“What’s wrong?” she says.
“I had a bad dream,” I say. Ugh, listen to me. I sound like a child.
Carrie makes a sympathetic noise and lets me in. We sit on her bed, and she asks me about the dream.
“I was in my house. My parents were there,” I say. “They looked creepy as hell, like the ghosts in that weird Japanese horror movie Matt made us watch.” Carrie shudders at the memory. “Mom kept telling me how dark it was. Dad called me useless because I couldn’t fix them.”
Carrie squeezes my hand.
“I don’t know why this one was so bad,” I say. I’ve dreamed about my parents every night since I awoke from my coma, and none of them have been good dreams, but tonight...God, my heart is still racing. “I know you had nightmares about Manticore after he hurt you. When did they stop?”
Carrie makes a sound that’s part chuckle, part sigh. “Who said they stopped?”
“You still have them?”
“Sometimes. Not like I used to. Not as often and they’re nowhere near as bad as they used to be, but yeah. I don’t know if they’ll ever go away.” Carrie frowns. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be more encouraging.”
“Me too.” Carrie shifts over so I can lay my head on her shoulder. She puts an arm around me. “It will get better. Maybe not any easier, but it’ll get better. Give it time. Do you want to sleep here tonight?”
I nod. We slip under the sheets and lie down. I fall asleep right away.
There are no more bad dreams tonight.
2.
I wake up a little after five. I never used to be an early riser. I’d always sleep until my alarm went off, and it would take me forever to drag my butt out of bed, but now I wake up on my own and get right up — and almost always around five.
My sleeping habits aren’t the only things different about me. I’m less emotional. I’m thinking more clearly. I’m not constantly stressing about stuff. I like myself.
That last one’s huge for me. I don’t think I ever really hated myself, but I was never comfortable with who I was, whether that someone was Sara Danvers the genetic mutation, Sara Danvers the closeted lesbian, Sara Danvers the half-Jew, Sara Danvers the skinny girl with the pasty complexion and dark circles under her eyes, the mediocre student, the quiet girl with the weird friends...I always worried about what other people thought about me. Maybe because I actually knew what other people thought about me.
Ignorance might not be bliss, exactly, but there’s a ton less anxiety involved.
I slip out of bed carefully to avoid waking Carrie up and head downstairs to start making breakfast for everyone. Today’s experiment is sausage and pancakes. Not very elaborate, I know, but I’m new to cooking. Time was, I could screw up heating up a can of SpaghettiOs, so easing into it is in everyone’s best interests.
Christina insists I don’t need to make breakfast every morning, but I promised myself I’d do everything I could to thank her for taking me in. She didn’t have to. She probably wouldn’t have if Carrie and Bart hadn’t asked her to.
My parents weren’t perfect, far from it, but I didn’t appreciate them as much as I should have. I won’t make the same mistake twice.
Carrie and Christina come downstairs as I’m plating up the food. “Sara, honey, you really don’t need to do this,” Christina says as usual.
“I want to,” I reply, also as usual. “Besides, once school starts up, I don’t know if I’ll have time to make breakfast like this, so you might as well enjoy it while you can.”
“Oh, yes, first day of school is, what? Tuesday?”
“One week from today, yep,” Carrie says, “so we need to get ourselves ready for our grand return.”
“We do?” I say.
“We do. I am taking you clothes shopping today.”
“I have clothes.”
“You have a few pairs of jeans, some sweatshirts, a couple of hoodies...”
“Which are all clothes.”
“She got you there,” Christina says. “Seriously, Sara, I think you could do with a new wardrobe.”
“A new wardrobe, a new hairstyle — a new you.” I give Carrie a skeptical look. “You think it sounds silly and superficial, don’t you?”
“Kind of, yeah,” I say, though I would have said stupid and pointless.
“It is, but it isn’t. After we moved to Kingsport and got settled in, Mom took me out for a makeover day. We dropped nearly every scrap of clothing we owned into a donation bin then hit the mall to buy new wardrobes. After that, we hunted down a salon for new ‘dos. It was surprisingly therapeutic.”
“Which was precisely the point,” Christina says. “We were both starting our lives over. We were practically different people, so I thought, why not look the part?”
“I think it would do you a lot of good,” Carrie says. “What do you say?”
“Okay,” I say.
With that decided, we sit down to breakfast. Christina takes off for work, leaving Carrie and me to kill a couple hours before the mall opens. We use the time to root through my clothes and toss anything that doesn’t fit what Carrie calls my “new normal.” Almost everything I own winds up going into garbage bags.
After showering I go downstairs, expecting to head out, but Carrie informs me that Missy is coming over.
“She is? Why?” I say.
“I have something for her, but everything’s been so crazy I haven’t had a chance to give it to her. She should be here in a little while.” Carrie says, a little too casually to be sincerely casual. Sigh. I love her, and she’s one of the smartest people I know, but sometimes she is not as clever as she thinks she is.
When Missy arrives, she totally avoids making eye contact with me, and she doesn’t step away from the front door. She’s ready to bolt if I so much as blink funny.
“Wait here, I’ll be right back,” Carrie says before running upstairs.
“You realize Carrie just wanted to get us in the same room together,” I say.
“Duh,” Missy says to the floor.
“...I notice you came anyway.”
Missy gives me a vague shrug. “Again, duh.”
Hm. Maybe Carrie is that clever.
Carrie returns, carrying with her, of all things, a guitar case and a small amplifier. “While I was down on the Cape, Dad and I went through some stuff in his attic, and we found this,” she says. “He played with some friends back in high school. They called themselves ‘The Band No Garage Could Hold.’ He hasn’t played since. He was going to put it up on Craigslist, but he said if I could give it a good home...”
Missy takes the case and sets it on the floor. She opens it up to reveal a guitar. It’s red. Um, it doesn’t have its strings, it has a whatchacallit — a whammy bar? Look, I don’t know what else to say about it. It’s a guitar.
Missy, however, is more impressed than I am — and more knowledgeable. “Oooooh, an old Ibanez Roadstar II,” she coos, cradling the instrument. She holds it up almost like she’s holding a rifle and lining up a shot. “The neck doesn’t look warped.”
“I think there’s a package of strings in the case,” Carrie says.
Missy searches the case and pulls out a small square envelope. “Nine gauge? Jeez, your dad had wussy little girl fingers.” She sits on the floor and starts threading strings through the thing at the bottom — the metal box thing where the whammy bar is.
I really don’t know anything about guitars.
Someone knocks on the door. Carrie glances at me and then at Missy like we know who it is. I doubt it’s Stuart, so that leaves...
“Hey, Matt,” Carrie says. “You look a little puffy today.”
“Natalie wailed the crap out of me yesterday. Swelling hasn’t gone down completely,” Matt says like it’s no big deal. He looks past Carrie to me. “Can I talk to you?”
“Yeah, sure,” I say. “About what?”
“In private?”
“Um...okay.”
Matt pushes past Carrie and head
s into the kitchen. I follow.
“Yeah, hi, Matt, don’t say hello to me or anything,” Missy mutters.
“What’s up?” I ask Matt. “You seem...I don’t know, kind of intense.”
Matt nods but not like he’s agreeing with me. It’s more like he’s psyching himself up.
“I know I’ve been distant lately,” he says, “but I swear that has nothing to do with you. I mean, it does, but it doesn’t. I’m not mad at you or anything, I’m...well, I realized that I’ve been a really cruddy friend and I’m embarrassed by how I’ve treated you.”
“How you’ve —? Matt, you’ve never been a bad friend,” I say. An occasionally frustrating friend, maybe...
“Yes, I have. I was a bad friend every time I asked you out. I knew you didn’t have any feelings for me and I should have respected that. I didn’t, and I’m sorry. You deserved better than that.”
“Matt...”
“Let me finish. I want to be your friend, Sara, I do, but...” Matt frowns. What he says next isn’t surprising, but it floors me anyway. “I still love you. I’m trying to learn to love you differently, like a friend, but I need time to figure out how I’m supposed to do that. And I’m probably going to screw it up. Maybe a lot.” He shrugs. “I know me.”
“I don’t care if you screw up,” I say. “As long as you try.”
He will. When Matt wants something, really wants it, he’ll knock himself out working for it. He’d die before giving up. It’s one of the things I love about him.
Sometimes, I do wish I loved him in that way.
Our little moment is interrupted by the blast of a thick, crunching guitar chord. The noise quickly comes together and becomes the opening riffs to “Long Road to Ruin” by the Foo Fighters, Missy’s favorite band. Matt and I return to the living room, where Missy is ripping into the song with wild abandon — yet her face is strangely blank. She’s so focused on playing it’s like she’s in a trance. She snaps out of it when a string breaks with a shrill BWANG!
“Aww,” she moans, “I was totally killing that solo, too.”
“Yeah, you were,” Carrie says.
“Missy, that was amazing,” I say.
“I had nothing else to do but practice,” Missy says coolly, “what with me being stuck inside all summer with a broken leg.”
A weird pressure settles across my chest, and my stomach gurgles unhappily.
“Missy,” Carrie says.
“Thank you for the guitar,” Missy says, ducking out of the strap and returning the guitar to its case.
“Let me give you a ride home,” Matt offers. “My car’s right outside.”
“No thanks. I’ll walk.” She looks in Carrie’s general direction, but she’s gone back to avoiding eye contact. “Thank you for the guitar. I said that already. I’m going to go now.”
And she does. The door closes with a soft click. Carrie swears under her breath.
“You tried,” I say. “That’s all you can do.”
Carrie grunts. “I don’t know about you,” she says miserably, “but I could really use that girls’ day out now.”
“Yeah.” Hey, wait a minute. “Your car is right outside?” I say to Matt. “You got it on the road?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, a while ago,” Matt says.
“Oh yeah?” Carrie says, smiling. “Well then, guess who’s driving us to the mall?”
3.
“This is your car?” Carrie says. Matt grins. Oh, he is loving this.
“It is. Go on, get in,” he says. I barely beat Carrie in calling shotgun. “It used to belong to my uncle. He left it to me when he died, much to my jerk-ass cousin’s dismay.”
“Terry Jr.” I make a disgusted noise. “You heard from him lately?”
“He’s getting married in a few weeks.”
“Seriously? He found someone stupid enough to marry him?”
“Apparently.”
“Who’s this?” Carrie asks.
“My cousin, Terry Jr. He’s a tool,” Matt says. “I have to go to his wedding in a few weeks.”
“You’re going to take the car just to spite him, right?” I say.
“That would be petty and immature of me,” Matt says, “so yes. Oh, that reminds me.” He twists around in his seat and says to Carrie, “Want to hear something hysterical? Guess who Dad said I should take to the wedding as my date?”
Carrie shrugs.
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“But we’d kill each other. I mean, you’re my friend and I love you —”
“No, I get it,” Matt says. “Don’t worry, we’re on the same page.”
He starts the car and guns the engine. The whole car vibrates.
“We’re very impressed,” Carrie says, “now drive.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take you to the store, Miss Daisy.”
Matt doesn’t so much drive as cruise, his window rolled down and one arm slung over the door. It’s so dorky it’s adorable. Boys and cars.
It’s a short trip to the mall, one we could have walked easily, but Carrie insists we’re going to be buying out half the stores, and who wants to lug that much stuff back home on foot? I think she overestimates my ability to spend recklessly.
Not that I don’t have the money. Carrie’s boss, Sullivan Crenshaw, hooked me up with a lawyer friend of his who specializes in estate matters. Technically, the process normally involves executing a dead person’s will, but my parents aren’t dead. However, their wills were written to include...um, situations like this. They set up something called a living trust, which I guess is intended to avoid taking things through the courts, which can add years to the process. Right, like I want to be dealing with this until I graduate.
Anyway, because I’m my parents’ only living relative, there isn’t anyone to contest their wills. I’m the sole beneficiary, so transferring all their holdings is a little less complicated. All the money in their bank accounts has already been transferred over to me. Stuff like stocks, money in their retirement accounts, and anything I’ll get from selling the house will take a while to sort through. All that money will go into a trust that I won’t be able to touch until I’m eighteen. My attorney said my eighteenth birthday will be “a substantial payday.”
If there’s a crappier way to get rich, I don’t know what it is.
We arrive at the mall. Matt parks in a space at the far end of the lot, well away from any other cars — and the mall itself. We’re practically in a different zip code.
“Yeah, I know,” Matt says, “but I’d like to avoid my first door ding for as long as possible.”
“We didn’t say anything,” Carrie says. No, but we were both thinking it.
“What’s first on the agenda?” I ask Carrie. “I’ve never been on a shopping spree before, so...”
“We start with the foundation of any outfit,” she says. “We hit the lingerie store and get you a bra fitting.”
“Why? My bra fits fine.”
“You think so, but I’ll bet you anything you’re wearing the wrong size. I used to wear the wrong size too, then I got a fitting, and it made a huge difference. I had better support, I was more comfortable, and the girls looked fantastic.”
“I have a very hard time believing your girls ever looked less than fantastic.”
I suddenly realize that Matt hasn’t said a word throughout this conversation.
“What’s that look for?” he says.
“Here we are, talking about our boobs, and you’re completely silent,” I say. “What’s wrong with this picture?”
“Was I supposed to say something?”
“I expected at least one inappropriate comment.”
“That’s why I’m not saying anything; it would be inappropriate.” Carrie scowls at him. “What? I’m trying to be more mindful of what I say.”
“Thinking before speaking?” Carrie says. “Who are you and
what have you done with Matt Steiger?”
“Ha. Excuse me,” Matt says as his phone goes off. The ringtone is “Spanish Bomb” by The Clash — Natalie’s ringtone. “Hey. What’s up? Really? Cool! Yeah, I’m totally up for that, give me the website.” Matt briefly closes his eyes in concentration. “Got it. Okay, I’ll go sign up now. Thanks for the heads-up. Later.”
“What was that about?” Carrie asks.
“Hold on.” Matt pauses to give his phone his undivided attention. When he finishes, he tells us, “Natalie said a former CIA agent who teaches self-defense classes at her college is conducting a knife-fighting course. Just signed up for it,” he says, pocketing his phone.
“Knife fighting? Why in the world would you want to learn knife fighting?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” he says like Carrie’s the crazy one.
“Because it’s knife fighting. Why would you need to know something like that? You’re already a good fighter, and you have your gloves.”
“Yeah, but Natalie’s been pushing me to expand my horizons and add some new tools to my super-hero toolbox. The more I know, the better off I am, right?”
“I...actually can’t argue that point,” Carrie concedes.
“You should try to find some new things to do with your powers. Flying and blasting stuff is useful and all, but I think you’ve barely scratched the surface of what you’re capable of,” Matt says, his inner science and super-hero geeks kicking in and teaming up. “You’re able to manipulate gravity, various forms of radiation along the EM spectrum...have you ever tried turning invisible? Or generating an electromagnetic pulse, or a gravity pulse? You could be a living G-bomb! You could flatten a building like that!”
“Is that really something we should be excited about?” I say.
“Matt, I wouldn’t know where to begin figuring out how to do any of that.” Carrie says. “I honestly don’t even know how I do the few things I can do.”
“Maybe you could talk to Dr. Quentin,” Matt suggests. “She’s studied how your powers work. She might have some ideas.”
Action Figures - Issue Five: Team-Ups Page 7