by Stone, Naomi
It had been a good arrangement then, and it still worked now. Aggie seldom went out in the afternoons, and when she did it took planning, making it an event Gloria always heard of well in advance. She could count on Aggie to be there, count on a welcome at the cluttered worktable where they’d shared countless projects over the years. They’d made everything from crocheted can holders and fingerless gloves, to ceramic whistles, to the current designer cell phone holsters, one of Gloria’s own ideas.
Her mentor did twice the work on the business end of things as Gloria did. She didn’t have to keep a regular day job, and had more time for it. Aggie was the one who had found their team of piecework seamstresses, recruiting at the senior center when they started getting more orders than the two of them could fill on their own.
“Hullo-oh” Gloria began speaking at the kitchen door before entering but stopped short in the doorway with the screen door bouncing against her backside. The story of her exciting lunch hour and the following rather tame office birthday party died unspoken.
Aggie sat at her usual spot at the table, but a man clad in a button-down plaid shirt and jeans, his grey hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, stood in front of her, his back to Gloria.
“Gloria.” Aggie peered around the man, speaking with her accustomed brightness, muted by a hesitant note. “I’d like you to meet Hank Luddell. He’s Susie Luddell’s brother. You know my friend who collects our orders from the Center. She couldn’t make it today and Hank said he’d drop them off.”
Gloria managed to insert a nod and a smile to Hank during Aggie’s flustered speech. The other woman sounded not at all like her usual laid-back self. Had she interrupted something?
Gloria shook Hank’s warm, firm hand. Kind of a fox for someone who must be at least fifty.
“Nice to meet you.” Hank smiled briefly, turning back to Aggie. “Guess I’d better get going. I’ll tell Sue you got the lot.” He nodded at a cardboard box sitting on one of the kitchen chairs.
“Thanks again,” Aggie spoke after him as Hank and Gloria maneuvered around each other. He headed out the door she’d just entered, while she went toward Aggie and the worktable. “You stop by any time.”
“Sure will.” Hank called, closing the door behind him.
“Wow.” Gloria dropped into the chair across from Aggie, next to the one holding the box. Finding Aggie with a gentleman caller constituted a major disruption to the natural order of things–at least as much as seeing a man fly. “He’s a cutie. What were you two talking about before I came in?”
Aggie blushed. Blushed! Gloria looked at her as if she’d never seen her before. She’d gotten used to Aggie just being Aggie–older yes, but a friend, someone who listened to her and cared about her, got her engaged in their various projects and took her dreams seriously. But now... Aggie didn’t actually look old, not as old as she must be to be Greg’s mom. She had a few gray threads in her headful of light brown curls and a few lines around her eyes and mouth, but mostly laugh lines. The figure in her wheeled chair might be a bit plump, but on Aggie, it looked good, like ripe fruit looks better plump. She was pretty–and blushing like a schoolgirl.
“Nothing much,” she answered, even as Gloria took in the totally new concept of Aggie as someone with a romantic life of her own. “We just got to chatting. He’s a nice man. Sue’s having foot surgery and he’s helping her out with all her errands.”
“That is nice of him.” Gloria turned to the box beside her, concealing her smile. “Not every man would take the time away from his wife and kids to help out his sister.” She started pulling out the blank holsters and setting them out on the table.
“Oh, Hank’s not married.” Aggie pulled a few of the blanks across to her side of the table. “He spent too much time on the road as a backup musician for a country rock band to settle down.”
“You learned a lot about him for such a short chat,” Gloria teased.
“Well, maybe.” Aggie’s blush deepened. She cleared her throat. “I finished a couple of prototypes for our windowed holsters today.” She handed one across to Gloria. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m not done talking about Hank.” Gloria grinned with intent to tease and took the prototype.
“Oh now. You stop. I just met the man–and don’t say anything about him to Greg either.”
“Why not? Greg’s a big boy now.”
“Yes. He is.” Aggie’s tone sobered, “But I’m still all the family he’s got. I want him to feel secure where I’m concerned. I’ll always be here for him, bar death or disaster.”
“Sure.” Gloria fiddled with the prototype, tugging at the stitching that secured the clear pocket to the main body of the holster. “If you suppose Greg would feel threatened by your flirting with a cute guy your own age.”
A business card–one of their own–filled the clear pocket of the holster. Gloria pulled it out and pushed it in again. It would be easy enough to change out the pocket’s contents. She’d have to come up with a set of sample mottos to insert. Would there be copyright issues if she used some common t-shirt slogans?
“It’s hard to know how Greg feels,” Aggie continued. “He’s such a man, keeps everything under his hat.”
“Huh.” Gloria hadn’t pictured him that way at all. Greg was Greg, like Aggie was Aggie. She liked teasing him because it was so hard to get a reaction, him being all Rational Reasonable Man. If he didn’t have a sense of humor and easy-going manner, she’d accuse him of being Mr. Spock.
“I can sound him out on the idea before it goes any further than innocent flirtation.” Gloria shot Aggie an arch look.
“Don’t you dare,” Aggie scolded. “Maybe it’s time we discuss your love life.” She sat back, crossing her arms over her breasts with mock severity.
“My love life is great.” Gloria lost her smile, and suddenly, returning to business matters-at-hand seemed by far the safest course. She held up the prototype. “This is perfect, and using them to display business cards is another great idea. I’ll make up some sample slogans to display in them.”
“You can’t fool me, young lady.” Aggie lifted a brow, but a hint of her smile remained. “But if you want to talk business, we’ll talk business. I like the ones saying, ‘I’m up and dressed, what more do you want?’”
Chapter 8
Greg flew back to the lab, hardly noticing the wonder of it. Recent events still preyed on his mind. What if the kid, Howie died? The possibility ate at him. He’d put the young thug in the path of the bullet, but he wasn’t the one who’d brought guns into play. Howie had fired the first shot.
Maybe they had expected to find the place empty, but they’d come with guns, come prepared to do violence. The ‘kid’ might not be more than seventeen, but he’d clubbed down the older man, terrorized the wife. Greg hadn’t meant him harm. If the kid had been hurt, he’d been hoisted by his own petard.
Arriving back at the Computer Science building, Greg made an effort to land lightly. The small crater of his original lift-off still dented the tar and gravel rooftop. Crap. He’d better drop an anonymous note in the custodian’s office before it rained again.
He’d expected the hero business to be cleaner than this. Even after The Dark Knight. Even after Watchmen. Comic book stories were pure fiction. Leaking roofs and potholes were real. Feeling responsible for injuries he’d inadvertently inflicted. That was real.
Greg finished out the afternoon at the lab with no more heroics than helping direct a student with a late paper to her professor’s office.
By the time he headed home, he felt glad to do it the good old-fashioned way, taking the bike lanes along Lyndale, legs pumping hard, the cooling breeze in his face.
His mind stayed on overload, trying to digest it all. Not just the hero business, but where to start uncovering a few clues to Professor Stevens’ scheme. He needed something to bring to Morrissey as a basis for asking questions. Referring to a conversation he should never have heard would only embarrass the
man.
How had Morrissey discovered the situation? Had Stevens left some trail? Research projects were still ongoing. Stevens wouldn’t have completed his plans for them, whatever it was he planned.
* * * *
“I have to see the news tonight.” Gloria paused in the act of attaching rhinestones to one of ten assorted-color “Disco Sue” models. They’d probably have footage of her rescuer. If not otherwise, she’d see him again on the news reports. She turned up the TV volume as Greg entered the kitchen.
He gave her an odd look, like he meant to say something, but he turned instead to Aggie.
“Any leftovers tonight, Mom?”
“Oh, hon, you know I always make enough for an army.” Across the table from Gloria, Aggie looked up from her project.
“Yet you claim to be a pacifist.”
“Nothing like a good meal to convert an enemy to a friend.” Aggie gestured to the stovetop. “Swedish meatballs in the pot and a lefse experiment in the skillet.”
“Should I be afraid?” Greg teased, turning toward the stove.
“Only if pizza-style lefse violates your sense of cultural propriety.”
The dish must have passed muster because Greg didn’t answer and there followed only the sounds he made as he fixed himself a plate.
Gloria paid no mind to the usual mother-son banter, but kept an eye on the TV. Just the weather report now, a bit cool for June, but nothing remarkable. Until they turned to the local news.
“You’ve got to see this, Aggie.” Gloria gestured at the screen, waving her hand like a flag in a high wind. “That crazy business I mentioned, what happened over lunch. It’s on the news.”
“Crazy how?” Greg looked over at the small TV occupying a shelf above the worktable.
“Just watch.” Gloria turned up the sound another notch.
“Spectators caught this footage in Uptown earlier today as a masked hero actually flew down to save a woman and two children from an elephant gone wild.”
“That can’t be right, Ken,” commented the stiffly coifed anchorwoman. “Men don’t fly.”
“Some claim the incident was staged as a publicity stunt for the Renaissance Festival. People on the scene say it was real. You folks at home can judge for yourselves.”
The screen showed a shaky amateur video clip as it turned its focus from some belly dancers to capture a shot of a costumed hero in green and gold descending out of the clear sky to place himself between the cowering figures Gloria recognized as herself and the children she’d tried to protect.
The camera zoomed in, showing the elephant as it slid backward, propelled by the man braced like a buttress against its huge leg. Before the news broke for a commercial, a close-up revealed the bunching of strong muscles, caught the clenched jaw and zoomed in on those somehow-familiar eyes behind the mask.
She sighed aloud. “Isn’t he amazing?”
Aggie chuckled. “Does Pete have a new rival?”
Gloria laughed. “In my dreams. Wonder Guy is a hero. He could have any woman in the world. What would he want with a nobody like me?”
“You know I don’t like that kind of talk,” Aggie scolded.
“I know, I know. I’m a very special snowflake.” Gloria rolled her eyes. It was nice of Aggie to encourage her self-esteem, and maybe she was special to those who knew her, but how would anybody else ever notice her among all the zillions of other special snowflakes in the blizzard?
“There’s no one in the world exactly like you, and your friends know it. Greg will back me up on this. Won’t you, dear?”
“Of course. There isn’t anyone like you. I bet he’d count himself the luckiest superhero in the world if he had you.”
Gloria had no response. She wasn’t going to argue with someone who said something so nice. She ignored the heat on her face and turned back to face the television.
The news team returned to their topic.
“A costumed hero is also reported to have stepped in to stop a home invasion this afternoon.”
“It sounds like quite an influx of these costumed men, Ken. Weren’t there reports of a hero in red yesterday?”
Gloria’s hands fell idle while she followed the talking heads. Greg munched a rolled section of pizza-style lefse, but his gaze stayed intent on the screen.
“That’s right, Linda. Someone caught footage of that fellow too.” The clip reran behind them. “Police want to speak with both these masked men. Authorities ask them to come forward.”
“Why’s that, Ken?”
“In two of these incidents men were injured.”
“The criminals were injured, Ken?” Linda wore her most earnest expression and an amber necklace Gloria admired for the way it brought out the red highlights in the newswoman’s blond coif.
Ken leaned straight toward the camera. “That’s right, Linda. Allegedly, these heroes injured the alleged criminals in the act of preventing the crimes. One purported house-breaker is reported in serious condition.”
“So the police need to interview the costumed men as witnesses?”
“That’s right. There’s no intention of charging them with anything at this time.”
“I should hope not, Ken. These men are heroes. Possibly superheroes. The world needs men like them.” A starry look shone in her eyes.
“Well, Linda, even superheroes are not above the law.”
“Outrageous.” Gloria muted the TV. “The man who stopped that elephant is a hero. The police can’t treat him like some criminal.” She should send an angry message to the news station for even implying he’d done anything wrong
“What, no more ‘dorky’ for dressing in costume?” Greg paused with a forkful of Swedish meatball halfway to his mouth.
“Well,” Gloria hesitated to admit she’d been off base. “At first I thought the guy in the red costume was just after attention, but he did stop a couple of crimes and the guy today saved my life. I was there. That elephant would be wiping me off its feet if Wonder Guy hadn’t jumped in. He saved those kids, too. I’d like to kiss him right on the mouth.”
Aggie spoke up. “The police can’t treat a man differently because he’s a hero. They have their jobs to do, and if people were injured they have to talk to everyone involved.”
* * * *
Greg said nothing, sitting silently in place while Gloria and Aggie turned to other subjects. What should he do? He was a witness, in not one but several crimes. Didn’t he have a duty to step up and testify? But that would throw the whole ‘secret identity’ thing out the window. His career as a crime fighter would be over. What then? What if some of the criminals or their connections wanted to take their grievances out on his family? On Aggie? Maybe even on Gloria if they guessed how he felt about her. Wasn’t this exactly why Superman, Spiderman and the other superheroes maintained their secret identities? To protect their loved ones?
One possibility would be to send the police a message, videotape himself in costume, do something super to prove it was him and agree to give a deposition if they agreed to protect his anonymity. They did as much for criminal informants. They could do it for a crime fighter, right?
* * * *
Elysha paced along the edge of a pool among the trees making this plaza one of the few places tolerable for her kind in a city laced with the burning aura of iron.
“How dare she keep me waiting?”
She addressed the question to the air, but Minik, one of the feral goblins who served her, answered. “Humans don’t know their place.” He groveled nicely, bending his gnarled limbs into a hunkering crouch.
Elysha allowed him a small smile, for the sake of having her superiority acknowledged.
“Too true,” she said, again to the air. It wouldn’t do to encourage familiarity by actually addressing the creature, except in command.
“Go,” she told him, flinging an imperious hand toward the streets. “Hurry her.”
“At once, Mistress.” Minik cringed, backing away. The diminutive crea
ture turned tail and scurried off in the direction she’d indicated.
Consorting with humans truly was beneath her, but they had their uses. If not for those meddling ‘fairy godmothers’ she wouldn’t need stoop so low just to assure a plentiful flow of the invigorating dark energies that made humans tolerable.
Her minions were able to taunt and provoke and tease humankind into foul moods, but they couldn’t be trusted with more complex business. It took deeper machinations to produce the kinds of pervading misery and despair constituting Elysha’s true meat and drink.
It took her own superior wit and her capacity to cast a glamour and pass among humans as one of their own, albeit a superior specimen, appearing thinner, taller, younger and richer than any of them.
She smiled to herself at the way the creatures squirmed in her presence, knowing themselves inferior to her. How sweet, the way they judged themselves, given only the image she showed them. Foolish things. They were inferior, of course, but not based merely on appearances.
The bones of the building behind her stood out in silhouette against the lighted windows. The night hummed with the music of water flowing over ledges into the pools surrounding her, and with the whine of a few insects. Amazing things, to have survived the most determined efforts of humanity to eradicate the little bloodsuckers.
Elysha’s smile widened. It would amuse her to blast the tiny pests in mid-air for target practice, igniting tiny explosions of blood like macabre fireworks. Although…any annoyance to men constituted a friend to her.
She ought to help her little friends in their good work, like those meddling biddies had been helping the humans lately. This had gone beyond uniting a pair of lovers here and there in order to generate a bit of sweetness and light into the world. You win some you lose some. Two people’s happiness scarcely lessened the sea of troubles assailing the rest of their species.