The aging starlet in my office looked nervous. And she should have: the only thing I was capable of doing was cursing her.

I'm really not evil. It's just that I can only use my magic to directly do harm. My gift is strong and malevolent. I am the magical equivalent of a sniper rifle.

But I'm not a bad person myself. When I found out about my limitations, I didn't want to give up magic -- I wasn't sure that I could. I was tearing myself apart. Then one day I stayed home with a head cold and watched a marathon of celebrity biographies. And it hit me.

They all had tasteful, dramatic setbacks. Nothing the surgeons couldn't overcome, or the counselors, or the loving families. Just enough to keep sympathy and the limelight focused on the star. And my business was born. I moved to L.A. within a month, and inside of a year, I was the best-kept secret in the movie business.

Which is why Tacy Reynolds, an otherwise sane but slightly drooping starlet, was signing the line that gave me permission -- indeed, an order -- to mess up her glittering celebrity life. Lloyd the Perfect Secretary brought her coffee, twitched an eyebrow at me, and departed.

I checked over the papers and gave her a perfunctory smile. "Everything seems to be in order," I said.

"Great," she said. "So when do we begin?"

"Well, I think I have all the information I need to proceed. My only concern is your expectations."

She favored me with her most winsome look. "Wonderful. Now, I was thinking, it worked well for Britney Spears when --"

I raised my finger. "Eh eh eh. You'll see in section five, I have discretion as to what the curse will be. Career results are all that I guarantee."

The winsome look fell a bit. "So how do I know that I wasn't just, you know, unlucky?"

"Oh, believe me. You'll know -- although I do recommend a physical examination right away, you'd probably end up wanting one. My methods are quite unmistakable. Something that wasn't wrong at all one day will be wrong the next. I had one client who had never tried cocaine before wake up with an addiction."

"Cocaine. Isn't that...I don't know, kind of Eighties?"

"You are not a cocaine sort of a woman. Trust me on that."

"Well --" She dimpled. "I guess I do have to trust you, don't I?"

"Only once you've signed the papers."

"But you wouldn't really hurt me."

"Only as much as it takes to help you."

"Fabulous."

Tacy sashayed out of the office, bestowing her smiles upon Lloyd the Perfect Secretary on her way.

Lloyd looked up at me. "Got something cooked up for her?"

"I think so."

"I have some ideas myself," he muttered. "But it looks like someone already cursed her with that hairstylist."

There is just no replacing that man. He can type, too.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on Tacy's case. My solution was an elegant one, but I had a feeling I'd be seeing her in my office within a week. Sure enough, Lloyd announced one morning, with pursed lips, that she had called for the 11:30 appointment. "And you have a muffin basket from the Estevez family. That might cheer you up, at least."

I grabbed a cran-orange muffin and settled into my office chair to wait. Tacy was five minutes early -- unheard of among starlets in normal circumstances.

She wasn't pleased with the results.

"Breast cancer?" she shrieked. "You gave me breast cancer?"

"Quite operable," I said. "Very little danger to you at all. Please, sit down. Calm yourself."

She tossed her golden head and continued to pace. What I hate about this job: everything is a scene with these people. "Breast cancer. Jesus, Paavo. I wanted Cameron Diaz and you gave me Judi Dench. Breast cancer is for old people!"

"In Hollywood, you're old," I said. "And Judi Dench has more talent in her left knee than you've ever had in your entire body. I'm afraid those are both facts you'll have to live with."

She flung her arms outward. Need I even say that it was done dramatically? "You were supposed to be a miracle worker!"

"My miracles -- as I informed you in my pamphlet and in the contract -- have their limits. Do you want me to read you the contract again?"

Her shoulders slumped. "No."

"I didn't think so. Now. This is your job, not mine. You have to get out there and make the most of this. Be brave. Be resolute. Be winsome."

She squared her shoulders. "Making the most of this tragedy that has befallen me."

"Yes."

"Raising awareness for those less fortunate."

"Precisely."

"'Rising from the ashes of her battle with breast cancer --'"

I can't stand it when they start quoting their own future reviews at me. "You've got it. Sally forth and all that." I ushered her out. She was still muttering about "her star shining brighter than before." I collapsed in one of the waiting room chairs.

"I know," said Lloyd the Perfect Secretary. "They're just awful. You'd think they did all the hard work."

"Well, at least she's got it now. I think."

He shook his head and got up to get me coffee. He stirred in the sugars thoroughly before handing it to me. "With those reviews? She may think she's shining brighter than before, but she'd better put some powder on it."

"I did what I could."

"Bad material," he clucked. "Well, you have an old pro coming in half an hour. A joy to work with, or so I hear, and that film he made with Diane Keaton -- yummm!"

I cheered up at the prospects of a real professional in the office. And his career downturn was bad luck, not his fault at all. I arranged for a long-lost brother to show up half-drunk at a benefit dinner, knowing he'd be able to make himself into the magnanimous, big-hearted family man the press loves to see.

I spent the rest of the month with a nice trickle of clients, about the usual load. I arranged for a young model to have a non-fatal car crash, complete with artistic bruises and a sprained wrist, to be handled in a chic Prada sling. The Soulful One from last year's boy-band came to me and found himself in a sex scandal that he swore was not a curse on any level, and a grande dame's personal secretary was caught embezzling from her.

And then Tacy was back.

Lloyd, bless him, did not let her into my office, but I heard her screeching and came out to see what the trouble was. Lloyd kept side-stepping to block her path to me.

"Not a single thing!" she shrieked.

"Calm down, calm down," I said. "What seems to be the trouble?"

"The trouble? The trouble is that you gave me fucking cancer, and nobody gives a damn!"

"I'm sure your mother cares," Lloyd murmured.

Before she could hit him, I took another step closer to them. "I'll handle this, Lloyd. Come into my office, Tacy."

She followed me in and sat down. I remained standing, looking down at her, but nudged the door closed. "Things didn't work out as you hoped."

She tossed her blonde curls, still artfully arranged despite her anger. "I called all of the people who usually do telethons and benefits for this and that. They all said they were busy, or else they had already booked their guests for this year, or else they weren't thinking of it yet. And the talk shows! My agent could only get me on two talk shows. Letterman laughed at him!"

"So nobody immediately jumped up and handed you your career back," I said.

"No, they didn't!"

"Did you consider doing something yourself?" I asked.

"I did do something myself! I called my agent myself, and I called some of the others myself, the ones the agent didn't say I should leave alone, and --"

"Did you try to arrange for your own benefit show and rent a hall and all that?"

"No."

"How about a dinner? Fifty of your closest Hollywood friends."

"No."

"Did you volunteer at any cancer hospices?"

"No."

"Pediatric oncology wards?"

"God, no! How depressing."

I had to make a great effort not to roll my eyes. "So, in fact, you did very little to make this work for you."

"I had cancer!"

"That's true, you did. I presume you had the lump removed."

Flushing, she nodded.

"I hope that surgery went well."

"It was fine," she snapped.

"Perhaps you should have given yourself a bit of time to recover and make things work before you came storming in here to take it out on me?"

"You were supposed to fix it," she said through her teeth. "But I'm just where I started."

I shook my head. "You just don't know how to work with an opportunity. You want everything to fall into your lap."

"That's not true! It's not my fault your curse didn't work the way it was supposed to! I'll go to the papers!"

I smiled. "If you do that, you have to understand two things," I said. "Number one: no one will admit to believing you. You'll become the new Psychic Friends Network, the joke in every late-night monologue, and then you'll vanish without a trace."

"Some people will believe me," Tacy insisted.

"Of course they will. They just won't be able to admit it. Number two: my satisfied clients will be quite, quite angry with you. They won't want to work with you again. I think you'll find that I have helped out more than one Hollywood family in my time. And if you upset them, they won't want to work with you. No one will want to work with you. You will have shot your career nicely in the foot. Twice."

"It isn't fair!" said Tacy. "You owe me another curse, then! You have to make this better!"

"I don't owe you anything," I said. "You just wish you lived in a Hollywood movie, where the beautiful princess would live happily ever after. For all I care, princess, you can do just that."

There was a strange rippling effect in the air around us. We both paused, confused. I realized what I had done.

"Oh, shit," I muttered. I looked around wildly. "All right, just go. Get out of here. Go! Tell whatever you want to whomever you want. I think it's clear why they won't believe you, but you do what you want. I wash my hands of you."

There was a muffled crash in the outer office. I threw the door open. Tacy was right behind me.

A huge, broad-shouldered man held Lloyd up against my file cabinets. He turned to us without letting Lloyd go. I'd never seen him before, and I know I'd have remembered a face that ugly. Pock marks like polka dots, a nose like a rotting pickle. I edged towards Lloyd's desk drawer.

"It's you," hissed the stranger. I was confused for a minute -- as I said, I'd never seen him before -- but he continued, "They told me I could find you at his office. Where is it?"

"I -- I don't know what you're talking about," stammered Tacy.

"The hell you don't!" said the stranger.

I slid Lloyd's desk drawer open, as slowly as I could manage. There was a pair of scissors lying on top. I eased them out, keeping my hand out of the stranger's view. I pulled the blades slightly open.

"I'll tell you one thing, little girl," said the stranger. "If you don't give it to me right now, this guy's gonna --"

He grunted and eased his grip a bit. Lloyd had just punched him in the belly. I leapt across the desk and stabbed the stranger's back with the scissors.

Blood spurted out in a most unrealistic fashion. The stranger slumped forward.

"Oh my God, get him off me!" shouted Lloyd, pushing much harder than I thought he'd be able to. I jumped out of the way. The stranger fell backwards on the scissors.

"I'll put new scissors on the acquisitions list," said Lloyd, turning white.

"He's dead," I said.

Tacy looked at me like I was stupid. "Of course he's dead. You stabbed him with scissors."

I shook my head. "He shouldn't be dead nearly this quickly. Usually he'd have a period of blood loss, and even if I punctured a lung, it'd take more than five seconds. It's only in the movies that someone would --"

Tacy looked at me. "Would what?"

"I knew it," I said. "I knew this wouldn't be good. Come on, we have to get out of here."

"Why?" said Tacy.

At the same time, Lloyd chimed in, "Shouldn't we call the police and stay here until they get here?"

"No," I said. "No time to explain. Come on."

They ran after me, out to the parking lot. I hit the power locks on the Volvo, and Tacy jumped in the front seat, letting Lloyd take the back. I pealed out of the parking lot just in time to see a bright red sports car headed after us.

"Dammit, dammit!" I slammed on the gas. Lloyd put his seatbelt on.

"What's going on here?" said Tacy.

"I cursed you again," I said.

She seemed to relax. "Well, it's about time you came to see reason."

"No, no," I said, cutting in front of an SUV and hoping the red sports car wouldn't follow. "I cursed you accidentally. Usually I tailor the extent of the curses, so that they're...milder."

"Like a vaccine," Lloyd said helpfully.

"Exactly." The red car was still on our tail. I turned west. "But this time, since it was an accident, I don't know what it'll do."

"What curse did you use?" Lloyd's voice was bright and curious, but I could hear the tension underneath it.

I pulled a u-turn. Everyone else in the intersection laid on their horns. "I cursed her with living like a Hollywood movie."

The red sports car was following us still.

"Oh, that's awful!" moaned Lloyd.

Tacy was smiling.

I turned down an alley. "Are they still behind us?"

They looked. "Yes," said Tacy.

I led them closer and closer to the marina, weaving and causing mayhem. There was a crash behind us. "Why don't you just curse them?" Tacy asked.

"What?"

"Why don't you just curse the guys in the sports car?"

"I don't curse people who don't ask for it," I said stiffly.

"Not at all?" said Tacy, not bothering to hide her incredulity.

"I don't think it's right. I mean, if my life was in danger --" We came within three inches of a Greyhound. "All right, all right, I get the point. But I don't have the time to think of a good curse. May, uh, may your car's engine fail."

"Brake!" shouted Lloyd. I hit the brakes as we emerged from the back streets, and we just barely missed hitting a surf shack at top speed. Instead, we glanced it, and a surfboard impaled the hood of my Volvo. The red sports car sputtered past us. Its residual momentum plowed it into a pier. Its passengers appeared to be knocked unconscious.

"Come on, in here!" I said, gesturing at the nearest restaurant.

Just my luck, it was a retro-'50s diner. Of course it was. The waitress, a petite, gum-cracking woman in her middle years, seated us in a red vinyl booth.

"This won't hold them very long," said Lloyd. "The villains in movies always find where the heroes are taking a break."

"I know," I said miserably. "Either that or we'll be forced out sooner or later, and they'll be waiting on the beach."

Lloyd and I ordered milkshakes and stared at the table. Tacy gave the waitress her brightest smile and ordered a salad, no dressing.

"Damn. I hate cursing the unsuspecting," I said.

"They were chasing you in their car," said Tacy. "They deserved what they got. I don't see what your problem is. You do this all the time."

"Arnold Schwarzenegger beats people up all the time, but it doesn't really hurt anybody. It's different."

"Well, for what it's worth, I think you'd have been much better than he was in that Christmas movie," said Lloyd. "Not that anything could have saved that."

I have to say, I did not feel consoled. Lloyd pushed onwards. "You did it to save our lives, and I think that was very brave."

"Yeah, very brave," said Tacy, as if she was just learning her lines. "And if you keep doing it, it'll be even braver, and then we can all go home safe."

"That's never how it works," I said. "We have to have some confrontation scene and a resolution. I just can't curse them and hope they'll go away. I know they won't. That's not how movies work."

"Why are they chasing you, anyway?" Lloyd asked Tacy.

She shrugged. "I don't know. It's not my curse. Just -- use it when you have to, all right?"

"Don't look now," said Lloyd, "but I think we'll have to. Oh, God! Did I just say 'Don't look now'? Everybody says 'Don't look now.' It's so -- done!"

I didn't look then. I just got up, placed a ten on the table, and walked out slowly, with Lloyd and Tacy following suit. The gangsters seemed to be asking the waitress after us.

"Split up!" I said. "Tacy, go south along the beach. Lloyd, north to the marina. I'll head inland."

But I couldn't move a step to the east. None of us moved. "What is it now?" asked Tacy.

"I don't think we can split up," said Lloyd. "In movies like this, they almost never split up."

"Oh, hell," I said. "North, then."

Once we were all heading north, we could all move together. And the gangsters were on their way out of the diner.

"Run!" said Tacy.

I was amazed that she was the one who thought of it, in her stiletto heels, but I guess in her new movie life, it didn't hurt to run in heels, and nothing ever came off. I waited for one of the heels to break, but it turned out not to be that kind of movie.

Lloyd jumped in a powerboat and motioned for us to follow him. For no reason at all, its owner fell out of the back end of it as we pulled out, yelling something incomprehensible at us in classic comic rage.

"Why did he fall?" said Lloyd, steering between the other boats in the marina. "He was perfectly braced. It made no sense."

"Movies," I said. "He had to fall, or else grapple with you, but Tacy and I were here, so we'd have stopped him from grappling. So he had to fall."

We got out into the ocean a ways, and I began to think it was okay. Of course, it was not. Another power boat was chasing us, and it looked like they were gaining. "Do you know how to make these things go faster?" I asked Lloyd, shouting over the wind.

"I've never driven one before!" he shouted back.

Tacy's blonde curls sparkled in the ocean breeze, and her cheeks turned a becoming pink. "I think maybe we should do something else," she said.

"Like what, swim to shore?" I said.

"Curse their boat!"

"I'm not going to curse their boat!"

"Damn it, curse their boat! They're going to ram us!"

"They're not going to ram us!"

"They're going to board us!"

"May you be unable to board us!" I shouted at the other boat. "Or ram us! There! Are you happy now?"

A bullet whizzed past Lloyd's head. "Not especially!" he shouted at me.

"Fine. Fine! May your gun misfire!"

There was another shot, and then a crumpling noise. The bullet had misfired into their engine.

"I hope they're wearing life jackets," I said.

"Well, magic them into it," said Tacy.

I glared at her. "I can't, I only do curses."

"Oh."

"Let's get on dry land," I said.

"I'm not sure I can park this thing," said Lloyd. "It was hard enough to get it out."

"Well, just pull up on some beach, then."

He rode the surf in until the boat bottomed out. He killed the engine. We all sighed in the newfound silence. The people on the beach had scattered when they saw us coming, and they were giving us wide berth. "I don't think I see anybody coming after us," I said.

"You should have cursed her into a French movie," muttered Lloyd. "Then at least we might get some darkly interesting sex. Or good drugs, for heaven's sake."

"It's a curse, Lloyd. With our luck, we'd have ended up in that wretched thing with all the umbrellas," I told him. "Consider yourself lucky that I said Hollywood and not Bollywood."

"Oh no," said Lloyd. "Oh no. Huh uh. I saw that thing she did with John Travolta, and she cannot sing."

Tacy tossed her tangled curls. "Mr. Travolta found me quite charming."

"I'm sure that's wonderful news for you," I said, "but we need to find a place to hide from the enthusiastic individuals following us. Now."

We jumped out of the boat onto the sand. I looked around. Tacy made a great show of throwing her shoulders back to bravely face the world. But it was Lloyd who saw the boardwalk in the right light.

"Under there!"

"Can you go under a boardwalk?" I said.

"They did it in the song, it must be true. At least true enough for a movie. Come on!"

It was dark and shadowy under the boardwalk. We walked past one couple, who ignored us. The rest of the space was empty, cool sand. I sat down. After a moment's hesitation, Tacy sat beside me.

"If this was a movie, I think this part would be the love scene," she said huskily.

"Oh, no, nuh-uh, that is worse than the singing!" said Lloyd. "As long as I can't go anywhere, you are not doing any of that."

"Relax," I told him. "She's not my type."

Tacy pouted. "Are you sure?" She licked her lips, and I could see whatever flickers of acting talent she possessed mustering themselves. "We could be a great team, Paavo. Spending our lives together. I'd do the blessing and you could do the cursing." She leaned forward ever so slightly, so I could see down her blouse. In case I cared to see what kind of reconstructed blessings she had available.

I did not care to. "I don't think so," I said. "You'd be after me all the time to curse people. You don't seem to understand how this works."

There was a shriek from the other end of the boardwalk. The gangsters had forced the amorous couple apart and were storming down the sand.

"Oh, hell," I muttered.

"You have to save me now," said Tacy. "You have to save me and carry me off into the sunset. That's how it goes when you live in a movie."

"What about me?" asked Lloyd.

Tacy hesitated. "You can be the sidekick. The comic relief. You can show up in the sequels."

"Sequels!" said Lloyd. "I never agreed to any sequels."

Tacy smiled. "All the best movies have sequels. You have to."

"You could find out that the gangster who's been chasing is us really your true love," I said desperately. "And the reason he's been after us is that he loves you so much he can't bear to lose you, and the diamond is just an excuse."

"What diamond?"

I shrugged. "We don't know what they're looking for, right? Might as well be a diamond."

She faltered. "Do you think it could be?"

"I'm told that in Hollywood, anything is possible."

The thugs got to us, and Tacy blurted out, "Oh, baby, I'm so sorry!" She flung herself forward into the sand and started sobbing her heart out. "I never meant to hurt you! I want you back so bad!"

The biggest of the gangsters went down on his knees. "You really mean it?" he said. "It's not over with us?"

"Of course it's not over," she wept. "How could it ever be over, with a love like ours?"

He took her hands in his giant paws and stood up, pulling her to her feet and embracing her. They had a long, dramatic kiss. Lloyd and I and the other gangsters stared at the sand.

Tacy pulled free. "Sorry for all of the trouble we've caused with our little problems," she said to Lloyd and me. "Every couple has its little love spats. You know how it is."

"Sure," I said.

She took the gangster's hand. "Thanks for everything. I guess I'll see you around, huh?"

She gave me a smug grin and mouthed "sequel" before she turned to walk away, hand in hand with him.

I stared at her back. Very quietly, I said, "May all your sequels have low-budget substitutes for the original casting."

Lloyd sighed. "That was a stroke of brilliance."

"That's what I'm in this business for. Come on, we've got to find a cab to take us back to the office. The claims adjusters aren't going to believe what happened to the car."

We trudged out from under the boardwalk, squinting into the light. We jumped into the back of a cab and breathed a sigh of relief.

"My God," muttered Lloyd. "I shudder to think who they'll cast as the low-budget version of me. I'm thinking Hank Azaria."

I blinked at him. "Lloyd, you know that you are, in fact, the Perfect Secretary." He preened. "But I think Hank Azaria is the high-budget version of you."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't count on it. The wages you'd have to pay to make me work with that bitch again! And the make-up artist! No, no. She definitely couldn't afford me twice."

I think we were both grateful for that.

The End

Bio

Marissa was the '99 winner of the Asimov Award and has since published short fiction in Analog, Ideomancer, Would That It Were, and various other venues. Marissa's home page can be found here.