Super (Book 2): Super Duper (8 page)

By the time I met up with Mellie, I had wrestled my
hair into its normal puff and changed out of my picture outfit
back into my usually jeans, tee shirt, and sneakers. I don’t
know why Mellie thought I looked great but I definitely felt
better.

We were at Big Daddy’s, a trendy restaurant with a
diner concept that featured a burger topped with bacon
stuffed macaroni and cheese on it. We ordered two with sweet
potato tater tots and gigantic double chocolate milkshakes as
soon as we sat down.

Although I hadn’t seen much of Mellie since we
stopped working together, she looked the same. Long dark
hair and bright blue eyes. She was wearing an off the shoulder
sweatshirt, a pair of black skinny jeans, and a pair of calf
length boots. “You look great, too. How’s business?”

Mellie’s little fashion blog had snowballed into a full
time online fashion business selling, promoting, and styling.
“It’s going so good!” she grinned. “These just went up today
and the traffic is already amazing.” She pointed to her gold
and turquoise elephant earrings.

It was then that I noticed the fat diamond ring on her
left hand. “What’s that?”
“Oh. That’s my engagement ring. This is what Kevin
needed to talk to me about.”
“Um, congratulations?” Just then the waitress
delivered our food and shakes. We munched silently together
for a while.
Finally, Mellie said something. “Hey, Audrey?”
“Yeah?” I said through a mouthful of tater tots.
She waved her left hand in the air. “Does my ring freak
you out?”
“I’m not freaked out! I swear. It’s just that getting
engaged is so very grownup of you.”
“I
am
a grownup, Audrey. So are you. We’re in our
thirties for god’s sake. I’m no different from the person I was
before I put this ring on.”
“You don’t think it’s too soon?”
“No. We’ve been dating for two years,” she shrugged.
“I think I’m ready for what’s next. Nothing can stay the same
forever, right?” She popped a tater tot in her mouth and
chewed it carefully before asking “What about you? What’s
next for you?”
“After this I need to go collect the rest of the rent from
the tenants. Also, there’s a dog somewhere in the building so
I might see if I can snoop around for that. Then I’ll probably
watch some TV and dick around in my apartment until I get
tired and go to sleep.” I punctuated the statement with a huge
bite of my bacon mac burger.
Mellie laughed. “No! I mean, what’s next for you in
life? What are you working on? What gets you excited?”
Mellie didn’t know about my Super work. To her, I’d
always been her slacker coworker. She probably wondered
exactly what I was doing with my life. She wasn’t the only
one, though. I wondered that, too. I’d spent my life struggling
to live a normal life while balancing my Super duties. If Miss
Fine had her way, I wouldn’t have to worry about the second
part anymore. And then what? I had no idea.
I shrugged at Mellie. “I really don’t know.”
“Nothing you want to do?”
I flashed on a fantasy I’d always had of me flying like
some of the other Supers can do. “No.”
“No movement in your love life? Any dates? At least a
little crush?”
The last date I’d been on had been set up by Mellie. I’d
left him in the restaurant to go do some Super work and he’d
been pissed. I’d been so focused on my financial situation
since that I hadn’t even thought about a date. Sudden, I
flashed on Mike helping me with the washing machine.
That
was definitely
not
a date
, I thought to myself. Outwardly, I said
“Uh-huh.”
“Hmph.” The waitress came back to take our plates
and drop our checks but Mellie kept her disapproving look
trained on me.
I shrugged again. “What can I say? I’m a simple chick.
I can barely figure out what I’m doing tomorrow. I just have
to take it day by day.”
Mellie smiled. “OK. I can respect that.” We sipped our
milkshakes in delicious silence for a while before she spoke
again. “Hey, Audrey?”
“Yeah?”
She smiled that devilish smile she always did when
she had something up her sleeve. “I forgot to tell you that I
want you to be one of my bridesmaids.” Mellie burst out in a
belly laugh at her own joke while I practically choked on my
milkshake.

When you’re in charge of a building, there is one thing
that trumps all other activities: collecting rent. I loved the
fact that Hy was an absentee boss. If the rent doesn’t show
up in his account on time, he might stop doing that. Most
of the tenants slipped checks under my door on their own.
Whatever I didn’t get by the third of the month, I’d go collect
in person.

I’d gotten rent from the tenants in 2B and 3B before I
knocked on Mike’s 3A door. This was the first time I’d ever had
to do this. He usually was one of the ones who slipped their
rent under my door. And it was doubly awkward because he
almost ran me over the day before and then had to drive me
home as I sat in his work car looking like a drowned rat.

He opened the door in a pair of sweats and a tank top.
“Hey, Audrey.”
My eyes went to his muscled arms. But I forced myself
to focus on the task at hand. “Rent?”
“Oh yeah. Come on in.” He stepped aside from the
doorway to let me in and shut it behind me. “I just got back
from the gym. I was about to take a shower.”
Don’t imagine him in the shower. Don’t imagine him
in the shower. Don’t imagine him in the shower.
Inside, he disappeared into the bedroom, presumably
to grab the check. I stood awkwardly in his living room. “So
how’s your disposal working? Everything still OK?” I asked
to break the uncomfortable silence.
He came back into the living room with is checkbook
and a pen. “Yes. Any more problems with the washers? Do I
need to bring you home tonight?”
“Nope.”
He handed me the check with a smile. “Looks like
everything is going great for us.”
“Yeah.” Just then I heard a faint barking sound in the
hallway. “Did you hear that?” I asked Mike.
Mike nodded. “Yeah. Sounds like a dog or something
in the hallway. But there aren’t any pets in this building.”
“Exactly!” I yanked open his apartment door and
rushed out into the hallway. Mike trailed behind. I peered
down the stairway but no one was there.
Mike scratched his head. “You know, that’s not the
first time I’ve heard that. I always thought it could have been
someone’s TV or one the Pham kids’ toys.”
I shrugged. “Maybe it was in one of these apartments.”
I knocked on 3B but didn’t get an answer. Before I
could knock on 3C, the door opened and Mr. Umberson came
out, holding a large gym bag. “Oh, hello,” he nodded to both
of us.
Mr. Umberson was an older man on the large side. He
had a mostly bald head with white fringe at temples and a
thick white beard. He had moved in right when I took over
super duties for the building. I didn’t have much contact with
him. He paid his rent on time and he worked a lot. In fact,
he was hardly home at all. I got the impression that he was
newly divorced.
“I was just about to knock on your door. Did you hear
a dog out here?”
Mr. Umberson nodded. “I did. I think it came from up
there.” He pointed to the stairs that led from the third floor
to the roof.
“But that just leads to the roof,” Mike said.
Mr. Umberson adjusted his bag under his arm and
shrugged. “I don’t get it, either, but it’s not the first time I’ve
heard it. I’ve got to go. Good luck.” He hurried down the
stairs and out of sight.
Without thinking, I ran up the stairs to the roof access.
I’d never been up there before. But I figured I should check
it out. I opened the door and stepped out onto the roof. It
was only then that I noticed was right behind me. “You didn’t
have to come.”
“And let you investigate the Case of the Unauthorized
Pet on your own?” He grinned. “I’m curious, too.”
I propped open the door with a brick we kept nearby
just for that purpose. “OK, fine.”
Like most of the buildings in Brooklyn, this one’s roof
doubled as a sort of patio for the tenants. There were a couple
of deck chairs and some tables out there. Mrs. Demaray from
2A kept a few plants out there she liked to pretend was a
rooftop garden. There was a safety fence around the edge of
the building to keep anyone from falling off and a number
of signs telling people to watch their step. On a Saturday
afternoon, there might have been a few people laying out. On
a Friday night, there might be a couple, huddled up together
under a blanket watching the stars. On this particular Monday
night, it was deserted.
I turned to Mike. “You see a dog?”
He shook his head. “No dog.”
“Oh well. I tried. Let’s head back. . .” I trailed off
because I had turned back to the door and seen that it was
closed. The brick was nowhere to be seen. When the roof door
was closed, it automatically locked from the outside. It was
on my list of things to fix. I ran to the door and yanked on the
handle but I knew it was no use. We were stuck on the roof.

“I bet you wish you hadn’t followed me out here,
huh?” Mike and I were sitting on one of the lawn chairs that
tenants used to lay out on the roof. We’d already tried all of
our best options. Mike tried to break force the door open. We
had yelled down to the street for help but no one heard us
from so far up. Finally, Mike remembered that Mrs. Demaray
came up to water her plants every night around ten when she
got home from work. We just had to wait for her to get home.
So we settled down on one of the chairs and did just that.

But it was getting cold on the roof. I was still wearing a
thin shirt and Mike was in a tank top. It was fine for a quick in
and out, but sitting on the roof was making me shiver. Mike
found a blanket someone had left up there. I hesitated when
he offered to share it with me but it was that or be cold. We
crowded under it to wait for a rescue.

He wrapped the blanket a little tighter. “I bet you wish
you had fixed that door.”
I laughed. “True. But, to be fair, I have a lot of stuff
on my plate already. And you may have notice that I’m not
exactly mechanically inclined.”
He nodded. “I noticed. How did you become a super
anyway?”
I sighed. “It’s a long story. But the short version is that
I knew the owner when I was a barista and he offered me the
job.”
“Do you like it?”
I hesitated. I knew he was asking me about being a
building manager but my mind was stuck on being a Super.
“Yeah. Most of the time I’m just waiting for something to
happen. I can’t think of anything else I’d want to do, though.
Do you like being a detective?”
He sat up to face me, too. “The short answer is yes.
I like helping people. I like figuring stuff out. I get enough
wins that the losses don’t overwhelm me. But the paperwork
sucks. The fact that lots of guilty people get away with stuff
sucks. The Old Boys Club sucks. The bad apples that make
everybody else look bad suck. I’m not going to let all of those
things keep me from something that I actually feel good
doing.”
I breathed in and caught the combination of his sweat
and deodorant. It smelled like heaven. I felt the sudden urge
to kiss him. “I feel the exact same way.”
He smiled. He had a great smile. “About being a
super?”
“Yeah.” If I just leaned in a little bit, my lips would be
on his lips, I thought.
“What are you guys doing up here?” We both turned
around to see Outside Bob, standing at the roof door, holding
a telescope.
“Don’t close that door!” Mike and I both cried at the
same time.
“I know!” he yelled back. “It locks.” He held up the
brick. “But you gotta put this down to keep it from closing.”
I threw off the blanket and ran over to the door. “But
I did!”
“You have to be careful with it,” Bob scolded. “If you
put it too close to the hinge side, the brick will slide away.”
I felt stupid and didn’t know what to say. Mike walked
over to us. “Well, I still have to take that shower. Audrey? You
got it from here, right?”
“Yeah. Thanks for coming up here with me. It was nice
to have company.”
“Any time.” He gave me a little wave and left.
“So what were
you
guys doing?” Bob said with a
knowing smile.
In an instant, I was very annoyed with the whole
situation. “Nothing! What are
you
doing? You’re not even
supposed to be up here.” Never mind that him coming up
there is what saved me from spending the night on the roof.
He held up the telescope. “Mars is visible tonight.
Pretty exciting stuff. Wanna check it out?”
“No, getting stuck out here was enough excitement for
me tonight.”
Bob shook his head and began setting up. “Only you,
Audrey.”
“Yeah, well, this is my life, Bob. It’s shitty a lot of times.
Sorry I can’t be a cool homeless guy with a telescope like
you.” It sounded mean even to my own ears but I was too
mad to take it back.
For the first time since I’d met him, Bob didn’t correct
me when I said “homeless.” “Is it really your life?” he asked
as he fiddled with knobs and dials on his telescope. “And if it
is, maybe should change it if it’s not what you want. I used to
have a big, busy life, too, Audrey. But I couldn’t stand it. Now
I’m free. Some people may call it homeless but I’m really free
to call anywhere I want home. You’re the one who is has all of
this stuff holding you down.”
Suddenly, I felt bad. Bob was right. I had a lot of things
holding me down. Maybe it was time for me to let it go. “Bob,
you can stay up here tonight. Enjoy your view of Mars.”
“Thanks.” Just as I turned to go, he said “Wait! I forgot.
Someone just delivered something for you.” He reached into
his camouflage jacket and pulled out an envelope.
“When did this happen?” I didn’t have a watch on me
but it had to be after nine. It was too late for deliveries.
He handed me the envelope. “Just now when I was
coming up the stairs.”
I tore it open. It was from the Council, summoning me
to report tomorrow morning at 9am for my licensing hearing.
My audit was over and it was time for a decision.