Erica’s staring at me with her mouth open. So now I’m going to have to tell her that Toby asked me to go to the cinema – with him and his friends, not with him singular – and it definitely isn’t a date situation, however much I’d like it to be. It also means having to admit that I might possibly have some kind of feelings for Toby. She’s still staring at me, waiting for me to say something, so I try to deflect by shrugging and looking back at her laptop.
‘Oh no, you don’t,’ Erica demands. ‘You can’t just say something like that and expect to get away with it!’
‘It was a mistake! I didn’t mean to say anything!’ I insist.
‘Oh my God, you are so blushing!’
‘I’m not!’ Although of course I am. I can feel the heat burning over my jawline and up my cheeks.
‘Is it Toby? Did Toby finally ask you out?’
‘He didn’t ask me out, OK? He just said that he was going to the cinema with some friends this weekend, and asked if I wanted to come too. As friends. Definitely as friends.’
‘But this is perfect!’ Erica cries.
‘How exactly is this perfect?’
‘I can tell Jay that I want to go to the cinema and then I can meet you there, and you can meet Jay and finally see what an amazing guy he is, and I can help you with Toby. Perfect, right?’
‘Are you trying to turn all this into a double-date situation?’
‘Nope. Nu-uh. Definitely not.’
I’m not so sure. But Erica’s smiling, and she looks nearly as happy as she does when her hands do their full-powered flamey thing. I decide that the best way to get out of this is to roll my eyes and smile back at her, because it’s only Wednesday after all, which means that there’s plenty of time to get out of this whole thing before the weekend comes around.
‘Erica!’ shrieks a voice from downstairs. Well, there goes her good mood.
‘Damn it. She’s back already. Want me to walk you home?’
As we go down the stairs I can hear cupboards slamming in the kitchen, and I’m hoping that I can put my shoes and coat back on and get out of the house before Liza notices me.
‘Erica? Did you finish the milk?’ Liza calls.
‘I haven’t had any since breakfast,’ Erica calls back.
‘But did you finish the milk at breakfast?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘But if you did, do you think that maybe you should have picked some more up on your way home?’
‘Sorry, I forgot.’ Erica makes stupid faces at me while we get our coats on.
I peer round the banister and see Liza in the kitchen. She’s rubbing her forehead with a shaking hand, and with the other pouring the contents of a bottle of wine into a coffee mug. I quickly turn back round in case she sees me spying.
‘It’s just that I get home, and I can’t even have a cup of tea, you know?’
‘Mum, I’m going to walk Louise home, OK?’
Liza emerges from the kitchen with one arm folded across her chest, the other one holding the mug. She looks like an older, slightly shrunken version of Erica, except that her hair is pulled back in a shabby ponytail.
‘Oh, hi, Louise. How are you?’
‘I’m good, Mrs Elland,’ I say, immediately getting nervous about whether I should have used her married name, or just called her Liza, or just not said her name at all.
‘Well …’ If she’s bothered by my gaffe, it doesn’t show on her face – ‘perhaps, Erica, you could have told me that you had a friend over before I started screaming my guts out.’
‘But it’s just Louise,’ Erica reasons.
‘We’ll have a chat about this when you get home, OK?’ And with that Liza saunters back into the kitchen, taking long sips from her mug.
At first Erica doesn’t say anything as we walk. She keeps her hands stuffed in her pockets and her eyes down to the pavement. ‘So tell me about Toby then,’ she sighs. I know that she wants distracting from thinking about having to go back to her house, so I’m willing to play along with her for a bit.
‘There’s nothing much to tell. He just mentioned that he was going to the cinema on Saturday and asked if I wanted to come along.’
‘He so blatantly likes you.’
‘I really don’t think so.’
‘Boys aren’t that scary, you know. You shouldn’t get so embarrassed about hanging out with them. Even if this doesn’t work out, it’s not the end of the world. I mean, look at me and Stuart. And Tall Josh. And remember that whole debacle with Duncan?’
I want to remind Erica that of course she doesn’t have any problems getting boys to like her. She’s beautiful and popular and all she has to do is strut down a school corridor to get a legion of potential boyfriends. It seems so easy for her. She likes a guy, and boom: he texts her asking her out. It’s definitely not so easy for me. Not when you’re sure that you don’t look quite right, and nothing comes out of your mouth without an awkward splutter.
‘You should text Jay back tonight,’ I offer. ‘It’ll make you feel better.’
‘You forget that I’m playing the long game here. He made me wait for ages, remember, so I can’t text him back until at least twelve hours have passed. Otherwise I’ll seem too eager.’
‘But you are eager.’
‘Yes, but he can’t know that!’ She’s smiling again at least.
When we reach my driveway I invite Erica in for hot chocolate, but she declines and shifts her feet.
‘Mum’ll only get more angry if I avoid her,’ she explains.
‘Call me later if you want, OK? Any time.’
Erica replies by wrapping me up in a giant, hot hug. She lets me go and I head on up the path to my house. When I get to my door I turn to watch as she trudges down the road. Even though I know exactly what she’s capable of, and how much power she has, I can’t help but think that right now she just looks like a scared and lonely little girl.
Everybody has a favourite Vigil. It’s what kids in the playground ask after finding out your favourite colour, or what you want to be when you grow up. Allegiance to one hero or another denotes your tribe, your social standing, your politics. Intellectuals tend to follow Deep Blue, with his staggering mental powers; headstrong gallivanting types are drawn to Quantum and his intense physical prowess; and arty liberals are more likely to trail the exploits of Oria, a Vigil who can control and manipulate moods. Who you follow says as much about you as how you wear your hair, or what blogs you read. There’s a whole pantheon of modern deities out there to worship, who come complete with collectible pencil cases, lunch-boxes and matching duvet covers.
Not that I let myself get caught up in all that.
I don’t like to think of myself as a fangirl. Following Vigil stuff is purely business, for the sake of my best friend. Yes, I might be spending my Friday evening downloading the latest Vigil footage while sewing elbow patches onto a superhero costume, but this is work. Plus, I can’t lie, I’m desperate to know how they operate and what they do, if only so that I can prepare Erica for it. I mean, there really is no doubt that Erica will be joining the Vigil ranks some day, and when it comes I want her to be ready. I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for when I’m going through all the clips. I just hope that something might stand out, some clue as to who they really are, and how we might contact them.
I admit I really enjoy it. Everything that Erica does and achieves, I feel like I’m achieving too. And knowing her secret has never been a burden – in some twisted way it makes me feel powerful, and important. I suppose if this is the closest that I’m going to get to being special, I might as well embrace it.
About year ago I had the great idea of putting together a YouTube showreel to go along with the website I created. I would produce and film it, and all Erica would have to do was make sure that her mask was firmly in place before showing off her stuff.
‘Yeah, but then loads of other people, apart from the Vigils, would see it too. I don’t know if I want the whole world to see everything ye
t,’ Erica said slowly. She always talks more slowly when she is thinking seriously.
‘But everyone is going to see what you can do sooner or later anyway,’ I replied.
‘Isn’t that kinda like saying you might as well eat your dessert with your main course all together, because it’s all going to end up together in your stomach in the end?’
‘You want things to happen, don’t you? I say we make it happen by ourselves!’ I urged.
We must have been talking about it at the same time as those Somerset floods the other year, because I remember that we were watching the footage on YouTube and talking about the Red Rose, a Vigil with a shock of thick fire-engine-red hair (hence the name) and the ability to change the form of anything she touches. Storm tides, under-dredged rivers and some freakishly heavy thunderstorms caused havoc in the South West, and the clip we were watching showed Vigils flipping and flying across the screen like buzzing insects, darting around and into buildings to rescue pets and the elderly from rising waters. The Red Rose spun a celebratory cartwheel in front of the camera after she melted away a particularly precarious fallen tree, the solid wood turning liquid in her hands. Her antics flustered the cameraman, who I presume was perched in a helicopter, as the footage wobbled and struggled to regain focus. Rose is the party Vigil, best friend of speedster Hayley Divine and, like her, always at the latest party or club opening in her trademark skin-tight red outfit, posing and strutting and occasionally showing off with a gymnastic flying move.
‘Are you kidding? I wouldn’t want to be like the Red Rose,’ Erica said at the time, before going to pick out a varnish to paint her nails. ‘She’s practically naked all the time. I’d be much more sophisticated. And those high heels she wears cannot be comfortable.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. You can get all sorts of lower-back problems later on from wearing heels too often,’ I said.
‘I don’t want to be more well-known for the parties I go to than for the good work I do. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I will be going to the parties, but they’re not everything, you know? Imagine if a tornado hits or something, and I’m all like, “I can’t help, I’m afraid. I have a red carpet to walk down!” ’
‘I don’t think you’ll be seeing too many tornadoes as a member of the London team.’
‘You know what I mean. I know what being a Vigil today is like – it’s all a popularity contest. The higher your profile, the better advertising deals you get and the more money you can potentially earn. But sometimes I look back to the glory days, you know, back in the fifties, after the war, when nobody cared about the outfits or how much your arms were insured for. Those were the times when it really meant something to be a superhero. I wish it was still like that. Just because I’m a superhero doesn’t mean that I’m cut out to be a celebrity.’
I looked at her. Gleaming waves of golden hair, a perfect figure and bright blue eyes. She was made for everything being a Vigil today means. Maybe her reluctance to be a fully-fledged celebrity as well just added to the perfection.
‘I never want people to think I’m as shallow as all that,’ Erica said, her voice sad. ‘I mean, I know that I’m not brainy or anything, and I can have my shallow moments, but when I look at the Red Rose or Hayley Divine, I can’t help but think that they could be so much more.’
‘So I guess that’s a definite no to the showreel idea?’ I said at the time. I can’t believe how much our perspectives have changed since then. There was Erica rejecting the video idea, and me pushing her forward. Nowadays it feels like the other way around.
‘Let’s not even talk about this any more. It’s making me think too hard.’ She ran her fingers through her hair, shaking it all about. ‘Come on, let’s do our nails!’
That was the night of the Great Manicure Incident.
‘What do you think?’ When she was done, Erica held up her freshly manicured fingers, each nail painted a nearly neon pink.
‘Beautiful!’ I cooed, while finishing off my own lilac paint job.
Erica went back over to my desk and brought up some images on my computer, tapping her fingers carefully on the keyboard so as not to get anything smudged.
‘You know much about the Amazing Clara?’ she asked me.
‘Wasn’t she a Vigil back in the sixties?’ I offer.
‘She was the first official female Vigil,’ Erica says. ‘I mean, there must have been girls with superpowers before then, but she was the first one who was allowed on the team. And this was back when there was only one Vigil team, in New York. They hadn’t even set up the Paris one yet. It was just the Amazing Clara, and all these guys flying around.’
I adjusted myself from my position on my rug to look at the picture on the computer screen properly, hands fanned out in front to stop me from messing up my nails. The Amazing Clara didn’t look at all like superheroes today. She looked kind of like a pilot, in jodhpurs, a flying jacket and goggles; there were no corporate-sponsor patches to be seen anywhere. The photo was in black and white, but you still got a sense of the colour of her. The smile indicated rosy cheeks, and her hair was sleek and brunette, coiffed into something probably quite fashionable at the time.
‘She’s pretty,’ I said.
‘She was fearless,’ said Erica. ‘And she didn’t care about how pretty she was, or how good she looked. There was this mudslide that obliterated a school in Westchester, just north of New York, and she went right in there and saved all these kids – she could create these air pockets or something that kept everyone alive long enough for them all to be rescued – and then when she emerged she was covered in dirt and mud and was still smiling.’
‘That’s pretty cool,’ I said as Erica showed me the after-rescue pictures.
‘I just want you to remind me, in case I ever become incredibly silly to the point of no return, that nobody cared what the Amazing Clara looked like, OK?’
‘I’ll remember that,’ I promised.
‘I mean, I can still be girlie, and silly sometimes, but when it comes to the important stuff I want to be just like her.’
She went to lie on my bed, flopping herself tummy down with her arms hanging off the end, still admiring her manicure. She started absently rubbing her fingers together, causing just enough friction to create a whisper of a flame, a slight orange glow like when a candle is just about to go out. I didn’t mind her doing this in my room, mostly because I was just pleased to provide her with somewhere that she could play around without fear of being caught or exposed. But then she screamed.
Her fingernails were on fire! The light from her hands had gone, but her actual fingernails were still sizzling. The smell was immediate and awful.
‘Oh my God!’ Erica yelped. I told her to hush in case my mum heard, and then ran out of the room to dampen a towel that I could wrap around her smouldering hands.
When I got back from the bathroom I discovered that Erica had used my bedsheets to dowse the flames. I had to chuck them out of course, and when my mum asked why, I said it was because I had singed them practising with Erica’s hair straighteners.
‘But your hair is perfectly straight already!’ my mum had exclaimed, after she had stopped ranting about fire risks. Trust me, I already knew all about those.
‘Yes, but Erica was showing me how to curl my hair with them,’ I’d explained, before thanking the heavens that my mum didn’t notice at the time that my hair wasn’t so much as kinked.
After that episode, my mum banned hair straighteners, and I banned Erica from using her powers in my house. I also haven’t been able to even look at a bottle of nail varnish again. I like to tell myself that I wear my nails naked now out of solidarity with Erica, who will never wear nail varnish again (she actually mourned this loss, ceremoniously throwing out each colour with a cry of ‘Oh why, cruel world? Why!’), but truthfully I’ve never forgotten that smell. There’s something about toxic burning chemicals that scars you for life … my nose is wrinkling now just at the thought of it.
For
tunately I’m quickly distracted from that particular memory by my phone buzzing on my desk. It’s a message from Toby.
Whatcha doing? he asks.
Coursework, I text back. It’s not as if I can say what I’m really doing: watching old Vigil clips, reminiscing and procrastinating instead of sewing up a supersuit.
There’s a delay, and I watch my phone as I wait for him to text again. He doesn’t ever just send me a mundane text without it being a preamble to something else. My heart hovers in my chest, resisting the next beat as I wait.
Have you thought any more about the cinema tomorrow? he finally messages.
Honestly, I was trying not to. I had thought, seeing as he hadn’t mentioned it again, Toby had forgotten that he’d even asked me. Erica was far too absorbed with her plans with Jay to quiz me on it, and now it was Friday night, and surely if Toby was really keen on seeing me he would have asked during the day? We had the whole of lunchtime together in the library yesterday for him to bring it up.
I know he’s not asking me out on a date, because he said that there would be other people there, but even so, just pondering giving him an answer is enough to cause me to physically freeze. I don’t think I can get away with a ‘maybe’, not like in real life. I want to reply. I want to be one of those girls who is effortlessly cool, who can swing her hair over her shoulders and not care what a boy thinks about her, but I’m not. And I blush really, really easily. I’m blushing now, just from thinking of replying to him. How does Erica find this so easy? Arranging her date with Jay seemed so simple. They were going to meet at the cinema, and go for dinner at a fast-food place in the shopping centre opposite. Simple. So why, when Toby isn’t even actually asking me out on a proper date, do I find this so hard?
Then I make a decision, one I know that I will want to change straight away, which leaves me just a few seconds to write:
Yes, let’s go!
The instant I press send I throw the phone down on my desk as if it’s radioactive. I imagine Erica next to me, rubbing my shoulders and congratulating me on my bravery, before giving me a playful thump with her hot fist for being so ludicrous about the whole thing. Except that she’s not here. She’s spending time with one of her other friends doing some make-up trials or something so that she’ll look perfect for her hot date with Jay.
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