Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect (9 page)

...Until I turned into a
stuck-up little twit who couldn’t be bothered with such stupid things as hockey
and spending quality time with her father. I swear, if I was flexible enough to
kick myself in the ass...

Ah.

I know what I want to do for
my birthday.

“You want to catch a Bruins game
with me?” Dad says, and I wish we were on Skype instead of the phone because
I’d love to see his face right now. If he looks as happy as he sounds...

“Yeah,” I say. “Mom was
doing some unpacking, I guess, and she found an old photo album, and I was flipping
through it, and I saw an old picture of us at a game, and it reminded me how
much I loved going to games with you...long story short —”

“Too late.”

“Quiet, you. Anyway, that’s
what I’d like for my birthday. You know, if you didn’t have something else
planned already.”

“No, I’m glad you said
something. I was lost for gift ideas, what with you being such a stranger to
me.”

He’s joking, but that one
stings; we haven’t seen each other since Christmas, which is entirely on me. I
tell myself I’ve been busy between school and saving the world (you know:
normal life stuff), but that, ladies and gentlemen, is known in proper society
as a lame excuse. I don’t want this to become part of my new normal.

“You still there, honey?”

“Yeah, sorry, spaced out a
little. I had a babysitting job last night, it kept me out a little late.”

“Ah. Well, you can call it
an early night tonight.”

“No can do. I have a date
tonight.”

“Oh? Is it that Malcolm boy
you told me about?” Dad says, trying not to sound too inquisitive.

“That’s the one.”

“Hm. Second date, huh?
Things are going well between you two, then?”

“So far, yeah.”

“What are you two doing
tonight?”

“No idea, which is a problem
considering I asked him out, so it’s all on me to come up with something
suitably awesome.”

Dad chuckles. “You’ll come
up with something good, I’m sure,” he says, “but don’t take him to any hockey
games. That’s our thing.”

“I won’t, promise,” I say.

The phone beeps in my ear. I
peek at the screen to see who’s trying to butt in on my quality time, and oh,
how not surprised am I?

“Dad, I have another call
coming in, it might be important.”

“Okay, hon. I’ll give you a
shout when I get the tickets.”

“Cool. Talk to you later.
Love you,” I say. My smile vanishes when I jump over to my other call.
“Concorde.”

“I heard what happened at
the Quantum Compound last night,” he says, a sense of urgency in his voice.

“That was fast. What, did
Dr. Quentin tell you?”

“I got a call first thing
this morning from the Sturbridge PD.”

“Oh. Why would they be
calling you?”

“Because of the two nuclear
micro-cells they confiscated from the man you took down yesterday.”

“Okay, that clarifies
nothing.”

“Micro-cells are my
technology,” Concorde says — or maybe it would be more appropriate to say it’s Edison
Bose speaking to me. “I could be held liable for any damage he caused. I need
to know how he got his hands on them.”

“Yeah, right, sure,” I say
with a sigh. I know where this is going. “Give me a few minutes, I’ll zip over
so you can debrief me.”

“I’m at the company all day.
You go ahead and file a report on your own.”

What the what? “File a
report on my —? How do I do that? Do I put it in an e-mail or something?”

“No, that’s not secure. You
have to enter it directly into our system at HQ,” Edison says. “I added you to
our security system. Check in at the front entrance and the building will let
you in.”

From there, Edison says, I’m
to hit the records room in the basement and enter my report on one of the
terminals. If he has any questions, he’ll call me. I tell him I’ll take care of
it today. He thanks me and hangs up.

Security access? Filing my
own reports?
Thank you
?

I’m not sure, but I think
I’ve been promoted.

“Hold on,” Sara says.
“Concorde. Gave you security access. To Protectorate headquarters. So you could
file an official report. By yourself.”

“I know. Total madness,
right?” I hold up a gray pencil skirt, dangling it in front of my legs. “This?”

“That’s a great skirt...for
a job interview.” I return the skirt to my closet. “I mean, I know Concorde
likes you, but wow.”

“I sometimes wish he
wouldn’t like me so much. I feel, I don’t know, like I’m cheating on the Squad
with the Protectorate. How’re these?” I say, holding up a pair of dark jeans.

“Not bad. Maybe? It’d help
if I knew what you were doing tonight.”

Yes, yes it would. “When I
figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

“You’re not cheating on the
team, you’re helping the Protectorate. Completely different things.”

“I guess.”

“Look at it this way, then:
You’re not cheating on the Squad; you’re our goodwill ambassador.”

I crack a smile. “Goodwill
ambassador, huh?”

“Sure. As long as you’re on
Concorde’s good side, he’ll cut the team as a whole some slack.”

“Hm. Any chance you can
convince Matt to see it your way? I’d rather not deal with one of his
hissy-fits again. You know, ply him with your feminine wiles?”

“Ha! I think you have all
the feminine wiles in the group. Missy’s too cute and innocent, and I’m
too...well, look at me,” Sara says, holding her arms out in presentation.

When we’re alone like this,
Sara will sometimes take off whatever bag of a top she’s wearing, and I get a
rare glimpse of the girl hiding underneath. She’s bulked up a bit since we
first met, but she is and will always be rail-thin; she has a naturally willowy
build, like a ballerina, with little in the way of curves. Couple that with her
pale complexion and her untamable hair and she is, in her own opinion, a hot
mess, sans the hot. She is, in my opinion, selling herself criminally short.

“You stop it. And seriously,
you have Matt wrapped around your little finger. Bat your eyes and give him a
smile, and that boy would shave his head and paint himself hot pink if you
asked him to.”

Sara fidgets, as she tends
to whenever I broach the subject of her and Matt in a romantic context — which
I keep doing, even though I know damn well it makes her uncomfortable. She may
be in denial of her feelings, but I shouldn’t be pushing her to deal with them.

Besides, I have my own
romance-related issues to address and, how long to figure something out? My
alarm clock says it’s T-minus three hours, which is, like, ten minutes in
girl-getting-ready-for-a-date time.

“Gaahhh! Why can’t I think
of anything to do? This is stupid! There are a million things to do in the
world and I can’t think of one,
one
that doesn’t totally suck,” I rant.
“Malcolm’s going to be here at five and he’ll ask me what we’re doing for our
date and I’ll be like, ‘Duuhhhh, I don’t know, because I can’t brain to save my
life today!’ What are you laughing at?”

“You. Look at you,” Sara
says. “I’ve seen you punch holes through giant mechs, zap demons, you once
grabbed a ticking nuke out of Concorde’s hands, and you’re freaking out over a
date.” She shakes her head. “I think the most dangerous little girl on Cape Cod
would be embarrassed by you.”

Hello, inspiration.

Malcolm arrives at my house
at precisely five o’clock. I like a punctual man.

“Hey, you. Come on in, I’ll
be ready to go as soon as I throw on my sneakers,” I say. Malcolm enters and takes
a deep sniff of the air. Mom (who continues to insist that she is not grounded)
is experimenting with a new manicotti recipe, so the house is thick with yummy
dinnery smells. I almost hate to subject Malcolm to a common restaurant.

“Your house smells awesome,”
Malcolm says.

“We could have dinner here
if you’d like.” Oh, crap, did I suggest we have dinner with my mother? On our
second date? No! Retract! Retract!

Malcolm, thank God, saves me
from my own stupidity. “I don’t want to put your mom out.”

“Okay.” I call out to Mom,
letting her know I’m leaving for the evening, and book it out the door before
she can corner us.

Our dinner, pizza at this
out-of-the-way place I discovered, pales in comparison to what we could have
had at home, but it’s good food, and it affords us a chance to talk without
pesky distractions like receiving an education or bonding with the family. Our
waitress, sensing the dateness of our dinner, positively glows at us each time
she stops by our table to check in.

After we leave the
restaurant, I suggest a quick swing by Coffee E for a hot beverage to take with
us to our final destination. Malcolm raises a curious eyebrow but doesn’t ask
me where we’re going; he’d rather be surprised – and oh, is he ever surprised
when we roll up to —

“The town ice rink?” he
says.

“Uh-huh. We’re going
skating,” I say.

“Man, I haven’t been on
skates in ages.”

“If you’re worried about
looking bad, don’t, because neither have I.”

We go inside and rent our skates.
Mine are worn and battered, the leather dull and scuffed. The laces are
mismatched: white on one skate, brown on the other. I should be dreading
whatever foot-eating fungus might be lurking inside these ancient, abused
things, but I’m instead hit with a pang of wistfulness. I miss having my own
skates.

Whenever the rink isn’t
hosting a game for one of the local recreational leagues or for the regional
high school league, it’s open to the public. The public tonight is on the light
side; there’s a couple of guys at the far end taking turns slapping a puck into
a net, and a group of young girls skating in a circle, legs shaking and arms
outstretched in anticipation of a fall — girls who have never been on the ice
before. Two women clap and shout words of encouragement, even though their legs
aren’t any steadier than the girls’.

“You must think I’m a
special kind of crazy to want to spend the night in a cold ice rink,” I say.

“Maybe,” Malcolm says, “but
it’s still warmer in here than outside.”

“Sadly, that is true.”

We sit on one of the
bleacher benches and slip into our skates. “What gave you this idea?”

“My Mom was showing her,
um...” Say it, Carrie. Get it over with. “My Mom was showing her boyfriend an
old photo of me back when I played hockey. It reminded me how much fun I had
playing, so...”

“You played hockey? Huh,”
Malcolm says with mild surprise. “Were you any good?”

“According to my mother, I
was a rabid pit bull on skates.”

He laughs. “Do I have to
worry about you checking me into the boards?”

Now it’s my turn to laugh.
“Checking you into the boards. Listen to you, with the lingo.”

“Speaking of your mother’s
new boyfriend, how are things going with him?”

“From Mom’s perspective,
fine,” I say.

“But from yours, not so
much.”

“No. I mean, I feel bad because
Ben seems like an okay guy, and he hasn’t done anything to make me dislike
him.” Well,
almost
anything. God, I can still hear their stupid
giggling.

“And yet...”

“And yet...”

“You should give him a fair
chance,” Malcolm says, and something tells me it’s not an empty sentiment. He
proves me right. “My mom — my birth mother, I mean — died when I was six.
Breast cancer. Dad started dating my step-mom a little over a year later. I
spent the next year hating her. She didn’t do anything to deserve it, but I
couldn’t see past the fact she wasn’t Mom.”

I take his hand. “What
changed?”

“Nothing, really. She
understood what I was feeling, and why, and she let me work through it on my
own. She made sure to be there for me when I needed her, but she never pushed
me to accept her.” He shrugs. “She’s my mother now.”

I totally get what he’s
saying, but my brain and my heart refuse to reach an accord on the matter of
Ben. He’s a hurdle I can’t (or, if I’m to be honest with myself, refuse to)
clear.

You know what? I’m not going
to worry about that now. I’m on a date with a nice guy, so let’s focus on that,
shall we?

I stand in my sad, sorry
rented skates. My ankles tremble, my knees protest, and I waddle like a drunk
duck toward the rink. Newborn fawns are more stable. Once I’m on the ice,
however, it all comes back to me. I glide away, my legs sure and steady, and
arc back around as Malcolm joins me on the ice, his hands gripping the edge of
the rink for support.

“The good thing about
falling while skating?” he says. “You’re already icing the bruise on your
butt.”