Superpowers (15 page)

SATURDAY

Caroline woke with the side of her face pressed against a cold window. It was raining, and the world pitched and yawed around her. She was in Jack's truck, but where was Jack? She yelped as she realized no one was driving, then realized the truck was parked. In the rain, on the street. It was dark. She looked for a clock.

Beer. That was why she was here. She'd drunk a lot of beer. They all had. Harriet had passed out already—she'd drunk even more than a lot, because she was still upset about the man who'd been shot at the pizza shop. They'd drunk so much beer that there wasn't any left.

Charlie had offered to drive, and she'd offered to come along— why? She didn't know. That was good, because if she didn't know, then Charlie wouldn't know. Although she must know, because if she didn't know she wouldn't know that it was something she didn't want Charlie to know, in which case maybe Charlie knew already but didn't want her to know that he knew.

Why were they drinking so much beer? Not even good beer. Cheap beer. Why not drink Jack's beer? Not ready for a few weeks yet, that was why. Not in time for Jack's birthday. Jack's birthday! That was why the beer. Charlie was buying it. She'd come along because beer made her horny, and she wanted to be horny with Charlie. Oops. Now she knew why she was here, and Charlie would know, too. Charlie could look at her and know what she was thinking. He could close his eyes and know. It was scary, but it was exciting, too.

There was no clock in the truck. She fought with the door for a while before she noticed it was locked. She unlocked it and lurched out onto the sidewalk.

She stood carefully still, but the pavement moved under her feet while she looked for someone with a watch. An umbrella bobbed toward her, and she asked it for the time. It looked at its watch and told her and she thanked it and turned around and threw up on the curb. Her puke looked like wet cookie dough. The rain broke it apart and swept it toward the storm drain.

She had forgotten the time already, but the umbrella was gone. She crept back into the truck and shut the door. She wasn't sure where Charlie was, but he better get to the liquor store before nine, or he wouldn't be able to buy any more beer and the party would be . . . well, it would be sober. Jack seemed sober already, actually. He said his metabolism burned alcohol as fast as he could drink it.

"How did I get so wet?" she asked out loud. She hugged her arms around her soaked T-shirt. The cold was sobering her up, and she could see the rest of the night ahead of her already. It was just a matter of following her current situation to its logical conclusion. Drunk and cold with wet clothes would become hungover and parched with no clothes, lying next to Charlie and wishing she could know his mind as easily as he knew hers.

Caroline knew some people thought she was a slut, because she dated a lot. But she rarely slept with the guys she dated. She never even drank on dates. Dates were for clear thinking, for getting a real look at someone. If he was rude to the waitress or he wasn't funny or he was too into money or himself or her tits, that was it. It was better not to waste time, to put a stop to things before one of them might get hurt.

The problem was that she
wanted
sex. Sometimes she wanted to make speeches to her dates, describing in detail what she might have done with him if he hadn't farted and giggled about it, or made subtly racist jokes, or slurped his spaghetti and tapped on the table with his class ring all night. Sometimes she saw boys on the street whom she wanted to take by the hand, bring home, and send away a six-pack of condoms later. Instead, every month or two she got drunk and attacked the nearest penis.

The driver-side door opened, and Charlie entered behind a case of Milwaukee's Best and a brown bag with a bottle inside. His short hair was plastered to his head, and his shirt was plastered to his chest. Caroline wanted him to kiss her.

Charlie reached for her, and she closed her eyes. He pulled something out of her hair. "You've got leaves in your hair," he said. "What were you doing out there? You're all wet."

Caroline ran her hands through her hair and faced the windshield as Charlie pulled into traffic. "I was trying to find out what time it was," she said. "You didn't have any trouble?"

"No. The clerk had a fight with his girlfriend earlier. She threatened to set his apartment on fire. He didn't even ask to see my ID."

By the time Charlie was done talking Caroline couldn't remember what she'd asked him, so she just grunted and leaned back into the headrest. The truck bounced hard over cracks in the asphalt and sent up sheets of water from puddles along the curbs. Caroline closed her eyes and told herself to fall asleep.

Charlie gasped and pulled over. His voice was tight. "Wait here."

"What?" She sat up straight. "You've got something, haven't you?"

"Yes. But I think you should stay here."

Caroline stared at him. "I'm a little drunk," she said.

"It's all right," he said.

"You're just going to talk to them?"

"Yes."

"OK."

She watched him run across the street and up the steps toward a big house. She squinted up the street but couldn't see a street sign. She had no idea where they were. What if Charlie needed help? What if she had to get the others? She was way too drunk to be flying. She didn't even have her costume. Neither did Charlie.

At least it was dark. She opened the door and flew toward the house Charlie had entered.

She was still trying to decide whether she should knock when she rammed into the door. She hardly felt it as it splintered and collapsed. She was invulnerable.

There was a boy sitting on some steps. He ran, and Caroline followed him to another door. He closed it behind him, and she had to break that one down, too. There were stairs behind it, stairs going down to a basement. A basement with a couch and a TV and candles and a refrigerator and several boys and a girl. One of the boys was Charlie, and he wasn't talking. They were hitting him. The girl was half-naked and crying.

Caroline started hitting boys. She moved fast, not as fast as Jack, but fast enough that she had to be careful not to hit Charlie or the girl. She hit hard. The boys were yelling and the girl was crying and then Charlie was telling her to stop, it was over.

Charlie said something to the girl, but she picked up some clothes and ran away and Charlie didn't go after her because he had to help Caroline up and she didn't realize her head hurt until he helped her up. She asked him what had hit her.

"The wall," he said.

"Better call the police," she said.

"Let's get home first," he said.

"The girl—"

"She's safe, or she will be. She lives down the block. I don't know if she'll want to press charges."

Caroline couldn't talk anymore. She didn't think this night was going to end naked after all. She wanted dry towels and a warm bed and sleep.

"You shouldn't sleep," Charlie said. "You might have a concussion."

Caroline didn't answer him. He knew what she was thinking already. It wasn't fair.

_______

Mary Beth had hands like Cecilia's. Not exactly like Cecilia's— Cecilia had long fingers, and she bit her nails. Mary Beth had short, stubby fingers, and her nails were pink. She moved her hands a lot while she talked, which was something Cecilia did, except Cecilia sometimes threw things.

Maybe it wasn't Mary Beth's hands that reminded Scott of Cecilia. Maybe it was just that everything reminded him of Cecilia. Waking up reminded him of Cecilia, and eating, and watching TV, and masturbating. Especially masturbating. Masturbating reminded him of sex with Cecilia, which was wild and uninhibited and sometimes put him in fear of his life. He was making a habit of checking the scratches on his back and sides every morning. Once they were all healed, he told himself, it would really be over.

Mary Beth was very nice, but he doubted that she was like Cecilia in bed. He wondered if he would look back on Cecilia in twenty years, when he was married with kids and dogs and mini-vans, and remember her as the best sex he had ever had. His fantasies couldn't even equal it. Masturbation was something he did for survival now, like eating and breathing and defecating. There was no joy in it, just a temporary release. Back in high school he used to sit in class and look forward to masturbating, once when he got home, once after going to bed. Mornings, too, sometimes. Now he waited until it was late at night, too late for Cecilia to call and ask him to come back, and then he jerked himself off roughly, angry at himself and at Cecilia and at basketball players everywhere.

Mary Beth had stopped talking. She was a little drunk, but not drunk enough not to notice that he was hardly paying any attention to her. "I'm sorry," he said, and drank from the same empty beer bottle he'd been drinking from for forty-five minutes. Where was Charlie with the beer?

They were alone in the living room. Mary Beth and Caroline had put Harriet to bed a couple of hours ago. Harriet had been crying about some guy getting shot, but Jack had told Scott that it was something that happened a long time ago, in the 1980s. He thought Jack was in the attic now—he'd heard someone walking around up there before. He hoped it was Jack.

"Have you heard a word I've been saying?" Mary Beth asked. Something in her tone reminded Scott of Cecilia.

"Um. You were talking about. . . magazines." He remembered saying something about perfume ads a while ago, just to keep up his end of the conversation.

"Yeah, well. I don't understand it. I mean, I'd like to think that all those women know what they're getting into. But even if I thought that, and I don't, it's one thing for a magazine that's about sex, you know?
Playboy
is about sex. A woman posing for
Playboy
is going to be naked. But this
Maxim
garbage Charlie gets. These are, like, successful women, and here they are almost naked in this magazine. I mean, what is it with guys? Do you have to look at naked women every twenty-four hours or your heart stops?"

Scott laughed politely. He wondered if Charlie had any of those magazines in his room. He wondered if Alyssa Milano was in any of them. He liked Alyssa Milano; she reminded him of Cecilia.

The door flew open, and Charlie entered, half-leading, half-carrying Caroline. Caroline looked around the room with an expression somewhere between a grin and a grimace.

"What happened?" Mary Beth helped Charlie sit Caroline down on the couch.

"She hit her head," Charlie said, glancing at Scott.

"Rainy," Caroline said. "Rainy brainy. Bet you didn't know I was thinking that, Charlie barly."

Charlie put a hand on her forehead. "I was worried about a concussion, but I don't know much about them."

"Was she unconscious?" Mary Beth asked.

"I don't think so. But she wants to go to sleep."

Mary Beth took Caroline's face between her hands. "Honey, listen to me. You can't go to sleep right now, OK? Stay awake for a while and talk to me."

"Mary Beth," Caroline said in the tones of a schoolteacher reprimanding a foolish student. "Don't fall for this boy. He knows what you're thinking."

Mary Beth looked at Charlie, who was blushing. "Anything else you want to tell me?"

"I got sick," Caroline said. "Tossed my cookie dough." She laughed.

"Did you get the beer?" Scott asked. Mary Beth looked at him incredulously.

Charlie stared at him for a moment before tossing him the keys. "It's in the truck."

"That was a stupid thing to say," Scott told himself as he walked downstairs. It was still raining hard, water changing shape as it trickled over eaves, off the deck, and struck asphalt below. Scott pictured himself on the deck in the summer sun, tan and happy, flirting with girls in bikinis below. He wondered if anyone would ever have sex with him again.

The truck was parked in the driveway beside the house. He kicked up mud and puddles running to it. He struggled with the passenger-side door, the rain soaking him through, draining down his back and his pant legs to the ground. By the time he got the door open and lifted the beer and the brown bag into his arms he was shivering.

He turned around and found Jack right behind him. He didn't even look wet.

"They're back?" Jack asked.

"Where did you come from?"

"Let me take something."

Scott handed him the brown bag, then followed him back to the porch. Jack held his hand out for the keys as they mounted the stairs, and Scott handed them over.

"You don't seem drunk," he said.

"I don't feel drunk," Jack said.

"Why didn't you drive, then? To get the beer?"

"Because Charlie isn't drunk either. Also, I had some things to check on."

Scott wanted to ask what kind of things Jack could be checking on in the attic during a rainstorm, but when Jack opened the door he remembered that there were other things going on.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you—"