Hopefuls (Book 1): The Private Life of Jane Maxwell

by Jenn Gott

  “Here,” she said a few minutes later, handing Mindsight an impersonal paper cup. Jane made sure to avoid touching it too much, not wanting to make it her own and thus imprint an emotional stamp upon it. She kept her fingers out of Mindsight’s way as Mindsight accepted it. The aftereffects of a flare varied from person to person, but right now any use of Mindsight’s powers would probably be too much for her.

  Mindsight downed the water with enough vigor to best the efforts of someone dying of thirst. She’d scooted back since Jane left, enough to sit up against the wall, and now she leaned her head back, trying to recover herself.

  Jane sat down across from her, cross-legged on the floor. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I had to,” Mindsight said. She wasn’t looking at Jane, but she put on a brave smile anyway. “It’s what superheroes do, isn’t it?”

  “Amy—”

  “Don’t,” Mindsight said. Now she looked over. She locked eyes with Jane, and their respective masks seemed to fall away. Amy’s eyes, Clair’s eyes. Wife to wife. It was almost too much to bear. “I can’t fix your other loss, Jane. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you suffer another.”

  * * *

  Even if there wasn’t a layer of haze from Doctor Demolition’s superweapon shrouding the heart of Grand City, the view in front of Jane now wouldn’t have been ideal.

  Technically, she was looking at a district called South Grands. Locally, though, it was referred to as South Shits. Buildings packed too closely together, too many of them falling into disrepair. Jane took in the view of rusted-out fire escapes, of peeling advertisements long since graffitied over, of street corners overflowing with piles of trash. Broken windows and broken bricks made up most of the walls, the houses and shops flashing gap-toothed grins at her.

  She hadn’t questioned Cal as he drove her here, as they met up with the rest of the Heroes on the rooftop of an old brewery, long since out of business. She had still been too worked up from her experience at City Hall. Every time she shut her eyes, it came back to her in panels: the hall, flooded with Shadow Raptors; her own face, overeager as she launched herself into the fight; the smoldering painting, a hole burned straight through an abstract field of yellow and teal waves, like the ocean on fire. And Amy . . .

  It was better not to think about Amy at all. What she’d risked, why she’d acted—the look that she’d given Jane, in the moment when things had gone too far.

  Because Jane had gone too far. She knew this, a cold certainty settling in the pit of her stomach as she’d watched the rest of the Heroes hand matters over to the police. Keisha’s husband had arrived by then, taking charge, like he’d been taking charge of the city over the past few days. Jane didn’t know how to process what had just happened, and so she’d found herself shutting down, piece by piece. It was like Clair’s funeral all over again. Jane had followed Cal from the scene with a numb acceptance that her fate was no longer her own, and he had taken her to this rooftop.

  Why? She did not ask. She did not care.

  A sudden pop! from behind her sparked a panic somewhere deep in Jane’s fog. Jane whirled, her fingertips already flashing as she brought them up in a block. Images of guns filled her senses so strongly that she could already smell the powder, could already feel the heat of a bullet whirring near her skin.

  So the laughter that she found instead, the jolly scene of camaraderie and friendship playing out on the roof, did not seem entirely real to her at first. Cal stood in the middle of the group, his hood thrown back, his arm raised triumphantly to hold a cheap champagne bottle aloft.

  A sea of empty glasses was already raised in his direction, waiting to be blessed.

  Jane dropped her hands, embarrassed by the overreaction to what she now realized was only the sound of the cork popping. Waves of anxiety crashed over her, but she bit her lips tight and tried to take deep breaths through her nose. Her mother had managed to drag Jane—once—to a yoga and meditation class, and Jane desperately tried to remember the lesson now, as tears and the soot of South Shits both stung at her eyes.

  “—and of course, we can’t forget the real hero of the day!” Cal said, and only then did Jane realize that he’d been speaking at all. He held a glass out to her—no, Jane realized, a paper cup, like you might use for coffee at a cheap cafeteria. The whole affair had a decidedly cobbled-together air about it, like they’d run into a gas station with only the change they could find in the seats of their car.

  He passed her the cup, wrapping both her hands around it for her.

  “To Jane,” he said, deep and steady as he looked into her eyes.

  Jane swallowed, as an overlapping chorus of Jane! filled the air.

  “And a damn fine job she did, too,” Devin said.

  Jane flushed. “No,” she tried to mumble, but everyone else was piling on, heaping Jane with praise for what now felt like a meager performance. Only Amy remained quiet, smiling a practiced smile but spending more time looking into her paper cup than at any of them.

  “No, really,” Jane said, louder. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Bullshit,” Devin said. “You held your own for a while there.”

  “And you unlocked the door,” Tony said.

  Jane shook her head. “I’m . . . I’m not sure I did.”

  “Plus,” Cal added, ignoring this, “you scared off UltraViolet, and that was no easy feat.”

  “Yeah,” Keisha said. “Give yourself some credit, Jane.”

  “Hear, hear.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “No, but,” Jane started, waving her hand to cut down their arguments, “don’t you see? It wasn’t difficult. That’s the whole point. The door unlocked itself. UltraViolet ran at basically the first sign of my powers. Doesn’t that bother anyone else?”

  Marie jerked her head in Jane’s direction, her hair loose now and fluttering in the breeze. “Someone doesn’t know how to take a victory.”

  “But why would she just give up that easily? And why did she just so happen to have exactly the right amount of antidote that we needed? Why was a vial of it right there in the office, right where we needed it? You can’t mean to tell me this was normal.”

  “Sometimes you get lucky,” Tony said.

  “But—!” Jane started, but Cal placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.

  “Main Jane.” His brow was arched at her like she was a puppy who just didn’t understand how the sliding glass door to the patio worked. “I understand that this is all new to you, but you should at least try to embrace your successes when you get them. Believe me, it doesn’t always go your way out there.”

  At this sobering thought, the rest of the team turned and looked into their drinks. Behind them, Jane could just make out the gap in the cityscape where Woolfolk Tower should have been.

  Jane sighed. He was infuriating, and it didn’t exactly answer any of her questions, but . . . oh, hell. Maybe Cal was right, maybe not. Either way, it wasn’t going to be Jane’s problem for much longer. She’d done what she agreed to do, and now it was almost time for her to go home. Jane took a sip of the cheap champagne, then spit it out almost immediately. The rest of the Heroes leaped back to avoid the spray of flat, warm piss water that was trying to pass for something fancy.

  “Ugh,” Jane said, staring incredulously into her cup. “Where did you even get this? It tastes like the underside of someone’s tongue after they’ve barfed.”

  “And you’d know what that tastes like because . . . ?” Tony asked.

  Devin smirked. “Hey, don’t knock it. This is kind of a tradition for us, see. Started way back when we beat our first baddie.”

  “Hell of a night,” Tony said.

  Cal grinned. “The look on his face!”

  “Never mind his face,” Keisha said, “what about yours, after your uniform—”

  “Okay, okay, Jane doesn’t need to hear about that!” Cal said, shouting to be heard over a cackle of laughter that erupted from the rest of th
e group. All save for Amy, still hovering on the edges.

  “The point is, we’ve been coming here ever since,” Devin continued.

  “You’d think we could have started buying better booze, though,” Marie said.

  Devin raised a finger. “Don’t mess with what works.”

  Marie rolled her eyes.

  “Wow,” Jane said. “I didn’t write anything like this into my comics.”

  Keisha shrugged as she pulled a phone out of her jean jacket. “Some things should be a surprise, though,” she said as she tapped the screen awake. “Otherwise, what’s the point?”

  Jane didn’t feel like there was a “point” to any of this backward version of reality, though she held her tongue. She’d been in enough battles today, and besides, Keisha wasn’t even paying attention anymore, her gaze fixed on the screen in front of her.

  Not for long. Keisha took in the text on her phone in an instant, and immediately her eyes flicked back up, straight to Jane’s face. Pinning her in time and place, like the look itself had trapped Jane there. Jane knew, even before Keisha spoke, that she wasn’t going to like what she heard.

  “The mayor’s awake.”

  The last time that Jane had seen her father, it was by accident.

  You’d think, in a place as large as Grand City, it would be easy enough to avoid someone, and for the most part you’d be right. Jane and Clair fastidiously kept their distance from any social circles that might brush up against those of hotshot law firms—and while occasionally one of the older partners would take an interest in donating some money to the museum in an effort to appear philanthropic, there really wasn’t much cause for their paths to ever cross.

  Jane had lived there for years without an issue.

  Until one day.

  “Tell me again why we’re attending this thing?” Jane asked. She and Clair were trudging up the sidewalk underneath the towering brownstone face of one of Sutton University’s buildings, their hands buried deep in the pockets of their winter coats. Wet snow spat at them from ominous gray clouds, landing on damp wool and clinging to the outer wisps of Clair’s hair like fairy dust. All Jane wanted was to get inside—they’d been walking for what felt like half of the city by now, and her toes were frozen inside of her Converse.

  “Because it’ll be interesting,” Clair said.

  Jane huffed, her breath misting in front of her like cigarette smoke. “Interesting, sure. During the summer months, maybe. I don’t see why they had to stage it now. I thought the whole idea of Shakespeare-in-the-park was to be, you know, in the park?”

  “I said it was like Shakespeare-in-the-park,” Clair said. “It’s . . . a little different.”

  “How different, exactly?”

  Clair grinned. She reached over, patting Jane’s arm. “Patience, love.”

  But Jane didn’t need much patience, because they’d already arrived.

  It was held in the Jewish community center of Sutton’s arts and culture department. Jane and Clair climbed the stairs with a small trickling of other attendees. They nodded hellos to the two greeters by the door, who were passing out programs. Traces of melting snow fell from Jane’s hair as she accepted hers, softening the bright red paper in her hands. Her vision was spotty from the drops on her glasses.

  They moved to the side. They were in a narrow room with a high ceiling, marble floor underfoot, wood-paneled walls. A foyer of sorts, with a bulletin board and a table full of informational sheets about upcoming programs and events. Jane handed her program to Clair as she took her glasses off, trying to shake the water droplets from the lenses.

  She didn’t see him approach.

  “Jane?”

  More than a decade since they’d last spoken, but his voice was as recognizable as ever. Jane froze, rooted in place, her glasses loose in her hand. Instantly, she was ten years old again, in the kitchen of their house before her mother had remodeled. Jane used to do her homework at the table while her mother made dinner, and her father’s voice when he came home would boom into the kitchen from the door to the garage. There’s my girl!

  His voice drew nearer. “I thought that was you.”

  Clair’s hand rested steadily on Jane’s shoulder as she answered for them. “Mr. Maxwell. This is unexpected.”

  “Well, I . . . that is, we—Leena and me—we’ve been coming here for a while now. She’s Jewish,” he added. “And quite the budding actress, if I do say so myself.”

  There was a cheerful lilt in his voice, and a trace of forced laughter. Jane put her glasses back on and turned around.

  “How nice for you.”

  She wanted to see a monster.

  This was what he had become in her head, after all. Jane had never drawn it, not explicitly, but now that she turned and she saw him—framed by the walls and the arch of the ceiling, a milling crowd blotting up the background, light catching his wire-rimmed glasses—she realized that she’d been pouring the idea of her Evil Father into so many villains, over the years. The cool poise, the steady dismissal. Perfectly trimmed hair, cut close to the scalp, and the stern line of a jaw that had never supported a smile in its life. Pressed suits, the lines sharp enough to cut anyone that dared to approach. Calculating eyes, slicing up whoever he was looking at. An expensive drink, held loosely in the fingers.

  That was not what she saw now, and the lack of seeing it made Jane’s head spin. It was only upon the absence of this very real and clear image that she realized she’d been harboring it at all.

  What she saw was her father. Nothing more, nothing less. His hair—short yes, but not as short as her imagination had cut it—frizzed a little in the damp, bits standing up where they should have lain flat, accenting the traces of gray now encroaching from the temples. Instead of the suit, he wore loose slacks and loafers, a collared shirt and v-neck sweater visible beneath an open pea coat. Jane took in the crow’s feet beside his eyes, left untouched by Botox. A salt-and-pepper beard (that was new) rose up on either side of his mouth as he offered a tentative smile.

  “You look good, Jane,” Mr. Maxwell said, as if they were former neighbors that had run into each other at the grocery store. He glanced at Clair, extending his hand. “Clair. Nice to see you again.”

  Clair accepted the gesture with the practiced ease you’d expect from an assistant curator at the Grand City Museum of Fine Arts. Her professional smile—just enough to be polite, just enough to put you at ease—was firmly in place. “It’s been a while.”

  “Yes, it has.” He didn’t even flinch at the admission.

  Then his attention was back on Jane, heavy with expectancy. He was both softer and older than Jane remembered, his whole countenance infused with the wizened air of a guru. He looked like he should be on some talk show promoting his newest self-help book, or giving TED talks about managing stress in one’s life. He put his hands into the pockets of his coat, nonchalant, as he waited for Jane to say something.

  But when it was clear that she wasn’t, he cleared his throat. Tried again.

  “I read your comic.”

  “Did you.”

  Clair’s hand rested softly on Jane’s shoulder, the unspoken command of Be nice running instantly between them. Jane shrugged it off.

  “I did,” Mr. Maxwell said. “It was very . . . imaginative.”

  “So, you hated it, then.”

  Mr. Maxwell smiled, gave a soft shake of his head. “I didn’t say that, no. It wasn’t entirely my cup of tea, I’ll admit that, but hate?” The slightest pause. “I could never hate it, Jane. And I hear it’s been quite a success. There’s talk of a movie, isn’t there?”

  “Talk,” Jane said. “It’ll never go anywhere.”

  “Oh, now, don’t say that! You need to believe in your dreams, honey.”

  “They’re not my dreams.” Jane glanced at her watch. “We’re going to miss the performance.”

  She hooked Clair’s elbow. The two of them brushed past Mr. Maxwell, and though Jane was tempted to “accidental
ly” knock against his shoulder on the way by, she stamped down on that impulse. They entered the main room just as the overhead lights were dimming.

  * * *

  Jane was the last of the family to arrive.

  If you could even call her that. She hadn’t wanted to come in the first place—if she didn’t have any interest in seeing her real father, then what possible motivation could she have for visiting this version? Besides, her duty was done, she was going home—or so she’d thought.

  “What do you mean, ‘It’s not going to be ready until tomorrow’?” Jane asked on the rooftop, about five minutes after Keisha broke the news of the mayor’s recovery.

  Marie rolled her eyes. “Gee, I don’t know how I can make it any clearer. Let’s see: maybe I mean that it won’t be ready until tomorrow?”

  “But you said—”

  “I gave you an estimate,” Marie snapped. “Okay? It was just a fucking estimate, and we’re dealing with a piece of tech that we didn’t invent and still don’t fully understand, but that literally rips a hole between two universes, so forgive me if I can’t predict its recharge rate down to the last second.”

  “But—!”

  “Look, it’s not a bus. You’re not going to miss your ride if you’re not there on time.” Marie crushed her champagne cup in her fist, her fingers turning to granite as they compressed around the paper with a sickening crunch.

  In the end, there was no arguing with her. If it wasn’t going to be ready until tomorrow, then it wasn’t going to be ready until tomorrow.

  Which still didn’t mean that Jane had any obligation to go and see Mayor Maxwell in the hospital, although Amy didn’t see it that way. She argued that, once they got their Jane back, the last thing that she should have to deal with is the repercussions of snubbing her gravely ill father—and though the point didn’t exactly thrill Jane, a twinge of sympathy tugged at her gut. Jane still wasn’t sure that there would come a point when they found their Jane, but she wasn’t about to tell Amy that. The look on Amy’s face as she spoke . . .