Super (Book 2): Super Duper

by Jones, Princess

  I hopped out of the shower and changed into another pair of jeans and a shirt. I promptly took the ones I’d been wearing before and dumped them in the trash can in my kitchen. I didn’t need to wear those clothes ever again.

  Walking into the kitchen reminded me that between the candy thieves and the Phams’ toilet, I’d never gotten that bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich this morning. My stomach growled in response. I opened my fridge—a box of baking soda and some old Chinese leftovers that had seen better days. I grabbed the container and chucked that into the trash, too.

  My phone buzzed with a text message from Mrs. Pham. She’d never texted me before. I didn’t even know she knew how to text. I tapped the message to open it. It said one word—Toilet.

  Oh yeah. All that stuff with Miss Fine distracted me from the plumbing problem. I checked the list of emergency numbers Hy had given me and dialed the one for plumber. I got someone at the answering service who told me that someone would be out to look at the situation tomorrow.

  A seed of an idea took root in my mind. What would happen if I just let them take my Super license? I didn’t know. But I knew where I could find the answer—my Super handbook. “Have you seen my handbook?” I called out to Crash, who seemed to be awake now. He circled the bowl as if to ask why would he know where my handbook was.

  “You’re no help.” I started searching my place for it. Even though the one-bedroom apartment was the largest place I’d ever had on my own, I really didn’t own very much stuff. After checking under the bed, my closet, and the pile of dirty laundry in the living room, I was out of places. I’d found a pen cap, a shirt I’d thought I’d left somewhere, and about sixty-one cents in change. No handbook, though.

  I’d gotten it when I was a teenager, right when I graduated Super school. I was still living with my parents back then. So maybe it was still there. I’d have to go over there and look for it.

  My stomach grumbled again as a thought flitted across my mind. Mom and Dad always have food.

  * * * * *

  Earlier this year, when I’d lost both my job and my apartment in the same day, my parents had let me move back into their brownstone until I got my shit together. Well, I’ve been trying to get my shit together since I was fifteen years old and I still hadn’t succeeded. But by the end of the summer, I had found this job as a super and it included an apartment in the deal so I moved out.

  I actually didn’t live that deep into Brooklyn but it was in an odd place on the subway lines. The 5 train was running funny so I ended up taking the 2 train to Union Square and then the 4 train to Upper West Side. The fact that it always took me a while to get up there was one reason I hadn’t visited much since I moved out. The fact that I always felt like a failure when I around my family was probably the main one.

  My parents were Supers, too. They had retired but they still were involved in the community. Both had served on boards for the Council. And something told me that they probably knew where their Super handbooks were.

  I still had my key so I just opened the door to my parents’ place and went in. “Mom? Dad?” I called out. No one answered. They were probably off being productive citizens. I mean, it was 11am on a Monday morning. Good, I thought. I don’t need to share this with them just yet. They’re just gonna yell at me.

  Seeing as I had some time alone, I went into the kitchen. The fridge was full, as usual. I grabbed a soda and started making myself a sandwich. After throwing on an extra piece of cheese on my creation and taking a few bites, I headed up the stairs to my old room.

  Right away, noticed that Mom had spruced up my old room. The bed was made with the quilt arranged just so. There were new matching curtains. It looked like a magazine ad. Basically, the complete opposite of how I left it. The only thing I’d contributed to the place was the faint smell of cat pee. While I’d been back home the past summer, I’d rescued a cat during a Super session. When I left it in my room without a litter box for a few hours, I came back to the cat pee smell. Let’s just say my parents were not happy with it. My sister was still pissed off that I left the cat with her and didn’t come pick it up when I moved out. Her texts were getting more and more threatening by the day.

  Remembering that Super shift reminded me why I was there in the first place. I stuffed the remains of the sandwich into my mouth and looked around the room. There were a few family pictures on the shelf. I had the same shocked look in each of them. I ran my finger along the books on the shelf. Mostly self-help titles but no handbook. I opened the closet. There were a few boxes stacked inside with neatly handwritten labels. Near the bottom, I spotted what I was looking for—Audrey’s Stuff.

  Bingo! I thought.

  “What are you doing?” I jumped at the voice from the hallway and whirled around. My dad was leaning on the doorframe, watching me dig the box out of the closet. “Shit, Dad! You scared me! Don’t do that.”

  Dad was a big guy, even though the grey mixed in with his reddish brown hair around his temples was telling me he was getting older. As usual, he was dressed like a color blind old man but I was pretty sure he just did that to mess with my mom. He crossed his arms. “Sure. I’ll try not to startle the person that snuck into my house. That sounds like the right thing to do.”

  I rolled my eyes as the sarcasm laced words oozed out of his mouth. “I didn’t sneak in. I used my key. You weren’t home when I got here so I just let myself in.” I sat on the bed and shook my keyring at him.

  “Oh I forgot you still had that.”

  “How’d you know I was here?”

  “You left a big ass mess on the counter when you used my food to make a sandwich. I figured it was either Goldilocks or my younger daughter. What are you doing here anyway?”

  I wasn’t quite ready to tell him about the audit. He’d freak out and tell my mom, who would freak out and then they’d freak out all over me. “Oh nothing,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I figured I’d come pick up the stuff that I left here when I moved out.”

  “Which time? The first time when you were eighteen? The second time when you were nineteen? The third time when you were twenty-one? Or— “

  “The first time,” I sighed. “Hey Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What happens to Supers who lose their licenses?”

  Dad raised an eyebrow. “Why? Did you lose your license?”

  “No! You always think the worst of me. I just read something in the last newsletter from the Council and I got curious.” As if I ever read the Council newsletter. Ha!

  “If a Super loses her license, she becomes a civilian.”

  “That’s it?” That doesn’t sound too bad, I said to myself. No Council dues. No Super work. No alter ego.

  “Well, after the jail time,” Dad added.

  “What?!”

  “A Super doesn’t just lose her license. All of those things we promised to do—uphold justice, fight chaos, pay our dues, report to the Council, etc.—are sworn under oath. If the oath is broken, the Council can put punishments in place. That includes jail time, if necessary. It’s definitely not a good thing. So it’s a good thing you’re not losing your license,” he finished.

  “Riiiigggghhhhtttt.” I stood up from the bed and started towards the door. “I’m out of here. Gotta get back to my side of town.”

  He jerked his thumb to the closet. “Don’t forget your box.”

  I’d forgotten all about the box of my old things. I didn’t even know if my handbook was inside and now I didn’t even want it. But I couldn’t say that to Dad. “Oh, yeah. Wouldn’t want to forget my box.” I picked up the box and followed him out of the room and down the stairs.

  I put the box down at the front door so I could open it and I remembered I still had the key. “Hey Dad, do you want your key back?”

  “Nah, Junior,” he said, using my childhood nickname and automatically adding affection to the statement. “Let’s make sure you won’t need it again first.”

  Chapter 4
r />   Lugging that box back to Brooklyn made me wish I had just said that I didn’t want it. By the time I opened my apartment door, I was red in the face and breathing hard. Crash eyed me suspiciously. “Hey, it’s a long story. And no, nothing in here is for you.”

  I dropped the box on the ground near the couch and collapsed down onto the cushions. I was exhausted. The box had been heavy but the stuff in my head was heavier. I had an appointment with Miss Fine tomorrow morning and right now it looked like I was going to lose my license. I didn’t know how I felt about it all just yet. But I knew for sure that I didn’t want to go to jail. And yet, I didn’t even know if there was anything I could even do about it. I was lost.

  Bling Bling Bling

  The caller ID announced that it was my sister Ella calling me. Although people told me that we looked alike, she was a few years older than me and lot more put together. It was hard having a brainiac as a sister but I had been making an effort to be nicer to her. These days, we were talking more than we ever had in the past.

  I answered the phone. “Yeah?”

  “Come get this cat, Audrey.”

  The cat I’d found during my Super shift was called Din-Din because she had almost been dinner. Ella offered to take her in because I couldn’t keep her at my parents’ house. It sounded like a nice gesture until I remembered that she only did it because she figured the cat would be less trouble to take in than I would be.

  “Ella, I’ve told you over and over again that my building doesn’t allow pets.”

  “I know,” Ella sighed. “Have you made any progress finding her a home?”

  “Nope. All of the shelters are full and I don’t know anyone responsible enough to take her in.” This was a lie. I hadn’t been looking for a home for Din-Din. She already had a home with Ella. “Besides, I think you secretly like having her. You could use a little company.”

  “I need a boyfriend, Audrey. Not a cat. Getting a cat is the exact opposite of getting a boyfriend. The more cats I have the more likely I will never have a boyfriend again.” Ella had a brain that worked faster, held more, and did more than most people could ever comprehend. But somehow she kept ending up with these guys that were practically brain dead compared to her. It never worked out.

  “Hold on,” she said. I listened to dead air for a minute before she came back on the line. “OK, I’m back.”

  While I was on hold I opened the box I dragged from my parents’ house and start pulling out stuff. Old clothes. Comics from high school. Some old homemade CD mixes. My Super school yearbook. No handbook, though. “Where are you?”

  “Work. I have a faculty meeting soon.” Ella was a professor of astrophysics at NYU. She, like my parents, had done well enough for herself that her Super assignment was based around her altar ego’s job. She did her part to serve the Super Council. But as someone who just barely finished Super school and didn’t show any promise in anything, I didn’t get those assignments. “Where are you?”

  “At work. Well, home,” I admitted. “But work and home are the same place for me now. I went Mom and Dad’s today, though.”

  I could hear Ella’s sneer through the phone. “Why? To borrow money?”

  “Actually, no. I haven’t borrowed money from anyone in at least three months. And I’ve even paid some people back. Thank you very much, Little Miss Know-It All.”

  She ignored my sarcasm. “Then why?”

  I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about my audit yet so I lied. “To pick up a box of stuff I left there.”

  “Oh that? Mom’s been nagging you to get it forever. Did you find anything good in there?”

  “Nothing I couldn’t live without.”

  It was about time for Ella’s meeting so we said our goodbyes and hung up. Since I didn’t have my handbook, I picked up my yearbook and leafed through the pages. Most of it looked slightly familiar, like a movie I saw once a long time ago but I didn’t remember much about. I found my picture. Light brown skin with a smattering of freckles, wild kinky, curly hair pulled back into a puff, and thick glasses. The only thing that had really changed in the twelve or thirteen years since was the fact that I couldn’t find my glasses. Under my name read my senior quote: It can’t get any worse than this. I remember fighting with my mom about that, her telling me not to do it, and me sneaking it in anyway.

  “Oh, young Audrey,” I said to the photo. “You have no idea.”

  * * * * *

  Bam-bam-bam! BAM-BAM-BAM!!

  The insistent knocking at my door woke me up from the nap I’d fallen into looking at my old yearbook. My phone said that it was after five. Even though my gig as the building super was mostly a piece of cake, having people knocking on my door or calling my phone any time was a drawback.

  I staggered over to the door and looked through the peephole. I didn’t recognize the clean cut brown skinned guy in jeans and a t-shirt on the other side. But I hadn’t met all of the tenants in person yet. Some were still just names on checks that were slipped under my door once a month.

  I opened the door. “Yeah?”

  His almond eyes narrowed. “Where’s Yuri?”

  “Yuri?”

  “Yeah,” The guy eyed me suspiciously. “He’s the super here.”

  “Oh, Yuri. Yeah, he doesn’t work here anymore. I’m Audrey, the new super. How can I help you?”

  He was still looking at me suspiciously. “I’m Mike. I live in 3A. And my garbage disposal is acting up. Can you look at it?”

  No, I thought. I don’t know anything about disposals. I’m actually kinda iffy on what garbage disposals do. But on the outside, I tried to sound confident as I said “Sure. Let’s see what the problem is. Let me get my tools and I’ll be right up.”

  I grabbed my hand-me-down toolbox and followed him up two flights of stairs to his apartment. 3A looked a lot like my apartment. It had the same set up. But it was obviously inhabited by someone who did dishes and laundry. I stood in the doorway for a moment looking at his comfy worn in furniture and the collection of art and family pictures on the walls. Oh, so this is what it would look like if I was an actual person.

  “Ahem.” Mike cleared his throat and pointed to the kitchen. “I believe what you’re looking for is over there.”

  “Oh, yeah, the disposal.” I lugged my toolbox over to the sink “So what seems to be the problem?”

  “Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t,” he deadpanned.

  “Right.” I flipped the switch on the garbage disposal. Nothing. “How long has it been doing this?”

  “A couple of weeks, I guess. I’m not home much. I work a lot.”

  I pulled out some tool I couldn’t have named for a million dollars and stuck it in the disposal. As I was poking it around, I made conversation with Mike to distract him from the terrible job I was doing. “What do you do that keeps you away from home so much, Mike?”

  “I’m on the police force. The 68th district. I’ve been getting a lot of overtime.”

  “A cop?”

  “A detective, actually.” He paused. “Hey, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job but maybe you want to check the motor.”

  I stared at him blankly.

  He spoke a little more slowly, as if he thought it might help me understand. “Maybe the motor’s going and that’s why it will turn on sometimes and not others.”

  “Yeah. . . that’s a good idea. But I don’t know if I have the tools necessary to take apart this counter.”

  Mike gave me a funny look. “It’s in the cabinet under the sink.”

  “Oh yeah. Exactly. That’s, um, exactly what I was doing.” I got down on knees and opened the cabinet. Then, I started banging on what I assumed was the motor with my unidentifiable tool. “How long have you been a cop?” I yelled from under the counter.

  “A detective,” he corrected me again. “I’ve been on the force for five years. I’ve been a detective for almost three.”

  I stood up and flipped the disposal switch. Nothing happe
ned. I put my tool in the disposal and banged it around inside the hole. Nothing happened.

  I keep chattering nervously with Mike as I banged some more with my right hand and flipped the switch with my left hand. “And how lonARRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” I screamed when the disposal roared to life, mangling my hand in the process.

  The scream was involuntary. It didn’t matter that I knew I’d be good as new in a few minutes. It hurt like hell! In the time it took for Mike to run over and turn off the disposal, I yanked my hand from the sink and put started running cold water over it.

  He was clearly freaked out. “Are you OK? I don’t think water is going to do it. You might need to go to the hospital.”

  “Oh no,” I said, maneuvering my body so that it blocked him from seeing what I was doing. “No, it just nicked me. It’s basically a paper cut.” I was lying. From my view, I could see that my hand looked like hamburger meat. It was bloody and misshapen.

  Doubt was all in Mike’s voice. “You didn’t hurt yourself? You screamed and everything.”

  “Oh that was more being surprised than anything. I promise you, I’m fine.” Or I will be in a couple of minutes, I thought. I could already see the flesh on my hand regenerating. I just had to keep him from seeing it. I needed to distract him. “Are you single?” I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

  “What?” He was clearly confused by stalling.

  “Are you single?” I repeated.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah? Sounds more like a question than a statement. You don’t know if you’re single?”

  Suddenly, his voice was right behind my left ear. “No, I don’t know what you’re doing. Let me see your hand.”

  “Um, hold o— “

  “No,” he cut me off. “I think you need to go to the hospital. Let me see.” He reached over, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me toward him. We both looked down at my hand together. It looked puffy and bright pink, but it was whole.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “See? I told you.”