Normal

by Francine Pascal

  Gaia’s mother would have understood.

  The street was so peaceful and still, it was like an oil painting. Gaia could see lots of men and women inside the brownstone’s living room, inside the curtained windows.

  And what would her father say? Gaia realized she didn’t know. Guess what, Dad? I’m finally free. Would he hug her and say that he loved her and that she’d done the right thing? Gaia was sure of it. She knew that she was guessing, but still, she was sure.

  Finally free.

  Gaia rang the doorbell.

  It took a moment, and then the big, glossy door swung open. The party sounds got much louder. A handsome middle-aged woman in a green dress stood there, holding a glass of white wine. Behind her, Gaia could see dozens of men and women, the men in suits, the women in dresses. All were talking and laughing; piano music was coming from somewhere.

  The woman looked at Gaia dubiously. “Yes?” she said.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Ulrich,” Gaia said steadily. “I need to talk to him.”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. She wore diamond earrings, Gaia saw. She had a thick German accent. “The doctor is busy right now. We are hosting friends, as you see.”

  “Please tell him it’s Gaia Moore,” Gaia said, “and it’s important. He’ll understand.”

  The woman frowned at Gaia and then held up a finger and gently eased the door closed. Gaia stood and waited. In the distance a car horn honked. She could hear the voices of the partygoers, discussing whatever middle-aged adults discussed at parties.

  The door opened again. Dr. Ulrich stood there. He wore an expensive-looking double-breasted suit and a red silk tie. His hair was neatly combed. The suit made him look even shorter somehow.

  “Ms. Moore,” Dr. Ulrich said. “What a pleasant surprise. We are entertaining, as you can see; it is not the most convenient—”

  “It’s my blood,” Gaia said.

  Dr. Ulrich stared back at her.

  “The blood I gave you,” she went on. “The strange chromosome. It’s me.”

  She expected him to look surprised, but oddly, he didn’t. “Yes,” he said evenly.

  “I was born without it,” Gaia went on. “That gene. And it’s ruined my whole life.”

  “Yes. . . yes,” Ulrich said. Again he seemed lost in thought, as he had at his laboratory before.

  “You knew it was me?” Gaia was surprised.

  “Of course!” Ulrich frowned severely. “Do you think me a fool? Blond hair, blue eyes, right-handed. . . I was looking directly at your chromosomes, young lady. You cannot hide under such circumstances. It was clearly your blood.”

  “Oh.” Gaia hadn’t thought of that. “Listen, I won’t keep you. But there’s a reason I’m here. I want—I want you to fix it. I want you to do what you said before: I want you to make me normal. To make me whole.”

  Ulrich stood there, just outside his glossy front door, staring at her. The party sounds continued inside. The sky was dimmer now; evening was advancing.

  “You understand,” Ulrich said, “that such a procedure cannot be reversed.”

  “Yes.”

  “This is not a trivial matter, Ms. Moore. And further, think of the benefits of your unusual condition,” Ulrich went on. “There is no shame in being different. The spectrum of human variation is a splendid benefit to us all. Every person, regardless of their strengths and weaknesses, is part of the tapestry of the human species. And it is a remarkable thing. . . to have no fear. It makes you a most special person. Think of what you can achieve if you—”

  “No,” Gaia said. “No. You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t have any way of knowing. I’ve been living with this all my life. I’m done with it.”

  And hearing herself say it, Gaia realized that she’d never been as sure of anything in her life. I’m done with it—for good.

  Ulrich sighed heavily. He took off his glasses and started cleaning them. When he turned his brown eyes on Gaia, they seemed startlingly piercing and direct.

  “I must ask that you do something,” Ulrich said. “For my own conscience. I’m afraid this is not negotiable; it is a condition that you must agree to.”

  “All right,” Gaia said dubiously. She had no idea what Ulrich was going to ask for. Money? The chance to publish his results? The opportunity to have colleagues in the scientific community observe his work as he showed off the famous “fearless” girl?

  But what Ulrich said next took Gaia completely by surprise.

  “Ms. Moore, I must ask that you find somebody whom you trust,” Ulrich said. “Someone close to you. A parent or a friend or a loved one of some kind. And when you find that person, go to him or her and ask what they think. Ask for their counsel, their advice. Ask this person to please think about what you are about to do and tell you if it is advisable.”

  “But I can’t do that,” Gaia argued. “I can’t reveal what—”

  “Then I will not proceed.” Ulrich put his glasses back on. “That is that. I will not perform such a drastic, irreversible procedure on the basis of a teenager’s whim, no matter how passionately you want it. I must insist that you get advice.”

  “But—”

  “Find someone you trust, Gaia,” Ulrich urged. He had stepped closer; Gaia could barely see the details of his silk tie in the fading light. The tie was decorated with tiny DNA strands, she saw. Very clever. “Find this person and get his or her advice. Once you have done this and you are sure, then come find me at the hospital, where we are completing our genetic lab facility.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I will give you fear,” Ulrich concluded. “Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” Gaia said softly. “Thank you.”

  “I must rejoin my guests,” Ulrich said, his hand on the doorknob. “I would invite you in, but you are not of the drinking age, are you?”

  “That’s right,” Gaia said. It was nearly dark now—the city’s evening wind was picking up. “I’m sorry to bother you at home, Dr. Ulrich. Thanks for everything.”

  “Just do what I have asked,” Ulrich said. He pulled open his door—the bright light and party sounds flooded out. “And perhaps we shall see each other again soon.”

  Gaia had nothing to say. She stood there on the brownstone steps as the door closed, and then she turned away, gazing at the street, and began to move down the wide steps and away toward the boardinghouse—toward home.

  OLIVER

  I’ve had a kind of a revelation.

  Maybe that’s too strong a word. Call it just a “realization.” Anyway, I’ve figured something out.

  My great curse—and I’ll carry it with me the rest of my life—is that I remember everything I’ve done. For years I was somebody else: a loathsome, despicable man named Loki, who ruthlessly masterminded a criminal organization. In that role, which was forged out of my immature bitterness and fury when I was young, I shamelessly manipulated and exploited all the people around me. Some of those people were pawns-henchmen, spies, assassins, scientists-and some of them were my loved ones. My family, my closest kin. My brother. My brother’s wife. My niece.

  It wasn’t hard. I turned my intelligence to the task, and I figured out a foolproof system. I called it “the first principle,” because that’s how it was taught to me. In my supreme arrogance I congratulated myself for my brilliance. I turned everyone so that they worked for me, even though they thought they were working for themselves.

  It was wrong. It was evil.

  But I’m still doing it.

  Look at me now. I’m trying to save Gaia because she’s in danger. Am I capable of saving her? I think so. Am I willing, determined to protect her? More than anything. She’s my brother’s daughter. I owe her my life. Yes, I owe her everything. She’s my one chance to make up for all the harm I’ve done.

  So I must save her. I can save her.

  Whoever those two vermin are—Rowan and Morrow—and whoever they’re working for, they won’t get near her.

  Bu
t what have I done so far?

  Nothing. Nothing that’s effective. All I’ve done is convince her that I’m unhinged. I’ve wandered around Manhattan like a middle-aged fool, showing up at her boardinghouse and trying to convince her to believe me.

  It’s just “the first principle” again. Get her on my side. Persuade her that I’m right. It’s Loki all over again.

  I’m being stupid.

  I’m acting like some kind of self-obsessed would-be mentor, thinking that I have to convince her of something, when what I should be doing is using my real resources. I spent years building my network of operatives. Skilled men and women in complex, secret “sleeper” networks, who will do what I need them to do.

  Since I got rid of Loki—and abandoned everything that name meant—I’ve avoided using them whenever possible. I thought that reactivating my networks would be the same as becoming Loki again.

  But that’s stupid, like I said. Loki wasn’t Loki because of a few henchmen. He was who he was because of his arrogance—his belief that he could change people’s minds. But I never really changed Gaia’s mind about anything. No, I can’t change Gaia’s mind.

  But I can protect her.

  That’s what I’ll do. What am I afraid of? My team is still there. These people are willing to wait for years between marching orders. Our communications systems are foolproof. All I have to do is pick up the phone and say some code words, and I’m back in business.

  It doesn’t mean I’m Loki. It just means I’m using the resources at my disposal. And it’s for such a good cause—the urgent need to protect my wonderful, beautiful, irreplaceable niece.

  Sure.

  Did I call it a curse—the fact that I remember everything I’ve done? That’s wrong. Yes, I still wake up screaming in the night, burdened by nightmares of the crimes I’ve committed. I remember all of that clearly.

  But that’s not all I remember. I remember my operatives’ passwords and activation codes.

  And I’m going to use them. I’m going to put my pieces on the board. I’m going to use my men to protect Gaia. They’ll follow her, spy on her, and report where she goes. And if she gets into trouble, I’ll be ready to save her. It doesn’t matter whether she trusts me or not. That’s just arrogance. What’s important is results.

  Like I said, I’ve had a realization.

  I’ll pick up the phone, and in just a few hours Gaia will have a dozen secret angels protecting her.

  I should have done this long ago.

  A Chorus of Sopranos

  SOMETIMES THE PARK WAS THE ONLY place Ed could go to clear his mind and think. It calmed him somehow, particularly when everything was in full swing, which today it was. A crowd had gathered by the shut-down fountain to watch Magic Bob do his act. The chess tables were packed. The hippies had gathered in a circle up on the grass to listen to one of their tie-dyed brothers play a medley of Phish and Grateful Dead tunes. The benches were lined with NYU intellectuals, flipping through the dog-eared used books they’d just bought at the Strand. And most importantly, there were the skaters.

  Ed had pretty much sworn off skating after his accident, but that didn’t make it any less beautiful to watch. Sometimes, when one of the kids pulled off a perfect maneuver, Ed could actually feel it. It was the ultimate sense memory: his feet pressed against the board, the sound of the wind flying by his ears as he prepped for the landing. . . .

  But memories were playing way too large a role in Ed’s life these days. He was getting stuck on memories. All kinds of them. Memories of good old Shred on his board, who couldn’t have cared less about anything but a good jump and enough money for fries at the McDonald’s on Broadway, memories of his freshman year with Heather, when it had all been about the scruffiest skate rat at school going out with the most stunningly gorgeous princess. And then, of course, there was that other girl. The angriest, darkest, most screwed-up girl that he had ever had the pleasure of eating doughnuts with.

  But that really felt like another life now. All of it did. It felt far away. It felt gone. And that feeling—the feeling of loss—was starting to kill Ed’s usual life buzz far too often these days. So he was counting on the park to bring the buzz back. He was counting on the shafts of late day sun that cut through the trees. He was counting on the slight smell of green coming from the long branches hanging over his bench on the west side of the path.

  But he hadn’t counted on the glimpse of her tangled hair out of the corner of his eye. No, he hadn’t counted on that. He hadn’t counted on seeing her forceful strides as she walked into the MacDougal entrance of the park and moved closer and closer to his bench. What could be a quicker way to send him falling back into a world of buzz-killing memories than to see Gaia Moore herself?

  After yesterday’s little fiasco of a conversation, Ed had honestly hoped not to run into Gaia again for a while. A long while. He far preferred to hang on to the pleasant memories of their past and flush their new crappy-ass dynamic right down the toilet. He’d learned his lesson while trying to pass on Heather’s message yesterday. He had learned that distance and avoidance with Gaia were unquestionably the right way to go. The simplest bit of contact just brought back memories of their entire past, and it made their present feel like a goddamn trip to the dentist for a root canal minus the novocaine. Gaia’s troubles were her own. They were none of Ed’s business now. And his troubles were his own. None of her business. And that was going to be the basic scheme of things from here on in.

  Ed really wished that Gaia would just walk right by him right now. He wished she would walk straight through to the center of the park and right through the arch and out of sight. He was sure that was what she was going to do. But as usual with Gaia Moore, Ed had it all wrong. Instead, she marched straight up to his bench. And she sat down right next to him.

  This was not distance. This was not avoidance. This was just deeply and painfully uncomfortable. Ed could not even locate the words for a civil salutation. But Gaia Moore surprised him yet again. She surprised him with an inexplicably kind tone and an ease that she had not displayed around him in weeks and weeks. It was downright bizarre.

  “I know,” she said. It was a strange first thing to say, but somehow, in Gaia’s case, it fit. She stared out at West Fourth Street as they sat side by side in the sun. “I know it’s all completely screwed up, Ed. Why am I sitting here right now? What am I doing here after that ridiculously crappy encounter yesterday? I know.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Ed replied. He focused on a group of little kids across the path, giggling at the tops of their lungs as they chased each other in tiny circles with bright orange water guns. He had to focus on something other than her face. Because, goddamn her, she still looked so freaking exquisite. He’d glimpsed it once already and that had been enough. The tiny beige freckles on the edges of her nose, the ten different shades of blond dancing over her face in the breeze, the crayon blue color of her eyes when she sat in the sun. . . it was all such a miserable pain in his ass.

  “It’s a mess, Ed,” she said. “Our whole thing—the whole thing; it’s just a hideous, unwatchable car wreck.”

  “Hey, don’t candy-coat it for me,” Ed said.

  “You’re right,” she muttered. “That doesn’t do it justice, does it?”

  The kids upped the stakes by leaping on top of and under the benches, ducking for cover and jumping down into huge clumsy tumbles in the dirt. Ed was jealous. Jealous and painfully curious to know why Gaia had sat down next to him on this bench and begun something very closely resembling a conversation.

  Cut to the chase, Fargo. Cut to the chase and move on. . . .

  “Is this about Heather?” he asked. There was next to no inflection in his voice.

  “No.” She sighed. “No, this—it’s about me, Ed.” With that, she made an abrupt move to face him on the bench, shoving her knee up on the seat and hanging her arm over the back. Ed suddenly felt that he had no choice but to face her, too. To stay facing outward would
have felt too childish, like some kind of sulking little kid instead of the man he was—a man who was perfectly capable of having a polite and functional conversation with his ex-everything.

  Yeah. You keep telling yourself that. Maybe you can at least get her to buy it.

  But the moment he turned to face her, he realized that something really was different this time. Something in her eyes, and therefore something in his, too. Their eyes locked and things just changed. Like that.

  Not that the violins swelled. Not that a chorus of sopranos started warbling in the background or anyone began moving in slow motion. It wasn’t that. It wasn’t romantic. It was just. . . okay. For the first time in so long, Gaia and Ed were face-to-face and it was somehow okay. Why? Ed had no idea. There was no clear-cut reason really, no rational explanation. Ed only knew that he had no desire to screw it up or sabotage it, because it had sent an overwhelming sense of relief flooding through his chest. Like he had been immersed underwater for weeks and had finally gotten his first taste of oxygen. There were no smiles exchanged, no unnecessary apologies. But there was air and there was quiet. Like someone had just smacked the radio and gotten rid of the excruciating static that had been poisoning every one of their previous exchanges.

  “I’m not really—” Gaia cut herself off. She seemed displeased with her start, and so she began again. “Ed, I want to ask you something. And. . . it won’t really make any sense. And I won’t really be able to make it any clearer if you ask me to. But I still want to ask it.”

  Ed raised a brow in confusion. “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not—look, just skip over the weirdness, okay? The only way this conversation is going to work is if you just skip over the weirdness and listen.”

  Ed had no response to that, clever or otherwise. He was sure he could find it in his heart to skip over the weirdness, except for the fact that each word out of her mouth only seemed to get weirder.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind,” he suggested. “Because you’re kind of freaking me out right now.”