Chapter 1 ?

"Polly!"

Polly's head jerked up from her desk before she was even fully awake. Her assistant, Harley Nugent, popped into Polly's doorframe, bouncing slightly off of the doorjamb. She had long, straight red hair and a small-puppy-in-a-big-dog's-body kind of energy. She tended to bump into things rather than just stop under her own steam.

"Yes?" Polly asked, blinking quickly to de-fog the spell of sleep. It had been a long night. She'd been nodding off at her desk all morning.

"I have to run out to pick up lunch, can you sit at the front desk for 10 minutes and answer the phones?"

"Of course," Polly said. She placed her hands on her desk as though she were about to stand, but slumped back as soon as Harley disappeared. Harley didn't usually answer phones. Sam Hart, the club's daytime receptionist must be out at an audition. Polly had a vague recollection of setting one up and then, as she remembered where her feet were -- yep, right there at the end of her legs -- she vowed to stop hiring actresses to work as her receptionist. She felt around under her desk for her shoes but then decided to leave them.

It wasn't her fault, though.  Everyone had a least a smidge of talent, and those smidges tended to explode into the real thing around her. Actually, in that case, it was kind of her fault. Sure, she could turn off her magic, in order to keep her employees with her longer but that idea repelled her. She had too much pride in her own talent to squash it on purpose.

She stumbled out into the reception area. Her nights had been long, lately, leaving her sleepy and out-of-sorts during the day. Fortunately, the office was blessedly empty, which was unusual. Even though she was normally happy to see whatever comedian who wandered in, she was also, on days like this, very glad to have Sam and Harley to buffer her from immediate human contact.  Aside from both being massively talented, even without Polly's influence, they were both super organized and loyal as hell -- or at least, they seemed to be. So far. One never knew, for sure.

After Ares had helped her get revenge on her sisters for humiliating her, Polly had left Olympus for the mortal world. She hadn't been back in over a thousand years. She wasn't sure if she'd ever go back. If she were honest with herself, shame kept her from going back as much as anger. She'd helped hundreds of mortals in that time, soothing her conscience by helping others.

Five years ago, she'd opened up a small comedy club in the San Fernando Valley. She'd considered Hollywood but there were already a lot of clubs there, and besides, she wanted to be closer to the comedians. Up-and-coming comedians only needed one or two roommates and only one or two jobs in order to afford living in the valley.

It was amazing that a "small club" still took up a decent length of the block. The periwinkle blue stucco had been studded with elaborate, gilt-framed televisions advertising upcoming shows. A large, black-painted wood cut-out of an open-beaked bird combined with an even larger white-painted wood speech bubble proclaimed, "Starlings Comedy Club" in black block letters above the office entrance.

At the end of the building was a small cafe. Starling's Cafe was on the other side of the club's kitchen, so just as the reception area doubled as a box office at night, the kitchen was used for the cafe during the day and the club at night. The cafe was mostly where Polly's regulars hung out, wrote new material (or didn't), and used her free wifi during the day.

Polly hadn't had much interest in decorating the place -- all she needed was a stage and some seats, right? So she'd hired an interior designer. Armed with nothing but Polly's vague comment about being of Greek ancestry, the designer had gilded the office with white molding and wall niches inset with statues of Greek goddesses. In a weird twist of Fate, which Polly often took a silent moment to curse, the designer had been inspired to use the 9 muses as her central theme. They didn't particularly look like Polly and her sisters but she tended to avoid their blank gazes anyway.

Plush, dark periwinkle carpet ran through all of the rooms except for the bathrooms and kitchen which were covered in white, porous tile for easy clean-up and quick drying. Aside from the white columns, the reception area was painted in the same periwinkle blue as the outside of the building. Sleek but comfy couches lined the wall facing Sam's massive, wrought-iron desk, two on each side of the door. Small side tables with books rather than magazines had been Polly's only influence in the design of the reception area.

The reception area broke off into two parts. To the left and down a short hallway, was Harley's office, and then Polly's and then a bathroom that the office shared. To the right, a short hallway led to the public bathrooms and further down the hallway, a large archway opened directly into the showroom. For guests, this was where the hallway ended. On the other side of the wall was another archway for the servers to get in and out of the room and the partitioned off hallway continued on to the staff bathroom and the kitchen.

The phone rang, startling Polly. Without thinking, she picked up the receiver and then dropped it back into the cradle. She didn't feel like talking to anyone. Her head pounded; a combination of guilt, relief, and too much ambrosia fighting for dominance over her nervous system.

The bells on her front door chimed and a man entered. Polly grimaced and then tried to inject some genuine interest into her expression. She relaxed when she recognized the uniform of a postal carrier. Not a fragile, easily crushed comedian, but a solid, strapping, albeit short, black man. He had a mailbag slung over his shoulder and was holding some boxes. An expression of bland friendliness in his dark brown eyes matched a sweet smile.

"I've got some packages for you," he said, walking toward the desk. Polly mentally dismissed the man. He had no talent to develop and she could sense no ambition in him, anyway.

"Thanks," she said, as he set three small boxes down on Sam's desk. She examined him more thoroughly, finding relief in being around someone she couldn't do anything for. He was exactly her height, and she was only 5'4 without heels, which she'd left under her desk. He had a decent jawline and strong arms and legs but a bit of a paunch around the middle even though he was definitely not any older than his late 30s. He had a comfortable feeling about him. His energy was self-sustaining; neither overly needy nor aggressively protective.

He was exactly average. Not good-looking, not ugly. Not weird, not cool. But there was something -- off.

"You have no talent," she blurted out.

He blinked and stepped back. He tilted her head and sent her a quizzical smile. "What?"

She leaned forward and stared him in the eyes, putting all of her focus into scanning him completely. "Like, no talent. Like, none. Not a finger, not a toenail, not a cell in your body has any talent!" She said.

"I mean," he said, taken aback. "I can play the guit--"

"Nope," she interrupted. "Not well. Not well, at all."

"Okay," he said, with a rueful laugh. "I sing in the shower some--"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "It's not good. You shouldn't."

He laughed again and thought for a moment. "Um...my friends say I grill a mean burg--"

"No. No. Nooo..." she said, with increasing vigor. "Your friends are liars. Your burgers are just okay." She frowned, focusing all of her energy on finding any bit of talent in him. She shook her head. "There's nothing. Nothing."

The front door chimed again and the scent of food permeated the room. "I've got lunch!" Harley said, dropping two containers onto Sam's desk. She shoved a cup of coffee into Polly's hand. "You seem like you need it," she said cheerfully. She looked up at the mailman. "Hi, Duke! How are you doing today?"

"I'm good," he said automatically turning his sweet smile onto her. "Actually, I'm talentless, apparently," he added with a laugh.

"Oh, don't say that," Polly said. She picked up the phone and sent Polly a quizzical glance. "Starlings Comedy Club, how can I help you?"

Polly realized that the phone had been ringing for a good minute and she hadn't even heard it. Duke returned his focus to her, his smile warming her body like a tiny, gentle sun. He saluted her, backed up a couple of steps and then turned to leave.

As the door chimed closed behind him, she realized that her mouth was open and that she hadn't moved from her position behind Sam's desk. One hand was still planted on the desk, the other holding the coffee Harley had shoved into her hand. Harley was angled over the phone from the wrong side of the desk, scribbling onto a post-it pad. "Okay, great, can you come in tomorrow at 4 for an interview? Bring a resume. Great! See you then!"

She dropped the phone back into the cradle from high enough that it bounced before settling into place. "Potential new dishwasher!" she said. "By the way," she added, rolling her eyes. "One of the TVs outside melted again. I'll send Sam out to pick up a new one when she gets back from her audition."

Polly stood up straight and stepped away from the desk. "Cool," she said. She wandered back down the hallway and into her office. She leaned against her door, dazed.