My father is beloved, a real hero, a symbol of American strength.
And then he had to go and leave my mom for his sworn enemy.
When I speak again, I lower my voice out of habit, leaning closer so others in the booths around us won't hear. That my father left my mother isn't well-known, or known at all, really. Who he left her for … that would never go over well, no matter what sort of perfectly behaved citizen Morris might have become as a result. “You could have talked to Graham,” I say.
Morris scoffs. “Your brother would sooner toss me headfirst into the nearest jail than listen to what I have to say.”
“You brought that on yourself.”
“Yes, yes, I know I'm a terrible person,” he says, reaching out to pat my arm, his touch lingering for far too long. If there's one thing I've always liked about Morris, at least he doesn't stoop to pretending he's some sort of wrongly accused saint like some supervillains I could name. He knows his flaws. “And before you ask, I did go to Ivy for assistance, but it appears –”
“You went to my mom?”
My voice rises, sharp and anxious, and I cringe before shrinking into my seat. For once, Morris manages to restrain himself from laughing at my discomfort, a thin veil of guilt clouding his eyes. “Well, it was a lost cause from the start,” Morris says. “Her loyal doorman would neither let me in nor call up to her to inform her I was there.”
That doesn't surprise me. My mother is a superhero too, but then again you know that as well. As famous as my father is, my mom – the strongest person in the world, the greatest hero the world has ever known, greater even than Dad – is far more well-known. She once rescued a secluded tribe of Amazonian natives who cheered upon spotting the great Paladin swooping down from the skies, her dark curls tumbling down her cape. She still doesn't know how they ever found out about her existence, but she never denies enjoying their enthusiastic reactions when she saved their village from accidentally mutated mosquitos the size of military helicopters. Ivy Noble will always be the first to admit being a bit of an attention whore, even though she's never been too thrilled by the phrasing.
Morris must have been desperate to try to talk to my mother. She'd quite literally rip his arms off before he could utter a single word, and shove the bloody end of one down his throat for good measure.
The problem, of course, is that Morris can neither go to the police nor appear before news cameras to plead for the safe return of my father. The public has a mental image of my parents, Paladin and Wavelength, the most amazing superhero team of all time, their real-life identities splashed in happy photo collages in the gossip rags for years now. There are a great many heroes who keep their everyday identities shielded from the public, but my parents have never been in a position to be among them. It's only the flexibility and sheer power behind my father's mental abilities that has kept their ruined marriage, eventual separation, and his subsequent relationship with Morris Kemp, the Quiz Master, a closely guarded secret.
It's not that my father fell for a man, or even that he left my mother at all, that would burn him to cinders in the press. It's that he tore his gaze from his beloved wife, looked across the table at his mortal enemy, and decided he liked him better.
“It seems,” Morris says, his voice a lazy drawl, “that you are my only hope.”
I level my gaze at him across the table. “Morris, I am not a superhero anymore.”
“I understand that,” he defers, his smile crooked. “And apparently, even with that, you are the best option I have.”
The lunch rush drains from the cafe by the time two o'clock rolls around, giving me plenty of time to occupy myself with carrying out slices of warm pie to the few stragglers. Whatever it takes to avoid thinking about Dad, I indulge in it.
Morris vacates the premises quickly enough after making his request, sweeping away his hat and his questionably legal water pistol and tossing off some far-too-casual comment about researching a few more outlets of assistance before breezing out of the place. I don't even want to think about what he means by that. For all I know of Morris these days, 'accessing other outlets of assistance' could involve engaging in door-to-door visits of every known and unknown villain on the east coast asking if he might be able to borrow a cup of vanished superhero.
By the time I finally get a chance to think about the whole situation for longer than a few short seconds, only a couple of seats still hold customers, my loyal regulars. The elderly Marcelo sisters silently pour out their fourth pot of tea of the day, and on the couch tucked against the front window Troy Lampwick scrawls with frantic scratches of his pen in one of his many wire-bound notebooks, working on yet another book he will probably never get published, the poor thing.
Without the dependable everyday stresses, I can dwell. It's not something I'm really enjoying, truth be told, mostly because Dixie is absolutely not helping.
“You should have called the cops,” she singsongs, swiping needlessly at the front counter with a damp dishrag.
“I'm not going to call the cops on Morris,” I mutter, my chin cupped in my hand. “He didn't do anything. Besides, it'll just be more trouble than it's worth.”
“I don't think so.”
“That's because he grabbed your ass last time he was here.”
“Isn't that a good enough excuse? Because I think it's fantastic.”
I frown and focus on the cell phone I placed on the counter in front of me, humming along to “Hot Rodder's Lament” as it carries over the stereo speakers. Morris overcompensates for his very personal life in various ways that do more harm than good, allowing his unwanted hands to slip into restricted territory on any woman unlucky enough to cross his path. My father, the only one who can talk him out of anything, never quite reins him in, probably seeing it as yet another distraction to keep people from suspecting the two of them share everything but a marriage license. Morris's wandering hands are the major, but not only, reason my staff would rather dump a bowl of Italian wedding soup into his crotch than place it gently in front of him.
However, it's not the most important problem I currently have.
This is not the first time my father has disappeared. Dad goes missing on a regular basis, vanishing in the space of a blink but always returning to the warm welcoming arms of the American public, and sometimes to his family if he's feeling particularly charitable. Dad's argument is always that we can stand to miss him just a little bit longer, but there's no telling how the general population will react to his loss. Heartwarming, isn't it?
Of course, the glaring problem with his argument is that as a class seven hero, his disappearances could either mean he's gone on a short vacation or he's being mind-controlled to help someone take over the planet. As intelligent as Dad is, he does possess a certain annoying amount of naivete when it comes to his powers. I'm a class four hero: strong enough for defeat major villains, not powerful enough for world domination. When you reach class seven, the Superhero Licensing Board develops a way to destroy the universe simply so you can never take over.
When Dad vanishes, it's far more terrifying for the rest of us than he'd like to admit.
I drum the fingers of my free hand on the counter to distract myself from the impatient fluttering of Troy's notes. Or, more aptly, from Troy. As scruffy and unkempt as Troy Lampwick can be with his scratched black-rimmed glasses and weather-beaten Chucks, he could easily draw my attention away from the potential for a major apocalypse without lifting a finger. Somewhere under that brushy beard and overgrown brown hair is a stick-figure version of Clark Kent, and while I can't say the Jeremiah Johnson look endears me all that much, Troy hits so many of my kinks I might as well have built him out of parts in Morris's former evil laboratory.
I bite my lip and stare with purposeful intent at the phone. All it would take is one call. Just one call.
I just have to have the brass balls to make it.
Just when I think I'm approaching a firm decision on what to do, Dixie sidles up beside me and says, “I know what you should do the next time Morris comes in.”
“Don't you have work you could be doing?”
“Oh, Tara can do it,” Dixie declares.
I dare a furtive glimpse into the kitchen. Tara Pevec, my other waitress, tips back her head and laughs at another one of our chef's terrible jokes. Tara carries a flame for that man I cannot even begin to comprehend. Benny's crass, overweight, and about twenty years older than Tara, who only just graduated from the local high school a year ago. Tara does her job to absolute perfection when Tea and Strumpets bustles with activity, but as soon as the crowd dissipates and the mood settles to a tranquil lull, Tara disappears into the kitchen and that's the last we tend to see of her for hours. She'll be in there a while, braying away at another naughty limerick Benny discovered on the door of a bathroom stall at the nearest strip club.
“Dixie, I would really like to talk about this later. Or, you know, never. Never sounds good.”
“But I'll forget if I don't talk about it now.”
“That's what I'm hoping for,” I say, and slap on a frighteningly wide grin that almost hurts to sport.
Dixie rears away from me a little, scrunching her face up into an adorable pout. I love Dixie dearly, for being such a good friend and putting up with Morris and staying on at Tea and Strumpets even when we weren't in the greatest of financial shape way back in the beginning. But Dixie's nosiness has worn down a number of close friends in the past, and sometimes I imagine it's wearing me down as well. She tends to stick her nose where it doesn't belong and get it firmly lodged there. While Morris is fair territory, he's also a gateway to inconvenient family secrets I'd rather Dixie not even come close to approaching.
“Okay, fine,” she announces, tilting her head close to mine and whispering, “Changing the subject.
So
. When do you plan on pouncing on Troy like a hungry jungle cat?”
My gaze darts towards Troy, preoccupied as he is by the operatic espionages in whatever fantasy world he's created this week, before I shoot a silent warning in Dixie's direction. “Can't you change the conversation to a subject I actually want to engage in?”
“Oh, honey. Is this about Hazel?” she says, her voice a sympathetic hush.
I silently remind myself that regardless of how bothersome she can be, strangling her and disposing of the body would complicate the hell out of my weekend, no matter where I decide to leave it. “No, this isn't about Hazel. Not everything is about Hazel.”
“Your love life is, to some extent.”
“Not right now, it's not,” I say past clenched teeth, the words gritting like pebbles in my mouth. Hazel isn't on my list of acceptable discussion topics under normal circumstances, so I can say with absolute certainty that I'm not the least bit eager about bringing her up now. “You know what? Can you guys handle the place for the rest of the day? I've got some errands to run.”
Dixie's brow furrows in confusion. “They can't wait?”
I shake my head, grabbing my cell phone and my red patent-leather clutch. “Sorry, they're sort of … life or death,” I say, trying not to wince.
I really don't need to ask if my employees could handle running the cafe for me for a while. Dixie's gossipy, but she's definitely a responsible and able-bodied assistant manager when she has to be. It's a good thing, too, I think as I head out the front door and around the side of the building to the stairs up to my apartment. I'm not quite sure how long this situation with my father is going to take, so knowing I can leave the gang alone with Tea and Strumpets and won't return to a smoldering crater in the ground is an assumption I try not to take for granted.
As soon as I shut the door to my apartment behind me, locking it out of habit with a flick of my wrist, I take out the phone again and stare at it for a good long moment as I walk up the stairs, listing in my head every possible eventuality that could happen if I don't decide to help Morris out. Lord knows my dad could just turn up any moment without my help. Even if he doesn't, and if the cops and other superheroes insist on searching for him, there's nothing to say that they would find out about Morris and my father or that the eventual blowup would be as catastrophic as the two of them have always imagined it would be. Maybe the city will even volunteer to throw them an engagement party.
A dubious supposition, of course. There are still people in this town who won't even walk in front of Tea and Strumpets simply because I'm bisexual, and I've never threatened to blow up the moon or simultaneously robbed every bank on the east coast at the same damn time.
The problem is that the general public peering in abject curiosity into the Noble family closet is the least of my worries. A few months back, Dad disappeared for three and a half hours. By the time he turned up, red-faced and tossing off good-natured jokes as two grim EMTs wheeled him and his two broken ankles out of the dilapidated building where he'd been rescuing a sick homeless man, the entire city was still rioting. A quarter of the fashion district still smoldered a week later.
When you take a small child away from its parents, you can usually count on them to burst into a tearful wailing tantrum. I've had thirty years' worth of life experience to impress upon me that a lot of toddlers, especially the ones who can't shoot laser beams out of their eyes or jets of fire out of their fingertips, never quite grow up in that regard.