After they’d talked for a bit, about Mir’s family, about how things might change next year, Mir felt Weldon’s fingers brush against the back of her hand. She leaned toward him and rested her chin on his shoulder. His skin was warm from the sun and he smelled like sunblock. Mir felt the fluttering in her chest start up again, and she wished she could slide her hands forward, wrap them around Weldon’s bare torso and bury her face in the back of his neck. At one point she’d turned her head toward him, awkwardly knocking her nose against his cheek. She’d quickly turned away, embarrassed over her clumsy attempt to kiss him, worried she’d spoiled the mood. But Weldon hadn’t reacted, so she remained where she was, her chin tucked carefully against his shoulder. Like touching him was the most normal thing in the world.
It was nearly dinner time when Mir got home from the beach. She flopped facedown on her parents’ couch, feeling exhausted and exhilarated all at once. Stella, who had been doing dishes in the kitchen, stuck her head into the living room.
“Long day?”
“When you get up at five a.m., every day is long,” Mir said grimly.
Stella leaned on the living room door frame, drying her hands with a dish towel.
“You getting up that early is a great hardship,” she said, deadpan. “So you remind us every day.”
“No fair,” Mir muttered into the couch pillow. “Stop picking on me.”
Stella laughed. “I know, I am very mean. So, tell me how Weldon’s doing.”
Mir pushed off the couch, rolling onto her side to look at her mother.
“Um, he’s fine.”
“And you two are, what? Hanging out?”
“Yes,” said Mir, feeling her stomach twist. She remembered the feeling of Weldon’s shoulder as she leaned her cheek on it, how thrilling it felt to be so close to him. In the living room doorway, Stella looked down at the dish towel in her hands.
“I didn’t expect this when I invited him over for dinner.”
“Are you going to tell me not to see him?” Mir said.
Stella looked up at her, surprised.
“Oh, Miriam, no. Of course not. It’s just…” Stella hesitated.
“Things are complicated,” Mir finished for her.
Stella nodded.
“I like Alex Warrick,” she said. “David, Weldon’s father, was always a little nuts. Desperate to leave Sandford, like he thought he was above this town. Alex wasn’t like that. He was sweet.” Stella folded the dish towel, pressing it against her body. “I see a little of both of them in Weldon.”
Mir got up from the couch and went to her mother. She slid her arms around Stella, wrapping her in a hug. Stella pressed her face into the hollow of Mir’s shoulder.
“If he doesn’t treat you right, you dump his ass, okay?”
“Okay,” said Mir.
* * *
After dinner that evening, Mir called Evan.
“How’s early-morning Miriam holding up? You actually making it into work?”
“I’m a very responsible human being,” Mir said, “so yes.”
“Good to hear.”
“Other than the early start time, the job’s pretty cool. I’m getting muscles from raking the bunkers.”
“You’ll be Hulked out by the end of the summer,” Evan said. “Super buff Miriam. That can be your superhero name.”
“What would my superpower be? The ability to wield a plastic rake and make sand look freshly groomed?” Mir said.
She missed Evan. She’d seen him only twice since school let out. The combination of her new job plus hanging out with Weldon had made finding time for socializing difficult.
“What if there was a supervillain who made all the sand traps in all the golf courses of the world super mucked-up, and the—um, what’s the Stanley Cup of golf?”
“The Masters?” Mir said. “I think that’s the big one. I don’t really know anything about golf.”
“And you work at a golf course! You’re a fake golf girl.”
“They’ll find me out any day.” Mir wound the phone cord around her hand. “Evan, I want to talk about the TomorrowMen comic script.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Mir waited, hoping Evan would speak first. When he didn’t, she said helpfully: “Y’know, the Tristan Terrific story that we were writing?”
“Yeah, I know,” Evan said. Mir thought she heard tension in his voice. “The one I said I didn’t want to give to Weldon Warrick, even though I was the one opening my dumb mouth and being like, ‘Oh, hey, let me be a total fanboy and slip you this script.’ Ugh. I’m so embarrassed.”
“It’s a good script, Evan,” Mir said. “I think we should give it to him.”
“It doesn’t have a good ending,” Evan said. “It’s a day in Tristan Terrific’s life. We wrote all this stuff about how he’s tempted to use his superpower on people and force them to do things, and the ending is him fighting bad guys and using his power on them anyway? It doesn’t feel right.”
“I think I have a better ending,” said Mir. The ending had come to her as she’d lain on the couch, thinking about saying goodbye to Weldon a few hours earlier. He’d walked away from her toward his aunt and uncle’s house, still in his damp swim shorts. His walk and the way his hair was spiked every which way from his swim in the lake had sparked something in her mind.
“We keep the climax. Tristan Terrific is confronting the bad guys on the roof.”
Mir could see it in her head, the drawings on the comic page laid out before her. The drawings looked like the artwork in the comic book Evan had been reading that day by the lake, months ago. What was the artist’s name? Stuart Sams? No, Samuel. His drawings were abstract but powerful, black brushstrokes indicating the curve of a cheekbone, the knuckles on a man’s hand. There was something in the artwork that reminded Mir of her grandfather’s drawings, the ghost of Micah Kendrick still haunting the TomorrowMen. Mir closed her eyes.
Tristan Terrific, former villain turned TomorrowMan, was standing on a rooftop, surrounded by men worse than him. He’d always struggled with morality, but on this particular day he had done good. He’d saved the city from the plans of these men, and now they’d cornered him.
“He’s totally thwarted them. Their evil plan to harm the city has been defeated because of the heroic things Tristan has done over the course of the day. The bad guys know they’ve lost, but they’re going to get revenge and kill him.”
Tristan pushed his hair back from his eyes. He had a shock of white through his hair, like a lightning bolt. He looked at the men in front of him. He could make them do anything. With a word. With a smile.
Mir paused, giving Evan a chance to absorb the story. He waited. She plunged on.
“Originally we had it that he controls their minds and just walks away, but we know that’s wrong. Tristan Terrific can’t do that to people, because he’s not a villain anymore. He’s a hero.”
Every day was agony for Tristan Terrific. His power simmering in his mind, his fingers itching to reach out toward the men in front of him, to command them to do what he wanted. It would be so easy. And these were evil men. Men worse than him. Men who would hurt innocent people unless they were stopped. Tristan Terrific had the power to stop them forever. All he had to do was reach within himself and choose.
“Yeah, okay,” said Evan. “So then what?”
“He jumps off the building.”
Tristan Terrific fell backward, without making a sound.
“And as he falls, he’s triumphant. Because he is a hero. He saved the city, and even more than that, he had a chance to use his powers and violate the mind of another person. Even though it was a bad person and his life was at stake, he chose not to use his powers for evil.”
Tristan Terrific counted the floors as he plunged down the side of the building. He was laughing, but it was from disbelief. Skybound always believed in him. Not Skylark, not the rest of the TomorrowMen. There was always suspicion in their eyes when they looked at h
im. Even when he proved himself to them over and over. This would be the ultimate proof. He chose not to use his evil power, not even to save himself. That would show all the TomorrowMen that at the very bottom of his black heart, Tristan Terrific was a hero.
Mir realized she was smiling. The phone was quivering in her hand. She felt a warmth in her chest, so similar to what she felt when Weldon touched her.
“It’s a cathartic moment for him, because throughout the story he’s always tempted to use his powers. He’s always terrified that he will, that he’ll cave completely and become a villain again.”
“So does he die?” Evan asked. “I don’t think we can kill him—”
“No; at the very last second Skybound flies in and saves his ass,” Mir said. It was a short story, only twenty-two pages long, but it had a beginning, a middle, and an end, and they had made it. Together, her and Evan.
It was an undignified rescue, Skybound snagging Tristan by his ankle. Tristan hung upside down, frowning at the flying man in the cape. “You ruined my heroic sacrifice,” he said. Skybound smiled, looking off into the horizon. “You’re not allowed to die,” he said. “The world needs heroes.” Tristan Terrific rolled his eyes. Skybound was a lot to take sometimes. He was so good, so perfect. He believed in other people. Tristan had seen so much darkness in others, it was hard not to be swallowed up in it. But whenever he felt like giving in to his villainous side, there was Skybound, showing him the way. “Thanks, buddy,” said Tristan Terrific. “Anytime,” said Skybound.
“Okay,” said Evan.
Mir hesitated. “Okay what?”
“It’s a good ending; let’s do it. Let’s give this sucker to Weldon Warrick and have our asses rejected by the fine editors at Warrick Studios.”
“Yay!” said Mir.
“You gonna type it up?”
“Um,” said Mir, “I already did. I mean, if you didn’t like the ending, I would’ve changed it…” She trailed off, realizing how it might sound to Evan, her trampling all over his story without his permission.
“Put your name on it too,” Evan said.
“Evan, it’s your story—”
“No,” he said, “it’s our story. We made it together.”
Mir closed her eyes, imagining Evan, his head bent over his phone, sitting on the bed under the watchful gaze of his Anchorman poster. His room was so full of stuff. Comic books of all kinds, TomorrowMen toys, a pile of video games in the corner. He loved it all.
“You’re the best, Evan,” Mir said. She hoped he wouldn’t hear the way her voice quivered when she said his name.
“I know,” said Evan.
The phone pressed to her ear, Mir put her back to the kitchen wall and slid down it. She sat on the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees.
“Things are going to—I mean, no matter what, even if I leave—I mean … you and me—” She couldn’t get the words out. They tangled on the tip of her tongue, tripping over one another.
“Absolutely,” Evan said. “You and me, Mir, bros for life. That cool?”
“Yeah,” said Mir. She closed her eyes, smiling. “That’s cool.”
* * *
Mir trudged down the golf course driveway, feeling as though she had been punched in the face by the sun. Some days the sun seemed to be closer to the Earth, hanging right behind her shoulder like a fiery eavesdropper. Mir thought about the lake and longed to be there already, submerged in cool water. At the end of the driveway she saw Weldon’s familiar shape, a backpack thrown over his shoulder. She’d suggested they meet at the lake, but he’d insisted on meeting her at the usual spot on the golf course driveway. We can walk to the lake together, he’d said. You can make sure I don’t get lost. And he had grinned sheepishly, because the excuse was so thin.
“Hi,” Weldon said, smiling.
“Hi,” Mir said, and her heart did its happy little lurch at the sight of his smile. It was such a different smile than the one he’d first beamed up at her from the ground of the Emporium of Wonders’ parking lot. It was real and beautiful, and made Mir want to slide her arms over his shoulders and place her hands on the back of his head and—
“I brought my own towel this time,” Weldon said. “It’s slightly less patriotic than the one you lent me, but I figure that’s a good thing since I’m not fully Canadian. I feel like Farley Mowat’s ghost is going to haunt me for the sacrilege of putting my wet American butt on a Canadian flag towel.”
“Farley Mowat is known for being a particularly patriotic and vengeful ghost,” Mir said. “Wait, you’ve heard of Farley Mowat?”
“Sure,” said Weldon, glancing at Mir in surprise. “My dad’s Canadian, remember? He left Sandford really young, but he’s still from here. He gave me a bunch of old Farley Mowat books when I was a kid. I liked The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be.”
“I’ve never actually read any Farley Mowat books,” Mir said.
“Oh my god. Will they kick you out of Canada for that?”
“Fortunately, I have read the complete works of Lucy Maud Montgomery, so I think they’ll let me stay.”
“Who’s that?”
“She wrote Anne of Green Gables,” Mir said. “A classic of Canadian literature, possibly the greatest Canadian book of them all. A breathless ode to bosom friends, the magic of imagination, and the joy of wearing a dress with puffy sleeves.”
“There’s so much about Canada I don’t know,” sighed Weldon.
“We are very mysterious,” Mir said. “But don’t worry. I can teach you to be so Canadian that even the vengeful ghost of Farley Mowat will be fooled.”
Weldon reached for her hand, and Mir laced her fingers in his.
“I’d like that,” Weldon said, and smiled his beautiful, very real smile.
They spent the whole afternoon at the lake. Mir stayed in the water longer than usual, paddling around in circles while Weldon lazily back-stroked beside her, his eyes turned upward to the blue dome of the sky. After several loops around the lake, Mir reached for Weldon and he dove under the water, pulling her down with him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her hair trailing behind her as he dove down. At the bottom of the lake the water was cool and dark, and Mir kept her eyes closed, her face close to the back of Weldon’s neck. Weldon’s legs kicked and propelled them forward, and they shot across the bottom of the lake. When he brought them to the surface, Mir gasped for air, determined to hang on to him until the last possible second.
“You okay?” Weldon asked as Mir spluttered and coughed.
She nodded.
“Sorry, I stayed down kinda long.”
Mir reached for him.
“Let’s go again.”
By the time Mir and Weldon reached her house, the sky was shot through with purple. Mir’s stomach did a little flip-flop as the familiar shape of her home peered over the horizon. The Tristan Terrific script, neatly folded into a manila envelope, weighed heavily in her backpack. She kept remembering it over the course of the day, her hand reaching in the direction of her backpack, then pulling away when she decided it wasn’t the right moment. But now the day was over, and she was out of time. It was now or never.
Mir stopped. Weldon walked on a couple more steps, then realized she wasn’t beside him. He stopped and turned toward her, his face quizzical. The sun was setting in front of him, a splash of light turning the hair across Weldon’s forehead pale blond. Mir realized she very much wanted to kiss him.
Instead she bent down and fumbled with her backpack. The script felt heavy as she pulled it out. Weldon looked at the envelope curiously as she handed it to him.
“We finished the script.”
Weldon stared at the envelope in his hand, then looked up at Mir.
“The what?”
“Open it,” Mir said. “Open it and see.”
Weldon opened the envelope, unfolding the script. He peered at the title, at Mir and Evan’s names under it, confused.
“We finished it,” Mir said, suddenly feeling anxious.
He wasn’t reacting the way she thought he would. She had expected recognition and excitement, not confusion. Weldon was looking at her like she’d told him a joke that he wasn’t getting.
“What is this?” he said.
“It’s the Tristan Terrific script my friend Evan wrote,” Mir said. “Well, he wrote and I helped. I came up with the ending. Sorry it took so long to finish. We were—well, I was kind of distracted with finishing up school and then losing my old job and then my new job and then you…” She trailed off. Weldon was staring at her blankly.
“Don’t you remember?” she asked weakly. “That day you came by the Emporium of Wonders, when I was still working there. And Evan was there and he asked you—”
“The guy with the beard,” Weldon said, his expression jolting with the memory. “The one who was a huge TomorrowMen fan. He said something about pitching a TomorrowMen script.”
“Yeah,” said Mir. “And now we’ve finished it.” She pointed at the paper in Weldon’s hands. “That’s it. We wrote a story about Tristan Terrific. Evan mostly wrote it, but I helped a little. You said you could show it to your father. You said … you said you’d do that.” Mir heard the anxiety creeping into her voice.
Weldon looked down at the script.
“Shit,” he whispered. Mir felt ice water trickle down her back. Please don’t let me have screwed things up for Evan, she thought. He didn’t want to give the script to Weldon, I made him do it.
Weldon extended his hand, gesturing for Mir to take the script back.
“Mir, I can’t,” he said.
“Why?” said Mir. “That day in the store, you said you could give Evan’s script to your dad…”
“I know,” Weldon said. “But I can’t. For legal reasons Warrick Studios doesn’t take unsolicited submissions for TomorrowMen comics. They won’t look at anything by a writer they don’t know, somebody they haven’t asked to pitch. It’s just how it works.”
Comics Will Break Your Heart Page 21