Action Figures - Issue Four: Cruel Summer

by Michael C Bailey

  “Did that get your attention?” Concorde says. “Thought it might. You go ahead and give us the silent treatment. It won’t help you.”

  “Did the three of you come here to gloat,” Coleco says, “or do you have any questions for my client?”

  “Questions you said your client won’t answer,” Nina notes. “Gotta make our visit worthwhile somehow.”

  “I have a question,” Concorde says, leaning on the table. “How did it feel to be taken down by two little girls?”

  “Excuse me?” the King of Pain says with a mild lisp, the result of a badly swollen bottom lip.

  “Bet that was a real low blow to the ego, huh? You spend six years building up a reputation as a stone cold killer, the unbeatable bad guy that no super-hero wants to meet in a dark alley, and in the end all it takes to put you down is a couple of teenagers.”

  “Concorde, I object to your attitude toward my client,” Coleco snips.

  “Noted.”

  “I see what you’re doing,” the King of Pain says.

  “Oh? What am I doing?”

  “Trying to bait me. Trying to rile me up so I’ll blurt out some damning statement in a fit of pique.” The King of Pain eases back into his seat. “Here’s my statement: she won.”

  “Mister, uh...Pain, please,” Coleco begins.

  “I thought the girl would be an easy target. I underestimated her. She outsmarted me. She overpowered me. Whatever.” He shrugs. “She beat me.”

  “Yeah,” Concorde says, smiling behind his visor. “She did.”

  A trace of a smile plays across the King of Pain’s lips. “This time.”

  “This time? What makes you think there’s going to be a next time?” Mindforce says, his hands balling into fists. “You are never going to feel the sun on your face again, you understand me? You’re going to spend the rest of your miserable existence in this prison, and I swear to God, you son of a bitch, the only way you will ever leave here is in a box.”

  “Mr. Coleco,” the King of Pain says as though bored, “I’d like to go back to my cell now.”

  “This interview is over,” Coleco says, rising. Concorde blocks his dramatic exit.

  “I want to make something extremely clear to you, Mr. Coleco,” Concorde says. “That man is responsible for eleven deaths —”

  “Allegedly.”

  “— and he tried to add a sixteen-year-old girl to his body count. You keep that in mind while you’re trying so very hard to get him off.”

  Coleco clears his throat. “My client said he would like to return to his cell now, if you don’t mind.”

  The King of Pain follows Coleco out of the interview room, head high.

  Pearce appears in the doorway, his broad shoulders almost touching either side of the frame. “What do you think?” he asks.

  “He wasn’t lying,” Mindforce says. “We theorized he might have allowed himself to get caught as part of some scheme, but no. Lightstorm and Psyche nailed him, plain and simple.”

  “Then I say we take the win, and in the meantime pray he doesn’t get a real lawyer,” Concorde says. “Coleco’s no dummy, but he’s still a public defender. If he sees an opportunity to cut a deal, he’ll jump on it, so let’s make sure the DA keeps the pressure on.”

  “If there’s anything I can do to facilitate the investigation,” Pearce says.

  After a moment of thought, Concorde says, “I want outside access to the King of Pain restricted to Mr. Coleco. If anyone shows up claiming to be a new attorney, contact me immediately and hold him here until I arrive. I do not want a repeat of the Archimedes incident.”

  “I do not want that either,” Pearce says, the sting of that rare, almost unique lapse in prison security as sharp as yesterday.

  “I’d also minimize how much direct contact your staff has with him,” Mindforce says. “He has a nasty talent for getting into people’s heads, so tell your people not to engage him in conversation under any circumstances.”

  “Done.”

  “You might want to maintain double guards on him as well, and let them know —”

  Concorde lays a hand on Mindforce’s shoulder, gently cutting him off. “The man knows his job. The King of Pain isn’t going anywhere.”

  “If I have my druthers, the only way that man will leave my prison is in a hearse,” Pearce says. “Good enough?”

  “For him?” Mindforce says. “Even that’s too good.”

  After sneaking a quick smoochfest in our favorite stairwell, Malcolm heads off to work. En route to my locker, I check my phone. Still no message from Concorde.

  Like Stuart said: no news is good news.

  Sara, however, has a message waiting for her from Bart, asking her to call him ASAP. That causes a brief case of jangled nerves, but it turns out he’s calling for personal reasons, not business.

  “Bart wants to meet with me and my parents tomorrow,” Sara says after hanging up. “Your mom called him, told him we haven’t spoken since Dad kicked me out.” She snorts. “Looks like she doesn’t want me living in her house either.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair,” I say, because supportive friend or not, I can’t let that one pass. “Mom’s not trying to kick you out. She wants you to patch things up with your family. She’s only trying to help, like she’s been doing this entire time.”

  Sara glowers at me for a second. She grinds the heels of her palms into her temples and lets out a low groan. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry,” she says.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “You want to skip coffee with the gang and go home and get some rest?”

  Sara shakes her head. “No. I need some friend time. I feel like we haven’t spent any time together lately. I know I see everyone every day, but...well, I miss them. I miss us being just a bunch of friends hanging out. You know?”

  “Yeah. I get that.”

  So that’s what we do. The five of us hike into town, set up at our favorite corner table in the Coffee Experience, grab some caffeine, and enjoy each other’s company for a few hours. We don’t talk about the King of Pain. We don’t talk about the Hero Squad or the Protectorate. We don’t talk about Sara’s father or my Grandfather or Matt’s dad. All unpleasant and important topics are off the table.

  Sara’s right. It feels like forever since we’ve done this.

  Sara passes on Matt’s proposal to catch dinner and a movie, opting to come home with me to catch up on lost sleep. I dash upstairs to grab a quick shower and change into Respectable Girlfriend Clothes, and when I come back downstairs, Sara is sprawled across the couch. With each inhalation she makes a tiny snorting sound that is absolutely adorable. It’s like listening to a sleeping pug dog.

  I step out onto the porch to wait for Malcolm. I don’t want him waking Sara up when he comes to collect me. It’s a warm night, warmer than usual for early June, so it’s no bother. It’s quite pleasant, really. The sky is losing its vibrant daytime blue to darker shades, with hints of reds and oranges on the horizon. It’s prime flying weather. I’m sorely tempted to sneak in a quick lap around town, but my vanity wins out (my hair looks super nice and I don’t want to mess it up).

  Malcolm arrives. I climb into his car, where we waste a couple of minutes on a quick make-out session. Better to indulge our primal urges now. That way we can be on our best, most chaste behavior in front of the parents, right?

  “Mom is going to try and impress you with her stuffed shells,” Malcolm tells me. “I warned her, your mom is the queen of Italian cooking, but she thinks she can rise to the challenge.”

  “I promise that I will shower praise on her cooking, regardless of the results,” I say. “I want your parents to like me.”

  “They do like you.”

  “Then how come they never invited me to dinner before?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t make anything of it.” He glances over at me, smiling. “They do like you. I swear. Dad thinks you’re a sweet young lady with impeccable manners and Mom thinks you’re as sha
rp as a tack and will go far in this world.”

  I feel my cheeks burn. “Yeah?”

  “Direct quotes.”

  Believe it or not, that doesn’t do a darn thing to calm my nerves. On the contrary: now I feel like I have a sterling reputation to uphold.

  No pressure.

  Casa de Forth is a lovely home, a Victorian model that the Forths maintain scrupulously. The paint always looks bright and fresh; the lawn is so green and perfect you’d swear it was AstroTurf; and you’d have to take a microscope to the front walk to find a crack (and even then, no guarantees). Two cars, both BMWs, sit in the double-wide driveway, one behind the other. Malcolm pulls his sensible second-hand Toyota in next to them.

  “Ready to do this?”

  “Ready-ish,” I say. Come on, Carrie, you do scarier stuff than this all the time. You’ve survived three encounters with Manticore and one with the King of Pain. Is dinner with Malcolm’s parents really any more intimidating?

  Oh yeah, totally.

  Malcolm calls out to his parents as we enter. His father, Gerald, greets us in the foyer as we hang up our coats. Mr. Forth works “in the front office for the Boston Red Sox,” but I have no clue exactly what he does. I only know he can get tickets to any Red Sox home game (which would be great if I cared about baseball) and makes a butt-ton of money — most of which goes into the bank, according to Malcolm. The family hasn’t always enjoyed such financial security, and Malcolm thinks his father lives in fear of a return to those dark days.

  “I’m so glad you could join us for dinner,” Mr. Forth says.

  “Me too, and it smells great in here,” I say in acknowledgment of the yummy dinnertime aromas floating around. That bodes well; I might not have to fudge my praise.

  Mr. Forth invites us into the living room, where Malcolm’s younger brother Sam sits on the floor working on his latest Lego creation. The kid is a savant with Legos, and I use that term somewhat literally because Sam is somewhere on the autism spectrum. He tends to be quiet and withdrawn, but he’s capable of creating amazing Lego sculptures on the fly, without any instructions or reference material or anything. His current project, which is nearly finished, is a replica of the Statue of Liberty that stands about three feet tall.

  “Hey, Sammy, that’s looking really good,” Malcolm says. Sam gives him the barest of glances and a faint smile, which is more than what most people get. “Great work, pal.”

  “Thanks,” Sam says in a small voice. “Hi, Carrie.”

  “Hi, Sam. How’re you doing?”

  “Okay.” Sam looks more or less in my direction for a split-second before returning to his project.

  “Please, sit,” Mr. Forth says. Malcolm and I sit on the couch, leaving a little bit of space between us, and Mr. Forth eases into his recliner. “I apologize for not having you over sooner, Carrie. We should have done this a long time ago.”

  “Better late than never, I suppose,” I say as Malcolm’s stepmother Maura enters with a tray of cheese, neatly cubed, sliced pepperoni, and assorted crackers, including those pasty-white water crackers that appear on every cheese plate in the world even though absolutely no one actually likes them. Seriously, the things taste like drywall.

  “Hello, Carrie,” Mrs. Forth says, setting the tray down on the coffee table. “Thank you for coming tonight.”

  “Thank you for inviting me.”

  “Did you ask her?” Mrs. Forth says to Malcolm.

  Ask me? Ask me what? Uh-oh. What is he asking me? Calm down, it couldn’t be anything bad. Why would he invite me to dinner to ask me something bad?

  “No, I hadn’t gotten to that yet,” Malcolm says.

  “Well, go on, ask her,” Mrs. Forth says with an excited grin. In my head a little Admiral Ackbar wildly waves his squiddy hands and shouts IT’S A TRAP!

  “I was going to wait until after dinner, but since the cat’s already halfway out of the bag,” Malcolm says. He leans forward to spear a cheese cube with a toothpick. “Every summer we take a family trip to a cabin in the Poconos. Have you ever been?”

  “No, never.”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful. Very restful, great way to recharge the batteries,” Mr. Forth says.

  “Anyway,” Malcolm says. He trades glances with his parents, as if seeking final approval before proceeding. “I was wondering if you might like to join us this year.”

  What the huh? Join them? On their family vacation?

  “We’d love to have you along,” Mr. Forth says.

  “Oh, wow, Mr. Forth, that’s so nice of you,” I say, trying not to stammer, “but I don’t want to intrude on your family time.”

  “You wouldn’t be intruding, dear, not at all,” Mrs. Forth says. “We’d love to have you along.”

  Malcolm looks at me with quiet hope. I can’t deny that face anything.

  “I’d have to talk to my mother, obviously, but if she’s cool with it, then yes, I’d love to. Thank you,” I say, and my answer is met with delighted smiles all around.

  Vacation planning dominates dinnertime conversation at first, then talk turns to my plans for the summer, then to my plans for junior year, and before I know it, I’m musing about possible college majors and long-range career options. It’s the first time I’ve ever really thought about my life (my normal person life, I mean) in a big picture sense, and I’m surprised to hear myself envisioning a future as a law student and then an attorney, maybe working in Mr. Crenshaw’s office.

  This isn’t a story like I’d feed my guidance counselor to get her off my back, either. I honestly feel like this could be my path in life. It’s weird. Good, but weird.

  We retire to the living room after dinner (which was delicious, if not Christina Hauser-level quality), and the evening rolls on with coffee and dessert and more conversation. It isn’t until Sam announces that he’s sleepy and wants to go to bed that we all realize we’ve pushed things well past eleven.

  “Carrie, we’d better get you home,” Mrs. Forth says. “We don’t want your mother mad at us for keeping you out so late.”

  I agree heartily, though I deliberately neglect to inform them Mom is too far away to be aware of my curfew-breaking, much less mad about it.

  The goodnights include hugs from Malcolm’s parents.

  As soon as Malcolm and I get into his car, I ask, “Was the vacation invitation your idea or theirs?”

  He smiles coyly. “I might have casually dropped a hint it might be nice to have you along for the trip.”

  “Sneaky boy.”

  “I didn’t know if they’d go for it, but they said they’d love to have you join us.” He pauses. “Dad’s exact words were, ‘Well, it looks like Carrie’s going to be around for a good long while, so we should make sure she feels welcome in our family.’”

  That absolutely floors me. Considering a future beyond high school in terms of having a career was mind-blowing enough, but the thought of being with Malcolm for — well, let’s say for the long haul. That’s scary and overwhelming.

  Totally in a good way.

  Malcolm leans toward me. “I know it freaked you out a little when I said I was thinking about going to college out west,” he says. Ha. More than a little, but continue. “Afterwards I thought a lot about us, where we were going. I know high school couples don’t have a great track record for staying together after graduation, but I don’t want to assume that’s where we’re heading. If I do go to California, I want to at least try to make it work.”

  I take a moment to catch my breath. My heart does a drum roll in my chest. “I want that too,” I say. “I love you.”

  “Love you too,” Malcolm says, and he gives me what may be the sweetest kiss I’ve ever had.

  FIFTEEN

  The night ends with us sitting in my driveway and making out in the front seat of Malcolm’s car, but it isn’t our usual wild tangle of mouths and roaming hands. It’s softer, gentler, somehow more deliberate, and man, do we fog up the windows. When I finally climb out of the car, it feels l
ike I’m stepping out of a sauna.

  “Doing anything tomorrow?” he asks.

  “Spending the day with you?” I suggest.

  “Sounds good.”

  I slip inside as quietly as possible, so I don’t disturb Sara, who looks like she hasn’t moved an inch since I left. I creep upstairs and crawl into bed. I’m exhausted, but tonight has left me too wound up (again, totally in a good way), so it takes me a while to fall asleep — and when I do, I sleep hard.

  My eyes snap open at eight AM on the nose. Insta-awake. I feel like I don’t need coffee to be functional — which is not to say I’m not going to have some. My brain demands caffeine.

  I head downstairs to put on a pot. I find Sara exactly as she was when I saw her last night. An irrational urge compels me to check her pulse. She jerks awake as soon as I touch my fingertips to her neck.

  “Whuh?” she slurs. “Wha. Whassrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I say. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up. I wanted to make sure you were okay. You’ve been out since we got home yesterday.”

  Sara shakes her head in a double-take. “Yesterday?”

  “It’s Saturday morning. You’ve been asleep for fifteen hours, give or take.”

  “Wow. I don’t even remember falling asleep. More tired than I thought,” she yawns.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  Sara sits up, blinks the sleep from her eyes, stretches. “Good?” she says as though she’s uncertain of her own answer.

  “No bad dreams?”

  “...I don’t think so.”

  “Good. That’s good to hear. Coffee?”

  “God, yes.”

  I attend to the coffee-making while Sara trudges to the bathroom. She returns as the pot finishes and pauses to savor the smell of fresh java. I make up her cup and hand it to her.

  “How’d last night go?” she says.

  “Good. Great. Malcolm’s parents asked me to join them on their summer vacation trip to the Poconos,” I say, which causes Sara’s eyes to pop. “Yeah, that was my reaction.”

  “That’s pretty serious.”