The Seven Deadlies
CHAPTER THREE

The following day, Los Angeles behaved totally out of character - it was raining. As I watched the drops scoot down the window, I composed a letter of complaint in my head. 'I was DISTINCTLY promised blue skies and endless sunshine, yadda, yadda. Imagine my disappointment… I want my money back.'

Tandy and Nick went to work and I hung around the mall, but eventually I HAD to return to the apartment - lured by savoury snacks.

When Nick came home from work he did a bit of that moody prowling around the room stuff that he's so good at, then came to a halt in front of me.

"You've eaten that whole tube of Pringles. You glutton!"

"I'm a glutton?" I asked faintly, hardly unable to believe my good luck. "Do you mean that I'm committing…" I could hardly say the word with excitement, "…Gluttony."

"Hey, I'm kidding," he smiled. "'S'just nice to see someone eating around here now and again." He looked meaningfully at Tandy's bedroom door as he said this.

"It's not a problem." I was very excited. "I just need to know if being a glutton is the same as committing Gluttony."

"Yeah, I guess," he admitted reluctantly.

There goes Gluttony off my list. And it had been great! Almost as comforting as Sloth. And Envy had smelt very nice. I could see why you humans enjoyed the seven deadly sins so much. My empathy and understanding was simply exploding. Next on my list was, let me see, Lust perhaps. Or Greed.

"You can be…" Nick studied me, "…a little strange, sometimes."

I swallowed, suddenly nervous. Of course I can be a little strange, sometimes. He should try being an angel, masquerading as a human, deposited on earth with one week to experience all seven of the deadly sins!

He was still watching me. The expression in those eyes of his stirred something within me.

"Well, I'm a woman," I said heartily. "Think of a man, then subtract all reason and intellect!"

This got a half-hearted laugh out of him.

"How was your day?" He asked cautiously. "Did your agent call?"

"No, seeing as how I haven't dropped twenty pounds since yesterday. How was your day? In fact, what do you do?"

"I work as a carpenter. Just until I get my big Hollywood break," he said dryly.

"I thought all resting actors worked as bellhops."

"Not me. I haven't got the right look for a bellhop."

I knew what he meant. He was oddly attractive but he did have a touch of the psychopath about him. No wonder he'd got typecast as a man who can hold his hand in a flame while remaining impassive.

"Well, you know my closet door? It is the WORST piece of joinery I've ever seen. Could you fix it for me?" I asked.

"Fix it? Well, actually, I made it."

"Whoops," I said, my at-the-best-of-times rosy face igniting into an inferno of shame. "Sorry, I…er, sorry."

Come home Tandy, oh please, come home.

Just then Tandy walked though the door. I am not a very accomplished angel, but sometimes, if I try really, really hard I can make things happen.

"You're early," Nick accused.

"Yeah, I am," Tandy looked in confusion at her watch. "What's going on? It's quarter of six now but I didn't leave work until six thirty. I musta read five thirty as six thirty. Or something… That is so spooky…"

Yes, I felt ashamed, since you ask. Freaking her out like that.

Only the fantastic news she'd had earlier in the day was enough to distract her from my shameful manipulations in the space-time continuum. She'd been sent a script by her agent and she was going for an audition in the morning.

"Isn't that the best news? So I'm going to my room to learn my lines."

I have to admit I was disappointed. I'd been hoping we could get dressed up, go out to a bar, flirt with men and see if I could get a Lust thing going on with one of them.

"I just hope," she sighed, "That Crazy Karl doesn't do anything too crazy tonight. I could use a good night's sleep."

"What's with Crazy Karl?" Nick suddenly sat to attention and looked at the wall that divided the two apartments. "It's very quiet out there."

"Too quiet," the three of us chorused.

"But seriously, we haven't had to call the cops in days. There hasn't been one drunken tantrum from him since…since Sunday."

"Not since Grace called on him."

"Grace called on him?" Nick sounded slightly too interested.

"When I first arrived I got the wrong apartment," I hastily explained. "He told me I was out of my mind."

"Sounds like Karl."

*

Tandy went to her room with Granola who was still totally freaked by me. He hid in his basket when I was around but watched me, as though mesmerized.

I spent the evening watching TV, while a succession of heartbroken women kept Nick on the phone murmuring, "I know, baby, I'm sorry, baby, you'll meet someone else, baby, no, your life is not over, baby…"

I had another great night sleeping, with all those movies showing in my head. The plots were a little far-fetched and inconclusive at times, but so what? And I awoke to another dazzling Los Angeles day.

Nick wasn't much of a talker first thing. In fact he wasn't much of a talker at any time of the day. In silence he hunched over his cereal (apple and cinnamon fruit-loops this morning) while I sipped coffee.

When Tandy marched into the kitchen, I actually thought she'd just got home after a night of hard partying. She wore a barely-there pink dress, which revealed her long, lean, gold-leaf legs. Pink marabou-feathered, spindley-heeled sandals were on her sparkley-toed feet. Her car-tire lips were defiantly sexy, her honey-blonde hair a heavy swishy sheet and her hip-bones were sharp enough to fillet plaice. She was so THIN.

"Guys," she commanded, "I want to know if you want to sleep with me?"

"Suuuurrrre." Nick's eyes were half-closed as he looked her up and down appreciatively.

"Grace?"

"Sure. If I was gay." Except I didn't think I was.

"Excellent," She smacked those lips with satisfaction. "That part is SO mine." She handed me the script. "Will you do a read-through with me?"

I began, but two lines in I had to stop. "But Tandy…"

"What?"

"Your part. You're supposed to be a nun dying of cancer."

"So?" Her stance got even more defiant.

"So you look like a hooker," Nick interrupted.

"It doesn't matter," Tandy said in exasperation. "This is Hollywood. Doesn't matter if I'm playing a crack addict dying of Aids, a nine-month pregnant woman, or a suicidal depressive, I'll never get the part unless every man in that casting room wants to sleep with me!"

Her words fell into shocked silence.

Nick was the first to break it. "Fair enough," he conceded.

"Read," she ordered me.

"Okay. 'But Sister Martha, you must rest!'"

"'How can I rest? Those poor, motherless children need me…'"

And you know what? Tandy gave amazingly good Nun Dying Of Cancer. Her interpretation was moving and tender with just the right hint of steel. She was GREAT.