Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect (26 page)

“I have to drop the girls
off at the train station. I’ll be home in about an hour,” she tells Dr.
Quentin. “What? Okay, sure,” she says, handing her cell to me. “Mom wants to
talk to you.”

I take the phone. “What’s
up?”

“I spoke to a friend of mine
within the Department of Defense and oh, did I get quite the earful,” Dr.
Quentin says. “It seems that I’m not supposed to know anything about Project
Moreau, up to and including its name and the fact it even exists.”

“Oh, jeez, Dr. Quentin, I’m
so sorry,” I say. “I didn’t get you in any trouble did I?”

“I’ve been informed I should
expect my name to appear soon on a government watch list. Well, another one,”
she says, though she doesn’t sound worried about it. “Unfortunately for you, it
means I was unable to glean anything that might be useful.”

“Figures. But thank you for
trying,” I say, and I hand the phone back to Meg.

“Nothing?” she says.

“Nothing.” I turn to Missy.
“I’m sorry, Muppet. I don’t know what else to do.”

Missy shrugs. “You tried.”

“Don’t give up, guys,” Meg
says. “You’ll figure something out.”

“How do you know?” Sara
says.

“Because you are three sharp
ladies.” She smiles at us. “No way is some psycho bint going to outsmart my girls.”

“Why do you have to live so
far away?” Sara says. “We could use a cheerleader like you on the Squad.”

More than that, it’s nice to
have someone outside the group to talk to, who understands the weirdness we have
to deal with, the unique stress of the super-hero life. Meg gets us. We don’t
have to guard ourselves around her. We don’t have to lie to her about who we
are. That’s a rare thing in our lives.

“Be of good cheer, my
pretty,” Meg chirps, “because that all changes come September. I’ll be going to
school in the city! We’ll be able to get together whenever we want.”

“Wait, you’re graduating
high school already?” I say.

“Early achiever, remember?
Yep, I ripped through all my basic requirements by the end of sophomore year,
skipped ahead a grade, and after my well-deserved summer break, I’ll be a
freshman at the Berklee School of Music.”

“Music? Really?” I don’t
know why that surprises me so much.

“Instrumental music, to be
precise, with some vocals on the side. I play the piano, violin, flute,
saxophone, and last year I took up the banjo.”

“The banjo?” I say. If
nothing else, Meg has inherited her mother’s knack for deadpan statements that
make me wonder whether she’s joking.

“I needed something less
pretentious.”

“You play the saxophone?”
Sara says. “That’s sexy.”

“I know, right? I play sax
in a band with some classmates. We call ourselves the Mutual Admiration
Society. We play swing, a little hot jazz, old-school rhythm and blues, some
rockabilly. I’m hoping to get a group like that together when I get to Berklee,
maybe start playing a few club gigs, that kind of thing.”

“Sounds awesome.”

It sounds normal —
painfully, delightfully, enviably normal.

I hold onto the belief that,
even with my powers, my life will someday achieve some semblance of normality.

Then I look across the seat
at Missy, at the healing scars stretching across her forehead and scalp, angry
and red, and the sight dumps a bucket full of ice water on that flicker of
hope.

Normal isn’t for people like
us. Not anymore.

TWENTY-THREE

My alarm goes off and, as is
my habit, I slap the snooze button several times to postpone the official start
of the day for as long as possible. Today, however, I feel no guilt about my
snooze button abuse because (drumroll please)...it’s my sixteenth birthday!

I’d love for my first
celebratory act to be turning off the alarm completely and sleeping until I’m
darn good and ready to wake up, perhaps sometime around noon, but my cell phone
goes off, scuttling that plan.

Ah, but it’s okay, because
my early-morning caller is one Mr. Brian Hauser, also known as one of the
contributors to the glorious creation that is me. I always have time for my
dad.

(What a lie. I haven’t spent
any face-time with him since Christmas. I suck.)

(No, no, none of that.
You’re the birthday girl. Morose self-recrimination is not allowed today.)

“Good morning!” I say
cheerfully. I can fake awake when necessary.

“Happy birthday, honey,” Dad
says. “Sorry to call so early but I wanted to catch you before you left for
school.”

“Never, ever apologize for
calling me,” I say, “especially not on a grand day like today.”

“Looking forward to
tonight?”

“Yes I am. I was, in fact,
strongly considering skipping school and sleeping through the day so this
evening would arrive all the sooner, but I doubt Kingsport High School’s
administration would smile on that decision.”

“Probably not, no,” Dad
chuckles. “Don’t worry, I bet the day will fly by and before you know it, we’ll
be rink-side, waving one of those silly foam bear-heads and mocking the
Canadiens like the ugly American hockey fans we are.”

“Go Bruins.”

“Go Bruins. All right, you,
go get ready for school.”

“Buzzkill,” I say on
instinct. That’s another strike against you, Joy: you’ve forever ruined that
word for me.

“I’ll be there to get you
around five. Have a great birthday. Love you.”

“Thanks. Love you too.”

My attire for the day is
casual, the kind of laid-back outfit one might wear to a hockey game, but I do
indulge a little by throwing on my awesome new(ish) saddle shoes. I trot
downstairs to find Mom in full-on cook mode, which is highly unusual; Mom is an
unparalleled nighttime dinner cook, but she’s never found much inspiration in
breakfast. Too boring, she says, so everything she makes ends up on the safely
bland side.

“I am
not
making you
a birthday breakfast,” Mom says. “I’m only monitoring the stove while your
grandfather is upstairs grabbing your present.”

“I was wondering,” I say.

“That said, happy birthday,
sweetie. Happy sweet sixteen,” Mom says, hugging me. She holds me a little
longer than I expect. When we break, she gives me a wistful smile and strokes
my hair. Aw, man, she’s having a
My little girl is growing up so fast
moment. Don’t you dare start crying on me, woman.

“What she said,” Granddad
says, entering the kitchen with an envelope. “Here you go, Carrie. Happy
birthday.”

“Thank you,” I say. The
envelope contains a sappy (yet genuinely touching) birthday card, an Amazon
gift card, and a handwritten IOU for driving lessons.

“I reckon you’ll be itching
to get behind the wheel soon,” he says, “and hell, I haven’t had a good heart
attack since I taught your mother to drive...”

“I was not that bad,” Mom
protests.

“You weren’t that good,
either.”

Granddad resumes control of
the stove to tend to an omelet the size of my face. “Come on,” Mom says, and I
follow her into the living room. A gift-wrapped present sits on the coffee
table. “Go ahead. It’s from me and Ben.”

Oh, it’s from Mom
and
Ben. How lovely.

(What did I tell you,
Carrie? Surly behavior is forbidden on this most holy of days, so knock it off
and smile gratefully. There you go.)

Okay, I owe Ben one-half of
a sincere and heartfelt thank-you, because beneath the wrapping paper is a
coffee table book showcasing J.R.R. Tolkien’s original artwork for
The
Hobbit
. I flip through it, and I recognize a few images from my own
battered copy of the book but most of the illustrations are new to me.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say. She
nods, but there’s still an odd sadness in her eyes. God, if she gets weepy on
me...

“Go eat breakfast, and I’ll
see you when you get home from the game.” She kisses me on the forehead. “Happy
birthday.”

You know what? So far, it
is.

So, screw you, Buzzkill Joy,
screw you, Concorde, screw anyone and everyone who tries to ruin my mood,
‘cause it ain’t happening.

“Dad’s coming home today,”
Missy says.

Well, so much for that.

Those are Missy’s first
words to us in the hall outside my locker, and I can’t decide whether this is
good news or bad. Neither can anyone else.

“Wow. Huh,” Stuart says.
“Kind of fast for someone who, um, you know.”

“The doctor said if the
wound had been deeper or hit the, um...what’s it called?” Missy says. “The neck
vein thing that’s not the jugular?”

“The carotid artery?” Matt
suggests.

“Yeah, that. Then Dad
would’ve been stuck in the hospital longer, but I guess he’s okay to come home
now as long as he stays in bed and keeps his stitches clean.”

“Looks like it’s the week
for unwanted fathers making their triumphant returns home,” Matt says. The
bitterness factor is on the high side today, I see.

“I take it then he’s still
planning to move back home?” I say.

“Planning?
Pft
. He
moved back in last night. That’s my big news.
Ta-daaa
.”

“Dude,” Stuart says, “major
suckage.”

“This entire month has been
major suckage. I’d love it if for once something really good would happen, just
one thing.”

“Like, maybe, an after-school
birthday celebration for a good friend?” Sara says, jerking her head at me.

“Huh? Oh. Oh,
friggety-frak,” Matt says, “that’s today?”

“You forgot? Jeez, Matt...”

“I’ve had a lot going on!”

“So’ve I, and I remembered,”
Missy says.

“It’s okay,” I say, raising
my hands to call for the end of all hostilities within the Hero Squad nation.
“Please, guys, I don’t want us snapping at each other, not today.”

“I do have a present for
you,” Matt says. “It’s at home, I’ll get it to you as soon as —”

“It’s okay,” I insist.
“Honestly.”

“I’m still going to make it
up to you. After school, we’re all going to go out and grab an awesome,
non-school lunch, wherever you want, and I’m covering your bill. No arguments.”

“Who’s arguing? Free food? I
am so there. Try to stop me.”

“Isaac?”

“Huh?”

Mrs. Marx’s lips curl in a
disappointed frown, but only for a moment. “You seem to be having trouble
focusing today, Isaac.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Marx,” the
boy says. “I’m not feeling it today.”

“Did you sleep all right
last night?”

Isaac nods and shrugs
simultaneously.

“Perhaps you’re having an
off day. That’s okay, dear, we all have them.” Mrs. Marx reaches across the
kitchen table and closes Isaac’s English textbook. “What do you say I put on
the kettle and we take a break? See if we can clear the cobwebs out of the
attic, hm?”

“Okay,” Isaac says with a
weak smile.

She’s always so patient with
him, Isaac considers as he wanders into the living room, so much more
sympathetic to his erratic moods than any of his old teachers. They pushed.
They ordered him to work. They refused to cut him the least little slack, but
Mrs. Marx, she understands his highs and lows, knows when to encourage him to
forge ahead, when to give him some breathing room, and when to firmly insist that
he take his medication. She’s a good teacher.

She’s a good friend as well,
but there are days when Isaac would happily throw over Mrs. Marx in a
heartbeat, without a second thought and without regret, to have his old friends
back — not that
they’d
want
him
back. They abandoned him after
that final incident at school. Getting into brawls with other students, that
was one thing, but certain transgressions are too grave to overlook. In high
school, reputations are viral and guilt by association is highly contagious.