A Hundred Thousand Worlds (31 page)

A
lex is so tired. So tired he could stay awake all night. So tired he should never, ever go to bed again. He knows this place. It is where being sleepy and being wakeful, as in literally
full of
awake,
blur into each other, his body’s and his brain’s signals getting so crossed that they’re entangled and inseparable.

“So goodnight,” his dad says at the bottom of the stairs, Alex halfway up. Alex looks at him, quizzical.

“Aren’t you going to tuck me in?” he says. He didn’t last night, but last night Alex wouldn’t have asked, and might not have let him.

“You aren’t too old for that?” says his dad.

“Maybe,” says Alex. “But I still like it.”

His dad follows him up the stairs and into his room. He stands in the doorway with his back turned while Alex changes into his pajamas. When Alex climbs into bed, his father pulls the covers over him and sits on the very edge, and Alex thinks he must have his butt really clenched to keep himself from falling off.

“Is this . . . ,” says his dad, gesturing to the whole room. “The bed and everything?” He presses down on the mattress. “It’s fine, right?”

“It’s fine,” says Alex.

“Good,” says his dad, standing up. “Okay, then.” He starts to leave.

“Can you tell me a story?” Alex says.

His dad looks like he’s been caught by the police. He freezes in the doorway. “You don’t want to read or something?” he says.

“I might later,” says Alex. “But a story would be good.”

“I don’t have any kids’ books,” his dad says. He looks around like maybe he’s left some kids’ books somewhere, or they’re in his other pants.

“Not
read
a story,” say Alex. “
Tell
a story.”

“Off the top of my head?” says his dad.

Alex pats the bed next to him and his dad sits down again, a little closer now. Still not cuddling, but that’s okay. Alex isn’t sure he’s ready to cuddle yet. “Mom tells me about episodes of the show,” he says.

“How does that work?” asks his dad.

“I pick a season,” says Alex, “and she tells me one.” None of this is working out right. The light is still on, so Alex won’t fall asleep during the story. And his dad is still sitting up, which means that Alex feels like he should sit up. So he props himself against the headboard.

“Okay,” says his dad, rubbing his hands together, “pick a season.”

Alex considers. “Five,” he says.

“Which episode?” says his dad. Of course, this is not the way the game is played. But his dad is still within the rules as Alex laid them out, so Alex should be the one to adjust.

“How many are there?” he asks.

“Twenty-two a season,” says his dad.

Alex spins a wheel in his head. “Episode seven,” he says.

“Huh,” says his dad. “That’s funny.”

“I like the funny episodes,” says Alex.

“No,” says his dad, “it’s funny because that was my first episode back to shooting after you were born.” Alex feels like he has picked a lucky number between one and twenty-two.

“What was it about?” he says.

“They had to write Frazer out for a while,” says his dad. “So Tim had her kidnapped by the Leader and hidden somewhere in time.”

“He did that a lot,” says Alex. It was never clear to him what the Leader’s plan was, but he carried it out mostly by kidnapping people and hiding them somewhere in time.

“He did,” says his dad. “For a couple weeks, Campbell—” He checks with Alex. “That was my character, Ian Campbell.”

“I know,” says Alex.

“Oh,” his dad says, looking happy to hear it. “Campbell was looking for her all the time. But she was right in the middle of Anomaly headquarters, stuck in a time loop.”

“What’s a time loop?” says Alex.

“She was out of sync with everyone else,” his dad says. “Living the same ten minutes or something over and over again.”

Alex thinks this could be great or terrible, depending on the ten minutes.

“And no one could see her?” he says.

“She was out of sync,” says his dad. “She was a half second ahead. Campbell was searching for her all over the past and the future, but she was right there, stuck, like a record skipping. Except he couldn’t hear it.”

Alex tries to imagine it but can’t. Someone right there next to you whom you can’t talk to or see. Then he thinks about it the other way: being right next to someone and they can’t see you. Waving your arms like you were stranded on an island and a plane was flying overhead, knowing that if they saw you for a second, you’d be saved. Except the plane was right there, so close you could touch it, except you couldn’t.

“But he found her?” says Alex.

His dad has to think about this for a second. “On the show he did,” he says finally. He pushes the hair back from Alex’s forehead and kisses him softly above his left eyebrow. He puts his hand on Alex’s chest for the space of one breath, a rise and a fall. Then he gets up and shuts off the light. He pauses in the doorway, a shadow, a shape of a dad. Then he’s gone.

B
etween the two of them, they’re not making things any better. In fact, since the kid came over, Val’s stopped talking about Alex altogether, which Gail thinks is probably a bad thing. The conversation has taken on the quality of a talk show interview, with Gail and Brett as the guests and Val as the obliging host. She seems happy all of a sudden, but it’s a Stepford-wife kind of happy, robotic or painted on.

“What got you started reading comics?” she asks.

“If you could meet any . . . comics person, real or fake, who would you want to meet?”

“What’s it like to make someone up?”

As much as she wants to keep the conversation focused on Val, it’s hard not to be engaged by this dynamic. There’s part of her that’s mentally rehearsed this interview for years. A monstrous little creature inside her that has been privately practicing for when she becomes famous. She imagines everyone has this creature in them, but she’s got no evidence to back that up, just an intuition. Certainly Brett sounds like he’s been prepping. She’s surprised how similar their answers are, particularly when Val asks, “If you could work on any superhero, who would it be?”

“The Visigoth,” they both say at once.

“Are you serious?” says Gail. “Timely hasn’t published a decent
Visigoth
since before we were born.”

“How old are you?” Brett asks.

“A lady never tells.”

“Levi Loeb’s stuff on
The
Visigoth,
right before he got fired, is some of
the most amazing stuff,” Brett says to Val. “Space gods that can straddle planets. Sentient stars. But it’s all told from the point of view of a third-century barbarian.”

“Except in the eighties, Ryder Starlin brought him back to earth,” says Gail, well aware that they’re nerding out on Val. But a positive feedback loop has been created, and the nerdier Brett gets, the nerdier Gail has to respond. It’s an infinite nerd cycle. “So he was just this big shirtless lunk who said
thou
instead of
you
. Why anyone ever let that man write dialogue is beyond me.”

“I always thought he should go into space looking for a time portal back to when he came from,” says Brett casually. “Do a sort of Odysseus thing.”

“But he’s pissed off some space god, who’s trying to keep him from getting home,” says Gail, musing. She notices that Brett has started to sketch on his bar napkin. She can detect a long tunic and one of those helmets that’ve always looked to her like metal breasts. Underneath the helmet, the face begins to take shape, a prominent brow and square jaw. Eyes that look like they’re drilled right through the napkin.

“But Timely doesn’t do cosmic stuff anymore,” says Brett. “It’s too bad. They’ve got a lot of crazy toys lying around out in space.”

Gail excuses herself to use the ladies’ room, half hoping that, in stereotypical female behavior, Val will follow. But she has no such luck and spends her time in the restroom tallying a list of the crazy toys Timely Comics has lying around in space. It would be years’ worth of stories, easily. With an overarching narrative structure like the
Odyssey,
it’d practically write itself. All she’d need is the right artist. Someone who could visualize that level of crazy.

Coming out of the ladies’ room, she runs into Red Emma, who’s wandered away from the flock.

“Hey,” says Red Emma. “The writer lady.”

“Yes,” says Gail, and then sort of waits to come up with something to add. Again, no such luck.

“Do you smoke?” says Red Emma.

Gail smokes, occasionally, but she is not a smoker. Just as she dances, on occasion, but is not in fact a dancer.

“I smoke,” she says, which seems somehow not to answer the question, even as it directly answers the question.

“You want to step out and have a cigarette?” says Red Emma. “Not a single one of these girls smokes. For all the terrible life decisions they’re making, their lungs are pink and fresh.”

“Sure,” says Gail, who finds that she wants a cigarette very much. She follows Red Emma out the front and around the corner of the bar to a narrow alley. Red Emma leans her back against the brick wall of the building, props one foot against it. She draws a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the inner pocket of her trench coat, places two cigarettes in her mouth, and lights them. Then she hands one, lipstick-stained, to Gail. It’s the coolest thing Gail has ever seen.

“You live in New York?” Red Emma asks.

“Queens,” says Gail.

“Appropriate.”

“You?”

“Manhattan,” says Red Emma. “My girlfriend works for Goldman Sachs. When people talk about how the rich are ruining New York? That’s us they’re talking about.”

Gail has not been big on the dating scene, and her skills are a little rusty. But she suspects the mention of a live-in girlfriend this early in the conversation doesn’t bode well. “That’s the way of our people,” she says. “Always finding new ways to ruin the neighborhood.” Red Emma smiles at her, smoke seeping from one crooked corner.

“You know not one of those girls in there is gay?” she says.

“Not even Flail and/or Flog?”

“Oh, God, those two are the straightest of the bunch,” says Red Emma. “Watch out for the ones who talk a big game.”

“What about their gimp suits?”

“Underneath that leather is pure white cotton, I guarantee it,” says Red Emma.

“So what are you doing here?” Gail asks, meaning in equal parts
here in Los Angeles
and
here in this alley.

“Me? I’m a fan,” says Red Emma. For a second, Gail wonders which version of her question has been answered. “In our ridiculous Manhattan apartment, I have an entire room devoted to my comics collection.”

“That sounds like a dream come true,” says Gail. She almost mentions that her own comics collection lives in her closet, but it seems like too obvious a setup.

“Ultimately it’s like those kept wives who collect Precious Moments figurines,” says Red Emma. “But, you know, it’s different because it’s mine.”

“So you wouldn’t call it a hobby.”

“Annie calls it my hobby. To piss me off, mostly.”

“And she doesn’t mind that you’re out here, dressed like this?”

“No more than I mind she goes to work every day dressed like Hillary Clinton,” says Red Emma. “We are who we are to each other, and we are who we are to the world. Love one, leave the other the hell alone.”

“And you’re a
Red Emma
fan.”

She nods and stubs out her cigarette against the wall, flicking the butt deftly into a sewer grate. “When I was in college, my girlfriend at the time got killed. Shot waiting for the G train on her way home. I was not, back then, a person who could process her own anger. Who could own it. The whole thing left me destroyed. I started going to this grief therapy group, which for the most part was awful. But this guy, he brought me the first four issues of
Red Emma
. And I loved it. It fit right where the empty part of me was, and it propped up my anger inside of me so it was something I could use.”

“I figured all of you were supermodels,” says Gail.

“A couple of them have aspirations. I don’t think anyone’s holding their breath. But when someone offers to pay you to play dress-up? That’s
a plum gig. I was going to dress like this anyway.” She adjusts her fedora, which has been slowly rotating like the big hand of a clock. “You should come talk with us,” she says. Gail winces. “I don’t want to break up your incredibly sad little party.”

“I can’t,” Gail says. “My friend is having the worst day you could imagine.”

“It’s her kid, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck. You’re a good friend for helping her out.”

“I should probably get back.”

“All right. But we should get together, once we all get back. Annie worked as a bartender while she was doing her M.B.A. She makes a mean cocktail. And I have the best comic book lending library in the city.”

“I’d like that,” says Gail. She and Red Emma head back into the bar, and Gail thinks about grabbing another drink, then decides she should check if Val or the kid needs anything first. But when she looks over to their table, they’re gone.

T
here should be a word like
waking
that means
giving up on a long and failed attempt to sleep.
That’s what Brett does when he hears the knock on the door. He looks at Valerie at the far edge of the bed. Arms folded across her chest like a mummy. Eyes fluttering like she’s either fighting for sleep or fighting against it. There’s a second knock, and she doesn’t move. So he sits up. Smooths a few new wrinkles out of his clothes. He wonders about the propriety of answering a woman’s hotel door in the morning. But she’s not going to answer it. So.

Gail stands in the hallway. Hands on her hips. Like his mother when he’d come home from high school parties late, drunk.

“You, young man,” she says, “are a scumbag.”

Brett’s addled brain can barely process this accusation. He looks at her blankly. Aware of what a slack-jawed expression he has on his face, but unable to adjust it.

“Get out here,” she says. He steps out into the hall. Gail spins him around so she can step toward the door. She puts her foot in to keep it from shutting. “I thought you were a decent kid,” she says. “For you to take advantage of her in that state—”

“I didn’t,” says Brett. Glad that synapses are beginning to fire. “She took advantage of
me.
I mean, she didn’t. Look.” He indicates the state of his clothes, but he’s unsure what aspect of them he means. That they’re on? That they’re mostly unwrinkled? Somewhere here is proof of his innocence. It’s clear Gail doesn’t know, either. What can he say? She’d asked him to take her back to her hotel. She hadn’t asked him to come to
her hotel. There was a difference there, and he understood it. They’d walked back, and she talked about Alex. How she was glad Brett had met him. How he was a special kid. When they got to the hotel, she asked if he would walk her up to her room. Even when he paced through it in his head, it sounded like he was lying. None of it sounded innocent, but it was. There had been something ghostly about Valerie when she asked. Something not there. “She said she couldn’t be alone,” he says. “But we just lay there in the bed. No touching. We didn’t even talk much. I think she needed someone to be there for her. Literally there.”

Gail softens. Becomes shorter, even. Brett’s not sure he’s convinced himself. He searches his memory for a moment when sex was a possibility. Something he said wrong. A look that was supposed to beckon. Can’t think of anything. “What’s going on with her?” he asks.

“You spent the whole night with her and you didn’t ask what was going on?” says Gail. Brett had wanted to. A few times during the night she started crying. A soft, hitching sound. Like she was trying to keep it to herself. He asked, each time, if she was all right. Each time she said, “I’m fine,” and stopped crying. She pulled in a deep breath and stopped.

“It didn’t seem like she wanted to talk about it,” he says.

“You might not be a bad guy,” says Gail, “but you are most certainly a guy.” Brett can accept this judgment. “And no funny business?”

“No, ma’am,” says Brett.

“For the love of God, don’t call me ma’am,” she says. Gail turns around and opens the door a crack wider. Peers in. “How is she?”

“She’s lying there,” says Brett. “I don’t think she slept.”

“That’s no good,” says Gail. “How does she look?” This seems like an odd question. Especially since Gail is in her pajamas. Or maybe is the kind of person who goes out in public in clothes that look like pajamas.

“I didn’t check,” says Brett. “But she probably looks like she hasn’t slept.”

Gail sighs deeply. “She’s got a big day today. It’s the tenth-anniversary panel for
Anomaly
. People are probably already lining up. She can’t look like she came home from a one-night stand.”

“We didn’t—” Brett says.

She cuts him off. “I know. I’m saying, I don’t know that I can be of much help in this area. I’m not a wizard with the makeup, you know?”

“Hold on,” he says. He takes out his phone. Surprised at what he’s about to do. She must be mad at him. She must have seen him leave with Val last night. There’s no way she’ll agree to it.

“Hey, you,” says Ferret Lass. Like she’s happy to hear from him. How wonderful it must be to live in a world where everything is okay all the time. Where everyone is already forgiven.

“Can I ask you a favor?” says Brett.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“How are you with makeup?”

“I’d be insulted,” she says, “but my mother says the best makeup job is one a boy doesn’t notice.” This makes sense to Brett. He’s only ever noticed makeup when it’s egregious. “You thinking of doing drag?” she asks. “You’d look so hot in drag.”

“It’s a friend of mine.”

“Your friend from last night?”

He tries to determine if there’s any malice in the question. Can’t find any. “Yes.”

“She is so nice,” she says. “There’s the thing for her show today, right?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t leave her covered in hickeys, did you?”

“No, she’s—”

“Hickeys aren’t your thing, are they? Although I remember a few bite marks.”

“I didn’t—”

“Relax,” she says, laughing. “Your lady friend needs some makeup assistance before the thing for her show.”

“She’s not my lady friend.”

“You can tell me all the sordid details later over a drink. You do realize you’ll owe me a drink for this?”

“I will?”

“Possibly multiple. Depends on how badly you’ve ravished her.”

“I didn’t—”

“There’s an after thing at Harlowe tonight. The girls are all going to be there. They liked you. You want to go?”

Brett has no idea what conversation he’s having. Only that it’s not the one he set out to have. He’s not sure if it’s better or worse.

“Sure,” he says.

“Let me throw some stuff in a bag and I’ll see you in a bit,” she says. He gives her the room number and hangs up. Stares at the phone a minute as if it had crawled into his hand.

“What was all that?” asks Gail.

“We have a crisis,” he says, “so I called a superhero.”