The Super Ladies

by Petrone, Susan

  Horowitz’s office was near the kitchen. His assistant in the Finance Office, Lily, was pretty cool, but Abra didn’t want to have to mix Lily up in this. It would be easy to go to Sandy and file a complaint. Horowitz was right that tracking the menstrual cycle of every woman in the office was a Human Resources nightmare. Explaining how she knew the Bitch Tracker even existed would take some fancy storytelling. She didn’t want anybody to be fired—just slightly enlightened. But she needed some time alone in Horowitz’s office. Cutting through the kitchen, she found herself in the windowless labyrinth of offices and cubicles in the center of the company’s office space. This was where they put lower-level employees, temps, and interns. Taking a quick glance around to make sure nobody was watching, she made herself visible and knocked on the edge of Aletha’s cube.

  “Hey, I need your help,” she said in a low voice.

  Aletha looked startled but, to her credit, didn’t bat an eye upon seeing the company marketing director standing in her cube in bare feet, yoga pants, and a T-shirt. “Sure. Is it about the Spanish-language packet? I’m still working on it…”

  “No, no. It’s kind of only marginally work related.”

  “Okay…”

  “I just need you to keep Horowitz out of his office for a while. Ten or fifteen minutes. Longer if you can. And you can’t tell anyone.”

  “What’s going on?” She sounded worried. Abra sometimes forgot Aletha was working in an uncertain netherworld between intern and part-time employee while she finished her MBA. Of course she’d be a little leery.

  “It’s a long story. This request is completely aboveboard, but if you decline, it won’t affect your review. Basically I need to make some edits to a program on his machine before he deletes it.”

  “How do you know he’s going to delete it?”

  Abra sighed, unsure of how much to reveal. “Because it’s sexist claptrap.”

  Aletha nodded, a small smile spreading across her face. “I’ll keep him out of there for half an hour.”

  Abra didn’t bother asking how Aletha would drag Horowitz into an impromptu meeting, she just sent her down the main hallway in the direction of Software Development, turned invisible again, and walked into Horowitz’s office.

  It wasn’t exactly clear when the guys in Software Development discovered that the Bitch Tracker had been hacked. Every entry now had a confirmation in the Bang Box. In some, Abra had written “None of your damn business” or “Leave her alone.” A few, including her own, now read “Do not fuck with this woman under any circumstances.” The Sausage Factory sign came down two days later. For the next few weeks, the Software Development guys were more subdued, as though they finally realized they weren’t operating in a vacuum and that someone was watching them.

  IC_SuperLadies posted: Now you see me, now you don’t. It depends on my mood.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  One morning in the first week of October, Katherine slinked out of bed at three thirty in the morning and silently put on her running clothes. She was digging her shoes out from underneath the bed when she heard Hal ask quietly, “Where are you going?”

  His voice startled her. He was never awake at this time. Still, she tried to make her voice sound as normal as possible.

  “Out for my run.”

  “It’s three thirty-seven in the morning.”

  She feigned surprise. “Is it? I swear when I glanced at the clock it read five thirty.”

  Hal sat up in bed, gathering the blankets a bit around his bare chest. She hadn’t noticed what a cool morning it was. With school in full swing, she had to admit that summer truly was over. Maybe she ought to throw on leggings instead of shorts this morning. She dug the leggings out of a drawer as they talked. “Why are you going running? It’s practically the middle of the night,” Hal said.

  She couldn’t say “I run at this time every day,” so she said, “Just putting my stuff on for later. I can’t sleep. I’m gonna go read for a while.”

  “Come back to bed,” Hal said softly, somewhere between a request and a command. She decided to split the difference. Rather than getting back in bed, she sat down on the edge in her running leggings and T-shirt. It seemed appropriate to give him a good-morning kiss, so she did and was surprised when Hal made the kiss last longer than she would have. She pulled away first. He looked at her then asked: “Who do you meet in the mornings?”

  “What?” It was a weak, buying-time response. Maybe he wasn’t asleep all those times she had gotten up in the middle of the night and gone out looking for trouble.

  “You get up and go running at all hours of the night. I can’t quite figure it out. Your car is always here, but when you come back, you don’t even look that sweaty or tired.” He paused for a second, as though he was searching her face for something. When he didn’t find it, he asked, “Is it somebody in the neighborhood, or does he pick you up?” As he said the word “he,” Hal’s voice trembled slightly.

  “He who?” Katherine’s conscience was clean, but her stomach was still twisted into knots. “Wait, you think I’m cheating on you?”

  “Let’s see. You leave in the middle of the night. You’re gone for hours at a time. When you come home, you say you’ve been running, but you clearly haven’t. It’s a good excuse—then you can take a shower and wash his…stink off you. God, Katherine, I’m not stupid. You’re pretty fucking obvious.”

  At first, Katherine could only stare, stunned, her heart pounding as if Hal’s accusations were true. When she finally found her voice, the words spilled out. “I’m not cheating on you. I really do go running…” She spoke faster to try and silence Hal’s protestations. “I know it sounds crazy, but I do go running for hours at a time. If you must know, I do meet someone. Her name Estelle, and I wait at the bus stop at the corner of Euclid and East 125th with her to make sure she gets on her bus safely.” Hal gave a derisive exhalation of air, as though he couldn’t even find words to dignify what Katherine was saying. She spoke a little faster: “And sometimes I find something bad going on and I stop it. Like somebody breaking into a car or a house. Sometimes I stop by a woman named Sandra’s house to make sure her ex isn’t bothering her. I showed you the Super Ladies comic and you didn’t believe me, but it’s true. It’s true. I’ve developed this… super strength and I can’t be hurt, and Abra really can turn invisible and Margie can defy the laws of thermodynamics and make things melt and even burn things and…” She slowed down, aware that her husband was now the one sitting in stunned silence, aware that maybe she shouldn’t let on even to Hal that Margie could burn things. Not with the plan they had in place.

  “I have no idea what to say to that. I don’t know if you’re feeding me a line of bullshit or if you’re delusional.”

  “Neither.”

  One of the things she had always liked about Hal was his analytical, experiment-until-you-find-the-truth mind. It was time to appeal to that mind. She wasn’t sure if their marriage was even worth saving at this point, but there was no way she was going to let him think she was a cheater. She stood up. “Okay, if I can prove it to you, will you believe me?”

  “Prove what? That you’ve suddenly become some vigilante superhero?” he scoffed. Maybe it was the self-assured nod, maybe it was because she finally managed to hold her tongue and have an unexpressed thought or two, but Hal stopped fighting. “Okay. Prove it,” he said.

  Katherine looked around the room. She could do the tried and true cutting-without-bleeding trick, but it didn’t seem big enough. Some moments required dramatic effect to make a point. She walked over to the bedroom window that looked out onto the front yard. They were only on the second floor—still, a jump without injury from that height might convince him. She opened the window and raised the screen, saying as she did so, “Don’t scream. I’ll be fine.”

  Hal was out of bed the instant she had the screen up, giving him a good vie
w of Katherine swan-diving out of the second-story window, doing a midair summersault (she couldn’t resist the flourish) and making a running landing. She jumped from the street to the roof of a parked car in one bound then turned to spy his shocked face gaping out of the open second-floor window. Maybe this would do. A leap off the car and a few quick steps brought her to their front porch. She easily jumped on top of the old iron porch railing, then made another jump up to the bedroom window and grabbed the window sill. Hal grabbed her wrists as though he was going to pull her in.

  “Stand back,” she said. With a quick lift and a hoist, she pulled herself up and into the window, knocking Hal over in the process. “Sorry!” she said. Anna was a pretty heavy sleeper, but that didn’t mean they could make noise with impunity. “Are you okay?” she added in a whisper.

  “What the hell?” Hal stammered. He was lying on the bedroom floor and scooted back a few inches as Katherine crawled toward him.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “Uh, no. It’s just—holy cow, Katherine. You jumped out a second-floor window and you didn’t hurt yourself. You just…ran,” he said slowly, as though he needed to confirm for himself what he had just seen.

  “Yes.”

  “Jumped onto the roof of a car.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then jumped back up to the window.”

  “Yes.”

  “I get the feeling you could do a lot more if you wanted to.”

  “Yes.”

  “How in the world can you do this?”

  Katherine tried to explain about the explosion and how the concentrated blast of phytoestrogens seemed to combine with the hormonal changes she was already going through. “I can’t pretend to understand exactly how or why it happened. It’s just a theory. But here I am. No periods, no pain. Somewhat indestructible.”

  She could almost see Hal’s brain putting the whole thing together. “Just like in Eli’s comic. You tried to tell me…”

  “Granted, I didn’t tell you very well. Obviously, the whole explanation required a demonstration.”

  “But you did try to tell me.” Hal had been sitting on the floor with his arms resting on his bent knees, but now he moved over so he could lean against the footboard of the bed. “Wow,” he said with a sigh, looking more at the wall opposite him than at Katherine. “This is a lot to take in.”

  She nodded, aware that she couldn’t have shocked him more if she told him she wanted a divorce. There had been times over the last few months when the idea of divorce, of being a single parent truly seemed more attractive than remaining with a man who often seemed a million miles away. Yet here he was, worried that he had lost her to someone else.

  Hal stopped staring at the wall and turned his focus back to her. “I mean, I always knew you were extraordinary, but this…this is, um, wholly unexpected,” he added with a wry smile.

  One word in that sentence stopped her cold. “You never said that to me before.”

  “What? ‘Wholly unexpected’?”

  “Extraordinary.”

  Hal looked momentarily surprised, then paused. “Then I guess I should have been telling you that all along.”

  Half of her wanted to remain defiant, to say, “Yeah, you should have. You should tell me I’m extraordinary and brilliant and fascinating and beautiful every single freaking day.” The other half,, the self-reflective half reminded the defiant half that she hadn’t been all that vocal in complimenting or appreciating him either. Both halves replied, “Thank you.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Sitting here next to him in silence didn’t seem as frustrating as it had been. She sighed. To be brutally honest with herself, not all their problems lay with him. “I know I haven’t necessarily been the best partner to you either.”

  “Can we maybe…do a reboot?”

  She’d been carrying around what felt like a big burning ball of anger toward Hal. For months, every time they talked, every time he didn’t pay attention or dismissed what she said, it felt like the ball of anger had grown larger and burned brighter. It seemed like it was burning up the whole marriage. Now, for the first time, it seemed like the ball was slowly extinguishing itself. It wasn’t due to some lovey-dovey romantic miracle. Katherine thought maybe it had something to do with telling him the truth. Maybe a reboot would work. “I’m willing to try,” she replied.

  “I don’t want to lose you. I know I don’t say it as often as I should, but I would be lost without you.” Hal crawled toward where Katherine was sitting against the wall next to the window. “Is it inappropriate to add that I find the idea that you could kick my ass—I mean, literally and completely kick my ass—to be frightening as well as slightly arousing?”

  “You know, I feel like every time I’ve tried to initiate sex over the past few months, you haven’t been in the mood.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  She gently put two fingers over his mouth. “So half of me wants to tell you to buzz off, and half of me wants to jump your bones.”

  Hal slowly licked each of the two fingers she was still holding over his lips, then gently took her hand in his. “Which half is hornier?” he asked.

  “Lucky for you, both are.”

  Hal chuckled. “Oh sweetie, that is not why I’m lucky,” he said and kissed her.

  IC_SuperLadies posted: Had to forgo the early-morning patrol. Other needs arose. IC_EstellesKid, tell your grandma I’ll be there tomorrow. Love, Indestructa.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Woman Who Burns stood on the sidewalk across the street from a squat two-story house. She was on the west side in a neighborhood that she was pretty sure was still Cleveland proper but close enough to the western suburbs to be mistaken for one of them.

  The house was unassuming enough. Architecturally, it was no great shakes—just one of thousands of moderately attractive houses built in the mid-twentieth century, when Cleveland still had plenty of people. No one would lament its loss if this particular house weren’t standing there. There are millions of houses just like it all over America. The only thing that distinguishes one house from another is who calls it home. In this case, the person who called this particular house home was The Evil Richard Brewster.

  From the size and condition of the street, the houses, the yards, it was a wealthier neighborhood than the one where he had lived with Abra. How can this jackass afford to live here but can’t afford to pay Abra back? she thought for probably the twentieth time. Richard managed a restaurant. Where did he get the down payment for this house if he was so broke when he was with Abra that he needed to borrow money from her all the time? He was a sleeze and a crook and deserved some sort of punishment.

  Not punishment, she thought. Retribution. Comeuppance.

  They had meticulously planned the burning of Abra’s house. If a homeowner filing for bankruptcy conveniently has a house fire, said homeowner is going to be the primary suspect. The plan was to have Katherine invite Abra to her house for dinner, where she would have three people who could attest to her whereabouts. Margie had no record, no criminal ties. She would merely be looked at as one of many friends, not as a suspect. Still, they had been careful to leave no trail, only discussing the plan in person, never on the phone or via text.

  They set the date for the second Thursday in October. When Margie woke up that day, her first thought was I’m going to burn a house down today. Somehow, that thought made everything else about the day more bearable. She did the early-morning swim practice run for Joan, walked the dog, packed lunches for her and Grant, and got everybody out of the house on time. It didn’t seem like as much of a soul-deadening pain in the neck as it usually did.

  When she walked into the office, she said “Good morning” to the principal and a couple of teachers who were checking their mailboxes or making copies. But she was thinking about what part of the house she ought
to start with. Obviously somewhere in the back so the neighbors wouldn’t see. While she was completing the day’s attendance report, Margie decided the wisest thing to do would be to leave her car on the next block and walk over. Abra said the neighbors diagonally behind her didn’t have a fence—she could cut through their backyard and make a quick exit once the fire had started. The planning got her through making copies of the PTA newsletter and putting them in all the teachers’ mailboxes.

  Margie kept reminding herself that there was no victim in this plan. Whether it was a house, a car, or a television set, the owner of an object has every right to do with that object what she wishes. Save it, burn it, let it rot—that is the owner’s prerogative. Paying an insurance company to protect an object was akin to placing a bet that something bad would happen to it. And it almost never did. If you added up all the money one person paid in a lifetime in home and auto insurance, it was easily equal to the payout for a small bungalow destroyed by fire.

  She had no doubts about herself or her ability to do this thing. She could harness fire. She could and would make a house burn, and in doing so, she would free her friend. Maybe destruction didn’t add actual meaning to her life, but a new purpose certainly felt like revival.

  It wasn’t until that evening as she was making the short drive to Abra’s that Margie realized the single flaw in their plan: how could you burn down a house and make it look like an accident and still get Clinton P. the Cartoon Cat out alive? In all their planning, they never thought about how to get the cat out of the house safely. She could let him out, but an indoor cat who just happened to escape a house the same night that house burns down was beyond suspicious. Instead of collecting the insurance money on the house, Abra could go to jail.

  Although she’d originally planned on approaching Abra’s house from the back, Margie parked across the street and just looked for a while. The sun had just gone down and the whole street had a pretty, late daylight saving time glow. The air was crisp but not freezing and smelled thoroughly of fall. It’d be a nice night for a walk or a bonfire. But the more she stared at Abra’s house, the less she wanted to burn it down. Right near the front door was a little purple azalea bush she and Karl had given to Abra and Evil Richard when they bought the house, when Richard wasn’t quite so evil and more just a schlubby guy her best friend had fallen in love with. The azalea bush had grown in nicely over six years. A fire and its aftermath would probably kill everything planted near the house.