Superpowers (22 page)

"Caroline. I'm not going to die."

"You don't know that." Caroline tried to catch her breath, but the words tumbled out continually. "My friend, Jack, his dad died, and it's horrible, and I don't know what to say to him because all I can think about is I only have you, and I just feel like you're so far away, Mom."

Her mother put a hand to Caroline's cheek. "You should come to New York. You'll be done in what, a year?"

Caroline shook her head. "Two years, Mom. I'm going to be a junior."

"Well, I can't keep track of all this." Jenna crossed her arms. "I don't know how to talk to you. You don't like the way I live, but I do. I'm not some slut, you know. I just like men."

"I didn't say you were a slut."

"Well, sometimes it seems like you think it. And I don't need that from you. Look, I know I'm not a great mom. I didn't plan any of this." She sighed. "But I came out here because I thought you were in trouble. I wanted to be here. If you want me to leave, I will."

"I don't want you to leave, Mom."

"Good, because I don't want to." Jenna gripped her daughter's shoulders. "I do care about you, sweetie. But I didn't choose for you to come here. I wanted you to go to school in Cleveland, remember?"

"You left Cleveland, Mom."

"Because you came here. And that's fine, that's your choice. But I thought, since you were gone, I'd do some of the things I didn't have time to do while you were at home. So I moved to Boston."

"And Manchester. And Albany. And Philadelphia."

"And now New York. I'm happy there, Caroline. I'm sorry if I haven't been very dependable. I've been wrapped up in myself, I know. But it's going to get better."

"Starting when?"

"Right now. I'm here. I'm going to stay the weekend. I'm going to take you shopping, and we'll ditch Arturo and you can yell at me some more if you need to. But I won't promise not to yell back."

Caroline looked down. "What happens when you go back?"

"I'll try and be better. You have to understand, I have a new job and I had to use all my assets to convince my boss to give me an advance to fly out here, not to mention the time off. I like my job, and I want to keep it, so I'm going to be working hard. And I like Arturo. I'm not sure I'll be keeping him, but he's fun for now. And you're more important than either of those things, believe me. But I'm not a very organized woman. Sometimes things slip by me."

"Promise me you'll try to do better."

"That's what I'm telling you."

"Promise me."

"I promise, honey." Jenna plucked another tissue from the box and offered it to Caroline. "You're sure you're not pregnant?"

"Well, Dr. Bloom, I realize that diagnoses based on telephone messages are usually conclusive, but you blew this one."

"Well, I'm glad. I can barely keep track of you, let alone a grandkid. I mean, do I look old enough to be a grandmother?"

"Yes."

"Oh, you're going to pay for that."

SUNDAY

Jack couldn't look around his parents' kitchen without thinking of his father. One day about ten years ago his mother had announced at the dinner table that she would stop cooking unless her husband remodeled the kitchen as he had promised he would when they had bought the house.

"Start tomorrow," she said, "or plan on picking up something from town for dinner. I'm tired of plaster in the saucepans and rusted hinges on the cabinets and having to fiddle with the knobs to turn the gas off all the way. One of these days this house is going to explode while we sleep."

Zeke Robinson had looked a little stunned, but the next day he started building new cabinets. He enlisted all the children in the remodeling, and in Jack's memory all the work was like play, the tiling and the staining of the cabinets and installing the new stove. He remembered the ribbons they had put all over the finished kitchen, six-year-old Grace attaching them to everything she could reach, and his father guiding his mother into the room with his hands over her eyes. He'd sat her down at the new table to watch while he and the children cooked dinner for her in the new kitchen.

Now Jack sat at the kitchen table which Lloyd and his father had bought at a flea market in Stoughton. Jack remembered his father sanding the table by hand, using steel wool to scuff up the legs so they would hold stain and paint.

Grief was exhausting. Sleep alternated with brief bouts of directionless energy. He rarely bothered to put on the costume when he went out now. He wasn't feeling much like a hero these past couple of weeks.

His mother set coffee on the table and sat across from him. He remembered the chairs, legs coming loose, his father fixing them.

"Grace tells me you're one of those superheroes," his mother said.

Jack stopped the coffee cup halfway to his lips, then set it down. "She shouldn't have told you," he said.

"I would have figured it out myself. . . there were plenty of clues."

"I can't believe she told you."

"It's good that she did."

Jack spun the coffee cup in front of him. "You know, I've wanted to ask you if you had some kind of power."

His mother laughed. For a second Jack was angry—she shouldn't be laughing at him, shouldn't be laughing at all when her husband had just died. But as she laughed, the tightness in his chest that he had forgotten was there loosened, and he laughed too. As soon as he started he wanted to cry, but he had done so much of that already that he just breathed deep and calmed himself. That was harder, lately—his lungs seemed tight, much like the rest of him.

"No," she said. "I used to wish I did, when I was little. I was going to grow up to be Wonder Woman. I'd lie awake planning the things I would do. I'd fly over the Grand Canyon or become a bodyguard for the Beatles, and marry George. He was always my favorite. Later I didn't believe in those things, but I still wished. I thought that having power would make life easier, make it obvious what I could and should do."

"It doesn't," Jack said.

"Are you careful?" his mother asked.

"Yes." The truth was that he didn't think there was anything that could hurt him. Nothing could catch him, or even see him. He'd probably have to deliberately run into a wall to get hurt.

"It's good that you're helping people, Morty."

"You're not mad?"

"No. I won't tell you I'm not going to worry, but then I do that anyway. Just don't do anything stupid, all right?"

"I won't," Jack said. He followed his mother's gaze to the cabinets. His father used to oil the hinges once a month, to keep them from getting rusty. Jack wondered how long it had been since his father had been able to do any maintenance around the house.

He rose. "Ma?"

"Yes, Morty?"

"Do you think Dad ... do you think he felt lonely?" Jack blinked at his tears and looked through the living room, through the front window, to the machine sheds and the heap of scrap from the garage that no one had hauled away. Beyond that was the two-lane highway that had been there all his life, and beyond that, the Olsens' fields. The corn was waist high, a dry, brittle green that looked likely to crumble into brown at any moment. It was still so dry.

"Why do you think he would be lonely, Morty?"

"Because. Not that you weren't here, you know. But I should have come down more. I just— Sometimes it was like it wasn't even Dad. The cancer took so much, even before he died. Sometimes I think maybe I stayed away on purpose, even when I could have come. I feel like I wasn't there when he needed me."

He couldn't blink fast enough to make the tears go away. He heard his mother stand, and he turned and seized her in his arms, squeezing hard, needing something solid to keep him from falling away.

"Morty. He knew, honey. You didn't do wrong. Zeke knew how hard it was for you kids. Sometimes he asked me to tell you he was sleeping and you shouldn't come. It was hard for him, too, to have you see him like that.

"But you all came, even as scary as it was. You came and you spent time, and he was grateful for that, even when it wore him out."

"I never told him I loved him. I never said it."

"Oh, Morty. That's just something men aren't good at. He knew it. And you know he loved you, don't you?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah." He loosened his hold on her, and she pulled back to look at him.

"It won't always hurt like this," she said.

"What about you?" he asked. "You seem so calm."

"I'm not, honey. But I did a lot of my crying along the way. There'll be more, but I'll let it happen in its time."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to stay right here in this house, at least until Grace finishes high school. And after that... I really don't know."

"OK." He wiped his face with his hands. "I love you," he said, and kissed her on the cheek.

"I love you too, Morty. Be careful."

"I will." Jack walked outside and took off running.

TUESDAY

Here's the thing," said Charlie. "We're the All-Stars."

He sat on the recliner, the only space left in the living room that wasn't stacked with boxes. He sat straight; his ribs were still healing, and the pain forced him to maintain good posture.

"If you don't want to tell me what's going on," said Scott, "that's your choice. But don't bullshit me."

"We thought you might say that," said Jack. "Whatever. Do you think you could pack something? I can't believe you haven't even started. It's seven-thirty, and we need to have all this stuff out by noon."

"I guess I should get started, then," said Jack, and disappeared. One moment he was standing there, grinning, and the next he was gone. Noise came from Jack's bedroom, and then a box appeared, and another, and another, stacked neatly in front of Scott. He blinked, and the mattress was leaning against the wall in the hallway, then the box spring, and the frame leaning against the boxes. A garment bag and a suitcase appeared, and then Jack was standing in front of him holding another box. "Could you hold this for me?" he asked.

The box was much heavier than it looked. Scott caught it against his legs and strained to lift it. As he was looking for someplace to put it Mary Beth entered the apartment.

"I'll take that," she said.

"It's heavy," he said.

She plucked it from his grasp and held it up with one hand. "Why don't you hand me a couple more, I'll start loading up the truck."

Jack stacked two more boxes on top of the first. "Use both hands," he said. "You'll attract attention."

"OK." Mary Beth bounded down the stairs, no strain evident in her breathing. Scott wondered if there was some trick going on, something with magnets or mirrors.

"Do you honestly think it's more likely that we'd develop some elaborate hoax than that we're telling the truth?" Charlie asked.

"I guess not, but..." Sweat prickled on the back of Scott's neck. "I didn't say anything."

"I'm sorry, I really am. I can't help it."

"Did you just read my mind?"

Charlie shifted in his seat, grimacing with discomfort. "Ouch. Yeah, I did. I would have told you before, but we didn't know how you'd react."

"We decided to show you all of it at once," said a girl's voice. "That way you can't pretend it's not happening." "Who said that?"

"I did." Harriet appeared. One moment she wasn't there, the next she was. "We're taking a big risk telling you all this, Scott. But Jack and Charlie think we can trust you. Are they right?"

Scott's mouth was dry. "I need some air," he said, and left before anything else could happen.

He ran down the stairs and out onto the porch, where he stood sweating. Moving day was traditionally hot, except when it was rainy. Today was both: the temperature was supposed to get into the high nineties, with humidity enough to drown insects and small birds, and thunderstorms were supposed to show up in the afternoon.

Scott leaned on the porch rail and looked up and down the street. Pickups, U-Hauls, and Ryders dwarfed the few compacts still parked along the curbs. Students who hadn't been up before ten all semester had been up since dawn loading stereos, beer signs, computers, bookshelves, file cabinets, desks, stuffed animals, beer bongs, CDs, and even a few books. Detritus lined the curb, broken tables and soiled couches and discarded clothing, anything too large or too old or simply too much trouble to take to the next apartment. Vans with shifty, bearded men inside rolled up and down the street, scanning the garbage for treasures. A fiftyish couple in overalls was salvaging a couch without cushions.

Mary Beth climbed onto the porch. "It's going to be hot," she said. "If you guys want, I can do all the loading, except when I need someone for appearances. I really don't mind."

"You think this is funny?" Scott asked.

"It's not that," she said. "It's just a relief. It's been difficult keeping it a secret from you."

Scott thought back over the past month and a half and realized how many clues there had been, how many times he might have figured out what was going on if he hadn't been so lost in his own head.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I don't know"

"OK. Take your time. I'm going to grab some more stuff from inside."

"OK." Scott didn't look at her as she went inside.

He looked out at the movers again and wondered why none of the students ever stayed put, why they hadn't all extended their leases back in February. There was always some reason. The apartment was too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer, there was not enough shelf space in the kitchen or in the closets, someone was graduating or there wasn't any parking or the rent hike of forty dollars each seemed too much. Scott thought how much the truck cost, how much time he'd spent packing, how much time it would take to unpack and arrange everything in the new place. Time and money and labor would probably total four hundred or more.

Not for Jack, though. He'd packed in less than a minute. He could have helped Scott pack. He could at least have offered. And all along Charlie had known what he was thinking. He wondered what sort of humiliating things Charlie had been telling the rest of them about him.

Except that was wrong; this had nothing to do with him. That was the point. That was why he'd been feeling that distance, why he'd wanted out of the new lease. Charlie had probably picked that out of his head, and they were trying to make him feel part of the group, which was ridiculous. He didn't have any powers. All he had now was the secret.

"Scott?"

It was Cecilia. She stopped on the sidewalk and smiled, as if she wasn't sure what he would do.

All the words in Scott's mind tripped over one another and fell in a heap, leaving him slack-jawed and silent.

"Hi," she said after a while. "I'm . . . Marshall and I are moving into a place down the block."

"OK."
Marshall.
He sounded like a stockbroker, but Scott had seen him once. He was six-foot-six and his shoulders might require custom door-framing.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

He could tell her about Jack and Charlie and the girls. It might feel good to tell someone. It might make her stay and talk to him, might make her look at him and see something, whatever it was that she used to care about. Scott wasn't sure anymore why he had loved her, he just knew that not being with her hurt.

But telling her wouldn't make any difference. Knowing didn't make him special. Or maybe it was that knowing
did
make him special, but only as long as it was a secret. It was like Cecilia was on one side of a wide river, with Marshall and everyone else in the world. Scott was on the opposite bank with Charlie and Jack and the girls. The idea made him sad and elated at the same time.

"I'm fine," he said.

"That's good." Was he imagining it, or did she sound a little bit disappointed? "Well, I'll see you."

"OK," Scott said. He waved after her, and went back inside.