Brittany Bends Read Free

side, and the stupid bedazzled fake jewels are turning cold under my palm, which means that my hands are as cold as I think they are, which is just not a good thing.
    I get to the sidewalk and almost trip climbing up the curb. Up close, the store looks dark and creepy and empty, but as I wonder if I should turn around, a woman opens the door.
    “Are you Brittany Johnson?” she asks. I can barely see her through the gloom.
    “Um, yeah,” I say, even though technically, I’m not a Johnson. Mom just decided to give me Karl’s last name to avoid the confusion. Because my birth certificate calls me Lundquist, which is Mom’s old last name, and Mom doesn’t want me explaining to everyone why all her other kids are Johnson and she has one Lundquist because no one in town, apparently, knows she gave birth “out of wedlock,” which is, I guess, something totally frowned on here.
    (Pretty dang common where I come from. In fact, all except like a handful of my half siblings on my father’s side are the product of his wandering eye. His wife Hera has other choice words for us kids, which I don’t want to use. She doesn’t like the fact that he’s spent the past several thousand years fathering kids on other women, but she can’t really complain too much since her eye wanders too. Which I said to Mom once, and she held up her hands and said, I don’t want to hear it, Brittany, I really don’t in a tone I haven’t heard her use before or since.)
    “Well, come on in,” the store lady says, “before we both freeze.”
    I want to pump my hand in the air and say, Yes! , like Leif does when his favorite sports team scores, but I don’t. Instead I smile and slip inside.
    The store is warm, and I let out a little sigh. It’s nice to be out of the wind.
    It’s not dark and gloomy in here as it looked from the outside. It only seemed that way because the store lady has the lights off up front. Toward the back, there are lots and lots of fluorescent lights, and shelves that are in pieces, and boxes everywhere. Some tubby guy who’s older than Karl and wears a plaid shirt that makes Eric’s coat look stylish is piling even more boxes against a far wall.
    The store lady smiles at me. She’s wearing blue jeans and a denim shirt that would actually look pretty good with my ugly purse. She has on no makeup (which is unusual around here), and her dark brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail. She pulls off some big gloves and extends a hand toward me.
    “I’m Jill Larson,” she says. “I’m the manager here. And, I’ll be honest, I know your mom.”
    Ah, nepotism. I know the word because it was the center of my life not too long ago. My dad excels at nepotism.
    That’s why he chose me and Tiff and Crystal to become the Interim Fates. And that’s how we got approved. You see, my dad decided (in a fit of pique, Hera says) to get rid of true love, and he figured the best way to do that was to make the actual Fates step down.
    The Fates are like the judges over life and all of magic and in that capacity also handle true love. And somehow (well, I know how, but for the sake of long-story-short), my dad convinced the Powers That Be (who are in charge of everything [and my dad was/is one of them, depending on whether or not he’s still being punished]) to fire the Fates and have them reapply for their old jobs.
    Me, and Tiff and Crystal became Fates in the interim (hence Interim Fates) and we sucked at it. (Sorry, Mom. Sucked is the only word.) The only thing we did right was we didn’t let Daddy screw up true love. Somehow we blocked that. But the rest of it? Oh, man. Imagine if a first grader replaced Judge Judy.
    So, nepotism. It’s like the story of my life.
    Mrs. Larson smiles at me. (Mom told me I should always call adults by “Mr. or Mrs.” and their last name, to be respectful, even though a few women have corrected me and said that I should just call them Miz, which really confuses me.)
    “Your mom,” Mrs.