Heroine Addiction

by Matarese, Jennifer

  The lunch rush drains from the cafe by the time two o'clock rolls around, giving me plenty of time to occupy myself with carrying out slices of warm pie to the few stragglers. Whatever it takes to avoid thinking about Dad, I indulge in it.

  Morris vacates the premises quickly enough after making his request, sweeping away his hat and his questionably legal water pistol and tossing off some far-too-casual comment about researching a few more outlets of assistance before breezing out of the place. I don't even want to think about what he means by that. For all I know of Morris these days, 'accessing other outlets of assistance' could involve engaging in door-to-door visits of every known and unknown villain on the east coast asking if he might be able to borrow a cup of vanished superhero.

  By the time I finally get a chance to think about the whole situation for longer than a few short seconds, only a couple of seats still hold customers, my loyal regulars. The elderly Marcelo sisters silently pour out their fourth pot of tea of the day, and on the couch tucked against the front window Troy Lampwick scrawls with frantic scratches of his pen in one of his many wire-bound notebooks, working on yet another book he will probably never get published, the poor thing.

  Without the dependable everyday stresses, I can dwell. It's not something I'm really enjoying, truth be told, mostly because Dixie is absolutely not helping.

  “You should have called the cops,” she singsongs, swiping needlessly at the front counter with a damp dishrag.

  “I'm not going to call the cops on Morris,” I mutter, my chin cupped in my hand. “He didn't do anything. Besides, it'll just be more trouble than it's worth.”

  “I don't think so.”

  “That's because he grabbed your ass last time he was here.”

  “Isn't that a good enough excuse? Because I think it's fantastic.”

  I frown and focus on the cell phone I placed on the counter in front of me, humming along to “Hot Rodder's Lament” as it carries over the stereo speakers. Morris overcompensates for his very personal life in various ways that do more harm than good, allowing his unwanted hands to slip into restricted territory on any woman unlucky enough to cross his path. My father, the only one who can talk him out of anything, never quite reins him in, probably seeing it as yet another distraction to keep people from suspecting the two of them share everything but a marriage license. Morris's wandering hands are the major, but not only, reason my staff would rather dump a bowl of Italian wedding soup into his crotch than place it gently in front of him.

  However, it's not the most important problem I currently have.

  This is not the first time my father has disappeared. Dad goes missing on a regular basis, vanishing in the space of a blink but always returning to the warm welcoming arms of the American public, and sometimes to his family if he's feeling particularly charitable. Dad's argument is always that we can stand to miss him just a little bit longer, but there's no telling how the general population will react to his loss. Heartwarming, isn't it?

  Of course, the glaring problem with his argument is that as a class seven hero, his disappearances could either mean he's gone on a short vacation or he's being mind-controlled to help someone take over the planet. As intelligent as Dad is, he does possess a certain annoying amount of naivete when it comes to his powers. I'm a class four hero: strong enough for defeat major villains, not powerful enough for world domination. When you reach class seven, the Superhero Licensing Board develops a way to destroy the universe simply so you can never take over.

  When Dad vanishes, it's far more terrifying for the rest of us than he'd like to admit.

  I drum the fingers of my free hand on the counter to distract myself from the impatient fluttering of Troy's notes. Or, more aptly, from Troy. As scruffy and unkempt as Troy Lampwick can be with his scratched black-rimmed glasses and weather-beaten Chucks, he could easily draw my attention away from the potential for a major apocalypse without lifting a finger. Somewhere under that brushy beard and overgrown brown hair is a stick-figure version of Clark Kent, and while I can't say the Jeremiah Johnson look endears me all that much, Troy hits so many of my kinks I might as well have built him out of parts in Morris's former evil laboratory.

  I bite my lip and stare with purposeful intent at the phone. All it would take is one call. Just one call.

  I just have to have the brass balls to make it.

  Just when I think I'm approaching a firm decision on what to do, Dixie sidles up beside me and says, “I know what you should do the next time Morris comes in.”

  “Don't you have work you could be doing?”

  “Oh, Tara can do it,” Dixie declares.

  I dare a furtive glimpse into the kitchen. Tara Pevec, my other waitress, tips back her head and laughs at another one of our chef's terrible jokes. Tara carries a flame for that man I cannot even begin to comprehend. Benny's crass, overweight, and about twenty years older than Tara, who only just graduated from the local high school a year ago. Tara does her job to absolute perfection when Tea and Strumpets bustles with activity, but as soon as the crowd dissipates and the mood settles to a tranquil lull, Tara disappears into the kitchen and that's the last we tend to see of her for hours. She'll be in there a while, braying away at another naughty limerick Benny discovered on the door of a bathroom stall at the nearest strip club.

  “Dixie, I would really like to talk about this later. Or, you know, never. Never sounds good.”

  “But I'll forget if I don't talk about it now.”

  “That's what I'm hoping for,” I say, and slap on a frighteningly wide grin that almost hurts to sport.

  Dixie rears away from me a little, scrunching her face up into an adorable pout. I love Dixie dearly, for being such a good friend and putting up with Morris and staying on at Tea and Strumpets even when we weren't in the greatest of financial shape way back in the beginning. But Dixie's nosiness has worn down a number of close friends in the past, and sometimes I imagine it's wearing me down as well. She tends to stick her nose where it doesn't belong and get it firmly lodged there. While Morris is fair territory, he's also a gateway to inconvenient family secrets I'd rather Dixie not even come close to approaching.

  “Okay, fine,” she announces, tilting her head close to mine and whispering, “Changing the subject. So. When do you plan on pouncing on Troy like a hungry jungle cat?”

  My gaze darts towards Troy, preoccupied as he is by the operatic espionages in whatever fantasy world he's created this week, before I shoot a silent warning in Dixie's direction. “Can't you change the conversation to a subject I actually want to engage in?”

  “Oh, honey. Is this about Hazel?” she says, her voice a sympathetic hush.

  I silently remind myself that regardless of how bothersome she can be, strangling her and disposing of the body would complicate the hell out of my weekend, no matter where I decide to leave it. “No, this isn't about Hazel. Not everything is about Hazel.”

  “Your love life is, to some extent.”

  “Not right now, it's not,” I say past clenched teeth, the words gritting like pebbles in my mouth. Hazel isn't on my list of acceptable discussion topics under normal circumstances, so I can say with absolute certainty that I'm not the least bit eager about bringing her up now. “You know what? Can you guys handle the place for the rest of the day? I've got some errands to run.”

  Dixie's brow furrows in confusion. “They can't wait?”

  I shake my head, grabbing my cell phone and my red patent-leather clutch. “Sorry, they're sort of … life or death,” I say, trying not to wince.

  I really don't need to ask if my employees could handle running the cafe for me for a while. Dixie's gossipy, but she's definitely a responsible and able-bodied assistant manager when she has to be. It's a good thing, too, I think as I head out the front door and around the side of the building to the stairs up to my apartment. I'm not quite sure how long this situation with my father is going to take, so knowing I can leave the gang alone with Tea and Strumpets an
d won't return to a smoldering crater in the ground is an assumption I try not to take for granted.

  As soon as I shut the door to my apartment behind me, locking it out of habit with a flick of my wrist, I take out the phone again and stare at it for a good long moment as I walk up the stairs, listing in my head every possible eventuality that could happen if I don't decide to help Morris out. Lord knows my dad could just turn up any moment without my help. Even if he doesn't, and if the cops and other superheroes insist on searching for him, there's nothing to say that they would find out about Morris and my father or that the eventual blowup would be as catastrophic as the two of them have always imagined it would be. Maybe the city will even volunteer to throw them an engagement party.

  A dubious supposition, of course. There are still people in this town who won't even walk in front of Tea and Strumpets simply because I'm bisexual, and I've never threatened to blow up the moon or simultaneously robbed every bank on the east coast at the same damn time.

  The problem is that the general public peering in abject curiosity into the Noble family closet is the least of my worries. A few months back, Dad disappeared for three and a half hours. By the time he turned up, red-faced and tossing off good-natured jokes as two grim EMTs wheeled him and his two broken ankles out of the dilapidated building where he'd been rescuing a sick homeless man, the entire city was still rioting. A quarter of the fashion district still smoldered a week later.

  When you take a small child away from its parents, you can usually count on them to burst into a tearful wailing tantrum. I've had thirty years' worth of life experience to impress upon me that a lot of toddlers, especially the ones who can't shoot laser beams out of their eyes or jets of fire out of their fingertips, never quite grow up in that regard.

  More frighteningly, though, he may not just be lying somewhere injured, unable to contact the rest of us. Morris, I don't doubt, is thinking the exact same thing I am. Supervillains have all sorts of clever tricks up their sleeves. There are villains who can steal your powers with a single touch, who can clone you with a wave of their hands, who can overcome even the strongest heroes to control their very minds.

  A few terrified and overreacting humans doesn't look so bad when compared to some power-hungry psychopath with his very own Everett Noble to control.

  I don't blame Morris one bit for being worried about Dad's sudden absence. Personal feelings aside, Morris knows damn well what someone with a grudge, a sudden lack of authority, and a large mind-control device could do.

  If Morris can't get in touch with Graham or Mom to warn them, then I suppose someone else they can actually tolerate who knows the big family secret will have to do it. I'm not on close enough terms with anyone else they can tolerate who knows about Dad and Morris so, for lack of other options, that leaves yours truly.

  Taking a cleansing breath to still my quaking nerves, I flip open the phone and dial a number I can remember off the top of my head, even without having contacted the agency in years now. I calm myself as the phone rings, waiting for it to connect and attempting not to have a minor panic attack.

  A pleasant voice finally greets me at the other end of the phone, and I say the words I wasn't ever planning on repeating for the rest of my days.

  “Yes,” I say when the operator asks me my business, “I'd like to reopen my superhero registration.”

  2.

  An hour later, I begin to doubt my decision to investigate my father's disappearance.

  “No, of course I don't have the coupon for a free month of rescuer's insurance from the last newsletter,” I sigh in exasperation, sifting through the chaotic mountain of forms and contracts I'd long ago stuffed into an accordion file in the back of my bedroom closet. Spreading it out on the dining room table had not been the best idea, I realize, now that I can see it in all of its unorganized glory. “I haven't received the official newsletter in – what? Oh, no, thank you, I don't need my subscription renewed –”

  The cheerful representative on the other end of the phone continues along with the precise script crammed with suggestive selling points she undoubtedly has no choice but to repeat to me, the only fact currently restraining my growing frustration. I do work in customer service, after all. I know how these things work. Besides, I do have to give her some credit for hurrying along with this whole mess as quickly as she can possibly manage. All she had to hear was the name Vera Noble before she began tripping over her words to reactivate my dormant registration with the Superhero Licensing Bureau.

  Being a superhero is not nearly the magical fairy tale of adoring public worship the average person imagines it entails. Between the licensing and the numerous tax forms and the complicated insurance plans meant to protect heroes and heroines alike from being sued by angry victims, superhero work is ninety-five percent paperwork and five percent actually saving people, an unappealing ratio usually not revealed until your first semester at Lord and Cape. The mind-numbing deskwork alone is usually enough to drive most superpowered individuals to simply register their powers with their doctors for health reasons and then head off to some pedestrian human college to study something less dangerous instead. Like, say, landmine tester or sword swallower.

  Only the best and brightest push and struggle their way into earning that spandex costume.

  Well, them, and anybody for whom superheroism is the obligatory family business, I think wryly.

  I plop down on one of the dining room chairs and huff out an aggravated lungful of air that barely disturbs my neatly styled bangs. I'll freely admit I copied Bettie Page's hairstyle, the precise cut made all the easier to maintain thanks to my naturally wavy brown-black locks. Graham once declared that when done up in my vintage finest I look like a pin-up girl come to life, descending down from the dented nose cone of some WWII bomber and sauntering through the world with my head held high. It was the nicest compliment he ever paid me, before he went back to being a sexist manwhore and ignoring everything I did.

  “Yes, I – well, I was hoping this would only be temporary – no, I don't have an updated version of my costume I'd like to register –“

  I indulge in another five minutes of answering the representative's questions – have I saved anyone in the past five years, would I like to take a course on new rappelling techniques, do I need the contact number for an affordable local costume designer – before the ringing of my doorbell interrupts her spiel. I clench my fist in celebration of my good fortune, mouthing a silent, “Yes!”, in triumph, and say sweetly, “Oh, I'm sorry, miss, but it sounds like there's someone at my front door. Are we done for today? If not, I'm sure my mother would be happy to fill in the rest of my information.”

  “Wow, seriously?” she blurts out, and laughter bubbles up in my chest. Mom works part-time at the SLB Center in the city, teaching refresher courses for heroes and heroines who've temporarily given up the workplace for maternity leaves, radioactive viral infections, supervillain attacks, alien possessions, and the like. She doesn't mingle with the rest of the employees, though, at least as far as I know. She certainly didn't before I left the city, and I doubt she's somehow become more gregarious since then. Offering some chirping phone jockey an excuse to spend a few moments in glowing worship of Ivy freaking Noble is bound to get my paperwork pushed through and my registration reopened within fifteen minutes. Hell's bells, even offering her the opportunity to approach my mom and ask might soften the inevitable rebuff and get the paperwork sneaked through anyway.

  An appalling number of people tend to handwave Mom's more cruel moments. It's rather embarrassing how much I've come to depend on her bad behavior, quite frankly.

  “Sure, I'm positive she won't mind,” I say, forcing my words to fluff with concentrated cheerfulness. “After all, it is her daughter we're talking about, right?”

  “Oh, of course,” she says, a little breathlessly.

  Maybe it's a bit mean not to warn her that Mom might snatch my registration files from her trembling hands and snarl
at her to scurry away, if she even bothers to wonder why I would be reopening my registration in the first place, but the length of the phone call may have finally caught up to me.

  The doorbell rings again, insistent.

  “Coming!” I call out, and rush my goodbyes to the operator, requesting a text message when my registration officially reactivates and hanging up before she can start in on another canned sales pitch asking me if I'd like to sign up to receive the SLB newsletter in text form on my phone. It saves me from having to inform her that I'd rather have the Plague fly directly to my apartment once a month and infect me with whichever disease he's been infecting the criminals and ne'er-do-wells he captures with than have a jolly newsletter update with lousy but cheery clip-art emailed to me once a month. You'd think the SLB would have better things to spend its budget on than newsletters. Sensitivity training certainly comes to mind, if Mom's any indication.

  I hit the button to hang up and rise to my feet, smoothing the wrinkled front of my dress before hurrying down the stairs to the front door. “I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm –“

  I fling the door open and freeze as soon as I see who's there.

  Hazel waits with fraying patience on the “Drinks Well With Others” welcome mat she gave me last Christmas as a gag gift, appearing about as dismayed to be here as I am to see her.

  “Hey, Vera,” she says, looking anywhere but at me.

  The world crumbles a little at the edges, slowing to a dead halt around me. “Hazel. Uh, hi.”

  She reaches up to scratch at the bleached-blond pixie-short scruff of her hair, the antsy motion causing the hem of her gray tank top to ride up over the waistline of her jeans, revealing a strip of toned and tanned belly. I will not look, I will not look, I command my brain, reminding myself that Hazel is my ex-girlfriend, damn it, and she entered into that illustrious status for good reason.

  “Do you mind if I, uh –“ She gestures into the depths of my apartment, taking an unconscious step forward. She jerks back when she realizes what she's doing. “I forgot one of my sketchbooks here.”