“No, I’m fine.”
“Okay then. Lights out—it’s an hour past your bedtime and you still have school tomorrow. And so do I.” Katherine turned out the light and was about to leave Anna’s room when her daughter’s voice stopped her.
“Mommy, wait. I have to tell you something. It’s important.” Something in Anna’s voice told Katherine that this truly was important, more so than the time, for instance, she had woken Katherine up at 2:33 a.m. because she absolutely had to tell her mother that if they ever got another dog, “Crumpet” would be a great name for it.
She kept the light off but went back into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of Anna’s bed. With just the light from the hallway, Anna’s little round face was mostly in shadow, but Katherine could still see the expression in her eyes. Whatever she had to say, it was gonna be a doozy. Dear God, please don’t let her have kissed a boy at school. It’s way too early for that, she thought. “What it is it, sweetie?”
“Okay, you know when we were playing Sardines and you were all counting and Aunt Abra and I went to go hide and then Aunt Abra fell? When she fell…” Anna paused, as though she wasn’t sure if she should say what she wanted to say. “Okay, when she fell, Aunt Abra disappeared. She can turn invisible!” Anna whispered the last word, as though it was too amazing even to be spoken out loud. “Eli saw it too.”
Katherine was speechless. To have Anna and Eli see the same thing she and Margie saw the night of The Incident With The Knife seemed like confirmation of something that was too strange and unbelievable to get her head around. There was no reason for Anna to lie. And at nine years old, she knew the difference between reality and fantasy. “Did you talk to Eli about this?”
“No…but he was right there on the deck, he was looking around for her too. She disappeared. And then we both saw her just pop right back up. Like this pop!” She flipped a finger in her cheek to make the sound.
“Are you sure she wasn’t hiding somewhere and then just jumped from behind a tree or something?”
“It was after she hurt her ankle. She couldn’t jump out from behind anything; she was just rolling around on the ground like, ‘Owie! Owie! Owie!’ She wasn’t there, and then she was.”
Hal poked his head into the bedroom. “Excuse me, but wasn’t it lights-out about ten minutes ago?”
If the situation were reversed, Hal would say she should lighten up and stop being a stickler for rules. She tried not to let her annoyance show. “Just a minute,” she said. Katherine stood up and then bent down to kiss Anna on the forehead. “You need to go to sleep now, sweetie. But I’m going to ask you not to talk about this to anybody else, okay?”
“Why not?”
“It’s kind of a big thing, isn’t it? Some people might not believe you.”
Anna’s big, almost-black eyes looked directly into hers. “It’s true.”
“I know,” Katherine replied, and somehow she knew that it was.
⍟ ⍟ ⍟
Katherine woke up at her usual time the next morning and put on her running clothes. But instead of her regular run, she grabbed Abra’s car keys and drove Abra’s car to her house. She opened the side door by the kitchen and poked her head inside. “Abra?” she called tentatively. Maybe it was too early, but this was the time Abra woke up every day, the time they met to run most mornings.
Clint greeted her at the top of the three little steps leading from the side door to the kitchen. “Meow to you too,” Katherine said as she scooped the cat into her arms. “Abra? Are you awake?” she called. This time she heard a groggy voice coming from the living room. Katherine walked through the skinny “L” of a kitchen and dining area and hung a left into the living room. Abra was there, still in her clothes from the day before. “Oh honey…” Katherine said when she saw her disheveled friend. “How do you feel?”
“Crappy.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“A bedpan. Or not.” Abra gathered up her crutches and hobbled off to the bathroom while Katherine cleaned up the bag of melted ice and her glass from the night before. It seemed proactive. She had originally planned to just return the car, see how Abra was, and then go for her run. Instead she started making breakfast. By the time Abra emerged from the spare bedroom in some clean clothes, Katherine had scrambled eggs, toast, and orange slices on the kitchen table.
Abra entered the kitchen, a little surprised at the effort. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, leaning on the crutches and staring at the breakfast on the table.
“Sure I did,” Katherine replied. “You’re my friend and I love you.”
“Shouldn’t you be running?”
“I’d rather have breakfast with you,” Katherine said as she sat down opposite Abra. “But I have to eat fast so I won’t be late for work.”
They ate in silence for a moment, then Katherine said what had been on her mind all night. “You wanna hear the cute thing Anna said to me before she went to bed last night?”
Abra smiled. “Of course.”
“She said you can turn invisible and that she and Eli both saw you when you reappeared.”
Abra calmly bit a mouthful of toast, chewed, swallowed, and slowly washed it down with a sip of tea. Only then did she look at Katherine. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
“Yes. I also know that my kid doesn’t tell lies. And neither do I and neither does Margie.” This was the crux of the issue. It was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. She would have said it was impossible except that she herself had run five-minute twelve-second miles in a race the day before and then sliced her arm open and was completely unaffected by both events. “There are now at least four people who’ve seen you turn invisible and then reappear. We all can’t be seeing things.”
“I have no idea what to say to this,” Abra murmured.
“Me either. Maybe we don’t say anything right now.” Katherine was used to having answers, to being able to find the answer to any question. To have this question, situation—what would you even call it? To have this dangling in front of her with no discernible explanation was both infuriating and enticing.
“Trust me, I’m not about to go around telling people I can suddenly turn invisible or that you’ve become somehow indestructible.” Abra looked at her tea mug for a moment. “This is nuts,” she said without looking up.
“I know,” Katherine sighed. She leaned back and took a bracing gulp of tea. It had cooled to the perfect drinking temperature.
The two of them sat at Abra’s kitchen table, Katherine staring at her toast and absentmindedly petting Clint, who was purring around her ankles, Abra looking intently at the eggplant-purple kitchen wall. “You know I was going to paint my kitchen this summer. That’s going to need to wait awhile,” she mused.
Katherine smiled at this feeble attempt to change the subject. She wasn’t any more comfortable talking about it than Abra was. “These are like, um, superpowers,” she said quietly. Saying that with a straight face took a lot of effort.
“Yeah,” Abra replied. Their eyes met and they both half snorted a giggle. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I know, but Anna saw you. Margie and I saw you. Eli saw you.”
The intensity in Abra’s voice matched her own. “And we all saw you.”
Katherine wasn’t sure how to respond. She had growing empirical evidence that her body was at the very least becoming less susceptible to injury and growing stronger and faster out of proportion to her current workout schedule. Using words like “indestructible” felt beyond premature. “I’m gonna need a little time to wrap my head around this.”
“Me too,” Abra said. “Hey, you should get going or you’ll be late for school.”
Katherine glanced up at Abra’s silver Art Deco–style kitchen clock. “Holy crap, yes,” she said, jumping up.
“Do you want me to drive you home?”
Katherine was hurriedly picking up the breakfast dishes and loading the dishwasher, but Abra’s question made her stop. “Darling Abra, I appreciate the offer, but you shouldn’t be driving anywhere. In fact, you should probably think about taking the day off from work.”
“For one brief, shining moment, I forgot about the ankle,” Abra said.
“That’s good; it means you’re healing or something.”
“Thank you for everything,” Abra said. “You’ve been awesome.”
“If the situation were reversed, you’d do the same for me, right?” Katherine finished putting everything in the dishwasher. “Okay, gotta go. Call if you need anything.”
Katherine sprinted the entire way home, feeling as though she could conquer the world should it need conquering.
Chapter Twelve
Margie and Juno had an understanding. She took the dog for a walk twice a day; in return Juno offered undying love and loyalty and never asked to be driven to a friend’s house or to a practice. Most of the time, Margie felt that she spent her life behind the wheel of the minivan, driving somebody somewhere. Even though Eli had his driver’s license, more often than not she couldn’t give him the car because Joan or Grant needed to be at swimming or baseball or soccer practice or piano or cello lessons or a friend’s house or somewhere. Her rear end might as well be permanently attached to the driver’s seat.
“I’m going to teach you how to drive, Juno,” she told the dog on their morning walk. “You’re a smart dog. You could do it.” She had considered taking up running so she could go out with Katherine and Abra in the mornings, but they were longtime runners. She’d only slow them down. And she had to admit that she loved the solitude of walking with the dog in the early morning. It was perhaps the only time of the day when no one asked her for anything.
Back when Karl was working seventy-hour weeks as an associate in a big firm, they had taken the plunge and bought the worst house in the best neighborhood they could afford. It had friendly neighbors, big yards, and old trees. The only bad thing was the lack of sidewalks. When they were childless, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. Once her kids started riding bikes, Margie had pangs of anxiety whenever they wanted to ride around the block. Sometimes she envied Katherine’s cozy older neighborhood filled with smaller houses and busy sidewalks, but Margie loved their house, loved the way the backyard met up with all the other backyards and led down to a little creek. The only thing she didn’t love was the guy in the black SUV who used the neighborhood as a shortcut and sped down her street every morning going twenty miles over the speed limit. The driver’s schedule must have matched hers, because he invariably came zooming by when she was walking Juno. She couldn’t change her work schedule, and the dog needed a morning walk. An early-morning sidestep out of the way of a speeding car was a small price to pay for a job that let her live the way she wanted.
At that first temp job after college, Margie decided she enjoyed working in schools. The hours were great even if the pay wasn’t—her workday hours generally matched the kids’ school hours and she had summers off to be with them, which saved a fortune in childcare and summer camps when they were little. Granted, she probably couldn’t have done it if she hadn’t married a lawyer, but her life worked. Working as the office secretary at Adrian Elementary School wasn’t the career path she had dreamt of years ago, but it made her happy. Aristotle said happiness was the one goal that was an end in itself, and he was pretty much the New York Times of philosophers. She was happy she never had to think about work when she wasn’t at work. There were enough people in her house; she didn’t need to bring her job home too.
Eli going to college in the fall had started her thinking about her job in a new way. In seven years, Grant would be graduating from high school. Once all her kids were grown, what would be the point in having the summer off if they weren’t there?
The week after Memorial Day was packed with the last few days of school. Margie was too busy to brood, which was just as well. She had never found brooding or worrying to do much good. Saturday brought a rare evening to herself. Karl and Grant had a guys’ night out at the movies and the arcade, Joan slept over at a friend’s house, and Eli went to a graduation party. Margie had settled in with the dog, a book, and a large glass of wine when Eli texted: “Party a bust. Can u pick me up?”
While Eli was old enough to drive himself, if he took the van, half a dozen kids were guaranteed to ask him for a ride. It just seemed like an invitation to an accident. Dropping him off and picking him up felt safer, and Eli didn’t have to say no to a bunch of kids asking for a ride.
She brought Juno along for company. The dog loved to ride in the car. So much of an animal’s life is dependent on where and with whom it lives; Margie always felt responsible for the dog having a good time.
The party was on a street called Edenhurst, a ten-minute drive away. Eli just said it was being thrown by “this kid named Christopher,” who had a brother in Joan’s grade. Eli’s text said that the house was set far back from the street. If it weren’t for the cars parked up and down the block, she never would have spotted it. The heavily wooded yard stretched a good two hundred feet from the street to the house.
Margie texted Eli to let him know where she was. He texted back, “Talking to Jamis. Party just got better. 10 min. Plz?” Jamis was one of two boys who were openly out in the graduating class. Eli was not the other one. Although Margie kept wanting to ask why Eli would be interested in a boy named after a brand of bicycle, she was happy he was talking to somebody who might actually like him back. She could wait ten minutes.
Margie scratched Juno’s head for a bit, scruffing up the dog’s fur so she looked like an Ewok. For some reason, the dog loved this. Out of boredom, Margie ate one of the mini Snickers bars stashed in the glove compartment. She hadn’t had dessert after dinner, so she ate another one.
“Okay, Juno. I’m going to stretch my legs. Sorry I forgot your leash. You stay here and guard the car.” She opened all the windows a few inches so the dog would be okay. The evening air was cool but not cold. After a wave of hot flashes earlier, it felt refreshing. Juno whimpered as Margie got out of the car. “I’ll be back. I just have to go get Eli.” The dog wagged her tail at the mention of Eli’s name. Margie suspected Juno’s vocabulary had expanded to include the names of her fellow pack members.
There were so many cars on the street that Margie had ended up parking a full block away from the house. As she started down the sidewalk in the direction of the party house, she saw a group of three girls and one guy walking toward her. In the glow of the streetlight, she recognized the boy as a sometime friend/acquaintance of Eli. She was pretty sure his name was Derek. The four kids had been talking and laughing but quieted down as soon as they got close to Margie. “Hey, Mrs. Joseph,” the boy said.
Rather than get his name wrong, she just said, “Hi and congratulations!” The kids gave a chorus of “Thanks.” As they passed by each other, Margie saw them off with a “Drive safely, kiddos.”
“We will!” one of the girls said, and then they all erupted into giggles. As she neared the house, she could hear a low hum of music and voices. Were this kid’s parents even home? Lucky for them the house was so far from the street. If it were right alongside the neighbors’ houses, somebody would start complaining. It was the perfect party house. No wonder half the kids in the graduating class seemed to have shown up here.
She knew better than to go anywhere near the house, but it was nice to take a little evening walk. Margie walked past two more houses and crossed a side street. Knowing that Eli’s ten minutes was more likely to be twenty, she kept going. When she reached Richmond Road, one of the main north–south arteries through the area, she turned around and started to walk back. As she neared the party house again, she spotted a car coming slowly down the street toward her. The windows had writi
ng in soap on the sides that read “Class of 2018 Rules!” The car was full of teenage boys. So full, in fact, that one of them was sitting on the hood.
“Speed up!” one of the boys inside yelled. The driver obliged.
The kid on the hood whooped then screamed, “Okay, okay! Stop!” to a chorus of “Loser!” and “Wuss!” The car jerked to a stop, and the boy on the hood slid forward and toppled off onto the street.
“Holy shit, man! You almost killed me,” he exclaimed and took probably more time than was necessary to get up, just to show how big a hit he had taken.
One of the boys said, “You just need more liquid courage, dude.” There was a bustle of trash talk and movement as the first boy climbed into the passenger seat and two other boys got out of the car and scrambled onto the hood. They were all so engrossed in their thrill riding that they didn’t notice the woman standing on the sidewalk until she pulled the Mom Card.
Margie hadn’t planned on saying anything at first, but she could see this escalating. There’s a reason it’s illegal for teenagers to get drunk, she thought. They do stupid things. Where the hell was Eli? He could help, but he was still in the party talking to the funky and fabulous Jamis Barberton. It was up to her. She yelled, “What the hell are you boys doing?” in the same overly deep voice Karl used to yell at the dog when Juno tried to steal food off the coffee table. It worked. The boys froze.
She walked up to the car, a big four-door sedan that seemed about to explode with teenage testosterone, and laid one hand on the edge of the hood. The two boys now perched on the hood shrank into the smallest balls two teenagers can make, as though this crazy lady might not notice them if they could just melt into the car hood.
Margie’s heart was pounding. She kept trying to tell herself that she had nothing to be afraid of. After all, she was the grown-up in this situation. She looked at the kid driving, a ruddy-faced boy with thick black hair that hung across his forehead like the raccoon tail on Davy Crockett’s hat. He sat behind the wheel of the car, looking out the open window at her, mouth slightly agape. Margie kept her left hand on the car, figuring the kid wouldn’t try to make a quick getaway if she was still touching the car. The hood felt cool—they obviously hadn’t been at this very long. “Do you really think this is a good idea?” she asked the driver.
The Super Ladies Page 10