"Esther M. Friesner - Helen Rembembers the Stork Club" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

while dropping his loinwrap with the other.

The crowning irony of the whole Judgment of Paris situation was this: That the apple itself was
earmarked For the Fairest. Not For the Smartest or For the Most Likely to Succeed in World
Conquest, no. Even so, for all her high-hat egghead snobbery, her eternal touting of the value of brains
over beauty, Athena wanted that damned apple. As brilliant as she was, as secure in her goddesshood,
all she wanted was for someone to tell her that she was ... pretty.

As for Hera, she proved to be another sore loser. Helen still remembered asking Daddy's snooty wife
about why she'd taken the Judgment so badly. Wasn't she still the queen of the gods? Didn't that count
for more than possession of some gilt-dipped pippin? What need to bring destruction down on Troy and
all the innocents behind its walls just because one Trojan prince let Little Paris do all his thinking for him?

Hera had looked down that perfect nose of hers at her husband's beautiful by-blow, sniffed haughtily,
and said, тАЬYou wouldn't understand, child. It was the principle of the thing.тАЭ And Athena, toadying at
Hera's elbow, nodded agreement so vigorously that her helmet fell off.

Helen sighs. The principle of the thing is something to invoke when you need high-sounding excuses with
which to bless a war you were going to fight anyway. She had enough of that patented hypocrisy three
thousand years ago.
What she's about to do might not be wise, but it will be effective, straightforward, and sincere. The gods
would never understand, but the gods are gone. She casts off Athena's unseen, overbearing presence and
steps through the doorway into a watering-hole so vulgar and tawdry that its patrons take perverse pride
in how blatantly it reeks of cheap beer, sour wine, and drinks the color of a smog-drenched L.A. sunset.
If these people glitter at all, it's only when the lights hit a galaxy of steel studs on scores of ears and
eyebrows and waggling tongues. It's a far, far cry from the Stork Club.

He's standing at the bar, still wearing his tuxтАФshe specified he was to wear a tux when she hired
himтАФand he's completely ruining those trim, elegant lines of haberdashery by the amount of swag he's
got crammed into the pants. Those are her diamonds in his pocket; he's not going to be happy to see her.

She passes through the crowd without incident. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but only when
beauty consents to be seen. The other patrons of the club don't seem to notice that a winged woman all
ashine with gold has come into their midst. He's the only one who sees her as she is, and as she comes
nearer she's pleased to note how his first fear-drenched sight of her intensifies when he realizes nobody
else sees anything frightening at all. He's isolated in his terror. She savors the instant when his expression
turns to that of a man questioning his own sanity.

As Helen predicted, her faithless boytoy's got his chosen ladylove with himтАФa spiky-haired little dollop
of mincemeat whose arm he grabs in a death-grip as he blurts out a string of spit-flecked questions: Look
there! Can't you see it? The naked woman? The wings? Are you blind? The girl takes one gander at
her crazed lover's wildly rolling eyes and lets out a shriek fit to put the harpies off their feed. Her pasty
haunches shoot her out the door before Helen gets within arm's reach.

Helen grabs her escort's face with both hands and draws him toward her until she can smell the tequila on
his breath and he can smell the blood on hers. She has the power to hold men helpless with her gaze. In
Helen's eyes they see everything they ever loved reduced to a shadow dancing over windblown grass,
here and gone, here and gone.

"It wasn't all that good,тАЭ she tells him, and for an instant he forgets his panic, scowling at her mightily, the