Comics Will Break Your Heart

by Faith Erin Hicks

  Emma chuckled sadly.

  “I loved Skylark. I felt it was the role I was destined to play. And for years I hated the artist who created her.”

  Weldon remembered the face of Micah Kendrick, young and smiling, on his laptop screen. He hadn’t seen any pictures of Miriam’s grandfather in her house.

  “Did you ever meet him?” said Weldon.

  “Once,” Weldon’s mother said. He waited, the phone pressed to his ear. “At the very end of the legal fight. Well, the part that was the end for him, because he got sick. His daughter, what’s her name—”

  “Stella,” said Weldon.

  “Stella, yeah. She kept fighting for him for a few years after, but I think she was—I don’t know if the comics meant to her what they meant to him. She took the buyout the studio offered her, much to your father’s surprise. She was married and had a kid, and it seemed like she just wanted the lawsuit to be done with.”

  Weldon looked over at his painting of Skylark and Skybound, still leaning against his nightstand. Only the lower half of Skybound’s body was visible from Weldon’s angle, the superhero’s legs jutting out from behind the bed. Weldon remembered the painting of Tristan Terrific in Stella’s studio, the dozens of other paintings of the TomorrowMen pinned to the walls. It was as though Stella was still fighting to reclaim what she’d given up years ago.

  “Maybe,” he said softly.

  “Anyway, I didn’t even talk to him. Micah Kendrick, I mean. It was at the old Warrick Comics building, the one here in San Diego. I don’t know why he was there. He just walked right by me, didn’t even know who I was. I remember seeing him and thinking, There’s the reason I didn’t get to play Skylark. This single person, standing in the way of all my ambition.”

  Weldon heard his mother sigh, and his hand tightened on the phone, worried she might go to pieces over the memory. But she continued, her voice only wavering for a second.

  “It was cruel of me to think that about him.”

  “Why was he at Warrick Comics?” Weldon said.

  “I think he came to see your father. I don’t know, maybe Micah Kendrick thought David might be more open to discussing things.” Emma laughed, the sound like a raw nerve. “But you know your father.”

  “Yeah,” said Weldon. He pressed his cheek into the bed. He pictured his father in all his righteous fury. He didn’t want to imagine Micah Kendrick in front of his father, trying to regain something that had been so completely lost to him.

  “It sounds ridiculous, but comics are everything to some people,” said Emma. “This sad little pulp art form that only became important once it got profitable to chew them up and turn them into movies. The money’s ruined comics.”

  “Yeah,” said Weldon. Money ruined things for Micah Kendrick and Joseph Warrick, he thought. Money ruined things for my parents. But he knew that wasn’t the whole truth. His parents had begun to fight years before the TomorrowMen movie went into production. And when it became obvious that Emma Sanders was too old and not famous enough to play Skylark in a two-hundred-million-dollar superhero movie, the final string connecting his parents had snapped.

  “Why am I dumping this on you?” Emma said. “I’m an awful mother. I wish I could do something good for you, Weldon. Something that wasn’t me venting my crap all over you. You’re the kid; I’m the adult.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I like you the way you are.”

  “You’re a good kid.”

  “Not really,” he said.

  “Well, I like you mostly the way you are,” Emma said, “but you need to stop with the theft and vandalism. Legally, I’m not allowed to like that.”

  “Okay,” said Weldon, meaning it.

  They talked for a few more minutes, about things that weren’t comics or Comic-Con, and then said their goodbyes.

  “Keep me updated on how things go with Miriam. Just … be careful, will you?” Emma said with a sigh.

  “I will,” Weldon promised. He tried to ignore the twinge of resentment in his stomach over his mother’s concern for Miriam. I’m not my father, he thought. I’d never hurt Mir the way he hurt Micah Kendrick.

  He hung up and continued lying on the bed for another forty minutes, until his aunt called him down for dinner.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Mir’s alarm went off with a screech and she flailed for it, nearly rolling off the bed. She hit the snooze button and stared blearily at the clock, wondering why she’d set it for 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday. Slowly the events of the previous day came back to her: the horrible fight with Jamie, calling Weldon, the plan to meet him at the bridge at 9:00 a.m. so she could apply for a job at the new golf course. Mir rubbed a hand across her face, hit the off button on her alarm, and propped herself into a sitting position. If I get this job I’ll be up every morning at the crack of dawn, so suck it up. Eight a.m. is nothing, Mir thought, grumpily pulling at the sheets.

  In the bathroom, Mir pushed open the shower curtain and stood under a hail of hot water, hating how tired she felt, and how the memories from yesterday kept poking unbidden into her brain. The way Jamie had looked at her when he’d told her she wasn’t so special. Like she was nothing but the thing she had, the opportunity he wanted. Under the cascade of water, Mir closed her eyes, forcing the thoughts of Jamie and Raleigh from her mind, thinking about Weldon instead.

  She remembered Weldon standing in her mother’s studio the night he’d come over for dinner, his face shining as he bent over Stella’s paintings. At first, Mir had wanted to grab Weldon by the shoulder and drag him out of the studio. But instead she had watched him and waited, and at last he had turned his face from Stella’s paintings, his expression filled with wonder.

  I think I like him, Mir thought. I think I more than like him. It felt strange to hear the words in her head. It was something Mir thought she’d known for a little while, but hadn’t been able to acknowledge until now.

  Hair tied up in a towel, Mir padded back to her bedroom and got dressed. She had one nice outfit for most occasions, a dull black dress that managed to look both matronly and like something a six-year-old would wear. Stella had bought it for Mir a year ago, after a fight over one of Mir’s sweaters and whether it was appropriate to wear to a cousin’s wedding. Mir had worn the dress to the wedding and maybe twice since then.

  Mir piled her hair on top of her head, carefully winding it into a bun, and inspected her reflection. The face that stared out of the mirror seemed alien to her. She could see nothing of Stella in her reflection. Mir tilted her head up, then down, but the familiar resemblance to her mother eluded her.

  “You look so grown-up,” said Henry from the doorway. Mir looked up at him. He was wearing a T-shirt and long pajama pants and his old bathrobe, the one with permanent coffee stains on the front.

  “Gonna see the new golf course about a job,” Mir said. She turned away from the mirror and scooped up her résumé, printed off last night from her parents’ ancient computer. It was very meager. The Emporium of Wonders had been her only real job.

  “You’re right to want to leave Sandford,” said Mir’s dad. Mir hesitated. The clock read 8:27. It would take at least thirty minutes for her to walk to the bridge to meet Weldon. But Henry had chosen this moment to talk to her.

  “I’m sorry I want to leave,” Mir said. Henry shook his head, smiling.

  “Your mom wanted to, when we first talked about getting married,” he said.

  “I know,” Mir said. “She told me the day I lost my job. It was kind of strange to find that out.”

  “Yeah,” said Henry. “She wanted to leave for the same reasons you do. To see if we could find someplace with more opportunity. Someplace…” Henry shrugged, looking down. “Well, you know.”

  “Yeah,” said Mir, knowing. Someplace that’s not so small and cramped. Someplace where you can walk down the street and not bump into people who’ve known you your whole life.

  “I wanted to stay here. My parents are here. All my cousins and their k
ids. This is where I grew up, working on my parents’ farm. It’s so much a part of me, and I didn’t want to let it go.”

  Mir stood in the middle of her room, watching her father. He absently dragged one toe across the worn carpet, still looking down.

  “Your mother stayed in Sandford for me. She’s never resented me for it. I don’t think she does.” Henry looked up at Mir, and for the first time she saw how she resembled him, at least a little.

  “I shouldn’t ask the same thing of you,” Henry said. “I just got scared when you said you wanted to go out of province for school. It brought up stuff I didn’t know was still there. I felt like you might leave forever.”

  “I won’t,” said Mir.

  “I know,” said Henry. “You’ll always be my kid. Here, in Ontario, or wherever else you choose to go. I want—” Henry paused. “I want you to do what you want to do next year.”

  “Thank you,” Mir whispered, grateful. Henry turned away from the doorway and shuffled down the hallway. Mir heard the sound of her parents’ bedroom door closing softly.

  Mir made it to the bridge at seven minutes past nine. Weldon was already waiting there, leaning against one of the bridge’s iron supports. He was wearing the same well-cut jacket he’d worn the first time Mir had seen him, and the thing in her chest fluttered excitedly.

  “Hi,” Mir said.

  Weldon turned and grinned at her.

  “Hey!”

  He tilted his head as he noticed her dress.

  “Oh, you look—”

  “Don’t,” said Mir. “This is the best I can do at this point in time. Someday I’ll learn to dress like a proper grown-up lady, but I’ve got better things to do now.”

  “You look nice. Like you’re going to hang out with the Addams Family. They had style.”

  Mir peered down at her dress.

  “My mom bought this for a wedding.”

  “Oh,” said Weldon, looking so chagrined Mir couldn’t help but laugh. She waved a hand at him.

  “Hopefully whoever does the hiring at this golf course will look past my outfit and see the hardworking person who really wants a job.”

  They walked beside the road leading away from the bridge. The houses were nicer here than on the other side of the river. They didn’t have chunks of paint missing from their walls, or sagging porches. The lawns were neatly cut and the gardens looked like they’d been meticulously planned.

  “How much more school do you have?” said Weldon.

  “Next week’s the last week,” Mir said. “Thank god. I have one paper due and two exams and that’s it.”

  “Studying like crazy?”

  “Kinda,” Mir said. “One exam is geography, which is all memorization, so I’m studying hard for that. The other is English. Not a lot of studying for that. It’s usually two essay questions, so you’re fine as long as you’ve read whatever book you were assigned and are good at explaining, I don’t know, the role of fate in Macbeth or whatever.”

  “I haven’t gotten to that play yet,” Weldon said. “I did Romeo and Juliet—”

  “The worst play,” sighed Mir. “A couple of thirteen-year-old kids killing themselves over love. So stupid.”

  “I thought it was kind of sad,” Weldon said. “I thought it was more about the stupidity of adults, two families clinging to an ancient feud while their kids died around them. The adults started the fight and when Romeo and Juliet die because of it, then they decide that maybe hating each other for something that happened ages ago might be a ridiculous way to live your life.”

  “Sometimes when you’re hurt it’s hard to let things go,” Mir said. She looked at a house on the other side of the street, an inky black SUV parked in the driveway. “Sometimes you look at other people and all you can see is what they have and what you don’t have.”

  “Are we still talking about Romeo and Juliet?” Weldon said.

  Mir laughed, shaking her head.

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Let it remain a mystery,” said Weldon, smiling.

  The rolling greens of the golf course appeared before them. Large riding mowers were already sweeping across the grass, drivers guiding them precisely. Mir felt her stomach quake nervously. Please give me a job, she thought. Give me a job so I won’t be so dependent on Evan. So I don’t have to walk on eggshells around his father for the rest of the summer.

  “Can I walk in with you?” said Weldon.

  “Yeah. I’d like that.”

  They walked down the golf course driveway toward a long metal shed, where half a dozen people in hard hats and dusty T-shirts were milling around. A blond woman with a tanned face bounded enthusiastically out of the metal building, shouting orders at the group. The milling people trotted into the building, some emerging driving groundskeeper carts, flatbeds piled high with dirt or rakes.

  Mir tried to catch the eye of the blond woman, but she was a human tornado of organizational leadership, trotting from one section of the metal building to the other. Finally the woman tore back the way she’d come, nearly running into Mir. Mir mutely held out her résumé, not sure what to say.

  “Hi,” said the woman, “anything I can help you with?”

  “I heard you were hiring?” Mir said, her voice squeaking. “I was hoping for a summer job.”

  “I am hiring,” said the woman, and her smile flashed blindingly white teeth at Mir. “I’m Holly. What’s your name?”

  “Miriam Kendrick,” said Mir. Holly took her résumé and stared at it for several seconds.

  “Miriam, can you be here six days a week at six a.m. sharp?” said Holly. Mir felt her stomach drop. The start time was even earlier than she’d expected. She’d have to get up at 5:00 a.m. to make it to the golf course in time.

  “Yes,” said Mir. “Yes, I can do that.”

  “And you’re okay with driving one of these things?” Holly pointed at one of the carts driving by.

  Mir nodded, holding her breath.

  “Okay, you’re hired. Start a week from Monday. We pay twelve bucks an hour to work turf, and we need people for the entire summer, right up until Labor Day. I assume you’ll have school in September, but we’ve got plenty of stuff to keep you busy until then. Hey—” Holly’s gaze flickered toward Weldon. “You want a job too?”

  “I’m American,” said Weldon. “I don’t have one of those … whatever a Canadian social security number is.”

  “Too bad,” said Holly. “We’re short-staffed and behind schedule. Anyway, you—” She pointed at Mir.

  “Miriam.”

  “Okay, Miriam. Sorry. I’ll learn your name in a few weeks. Maybe. Anyway, be here at six a.m. a week from Monday. We’ll give you a shirt to wear that’ll identify you as staff. Wear steel-toed boots and pack a decent lunch. The shift goes from six a.m. to two p.m., with half an hour break for lunch, and we all work Saturdays. You good with that?”

  “Yes,” said Mir. The word came out louder than she’d intended, almost a shout.

  Holly eyed her, then smiled.

  “Don’t let me down. The course opens in a week and we gotta keep this place looking shiny. See you a week from Monday.” She walked away, already shouting instructions at a trio of workers.

  Mir let out her breath in a long sigh.

  “That was so—”

  “Anticlimactic,” Weldon chuckled. “I could’ve gotten a job too.”

  “I probably didn’t even need to wear this dress,” Mir said, staring down at her matronly ensemble. “You wore jeans and a T-shirt and she wanted to hire you too.”

  “But then I wouldn’t have seen you in that dress, which was a very important moment for me,” Weldon said.

  “And now you’ll never see me wear it again,” Mir said. She turned and marched back up the driveway toward the suburbs. Weldon fell into step beside her, his hands in his jacket pockets. Mir glanced at him and saw that he was smiling.

  “Let me buy you a coffee to celebrate,” said Weldon.

  “Should
n’t I buy you one as well?” said Mir. “You almost got a job too.”

  “I did,” said Weldon. “And I bet it would have been a much better job than running errands for the editors at Warrick Comics. How about you buy me a coffee and I’ll buy you a coffee.”

  “I’d prefer tea,” said Mir. She looked up at the sky. It was very blue, almost too clear and bright for Sandford. Summer is so short here, she thought. Things all of a sudden seemed a little easier. She had decided what she was going to do after high school, her father had forgiven her for wanting to leave, and she had a job. A job that was not working for Evan’s father. All the pieces were there, everything falling into place—

  Mir remembered the fight yesterday. Jamie’s cold fury, the way he’d told her she wasn’t so special, Evan yelling at him. The sound of it was horrible. Her stomach churned, and the familiar heaviness settled over her shoulders. Something was still broken. She didn’t know if she could fix it. She didn’t know if she wanted to.

  “You okay?” said Weldon.

  “Yeah,” said Mir.

  They reached the Starbucks twenty minutes later. Mir tried not to look at the window of the Running Realm. There was no sign of her assault on the store, the window wiped clean of thrown coffee. She looked guiltily toward the Starbucks counter, but to her relief, there was no sign of the barista with spiked hair. I hope she didn’t see me throw that coffee the last time I was here, Mir thought.

  “What do you want?” said Weldon, staring up at the menu hung behind the Starbucks counter.

  Mir thought, then settled on a cup of green tea.

  “I know, I’m boring.”

  “Hey, like what you like,” said Weldon, ordering a coffee for himself. They sat opposite each other at a knee-high corner table by the window. She and Raleigh had spent hours there last summer, when the Starbucks was brand new and seemed like a rare, exotic addition to Sandford. Mir held her cup close to her face, breathing in the comforting smell of green tea. Weldon propped one ankle on his knee, leaning his head back to look out the window. Mir glanced up at him, liking the way the line of his throat curved into his jawline.