“Prep school? Interesting.”
Yes, Dad, we get it, he’s from money. I held my tongue, though.
Lucky for me, Aunt Camilla came over and gave Dad a barely concealed stink eye. “The real question is, are you boys still hungry? Because I feel like grilling some pineapple.” She kept looking at my father while Gary nodded. “That’s settled, then. Now, Vik, why don’t you help me grill dessert rather than your daughter’s friend? I don’t want to miss kickoff.”
Ahh sports. Once they were mentioned, my family went into a flurry of heated conversation. Eventually most of them poured into the man-cave for the game, leaving Gary and I to start packing up the scant leftovers.
“Your family’s so different than what I’m used to,” he said while putting rolls in a baggie. I sensed there was more to that than he was letting on, yet I wasn’t sure if I wanted to press into feels territory. Besides, I still needed answers.
“You know, we never got to finish our conversation earlier.”
“What were we talking about? X-Men storylines or something?”
I glared at him then picked up my phone. If there was one thing my family taught me, it was how to handle being either ignored or teased.
He withstood my silence for all of three minutes before cracking. Wimp. “Fine. Every once in a while, I get these flashes. I call them blips. It’s like one minute everything is normal and then, boom, I see the world move in fast-forward. The moment passes, and then I’m back where I was with maybe a few seconds to do something about it. That’s how I knew about the tree branch.” Gary let out a deep breath. “Go ahead. Tell me I’m crazy.”
I flopped back into my chair. “Well, yeah, any normal person would think that was a little crazy.” His face fell. “Except, I saw you do it, and you did save me, which counts for a lot in my book.”
There was any of a million questions I could have asked him in that moment, but, as I tended to do, I went with the least subtle choice.
“You’re a mutant, aren’t you?”
Chapter Five: Maybe She’s Born With it, Maybe it’s Destiny
“How did you get your powers? Were you born with them? Radiation? Spider bite? Ooh that’s it, isn’t it? You have spider sense!”
It figured. The second I put my theory out there, the halftime show started, completely derailing my interrogation. Uncle Jimmy fired up the pit for s’mores as the rest of the family joined us outside again for what seemed like an eternity. The moment the Pats started playing again, though, we had the yard to ourselves and I wasted no time in getting my own grilling started.
“It’s not like that,” Gary whispered, staring at the flames. “You know, you’re taking this way better than I expected. You’ve met a precog before, haven’t you?”
“Nope. Us comic geeks just tend to have open minds.”
“Okay. Seems legit.”
“It’s true,” I replied before reaching out and snagging a freshly toasted marshmallow off his stick. “Huh. You didn’t see that coming.”
“It doesn’t happen all the time, and usually not for marshmallows.”
“So, can you control it?” I asked, putting on my serious face. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed all of this, but teasing him probably wouldn’t get me anywhere.
Gary shook his head and reloaded his skewer, this time wisely keeping it away from me. “Sometimes. When I’m calm and can focus, I can see a little further and it’s not so blurry, but that doesn’t happen very often. Most of the time, it’s just blips, like I said.” He lowered his skewer for a moment. “Seriously, you can’t tell anyone about this.”
“Forget that Mutant Registration Act bs. I’m not gonna rat out my friend for having superpowers. Besides, you’d probably see it coming ahead of time.” At his glare, I held up my hands. “Relax. I’m kidding.”
“I just don’t want to take any chances,” he replied. “All it takes is one person to overhear the wrong thing and then the men in black show up to recruit me for the CIA.” He glowered at my skeptical eyebrow. “Or something like that. You read comics. When does it ever end well when a secret gets out?”
“Your point . . . is valid.” Before I could continue, however, I heard footsteps from behind me and a hand fell on my shoulder.
“Hey, kiddo.” I looked up to see Dad sporting a familiar apologetic smile. “You got any homework left?”
“Just some reading, what’s up?”
“The chief asked if I could pick up a shift for Dave tonight. His wife finally went into labor. You gonna be okay if I do some OT?”
“Sure.”
He turned his gaze to Gary, who looked ready to crawl into a hole and hide. However, Dad smiled and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Gary. Can I trust you to get my baby girl home?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got some homework, too, so I’ll just drop her off . . . and then immediately leave.”
“And that is what I like to hear. Text me when you get home, kiddo.”
I leaned in for one more hug, the rush of normalcy steadying my nerves for whatever else was coming tonight.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Does it ever happen when you’re driving?” I asked at the first stop sign.
Gary rolled his eyes. “I should’ve kept my big mouth shut.”
“Probably, but does it? You know, divining while driving?”
That got both an eye roll and a sigh. “Thankfully no. It doesn’t happen when I’m concentrating on something else, so that’s a blessing, and to answer your earlier questions—no I’m not a mutant, but I was born with it. It just got stronger when puberty hit, as if zits and stray hairs weren’t bad enough. Look, my parents don’t even know about this, so it’s awkward to talk about.”
“Your parents don’t—”
“My family isn’t as close as yours. I’m more like a trophy to my folks. My mom made it clear that I exist to fulfil her obligation to her mother for grandkids, and my father is . . . yeah. . . The irony is, a gift like mine would be a real asset to their chosen professions.”
I looked out the window at the lights and the other cars for a while, processing all that Gary had confessed. “Predictions?”
“Yeah, especially when you’re not really picky who you work for. Let’s just say reading the market doesn’t only help your standard day traders. There’s a reason I jumped at the chance to live with my aunt. She’s a character, but she’s the only real family I have. My folks still think I trashed my grades on purpose. Anxiety isn’t allowed in my mother’s universe.” He let out a chuckle. “Anyway, I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.”
I leaned back and thought about it for a while. “In comics, heroes rarely end up alone. So maybe I’m supposed to be your sidekick. Or . . . maybe you’re supposed to be mine.”
“So, you’re saying you’re a superhero?” Gary asked, his eyes drifting away from the road for a moment. “Supergirl slumming her way through high school, maybe?”
“Oh yeah, I just hide the invincibility, the flight, and the super strength so you guys don’t feel bad. I have to stop a bank robbery at eleven, so we better get through this traffic quick.” The laughter felt good, even if the traffic on 290 sucked donkey balls.
Once Gary did a little breakdown lane shuffle to get to our exit, I couldn’t resist asking, “Did you do your thing to see if there was a cop?”
“No, but I figured with your dad on the force, even if we did get pulled over, we could talk our way out of it.”
“It doesn’t really work that way.”
“Well, neither do my blips.”
Once we were safely through the warren of side streets and on my cul-de-sac, he glanced my way. “Tell me something. If you could have super powers, would you want them?”
“Are you really asking that?”
“It couldn’t be any crazier than talking about blips.”
We pulled into my driveway and I nodded towards the door. “Come on, we can talk about this while I risk my life doing the hair thing.
I’ve only got tonight before I. . .” I trailed off for a long overdue sigh at the thought of Tony.
“Your dad won’t freak if he finds out I came in?”
“Probably, but what he doesn’t know, won’t hurt you. So . . . don’t leave any fingerprints.” I laughed as he once again blanched. “Come on, I need a seeing-eye Gary to help me get the back of my head.”
I reset the alarm and gave him the ten-cent tour. After rescuing the boxes of hair color from their hidey-hole in my laundry pile, I set up shop in the downstairs bathroom. My companion seemed rather concerned as I pulled a sheet of plastic out from under the sink and slowly turned the area into a missing scene from Dexter. “It’s leftover from when we painted last summer. I swear.”
I took a moment to read the instructions. “All natural, subtle hair color to enhance the natural beauties,” it read in suspect English. Seemed simple enough, but first, I needed to mix the powder with coconut milk and olive oil. Was this hair color, or a recipe for rice pilaf? Lucky for me, we had both on hand.
“It smells like a mix of barnyard and Thai food,” Gary remarked as I stirred the gritty paste.
“Who cares so long as it works and fades quickly?” I compared the rusty color in the picture to the bright red goop in the bowl. Hmm. Call it ironic, but I found some part of myself hoping it wasn’t too subtle. After all, the whole point was to make Tony notice me.
We moseyed back to the bathroom where I began the lengthy process of brushing out and separating my hair. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, I mixed up the second box as well.
“You sure you want to do this?”
“You’re the one who told me Tony was into redheads, so here we go.” I slid my hands into some repurposed cleaning gloves and plopped the fragrant goo on my scalp—ooh, tingly. Once I got in the rhythm of smearing it on, I went back to our far more interesting conversation topic. “I’d definitely want superpowers, but I think it’s easier to list what powers I don’t want.”
“Oh?” Gary asked, looking overly squirrely for some reason. What’s up with him now?
“Yeah, immortality and invulnerability sound great on paper, but it would really suck to be floating in the cold void of space after the sun burns out, not to mention seeing everyone you’ve ever cared about grow old and die.”
Gary nodded. “That does sound depressing.”
“Telepathy would suck, too. I really don’t want to know what everyone is thinking about all the time. I hear enough in the halls as it is. Not only that, but the human mind doesn’t think in coherent storylines. You’d probably just end up getting a ton of wet dreams and incoherent rambling.”
“You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?”
“You have no idea.” I nodded, nearly sending a spatter onto an unprotected section of wainscoting. “Energy blasts might be fun if I could control them, but I think there’s a reason so many superheroes have the basics: strength, speed, and toughness. Those are the least likely to turn you mental. Okay, that and everyone can still relate. You want your heroes to just be a little more human than human. Well, either that, or be an obsessed billionaire with daddy issues. That also works.”
“Being a billionaire is a superpower?” he asked as he helped me wrap my sticky, stinky head in plastic wrap, checking for any missing patches in the back.
“Isn’t it, though? Anyway, I don’t think my powers would be as important as how I got them. That would really define me. Deep in my heart, I hope . . . that I’d be like Steve Rogers. I’d want to be the guy who chose to have powers rather than them happen as result of genetics or random accident. The real heroes are the ones who choose to do something rather than have it handed to them on a silver platter.”
“I, um, never thought about it like that.”
I wrapped a towel around my head and led him to the kitchen where we could have some snacks. When in doubt, snacks.
Gary remained awfully quiet as I led him through my place. Oh, crap! “Hey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean there was anything wrong with being born with powers or not asking for them. I just meant if I had the choice. . .”
“It’s okay, really. Like you said, there’s nothing wrong with being born weird, if you can call—”
“Seeing the future?” I offered.
Gary snickered a little. “I just don’t want you to think I’m weird because of it. I’d rather you think I’m weird because I like Pop Rocks in peanut butter or something like that.”
“That is pretty weird, I won’t lie. Still, you’re not the only one who’s had strange stuff happen to them.” I trailed off. A mix of awkward filled me as an itchy feeling rose from my scalp thanks to all the goop plastered to it. Those words from the previous week whispered through my head again.
“Not so rough, you idiot. She’s the chosen one!”
I took a deep breath. “Last week, I was attacked on my way home.”
“Oh my God! You weren’t hurt, were you?”
I shook my head. “Except I wasn’t attacked, not really. Hear me out. I remember being grabbed and then I woke up in my room, but the weirdest thing is, there was this raspy voice saying I was the chosen one. I can’t really explain it better than that. It was like a dream, but still real. It just keeps haunting me, and it’s giving me wicked anxiety. I’d rather face a dozen of Mr. Turner’s pop quizzes than keep remembering this.”
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” When I glared at him, he changed tactics. “Okay, so do you remember anything else? Anything at all? Maybe you got a glimpse of whoever attacked you?”
“No, I didn’t see anyone. Whoever grabbed me had strong hands, but the voice I heard was a woman’s, I think. It was husky sounding . . . raspy. Anyway, this woman was telling whoever grabbed me to let me go.” I shook my head, careful to keep the plastic in place. “The whole thing would be easy to dismiss, but then I found out a girl, a jogger, went missing that same night. That’s why Dad doesn’t want me walking home after dark.”
“Yeah, I can see where that would be legit freaky.”
I nodded. The memories flooded back all fresh and freaky, and then there’d been that bruise on my neck. The jury was still out on whether I’d dreamt the entire thing, but I’d like to think I had some grasp of reality. “Maybe I’m stressed out—high school, work, and all of that.”
“Or you’re actually the chosen one and you’re gonna wake up tomorrow a kick-ass superhero.”
Both of us devolved into laughter.
“Totally. Unfortunately, my super power is attracting tons of homework. Speaking of which, I need to get cracking on my reading, and then I gotta wash this mess before bed.” After a moment, I turned serious again. “Thanks for not laughing at me.”
“Like I have room to talk,” he said. “Oh, hey, if you think of anything else, I’ll listen, and just for the record, I’m glad you’re okay.”
I thanked him as I led him to the door. “At least I’ve got this to look forward to.” I hooked a thumb at my head.
Gary looked uncomfortable again. “Maybe . . . I mean, I’m sure the hair will work, but it’s only half the equation. The rest is you. You know, self-esteem and all that. I’m pretty sure my . . . aunt’s self-help book said if you believe in yourself, then anything is possible. Fake it till you make it and all that.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding and letting his words sink in. “So, you’re saying I should have a little faith in myself?”
Gary twitched and looked away just as I noticed a flash in the glass on the storm door—a car coming up the street probably. At least the light was yellowish and not the red and blue party lights of the police.
Gary turned back toward me, looking slightly embarrassed. “Sorry, thought I saw something,” he said quickly. “But yeah . . . a little faith, that’s all, and if Tony is too stupid to notice, then he doesn’t deserve you.”
“Thanks. I’ll try my best.” I made sure he got out of the driveway safely, then jumped as I noticed a fli
cker of light reflecting in the door again.
I took another look. Duh, Mrs. Whitman was watching the end of the game with her curtains open. I’d probably just seen the reflection in the glass. Guess my talk with Gary had left me a little skittish.
I made my way back to the kitchen to read some Shakespeare while I waited for my hair to be finished, pausing in act three to go check on things . . . noting that it looked like my head was covered in mud. Oh, and was that a fresh blackhead brewing along my nose?
I squared my gaze at my less than optimal reflection and tried a mysterious, sly grin. No, that made me look like I was plotting Tony’s doom. I went full smile—now I looked like I was ready for my yearbook photo. I dared to open my mouth. Oh God, the horror. Even the Joker would tell me to knock that crap out.
“If you could have any superpower, what would you really want, Jessie?” Who was I kidding? “If I could have a superpower, I’d want the chutzpah to get Tony to notice me . . . me, his redheaded goddess.” I switched to a smirk, my smirk. Yeah, that was more like it. “I do want to be the chosen one, Universe. I just want to be chosen by the right person.”
I laughed at my reflection then turned to get back to my reading. If wishes really worked, then everyone in Massachusetts would be a lottery winner and the Red Sox would be undefeated.
♦ ♦ ♦
I woke up extra groggy as my klaxon sounded from the nightstand. Stupid mud head and late night. I flipped the hair out of my face before yawning and fluttering my eyelids. The strands felt luxurious and silky against my skin. Talk about conditioning! I lifted the tips to see if I had managed to get at least a touch of auburn in the daylight and nearly screamed at what I saw.
“Holy—”
Chapter Six: The Hair Dye of Doom
Red . . . Crimson . . . Vermillion . . . Scarlet. . . We’re not talking the kind of red that appeared naturally on pasty, freckled folks, but rather the kind of sanguine hue more at home in anime, or possibly a fire truck.
My voice caught in my throat as I stared at the strand between my fingers. This had to be a joke, a dream—no, a nightmare brought on by too many fantasies of Tony and his sure fingers.
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