Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect
Page 20
“Good morning, ladies,” Meg says, sliding her cat-eye sunglasses down to the tip of her nose. “Who’s ready for a day to remember? Show of hands?”
“You have no idea how ready we are,” Sara says. She receives the first in a series of hugs, but Meg pauses when she gets her first look at Missy’s war wounds.
“Oh, God, Missy, what happened?”
“Could someone else tell her?” Missy says. I take care of filling Meg in and, because she’s one of us (a super-hero, that is), I don’t spare any details.
“Wait, Dr. Hamill, you said? Ken Hamill?” Meg says. Missy nods in conformation. “No way. Mom’s friends with him. He was at that MIT fundraiser we went to a couple weeks ago.”
“Speaking of your mom, do you think I could talk to her? I think she might be able to help us find Buzzkill Joy,” I say, “or at least help us figure out what she’s up to.”
“Yeah, sure, let’s go,” Meg says.
We climb into her car, which rumbles to life the way older cars do, cars that predate computer chips and power everything. I’m no motorhead, not by any means, but I have to appreciate Meg’s wheels.
“How did you get a driver’s license?” I ask. “Aren’t you, like, our age?”
“I’m seventeen,” Meg says. “I got my learner’s permit as soon as I turned sixteen, although Mom let me start practicing when I was fourteen. She’s big into early achievement.”
Quelle surprise.
Once we’re on the road, conversation turns to pleasantly mundane chit-chat. Meg informs us that, after we make our stop at the Quantum Compound, we’ll be heading to Blasts from the Past, a consignment shop specializing in vintage clothing, such as her current retro ensemble.
“If you’ve never shopped in a vintage clothing store, here are your ground rules,” Meg says. “Anything from the mid-sixties or earlier is safe. The mid-sixties through the early seventies are kind of hit-or-miss. If I see any of you considering anything from the eighties, I’m obligated to smack you. The eighties was a hideous decade.”
We make good time to the Compound. Meg pulls the car into a small parking lot, easing in between an SUV and a heavily modified camper (the latter of which, I’m guessing, is how Joe gets around). Meg leads us inside, through a series of hallways, and into the hanger for the Quentins’ air transport, the Raptor (a much sleeker, cooler-looking version of the Protectorate’s Pelican. Better name, too). The live version of the Talking Heads’ Take Me to the River is blaring from a stereo built into a massive tool chest that stands as tall as me. A hatch in the airship’s fuselage stands open like the hood of a car and Dr. Quentin, clad in tan coveralls, bends over the vehicle’s guts, a collection of circuit boards and wires. Farley sits on a nearby workbench, his legs dangling well above the cement floor.
Dr. Quentin springs upright when Meg turns the music down. “Who turned off my Talking Heads?!” Dr. Quentin barks. “Oh, hello, Meg. I didn’t expect you back so soon. Hello, ladies.”
“CARRIE!” Farley cries. He jumps off the workbench and hits me with a tackle-hug that almost takes my legs out from under me.
“Hey there, Farley,” I say, scooping the boy into my arms. “How’s my buddy?”
“I’m good! When are you going to babysit again? We have to finish The Hobbit!”
“Ah, yes, I’m glad you brought that up.” Dr. Quentin pushes her glasses up on her nose. “I have another professional obligation coming up in a few weeks,” she says, uttering professional obligation as though the word itself tastes like a sweaty sock. “I trust I can again call upon your services?”
“Um, yeah, about that. I might have some transportation issues,” I say. Dr. Quentin raises an inquiring eyebrow. “Concorde grounded us — by which I mean me.”
“Grounded you?”
“He revoked my flight clearance, yeah.”
“What did you do that compelled him to revoke your flight clearance?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Dr. Quentin eyes me skeptically.
“I didn’t. It’s kind of hard to explain,” I say, and I recap for her what went down at the courthouse. “Concorde basically grounded me and threatened to have me arrested to stop the Squad from doing anything vaguely super-heroic.”
“Hmph. Ethically dubious, legally indefensible,” Dr. Quentin says, more to herself than to me, “but undeniably effective.”
Legally indefensible? Interesting...
But we have more important issues to deal with first. “Dr. Quentin, do you have any connections in the federal government?”
“A few. Why?”
I explain our situation to her, punching up the fact that her good and dear friend Dr. Hamill is involved, a calculated attempt to make her feel personally invested in our mission. It’s low, I admit, but we’re beyond desperate.
My ploy works. Go me.
“I’ll make a few calls on your behalf,” Dr. Quentin says. “I of course can’t promise I’ll receive any useful information...”
“No, I understand,” I say, “but we appreciate your help. Thank you.”
With that, we head out for our sorely needed day of shop therapy, and I’m pleased to report that Blasts from the Past lives up to Meg’s hype and then some. The store is set up in an old house, a two-story Victorian job rich with atmosphere. Each room is dedicated to a specific decade, and is jam-packed with vintage clothing in such excellent condition you’d swear everything had been made this year. Missy wanders from room to room while I hunt around in the sections dedicated to the forties and fifties. Sara peruses the 1920s room and discovers an honest-to-God flapper dress. It’s a black tube of fabric with beading around the neckline and tassels ringing the hem of the skirt — shapeless and ugly, in my opinion, but Sara strokes it like she’s petting a sleeping cat. It’s love at first sight.
“You have to try it on,” Meg says.
Sara puts up token resistance, but Meg gently pressures her into taking it into a fitting room. She emerges a few minutes later, and I take back what I said: On Sara, with her lithe frame, that dress totally works.
“Wow. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you in something other than a hoodie or a sweatshirt,” Meg notes aloud.
“Does it look okay?” Sara says, bracing for scathing criticism than never comes. Her arms come up in a defensive posture, crossing over her chest.
“Oh, girl, you look fantastic in that,” Meg says as she walks a slow circle around Sara.
“Really?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“She’s right,” I say. “It looks great on you.”
Sara peeks at the price tag and winces. “I can’t afford this,” she mopes. Man, that sucks. She finally finds clothing that isn’t a sack with sleeves and she can’t buy it.
She changes back into her street clothes and, with a resigned sigh, returns the dress to the rack. That takes the wind out of her sails, big-time; she flips through the racks without enthusiasm, convinced she’s not going to find anything as perfect as that dress that’s within her meager price range.
Once she moves on to another room I sneak a look at the price tag and wow, yeah, it’s an investment piece. Perhaps an investment a group of friends could make in the interest of getting Sara an awesome birthday present...
The expedition ends with Missy scoring some knee-length plaid skirts (“Japanese school girls wear them all the time,” she explains) and Meg claiming for herself a cool Bolero jacket to go with her vintage cocktail dress. I find a pair of saddle shoes that go with absolutely nothing I own, but they’re too cute and reasonably priced to pass up. Sara tries to leave empty-handed but Meg’s not having it.
“Not happening,” Meg says, firmly but with a smile. “You don’t get to leave until you get something nice for yourself.”
Sara relents and picks up a sixties-era jumper dress with a bold black-and-white geometric pattern, which meets with our unanimous approval, and by God, I will make her wear it out in public.
“I have to drop the girls off at the train station. I’ll be home in about an hour,” she tells Dr. Quentin. “What? Okay, sure,” she says, handing her cell to me. “Mom wants to talk to you.”
I take the phone. “What’s up?”
“I spoke to a friend of mine within the Department of Defense and oh, did I get quite the earful,” Dr. Quentin says. “It seems that I’m not supposed to know anything about Project Moreau, up to and including its name and the fact it even exists.”
“Oh, jeez, Dr. Quentin, I’m so sorry,” I say. “I didn’t get you in any trouble did I?”
“I’ve been informed I should expect my name to appear soon on a government watch list. Well, another one,” she says, though she doesn’t sound worried about it. “Unfortunately for you, it means I was unable to glean anything that might be useful.”
“Figures. But thank you for trying,” I say, and I hand the phone back to Meg.
“Nothing?” she says.
“Nothing.” I turn to Missy. “I’m sorry, Muppet. I don’t know what else to do.”
Missy shrugs. “You tried.”
“Don’t give up, guys,” Meg says. “You’ll figure something out.”
“How do you know?” Sara says.
“Because you are three sharp ladies.” She smiles at us. “No way is some psycho bint going to outsmart my girls.”
“Why do you have to live so far away?” Sara says. “We could use a cheerleader like you on the Squad.”
More than that, it’s nice to have someone outside the group to talk to, who understands the weirdness we have to deal with, the unique stress of the super-hero life. Meg gets us. We don’t have to guard ourselves around her. We don’t have to lie to her about who we are. That’s a rare thing in our lives.
“Be of good cheer, my pretty,” Meg chirps, “because that all changes come September. I’ll be going to school in the city! We’ll be able to get together whenever we want.”
“Wait, you’re graduating high school already?” I say.
“Early achiever, remember? Yep, I ripped through all my basic requirements by the end of sophomore year, skipped ahead a grade, and after my well-deserved summer break, I’ll be a freshman at the Berklee School of Music.”
“Music? Really?” I don’t know why that surprises me so much.
“Instrumental music, to be precise, with some vocals on the side. I play the piano, violin, flute, saxophone, and last year I took up the banjo.”
“The banjo?” I say. If nothing else, Meg has inherited her mother’s knack for deadpan statements that make me wonder whether she’s joking.
“I needed something less pretentious.”
“You play the saxophone?” Sara says. “That’s sexy.”
“I know, right? I play sax in a band with some classmates. We call ourselves the Mutual Admiration Society. We play swing, a little hot jazz, old-school rhythm and blues, some rockabilly. I’m hoping to get a group like that together when I get to Berklee, maybe start playing a few club gigs, that kind of thing.”
“Sounds awesome.”
It sounds normal — painfully, delightfully, enviably normal.
I hold onto the belief that, even with my powers, my life will someday achieve some semblance of normality.
Then I look across the seat at Missy, at the healing scars stretching across her forehead and scalp, angry and red, and the sight dumps a bucket full of ice water on that flicker of hope.
Normal isn’t for people like us. Not anymore.
TWENTY-THREE
My alarm goes off and, as is my habit, I slap the snooze button several times to postpone the official start of the day for as long as possible. Today, however, I feel no guilt about my snooze button abuse because (drumroll please)...it’s my sixteenth birthday!
I’d love for my first celebratory act to be turning off the alarm completely and sleeping until I’m darn good and ready to wake up, perhaps sometime around noon, but my cell phone goes off, scuttling that plan.
Ah, but it’s okay, because my early-morning caller is one Mr. Brian Hauser, also known as one of the contributors to the glorious creation that is me. I always have time for my dad.
(What a lie. I haven’t spent any face-time with him since Christmas. I suck.)
(No, no, none of that. You’re the birthday girl. Morose self-recrimination is not allowed today.)
“Good morning!” I say cheerfully. I can fake awake when necessary.
“Happy birthday, honey,” Dad says. “Sorry to call so early but I wanted to catch you before you left for school.”
“Never, ever apologize for calling me,” I say, “especially not on a grand day like today.”
“Looking forward to tonight?”
“Yes I am. I was, in fact, strongly considering skipping school and sleeping through the day so this evening would arrive all the sooner, but I doubt Kingsport High School’s administration would smile on that decision.”
“Probably not, no,” Dad chuckles. “Don’t worry, I bet the day will fly by and before you know it, we’ll be rink-side, waving one of those silly foam bear-heads and mocking the Canadiens like the ugly American hockey fans we are.”
“Go Bruins.”
“Go Bruins. All right, you, go get ready for school.”
“Buzzkill,” I say on instinct. That’s another strike against you, Joy: you’ve forever ruined that word for me.
“I’ll be there to get you around five. Have a great birthday. Love you.”
“Thanks. Love you too.”
My attire for the day is casual, the kind of laid-back outfit one might wear to a hockey game, but I do indulge a little by throwing on my awesome new(ish) saddle shoes. I trot downstairs to find Mom in full-on cook mode, which is highly unusual; Mom is an unparalleled nighttime dinner cook, but she’s never found much inspiration in breakfast. Too boring, she says, so everything she makes ends up on the safely bland side.
“I am not making you a birthday breakfast,” Mom says. “I’m only monitoring the stove while your grandfather is upstairs grabbing your present.”
“I was wondering,” I say.
“That said, happy birthday, sweetie. Happy sweet sixteen,” Mom says, hugging me. She holds me a little longer than I expect. When we break, she gives me a wistful smile and strokes my hair. Aw, man, she’s having a My little girl is growing up so fast moment. Don’t you dare start crying on me, woman.
“What she said,” Granddad says, entering the kitchen with an envelope. “Here you go, Carrie. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you,” I say. The envelope contains a sappy (yet genuinely touching) birthday card, an Amazon gift card, and a handwritten IOU for driving lessons.
“I reckon you’ll be itching to get behind the wheel soon,” he says, “and hell, I haven’t had a good heart attack since I taught your mother to drive...”
“I was not that bad,” Mom protests.
“You weren’t that good, either.”
Granddad resumes control of the stove to tend to an omelet the size of my face. “Come on,” Mom says, and I follow her into the living room. A gift-wrapped present sits on the coffee table. “Go ahead. It’s from me and Ben.”
Oh, it’s from Mom and Ben. How lovely.
(What did I tell you, Carrie? Surly behavior is forbidden on this most holy of days, so knock it off and smile gratefully. There you go.)
Okay, I owe Ben one-half of a sincere and heartfelt thank-you, because beneath the wrapping paper is a coffee table book showcasing J.R.R. Tolkien’s original artwork for The Hobbit. I flip through it, and I recognize a few images from my own battered copy of the book but most of the illustrations are new to me.
“Thanks, Mom
,” I say. She nods, but there’s still an odd sadness in her eyes. God, if she gets weepy on me...
“Go eat breakfast, and I’ll see you when you get home from the game.” She kisses me on the forehead. “Happy birthday.”
You know what? So far, it is.
So, screw you, Buzzkill Joy, screw you, Concorde, screw anyone and everyone who tries to ruin my mood, ‘cause it ain’t happening.
“Dad’s coming home today,” Missy says.
Well, so much for that.
Those are Missy’s first words to us in the hall outside my locker, and I can’t decide whether this is good news or bad. Neither can anyone else.
“Wow. Huh,” Stuart says. “Kind of fast for someone who, um, you know.”
“The doctor said if the wound had been deeper or hit the, um...what’s it called?” Missy says. “The neck vein thing that’s not the jugular?”
“The carotid artery?” Matt suggests.
“Yeah, that. Then Dad would’ve been stuck in the hospital longer, but I guess he’s okay to come home now as long as he stays in bed and keeps his stitches clean.”
“Looks like it’s the week for unwanted fathers making their triumphant returns home,” Matt says. The bitterness factor is on the high side today, I see.
“I take it then he’s still planning to move back home?” I say.
“Planning? Pft. He moved back in last night. That’s my big news. Ta-daaa.”
“Dude,” Stuart says, “major suckage.”
“This entire month has been major suckage. I’d love it if for once something really good would happen, just one thing.”
“Like, maybe, an after-school birthday celebration for a good friend?” Sara says, jerking her head at me.
“Huh? Oh. Oh, friggety-frak,” Matt says, “that’s today?”
“You forgot? Jeez, Matt...”
“I’ve had a lot going on!”
“So’ve I, and I remembered,” Missy says.
“It’s okay,” I say, raising my hands to call for the end of all hostilities within the Hero Squad nation. “Please, guys, I don’t want us snapping at each other, not today.”
“I do have a present for you,” Matt says. “It’s at home, I’ll get it to you as soon as —”