't say the first thing that comes to his mind. "Not exactly."
"Hmm," she says, pressing her thumb against the little dimple in the middle of her bottom lip. "What if I could prove it to you?"
He's intrigued, but his phone is ringing, and he has to answer it, standing up with a “Sorry, Jem, it’s my realtor,” as he excuses himself. As he does, he’s making hand signals at the doll behind the counter to bring out two pieces of apple pie, another hand gesture to tell Jem to stay put. It’s just a short conversation, Cargill’s sending over the last of the paperwork to sign but he wants to tell Apollo in person. Apollo gets why; who doesn’t get a kick out of being told they’ve done a good job by a god? He can hear the pride in Cargill’s voice, because he believes he’s helping the prodigal young son of his house’s founder into some prime property, and that pride’s a wonderful thing. He sees it in so many of his boys, as they find themselves ruling their own little section of their world. He can see the first seed of it in Avery, worthy of attention as he watches which way it grows.
He joins Jem again at the table as their pies arrive. Jem has her chin propped up on her hand. “I was eavesdropping,” she tells him, without shame. “You’re buying a place around here?”
“Already bought it,” Apollo smiles, sliding his fork through a soft piece of apple.
Jem shakes her head, impressed, and for now distracted from her previous train of thought. “Look at you, you young thing, you really have got your life together. Buying an apartment, at your age!”
Apollo grins, very pleased with himself. He does have his life together, doesn’t he?
He doesn’t correct her on her use of the singular, though, because Jem is still talking. “How old are you? As old as I was when I was pregnant with Lyra, I bet.” She launches into a story over the pie, eager to talk about her daughter, eager to talk about herself, gratified to have found someone else who’ll listen. There’s a warm huskiness to her voice, like Lyra’s. It’s what makes Lyra’s singing voice so hot – he remembers that night she showed up when he and the guys were out on a pub crawl and they ended up at karaoke. He’d wager Jem has a strong singing voice too; she certainly doesn’t run out of breath while she’s talking.
“Oh—” Jem interrupts herself, looking across the table at him. “Oh, you’re not in love with her, or anything, are you?” There is perhaps a hint of hope there; Jem thrives on gossip and if a rich young heir is in love with her recently married daughter… well then! It's something she'd get a kick out of busting out when Lyra finally brings Avery around for dinner. Not to wound anyone intentionally, of course, but it’d make it a night to remember!
He laughs, and she makes a point of looking relieved. “No,” he reassures her. “No, we had fun, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Well, she is flighty,” Jem confesses, toying with the idea that reluctantly accepting the lack of scandal is perhaps for the best. Deciding it isn't. “She gets that from me. I thought for sure there was something there, the way she and Rosario would keep talking about you. Like high schoolers after a celebrity, but,” Jem leans back to take him all in, and gives him an appreciative nod. “I can see why.”
Apollo spreads his arms in a languid shrug that makes her laugh. “Sexy laugh,” he tells her, which makes her do it again.
“Stop it,” she says, but she means it about as much as women ever do when they say that to Apollo. “I’m old enough to be your mother.”
“No,” Apollo says, which makes her giggle again and brings a warm colour to her cheeks. He leans in, across the table. “Tell me more about what they said about me. Rosario too?”
“Oh, honey, no, Rosario never sounded like she liked you very much,” Jem lays a sympathetic hand on Apollo’s warm forearm. “I’m sorry— I could always be wrong, of course, sometimes our doors ain’t the easiest to hear through, but Rosario’s never been very warm toward Lyra’s boys and between you and me, I’ve always suspected she might be in love with Lyra herself. Not much in the way of romantic entanglements for our Rosario.”
“Really?” Apollo asks, thoughtfully, running through his list of available lesbians. Maybe that is Rosario’s problem; she needs to get laid. He should message Theo, see if he could engineer a run in between the two of them. He’d have to play it carefully, she mustn’t be allowed to know he had anything to do with it. But a Rosario in love, or at least a Rosario getting laid on the regular, had to be an easier Rosario to deal with. Perhaps he could call in a little favour from Aphrodite? Perhaps not, the whole Marcie affair might still be a little raw with her. But Erato could grease a few wheels...
He considers this idea as Jem talks about the multiple times during their early teen years when she’d find Lyra and Rosario in the same bed, giggling hysterically under the covers. No, she’d never caught them at anything but she knew what teenagers were like because she knew what she’d been like, and then she’s off on another story about her own youth, the satisfaction of sneaking boys into her room under her mother’s nose.
It leads them onto the topic of parties and Apollo’s trying to wheedle out of her what kind of parties Rosario might actually be interested in, but Jem’s pretty stuck on her own stories. “I knew a boy like you in high school,” she says, waving a finger at him. He gives her an intrigued did you really look but she doesn’t need any encouragement to keep talking. “He was the one charming the moms in the kitchen at parties. Parents loved him. Invited back to every party. And he was always the one who’d sense exactly where each parent had hidden the booze, or the weed, or the fun stuff. He had a radar for places he wasn’t supposed to be. The most fun to be around.”
Apollo laughs, and hands over his phone. “Give me your number,” he tells her, and she’s a little surprised and a little flattered and she’s also impressed with the expensive feel of his phone in her hand. “If I’m going to be spending more time in the area, I’m going to want a fun local to show me around,” he says, and she’s smitten; fun has always been one of her great aims in life, and she promises him a tour that’ll knock his socks off.
They talk a little longer, Apollo offering to buy Jem another coffee once she finishes her first, and she throws back a short black like it’s a tequila shot. It’s only when her phone buzzes that she realises the time and swears sharply. “Shit, I have to pick my daughter up from daycare like, five minutes ago. I have to run!”
“Where is it? Let me drive you,” Apollo offers, and she stares at him for a second. “My car’s close,” he promises, adding, “trust me, you’ll love it,” and she’s always found men telling her what she’ll love a little irresistible, so she agrees.
And that’s how Apollo meets Lyra’s little sister, who’s the last girl to be picked up from daycare and is sitting on the step, being watched over by a tired looking woman who just wants to close things up and go home. Jemma’s shy, hiding behind her mom, but Jem picks her up off the ground so she’s at eye level with Apollo, who puts effort into coaxing her face out of where it's hiding in her mother’s neck. A little god-power is all it takes, just like that’s all it took with Brody, and soon he’s carrying her back to the car by her ankles, and she’s laughing so hard as she sways back and forth she might be on the verge of being sick. “You’re so good with kids,” Jem praises, taking a photo of the two of them. “Younger siblings?”
“My girlfriend's little brother isn’t much older than Jemma,” he explains, one truth instead of another. “We hang out a lot. He loves the zoo. How about this one, does she love the zoo?”
“We’ve never been,” Jem admits, and Apollo looks shocked to the point of scandal, which makes her laugh again.
“Next time I take Brody, you and Jemma are coming with us. My treat,” he offers, well— it’s an order and an offer, but Jem’s not the type to balk when an attractive man tells her what to do, especially if he’s paying.
He drops them home, Jemma chatting a little but Jem chatting more, and Apollo leans out his car window to wave them goodbye.
“See you round the neighborhood!” Jem waves, and holds Jemma’s wrist to make her wave, too.
Apollo grins, sunny and bright. “Absolutely, Jem.”