by Peter David
“My life is too weird for words,” he said.
Ursula sat on the edge of the bed, eating a slice of chocolate cake, which—she proudly informed him—she had baked herself completely from scratch from a mix. He had wisely chosen not to point out the inherent contradiction in that. He had, however, opted to sit at his desk and eat his slice, since he hardly needed to have Ditkovitch burst into the room and discover his daughter and Peter together on the bed. However innocent the truth of the situation might be, it would pale compared to the insinuation. At the moment, his landlord just wanted his rent. He certainly didn’t need the landlord wanting his head on a platter, as well.
“Thank you,” said Peter with genuine gratitude as he finished eating the cake. She shrugged as if it were no big deal. To her, it might very well not be. To him, it meant a hell of a lot.
When they were done, she picked up his plate, put it atop hers, and took his glass. She smiled once more. He nodded in return, and wondered if this was what Aunt May was like when she was a teen. About to step out of the apartment, she clearly remembered something.
“Oh. You had a message. Your phone just keep ringing and ringing… you don’t have an answering machine, I guess.” When he shook his head, she shrugged and continued, “My dad was getting cranky about it, because the walls are, y’know, so thin, so I came up here and answered it for you. I hope you don’t mind.”
She extended a piece of paper and for an instant he thought, hoped, prayed it was Mary Jane.
“Your aunt,” said Ursula.
Oh, well. Could have been worse. Could have been Jameson.
He took the message from her and read it.
Well it made sense. Ursula had given him a brief oasis of tranquillity. So it was only natural that she would be the messenger who would shatter it.
XX
Peter would have been at his aunt’s first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, he fell asleep on the subway. By the time an annoyed conductor had awoken him, lest he wind up in the train yard, Peter was all the way at the Union Turnpike terminal point, and had to wait for a return subway to Forest Hills.
By the time he arrived, boxes of carefully labeled cartons dotted the front lawn. Some kid Peter didn’t recognize was helping Aunt May with the moving while she continued to put labels on those boxes that weren’t already marked.
“What’s going on?” Peter said with obvious concern.
“They gave me another few weeks,” she told him. “I decided the hell with it. I’m moving on. I found a small apartment.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She just shrugged. “I’m quite able to take care of things. And Henry Jackson across the street is giving me a hand, and I’m giving him five dollars.”
Peter watched in surprise as the boy continued to hoist boxes around. Last he remembered, Henry Jackson was the kid who sped around on his Big Wheel and had a knack for getting under people’s feet when they were walking. “That’s Henry Jackson?”
She nodded. “Funny what happens in two years. Nine years old. Great ambitions.”
He braced himself, hoping that his next words wouldn’t cause a torrent of tears or angry words. “Listen, Aunt May, about the last visit of mine—”
To his surprise, she waved it off dismissively. “Pish posh. We needn’t talk about it. It’s water over the dam or under the bridge, wherever you like it.” Her voice cracked from emotion, though, with her next words. “You made a brave move. And I’m proud of you, and I thank you, and I love you, Peter… so very, very much.”
She embraced him then, and all he could think of was his earliest days when he’d regarded her with suspicion and uncertainty and all he wanted was his mother back. Now he realized, for perhaps the first time in his life, that his mother had always been there, incarnated in the form of this elderly woman who was determined to do the right thing, no matter the cost.
“Thank you, Aunt May,” he said. Then, looking over her shoulder, he suddenly said, “Hey, where are all my comic books?”
“Oh, those dreadful things. I gave them away.”
He moaned inwardly as Henry moved out of the house to the back steps. “I put the pans in the box, Mrs. Parker,” he called.
“Thank you.”
“Hi, Peter,” he said, waving.
“Hi, Henry. You’re getting tall.”
“Tell you what, Henry, will you pack those cookbooks in with the mixer?”
Henry bobbed his head and said, “Okay,” but he was still looking at Peter. “You take Spider-Man’s pictures, don’t you?”
Peter shrugged. “I used to.”
“Where is he?”
“Henry and I agree that we don’t see his picture in the paper anymore,” May said.
“He, uh…” Peter suddenly became very interested in the tops of his shoes. “He quit.”
“Why?” asked Henry, moving toward them, looking confused and even a bit disappointed.
“Wanted to try other… things.”
“Will he be back?”
Peter shook his head and spoke the simple truth: “I don’t know.”
“Oh.” Henry went back to the house, looking considerably less perky than he had moments earlier.
“You’ll never guess who he wants to be,” said May, and rather than giving him the chance to guess, said, “Spider-Man.”
Peter was dumbfounded. “Why?”
She continued to pack as she said, “He knows a hero when he sees one. Too few characters out there flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people. Setting examples for all of us.”
He couldn’t believe she was saying it. He knew, of course, that he had saved Aunt May. But so often, the things he tried to accomplish—no matter how noble his intentions—seemed to be distorted so that he ended up looking like a creep. Altruism was twisted into selfishness, heroism into villainy. He had just… well, he’d just assumed that Aunt May harbored ill will toward Spider-Man. It never occurred to him that she might hold him in such high regard.
Now she was rearranging plates inside a box, presumably so they wouldn’t break upon transport. “Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later tell how they stood for hours in the cold rain just to catch a glimpse of the one who taught them to hold on a second longer. I believe there’s a hero in all of us who keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.”
Oh my God. She knows. She knows I am… was… she knows… she’s talking to him through me, to me, she’s… but she couldn’t… there’s no way…
She turned from the plates and faced him again. There was nothing in her expression to give the slightest indication that she thought she was talking to anyone other than her nephew. It didn’t make the words any less sincere, though, nor any less meaningful. “Spider-Man did that for Henry, and he wonders where he’s gone. Henry needs him.” Then she pointed at a piece of furniture and said, “Can you lift that desk and put it in the garage for me, Peter?”
“Okay,” he said, feeling as if he’d had an anvil dropped on him.
“But don’t strain yourself,” she cautioned. “I’ll be right back.” She headed toward the house, calling, “Henry! Don’t forget the recipe box!”
He watched her go, shaking his head. As he walked over to the desk, he considered the fact that he’d been so certain seeing Aunt May now would be torture. That she would blame him for all of her current strife. He’d braced himself for it.
Instead, not only had she let him off the hook, she’d tossed the hook away… and lauded the accomplishments of Spider-Man besides. The only downside was that she’d given away his comic books.
Gave them away? Why? he wondered as he carried the desk toward the garage.
He was so distracted that it wasn’t until he was h
alfway back there that he suddenly realized he was toting the heavy oak desk with one hand, and not feeling the weight in the slightest.
Eight stories up in the heart of New York City, Peter stared at the twenty-foot chasm that stretched between himself and the next rooftop. It was a space he had vaulted with ease, back when he was dressed in red and blue. Now, though, his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer.
He kept telling himself that his strength was back. That there was no reason his other abilities shouldn’t be, either. That he’d been like a home-run hitter who had been lost at the plate for a while, that was all. A frustrated slugger swinging at pitches in the dirt. He hadn’t actually lost the ability to knock balls out of the park; he just needed to do something dramatic to find his stroke again.
Well, this was pretty damned dramatic, all right. On the other hand, if he was wrong, he was about to commit suicide.
It’d certainly solve all my problems, he thought morbidly, and then he resolved to push all such thoughts right out of his head. Instead, he closed his eyes and muttered, “Strong focus on what I want.” Just as the doctor had told him. He visualized himself covering the distance with ease, rather than falling screaming to his death. His mind was a computer, downloading a file, and reality would be the printer onto which he would print it out and actualize it.
So much for dramatic analogies.
He drew back as far as possible from the edge of the roof, then started to run. Faster and faster, building up speed, building up confidence, starting to feel like his old self. And just as it happened in the fight with Flash Thompson, that day when his powers had first kicked in, the world around him slowed almost to a crawl. His environment became ice, and he was a skater gliding across it.
He got to the edge of the roof and there was no hesitation as he hurled himself into the void. His pulse was slow and relaxed, his breathing steady. Gravity? As Aunt May would say, Pish posh. Gravity was of no relevance to him as he sailed across the gap between roofs, feeling every iota of his power coursing through his veins.
It was at that point that gravity, offended by his audacity, decided to show him who was boss.
Realizing with growing horror that his arc wasn’t sufficient to clear the distance, Peter Parker emitted a high-pitched scream. Then he dropped like a ballast bag tossed from a balloon, flailing his arms about, trying to find something to grab on to.
He lucked out and snagged a clothesline on the way down. It snapped at one end, but the other held, and he swung the rest of the way across the divide. Shirts and undergarments covered his face and he couldn’t see a damned thing, which was why he slammed full-face into the brick wall.
He hung there, jockey shorts draped over his head, a brassiere looped around his chest.
“Oh, darn,” he murmured weakly. “And me without my camera. Jameson would’ve paid double for this shot.”
XXI
Jameson—John Jameson—was stretched out on a couch in Mary Jane’s apartment, his hands folded behind his head. He was in his stocking feet, thanks to Mary Jane’s loud admonition of “Shoes off the couch!” Otherwise he was wearing sweats and a NASA T-shirt that read “Zero-G Wiz.” Mary Jane was lying on the floor, filling out an invitation list, with a tall stack of invitations at her side. John was busy studying a travel magazine. Then he lowered it and watched her motoring through the invites.
“M.J.,” he said, “are you at all concerned that we’re moving too fast?”
“We’re sitting still, John. Not a lot of moving going on.”
“No, I mean,” he nodded toward the invitations, “most people take months—sometimes even a year or two—to plan a wedding. And we’re, you know… plowing right into it. Dad had to pull a hundred strings to get the church, the caterers, everything on such short notice. We’re going at it with such a manic energy, half my friends have asked me if you’re pregnant and we’re trying to avoid the ‘Here comes the bride, big, fat, and wide’ syndrome.”
She propped herself up on one elbow and asked with interest, “What have the other half said?”
“Well… actually, there is no other half,” he admitted. “They all said it.”
“Oh, for crying out loud.” She rolled her eyes. “Can’t they just accept that we’re really anxious to start our life together? That that’s all it is?”
“Yes, I just…”
“You just what? You can’t accept it?”
“I just…” He took a deep breath. “I just want to make sure that you’re not feeling as if we have to get married in a hurry because if we don’t one of us might back out. That you just want to do it to ‘get it over with.’ Or because you’re not really sure, or there’s something you feel you need to prove, to someone, or—”
“John, that’s silly.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “I want to get married because I want to be with you. Don’t you want to be with me?”
“Of course.”
“Then that’s settled.” She slapped the magazine. “Go. Read. Plan.”
He nodded, feeling slightly mollified, and after another minute or two he read aloud, “ ‘The Bahamas. Fourteen tropical nights that captivate your imagination and stimulate your senses.’ ” He lowered the magazine and asked, “How’s that?”
“Sounds good,” Mary Jane said, which was exactly how she’d responded to the last nine suggestions he’d made. Staring at the invitations, she said, “Who’s Aunt Ida? It’s familiar, but I can’t—”
“Remember when we were at the lodge on Christmas? She called us with the trifle recipe. The gabby one.”
“We had a gabby recipe?”
“She was gabby.” He smiled.
“Ohh, Aunt Ida,” Mary Jane said, voice dripping with good-natured sarcasm. “I liked Aunt Ida.”
“My mother’s family,” John told her with a resigned shrug. “Actually, she drives everybody crazy.”
Mary Jane, sounding like the voice of experience, said, “Families can do that.”
John watched her out the corner of his eye as she continued working on the list. He was surprised when he saw her cross off a name with particular conviction. Wondering who could have possibly provoked the reaction, he lowered the magazine and studied the list more openly. He was mildly surprised when he saw whose name had disappeared beneath black pen strokes.
“Are you sure you don’t want to invite your friend the photographer? Peter Parker?”
“Positive,” she said with a finality that indicated the discussion should end.
John didn’t take the hint. He was someone who earned a living sitting atop thousands of tons of explosive fuel. He wasn’t daunted by a candid conversation with his fiancée. “I thought he was your pal,” said John.
“Peter Parker is a great big jerk.”
“World’s full of big jerks,” he said in a self-deprecating manner. “You’d be surprised how many big jerks end up getting the girl.”
She looked up from the invitations and smiled at him. “You’re adorable, ya big jerk.”
Gravely he said, “It’s the uniform,” and laughed. Then he reached out to her and gently touched her cheek.
She studied him closely, looking deeply into his eyes as if searching for something. “Put your head back,” she told him after a moment.
He frowned, puzzled, but did as she asked. He leaned far back, his head hanging over the arm of the sofa. She came around to the other side, then leaned in and kissed his upside-down face.
She had never kissed him like this before. He felt as if every nerve ending were on fire. It wasn’t just like they were kissing for the first time, it seemed as if this were the invention of the kiss. The first time man and woman pressed lips and thought, Oh, my God, why haven’t we been doing this all along?
The travel magazine slipped from his suddenly nerveless fingers. She withdrew, and he gazed at her in wonderment. “Wow,” he sighed. “You just put me back on the moon. Are you up there with me?”
Mary Jane smiled and stroked his hair. His feeling of blissful awe slowly gave way to vague concern that something was off.
“Are you up there with me?” he asked slowly. “Or are you… are you somewhere else entirely?”
She looked away from him. “I need to go out for a bit. Just… be by myself. Okay?”
“Sure,” he said guardedly. “Do you… want me to be here when you come back?”
“Hmm? Oh! Sure,” Mary Jane assured him. “Read the magazine, relax, do… husband-to-be stuff.” She was getting her jacket, her purse, and her voice sounded light, but in a forced way. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. I’m just, y’know… being ditzy me. Later, okay, love?”
“Sure,” he said, and watched as the door closed behind her. As he did so, he realized if Mary Jane were that lousy an actress all the time, she’d still be waiting tables.
He looked back at the list, at Peter Parker’s crossed-off name. He thought about the way Mary Jane had reacted when he’d asked about rushing into the wedding because she wanted to prove something.
“Houston,” he said softly, “we may have a problem.”
As Mary Jane sat at a table in the window of Ari’s Village Deli and Bakery, she thought about what had been going through her mind when she kissed John. In the best school of method acting, she tried to recall the exact sensations that had pounded through her that night in the rain. That extraordinary night when, totally caught up in the romance of being rescued, she’d rolled Spider-Man’s mask partway down and they’d kissed in a long, lingering, frozen moment of desire while he hung upside down in the alley.
In many ways, her life had been upside down ever since.
She sipped her cup of coffee, glanced at her watch, and wondered how long it would take him to get here. Perhaps he wouldn’t come at all. If he didn’t, could she really blame him?
“Hiya.”
She looked up. Peter was standing right there, smiling down at her.
“Surprised?” she asked.
“Very,” he said, taking a seat.
“Thanks for coming.”