Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect (25 page)

It’s a dumb story, the kind
of simplistic homily I’d expect from a pastor attempting to console a confused
and desolate young boy.

And yet, it does make me feel
better. I manage an honest smile.

“You’re good,” I say.

“I have my moments,” Malcolm
says.

A loud sizzling sound
heralds the arrival of our fajitas. I get one whiff of the chicken and
vegetables sizzling in their cast-iron pan and my dead appetite rises from the
grave with a vengeance. I devour my food with unladylike gusto. Marines at
chowtime are more genteel. Malcolm, judging by his broad grin, is perfectly
content to enjoy the show with his dinner.

The waitress comes to clear
our plates, at which point Malcolm excuses himself. I assume he has to hit the
little boy’s room but he returns with a present, a box he needs both hands to
carry. He sets it on the table in front of me.

“I’d say you didn’t have to
get me anything, but I know you’d argue the point,” I say.

“I would. Go ahead, open
it.”

I lift the box off the
table, give it an obligatory shake. It’s got a bit of heft to it but it doesn’t
rattle, so whatever inside is fairly solid.

The pre-unwrapping ritual
complete, I pull the pale blue ribbon off and, because I’m a dork, carefully
peel the white paper away at the seams to reveal a plain cardboard box. I pull
the packing tape off, fold the flaps back —

Oh.

Skates. Malcolm got me a
pair of ice skates. They’re white leather, with white laces and nice long
blades that gleam like polished mirrors.

“Sara helped me pick them
out,” he says. “I didn’t know your shoe size, so she did a little spy work for
me.”

“Uh-huh,” I say as I start
to tear up. I try to thank him, but all I can muster is a lot of sniffling and
a pathetic squeak, and I am so grateful we’re in a private corner, because
crying in front of an entire restaurant? Utterly without dignity.

Malcolm shifts his chair
next to mine and slips an arm around my shoulders. “You hate them.”

“Shut up.”

“Knew I should have gone
with pink.”

“Shut up.”

“Happy birthday.”

“Thank you. Now don’t ruin
it by having the waitstaff sing to me while I’m crying.”

Malcolm jumps to his feet.
“I’ll be right back.”

“Sooooooo?” Sara says to me
the very instant she opens her front door.

“Good morning to you too,” I
say. “So...what? Are you referring to something specific, or...?”

“Oh, don’t you even. How did
your birthday date with Malcolm go?”

“It was fantastic, but man,
am I sore,” I say.

Sara raises an eyebrow. “Oh,
you are, are you?”

“What was that?!” Mr.
Danvers shouts from the kitchen.

“My boyfriend took me ice
skating, Mr. Danvers!” I respond.

“Oh,” he says.

“God, Dad, could you
possibly embarrass me more?” Sara says through clenched teeth.

“I’m sure he could if he tried.”

“Let’s not give him the
chance. Come on,” Sara says, slipping out without offering her father a
goodbye. “All right, we’re clear. Make with the details.”

I give Sara the full story
en route to Missy’s, and she delights in every last shmoopy moment. It’s weird,
having someone live vicariously through my relationship, especially when said
person could easily have her own (but that is a discussion to rehash with Sara
another time).

Missy is less interested in
my night, which is understandable considering how she spent hers. “How did the
visit go?” I ask her.

“It was awkward,” she says.
“Mom and Dad talked a lot. I just sat there and stared at the floor, and Mom
kept trying to get us to talk but neither of us could say anything to each
other or even look at each other. I don’t know what to say to him.”

Sara wraps an arm around
Missy’s shoulder. It stays there until we get to the train station.

Missy brightens once we
transfer at South Station onto the train heading to Worcester, the westernmost point
for the MBTA commuter rail system. That’s where Meg picks us up, and she makes
quite a show of it: We head to the parking lot and find her leaning on her car,
a sporty little convertible in fire engine red. She looks like an extra from
Grease
:
She’s wearing a knee-length pink skirt, a matching cropped jacket, and her hair
is tied into a ponytail with a polka-dot length of fabric.

“Good morning, ladies,” Meg
says, sliding her cat-eye sunglasses down to the tip of her nose. “Who’s ready
for a day to remember? Show of hands?”

“You have no idea how ready
we are,” Sara says. She receives the first in a series of hugs, but Meg pauses
when she gets her first look at Missy’s war wounds.

“Oh, God, Missy, what
happened?”

“Could someone else tell
her?” Missy says. I take care of filling Meg in and, because she’s one of us (a
super-hero, that is), I don’t spare any details.

“Wait, Dr. Hamill, you said?
Ken
Hamill?” Meg says. Missy nods in conformation. “No way. Mom’s
friends with him. He was at that MIT fundraiser we went to a couple weeks ago.”

“Speaking of your mom, do
you think I could talk to her? I think she might be able to help us find
Buzzkill Joy,” I say, “or at least help us figure out what she’s up to.”

“Yeah, sure, let’s go,” Meg
says.

We climb into her car, which
rumbles to life the way older cars do, cars that predate computer chips and
power everything. I’m no motorhead, not by any means, but I have to appreciate
Meg’s wheels.

“How did you get a driver’s
license?” I ask. “Aren’t you, like, our age?”

“I’m seventeen,” Meg says.
“I got my learner’s permit as soon as I turned sixteen, although Mom let me
start practicing when I was fourteen. She’s big into early achievement.”

Quelle surprise
.

Once we’re on the road,
conversation turns to pleasantly mundane chit-chat. Meg informs us that, after
we make our stop at the Quantum Compound, we’ll be heading to Blasts from the
Past, a consignment shop specializing in vintage clothing, such as her current
retro ensemble.

“If you’ve never shopped in
a vintage clothing store, here are your ground rules,” Meg says. “Anything from
the mid-sixties or earlier is safe. The mid-sixties through the early seventies
are kind of hit-or-miss. If I see any of you considering anything from the
eighties, I’m obligated to smack you. The eighties was a hideous decade.”

We make good time to the
Compound. Meg pulls the car into a small parking lot, easing in between an SUV
and a heavily modified camper (the latter of which, I’m guessing, is how Joe
gets around). Meg leads us inside, through a series of hallways, and into the
hanger for the Quentins’ air transport, the Raptor (a much sleeker,
cooler-looking version of the Protectorate’s Pelican. Better name, too). The
live version of the Talking Heads’
Take Me to the River
is blaring from
a stereo built into a massive tool chest that stands as tall as me. A hatch in
the airship’s fuselage stands open like the hood of a car and Dr. Quentin, clad
in tan coveralls, bends over the vehicle’s guts, a collection of circuit boards
and wires. Farley sits on a nearby workbench, his legs dangling well above the
cement floor.

Dr. Quentin springs upright
when Meg turns the music down. “Who turned off my Talking Heads?!” Dr. Quentin
barks. “Oh, hello, Meg. I didn’t expect you back so soon. Hello, ladies.”

“CARRIE!” Farley cries. He
jumps off the workbench and hits me with a tackle-hug that almost takes my legs
out from under me.

“Hey there, Farley,” I say,
scooping the boy into my arms. “How’s my buddy?”

“I’m good! When are you
going to babysit again? We have to finish
The Hobbit
!”

“Ah, yes, I’m glad you
brought that up.” Dr. Quentin pushes her glasses up on her nose. “I have
another professional obligation coming up in a few weeks,” she says, uttering
professional
obligation
as though the word itself tastes like a sweaty sock. “I trust
I can again call upon your services?”

“Um, yeah, about that. I
might have some transportation issues,” I say. Dr. Quentin raises an inquiring
eyebrow. “Concorde grounded us — by which I mean me.”

“Grounded you?”

“He revoked my flight
clearance, yeah.”

“What did you do that
compelled him to revoke your flight clearance?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

Dr. Quentin eyes me
skeptically.

“I didn’t. It’s kind of hard
to explain,” I say, and I recap for her what went down at the courthouse.
“Concorde basically grounded me and threatened to have me arrested to stop the
Squad from doing anything vaguely super-heroic.”

“
Hmph
. Ethically
dubious, legally indefensible,” Dr. Quentin says, more to herself than to me,
“but undeniably effective.”

Legally indefensible?
Interesting...

But we have more important
issues to deal with first. “Dr. Quentin, do you have any connections in the
federal government?”

“A few. Why?”

I explain our situation to
her, punching up the fact that her good and dear friend Dr. Hamill is involved,
a calculated attempt to make her feel personally invested in our mission. It’s
low, I admit, but we’re beyond desperate.

My ploy works. Go me.

“I’ll make a few calls on
your behalf,” Dr. Quentin says. “I of course can’t promise I’ll receive any
useful information...”

“No, I understand,” I say,
“but we appreciate your help. Thank you.”

With that, we head out for
our sorely needed day of shop therapy, and I’m pleased to report that Blasts
from the Past lives up to Meg’s hype and then some. The store is set up in an
old house, a two-story Victorian job rich with atmosphere. Each room is
dedicated to a specific decade, and is jam-packed with vintage clothing in such
excellent condition you’d swear everything had been made this year. Missy
wanders from room to room while I hunt around in the sections dedicated to the
forties and fifties. Sara peruses the 1920s room and discovers an honest-to-God
flapper dress. It’s a black tube of fabric with beading around the neckline and
tassels ringing the hem of the skirt — shapeless and ugly, in my opinion, but
Sara strokes it like she’s petting a sleeping cat. It’s love at first sight.

“You have to try it on,” Meg
says.

Sara puts up token
resistance, but Meg gently pressures her into taking it into a fitting room.
She emerges a few minutes later, and I take back what I said: On Sara, with her
lithe frame, that dress totally works.

“Wow. I think this is the
first time I’ve ever seen you in something other than a hoodie or a
sweatshirt,” Meg notes aloud.

“Does it look okay?” Sara
says, bracing for scathing criticism than never comes. Her arms come up in a
defensive posture, crossing over her chest.

“Oh, girl, you look
fantastic
in that,” Meg says as she walks a slow circle around Sara.

“Really?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“She’s right,” I say. “It
looks great on you.”

Sara peeks at the price tag
and winces. “I can’t afford this,” she mopes. Man, that sucks. She finally finds
clothing that isn’t a sack with sleeves and she can’t buy it.

She changes back into her
street clothes and, with a resigned sigh, returns the dress to the rack. That
takes the wind out of her sails, big-time; she flips through the racks without
enthusiasm, convinced she’s not going to find anything as perfect as that dress
that’s within her meager price range.

Once she moves on to another
room I sneak a look at the price tag and wow, yeah, it’s an investment piece.
Perhaps an investment a group of friends could make in the interest of getting
Sara an awesome birthday present...

The expedition ends with
Missy scoring some knee-length plaid skirts (“Japanese school girls wear them
all the time,” she explains) and Meg claiming for herself a cool Bolero jacket
to go with her vintage cocktail dress. I find a pair of saddle shoes that go
with absolutely nothing I own, but they’re too cute and reasonably priced to
pass up. Sara tries to leave empty-handed but Meg’s not having it.

“Not happening,” Meg says,
firmly but with a smile. “You don’t get to leave until you get something nice
for yourself.”

Sara relents and picks up a
sixties-era jumper dress with a bold black-and-white geometric pattern, which
meets with our unanimous approval, and by God, I will make her wear it out in
public.

Lunch is a light affair at a
little café, then it’s off to the local equivalent of the Coffee Experience for
pastries and coffee. We linger there for a couple of hours before deciding to
call it a day. We climb into the car and, before she starts up the engine, Meg
gives her mom a quick call to check in.