The Seven Deadlies
CHAPTER TWO

Sleep is a wonderful thing. We don't have it where I come from. You probably think angels spend most of their time in contemplation and you'd be correct.

But I'm a human now, right? At least I am for the next seven days, so when in Rome… (except it's actually Los Angeles I'm in) I will sleep, I will eat, I will work and in the process commit the seven deadly sins. Then I can go home, a better, wiser, more experienced angel and no-one will ever refer to me again as, "Not the sharpest knife in the drawer."

Already I was ahead of the game. On earth less than twenty-four hours I'd got sprayed with Envy.

Would it be possible to just proceed to the local mall and buy Pride, Gluttony, Anger, Sloth and…and… the others, (I'll remember in a minute what they are), experience the lot in half-an hour and spend the rest of the week working on my tan? Unfortunately a discreet enquiry revealed that none of the other deadly sins were available in perfume form.

I awoke into a citrus-bright morning and I was hungry. Nick was in the kitchen, looking dark and moody, hunched over a bowl of marshmallow cheerios.

"Sleep well?" He asked.

"Yeah! It was great, I kinda saw all these movies in my head."

He looked at me like I was insane. "Dreams," he said faintly.

Yikes! I've got to remember that all this stuff is normal for humans.

Luckily, just then the phone rang and Nick, giving me another odd look, threw himself at it. A high-pitched gibbering, like the noise a broken cassette makes, reached me. A woman. Of course. This was Nick, after all.

She sounded upset. Of course. This was Nick, after all. "Sure, baby," he crooned, "I know baby, I'm sorry baby, I never meant to hurt you, baby. Take care, baby. Bye."

He slammed down the phone and sighed. Oh, what a sigh.

The noise of a key scratching at the door heralded the arrival of Tandy, back from walking her dog.

Granola raced into the room, then stopped dead when he saw me. Poor dog, I was freaking him OUT. He hovered around me, like he was in a trance.

Tandy's gorgeous face was flushed and angry. "Why do I go to the dog-park? Like, WHY?"

"So your liddil doggie can play with the other liddil doggies," Nick drawled.

"I go to meet men!" She addressed her rant to me. "Instead I get all these women coming up to me. How old is Granola? How long have I had him? What is the point?"

"Calm down," Nick said. "Eat something. Oh no, I forgot, you don't do that, do you?"

"So, Grace," Tandy ignored him, "What are you gonna do today?"

Actually, today I was hoping to commit Sloth. Just as soon as I found out what it was. But I had to play my part as a wannabe actress from Smallsville looking for a foot in Hollywood's door. "I'm meeting with an agent. There's a chance she might take me on."

On account of Nick and Tandy also being actors this provoked a storm of enthusiastic enquiry. Who was she? Who did she represent?

In the middle of their interrogation the phone rang again. Another woman for Nick. "I hear you, baby," he murmured. "But I never said I wanted a relationship."

"Why do I always hurt those I love?" Tandy said, in a brooding voice that was uncannily like Nick's.

Nick glared at Tandy. Tandy glared back.

I went to get ready for my meeting. I'd been sent to earth with great clothes, everything a girl would need.

"Oh my God, I love your purse," Tandy breathed reverentially. Then, beside me, I felt her tense up. "But, but isn't this from the new collection? I thought you couldn't buy it for another six months!"

Of course Tandy would know! Her high-achieving sister - well, one of her high-achieving sisters - owned a dot.com site selling cool purses. I had to mumble something about knowing someone in the design room and getting a sample copy. Honestly, sometimes they can be so inefficient Up There. And they have the nerve to complain about me…

As I was leaving I hesitated and said, "This may sound a little weird, but do either of you know what Sloth is?"

"You're right," Tandy said. "It sounds a little weird."

"It's an animal," Nick said. "A small British animal. I'm pretty sure."

I wasn't so sure. Like, how could I commit a small British animal?

*

To be fair to my superiors they've pulled out all the stops to equip me for life in Los Angeles - I've a hire car and, even better, the ability to drive it, a fake resume and a glossy collection of 8 by 12 headshots.

As I drove under clear blue skies and along palm fringed highways to Beverley Hills, I passed skanky-looking motels, dentists, adobe-style houses, nail-salons, gun shops, pet care outlets, tanning salons, more dentists... I felt like I was living in a movie.

I wondered about the personality I've been given. Generally, I don't seem to be too neurotic, I haven't had one urge to self-mutilate. I also seem to be punctual. And a non-smoker. All a little dull, but hey.

The agent, Robyn Dude, was a power-suited power-house. She spoke extremely quickly, out of one side of her mouth. She's the kind of woman who'd look magnificent pulling the pin out of a grenade with her teeth.

"Yeah, I think we could get you some parts. But," she said. "I'm going to give it to you straight. Your face is great, that cherubic look is kinda now, but if you don't drop to ninety pounds, soaking wet, you're gonna be playing character parts for, like, forever."

"The fat best friend, the fat room-mate," I said, almost sulkily.

"Right!"

I felt a strange resentment. Okay, this isn't my body, I've only got it on loan and only for a week, at that, but couldn't they have given me something a little more appropriate for an actress?

There seemed to be nothing further to say. Just before I left something occurred to me. "Do you know the meaning of the word Sloth?" I asked.

Her face filled with dark colour and she looked like she might pop. She opened her mouth and YELLED, "No-one works as hard as me. No-one. Okay, we'll try and get you some non-fat parts, if that's how you feel, but you better get to a spinning class right now and don't leave until you've dropped three dress sizes!"

I had no clue what she was talking about. None. Nervously, I thanked her for her time and gratefully closed the door on her. In the waiting room was a smart-looking young woman. Or at least she was wearing those rectangular, tortoiseshell-framed spectacles that make people look either smart or like they're trying just that bit too hard to be cool.

On impluse I said, "Excuse me, ma'am, sorry to bother you, but do you know what Sloth is?"

She shrank back against the wall like I was a crazy woman.

"Sorry," I mumbled, making for the sunshine and my car.

"It means lazy," she called after me.

"So it's not a small British animal?" I called back.

"No, that's a stoat." So she wasn't just a pretty pair of spectacles!

And Sloth meant being lazy. Lazy. No wonder Robyn Dude had been so pissed!

I drove home, depleted of any energy. All this being human was EXHAUSTING. For the rest of the day I lay on the sofa, watched talk shows and energetically committed sloth. I also ate many, many small, round wonderful things. Pringles, I believe they were called.