Crawling From the Wreckage Page 12

  “I think we’ll pass,” Sara says. “Meg and I haven’t had a lot of face time lately, so...”

  “Say no more,” Stuart says. “I’ll eat something on your behalf.”

  “It’s thoughtful of you to take that bullet for me.”

  “I’m a thoughtful guy. Carrie, you in?”

  “I’m not all that hungry,” I say.

  “Then come for the company. I insist. See?” Peggy says, raising an emphatic index finger. “This is me insisting.”

  Far be it from me to defy the finger.

  ***

  Peggy takes us to the Country Kettle — which, I learn, is where she and Stuart had their first date. That factoid twists the knife lodged in my heart; this is where Malcolm and I had our first official date too.

  The ghost of my love life hovers over me throughout the evening. Stuart and Peggy banter nonstop, an easy, breezy exchange that reminds me so much of how Malcolm and I were with each other. It’s an effort to be happy for them. The urge to let myself sink into resentment and self-pity is strong.

  “Why do they list the BLT as the BLT club sandwich?” Peggy says as she studies her menu. “Isn’t a BLT by definition a club sandwich?”

  “Maybe it’s got, like, twice the B, L, and T,” Stuart theorizes.

  “Order one and find out. I don’t want to live with the mystery.”

  “You order one. I want a burger.”

  “Then order a BLT burger club.”

  “Yeah, but the burgers come with L and T automatically. If I order a BLT burger club I’d have no baseline to tell if I got extra L and T. I’d need to order a control sandwich. You know, in the name of good science.”

  “You keep pondering the deep questions. I need to hit the ladies’ room,” Peggy says. “If the waitress comes, order for me. You know what I like.”

  “Got you covered, babe.”

  I wait until Peggy is out of earshot. “I like her. I like her a lot.”

  Stuart grins. “Yeah. Me too.”

  “I think you more than like her.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “You better hold onto her or I’ll murder you.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “What do you mean, ‘We’ll see?’ You do love her, don’t you?”

  “I’m crazy about her, but...” He shrugs. “This time next year, she’ll be off at college somewhere. She’s looking at schools in-state but she’s been looking in New York, Florida, California...who knows where she’ll end up? And I don’t know if I can keep up a long-distance relationship. Or if I want to.”

  “I don’t like the thought of you giving up on such an awesome girl.”

  “Believe me, I’m not giving up on her. Look, me and Peggy, we’ve talked about it a lot — where we’re going as a couple, I mean — and we both decided to play it by ear and enjoy what we have and not mess things up by worrying about what might or might not happen.”

  “I guess that’s reasonable,” I say, “but I don’t like the thought of anyone breaking up with anyone. Sara told me about Natalie and Derek, and Matt and Zina.”

  “Uh, boy. Yeah.”

  “What?” Peggy says, rejoining us.

  “Zina dumping Matt.”

  “Ah. I wasn’t really around for that. I did get to see the aftermath of the Matt/Miranda debacle, though. That was a spectacle.”

  “The who what?” I say.

  “You know Miranda Carradine, right?” Stuart says.

  “Well enough.” Miranda runs in Amber Sullivan’s bitchy little circle, which is all I need to say about that. “Wait, don’t tell me Matt and Miranda dated?”

  “I wouldn’t call what they did dating. Okay, long story short, after we went public, Miranda started hitting on Matt because she was all turned on by the idea of dating a super-hero.”

  “And he fell for it?”

  Peggy fixes Stuart with an expectant look. “I might have noodged him into inviting her to a party at Peggy’s,” he admits. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

  “Nope.” Peggy says. She waves a hand. “Continue.”

  “Anyway, they spent a few weeks running hot and heavy, then Matt realized they had nothing in common —”

  “And that she wasn’t a pleasant person,” Peggy interjects.

  “— so he broke it off.”

  “Miranda went ballistic. Seventy tweets in one week telling the world how much of an asshat Matt Steiger was. Seventy.”

  “Credit where it’s due, though; she had a knack for creative hashtags.”

  “That sucks,” I say. “Poor guy. He hasn’t had a good year, has he?”

  “He’s had better, but you know Matt. He bounces back pretty quick. Like you.”

  Yeah. Like me.

  FOURTEEN

  After a dinner that never rises above the level of bittersweet, I fly home. Peggy insists that I take off in front of her so she can see me in full Lightstorm mode with her own eyes. What else could I do but indulge her? She gave me the Emphatic Finger again.

  I head up to my room even though I’m not tired. No, that’s not exactly true; I’m utterly exhausted, but it’s on a mental level rather than a physical one. I expect I’m just going to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and stew in my own memories.

  And if I had actually been sleepy? The sight of Sara and Meg standing in the hall outside Sara’s room, the former in her bathrobe and the latter in the process of zipping up her dress, would have shocked me wide awake for the next month.

  Meg lets out a startled yip and then a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. Sorry, I thought you — um, hi,” she says, her face reddening.

  “Hello,” I say coolly.

  “I was, uh, just going. Leaving.” Meg gives Sara a chaste peck on her bright pink cheek and dashes down the stairs. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Sure,” I say. Tomorrow? Did we have plans I totally forgot about? Whatever. Not important right now.

  Sara squirms. “Heeeyyy,” she says.

  “Is that what you meant by face time?” Her gaze drops to the floor. “How long has this been going on?”

  “Remember that lounge gig I told you about?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Since that night. Who knew singing steamy love songs to your girlfriend would be such a turn-on?” she says, trying to play it off as a joke.

  “Does Mom know?”

  “That Meg and I are, um, active? Yeah. I told her the next day. Meg insisted. She wanted to be completely open about — you know. Us. Doing stuff.”

  “How did she take it?” I ask, fully expecting to hear that Mom went as apehouse on Sara as she did when she learned I’d slept with Malcolm.

  “Surprisingly well. She sure wasn’t thrilled about it but she didn’t blow up at me.”

  My fingers curl in on themselves until my nails are digging into my palms. Are you kidding me? I tell Mom I had sex once — once! — and she lays into me like a meth-fueled badger, but Sara says she’s sleeping with Meg and Mom shrugs it off? How the hell is that even remotely fair?

  “So Mom’s totally cool you two are getting busy in your room?” I say, unable to suppress a bitter sneer Sara doesn’t see because she’s gone back to staring at the floor.

  “Christina doesn’t know about that part,” she confesses. “She asked us not to, you know, do it in the house.”

  “God, Sara!”

  “I know...”

  “What would you have done if Mom had walked in on you just now instead of me?” Sara’s silence goes on way too long. “Sara?”

  “Before Christina left for work, did she tell you not to wait up for her tonight?”

  “Yeah,” I say, recalling that Mom said exactly that. “So?”

  “When she says don’t wait up? That means she doesn’t expect to come home.” She clears her throat. “If you know what I mean.”

  Groaning, I slump against the wall and sink to the floor.

  Sara kneels down next to me. “Don’t be mad at her. T
his is something she needs to do.”

  “Oh, really? My mother needs to spend the night God knows where with God knows who? Why does she need to do that? Huh? Why?” I rant, but there’s nothing behind it. I should be outraged. I should be livid. I should be exploding (maybe literally), but I can’t muster the energy. I just can’t.

  “She’s regressing. That’s my theory, anyway.”

  “What do you mean, regressing?”

  “Carrie, Christina never got to have a normal teenage life. She got pregnant at sixteen by the only man she’d ever dated, married him, and spent half her life with him. Then she got divorced and almost immediately got into another serious relationship. She’s never had a real opportunity to date other people or at least play the field a little, you know?”

  My stomach churns at the thought of my mother playing the field. “I can’t deal with this. Not tonight. I can’t.”

  “Come on,” Sara says, coaxing me to my feet. “Let’s get you to bed. Get some sleep, clear your head. I think after we’re done with the meeting you should sit down and talk to your mom.”

  “Maybe.” I pause in my doorway. “What meeting?”

  “The all-hands meeting tomorrow morning at HQ?” Sara says as if I’m supposed to know what the heck she’s talking about. “Matt sent out a notice a few hours ago. You didn’t get it?”

  I take my phone out, thinking I must have forgotten to turn it back on after the show, but that isn’t the case. It’s on, but there’re no messages or missed calls or HeroNet alerts waiting for me.

  Matt totally forgot about me.

  ***

  My night isn’t a sleepless one, but it might as well be. I nod off for an hour at a time at most, wake up with a start thanks to the dreams, and then lie there for a while listening to the radio and fuming over getting frozen out of some big team meeting until I fall asleep again. Sleeping like crap is somehow worse than not sleeping at all.

  It’s a little after five in the morning when I finally give up and head downstairs to make coffee and brood some more. It isn’t the most productive use of my time, but it helps keep my mind off my mother. You know, the woman who should be asleep upstairs in her own bed but isn’t because she’s “regressing” and making up for her lost childhood or some crap like that. Dress it up all you like, Sara, it amounts to the same thing: she’s sleeping around.

  All the deferred anger of last night hits me at once with the impact of a tsunami. I take out my phone and call Matt.

  “Huh?” he mumbles.

  “What the hell, Matt? You called some big important meeting but didn’t bother inviting me?”

  “Huh?” he says again, completely awake this time. “What are you talking about?”

  “Sara told me about the meeting happening today. I didn’t get an alert. What, did you forget I’m alive or something?”

  “You didn’t get —? Why didn’t you get the alert?”

  “I don’t know! You’re the inconsiderate asshat who froze me out, you tell me!”

  “But I — hold on a minute.”

  Sara stampedes down the stairs and runs into the kitchen — dressed, I’ll note, in her bathrobe and nothing else, just as I left her last night. I look past her, half-expecting to see Meg sneaking out the front door.

  “Carrie, what’s wrong?” she asks. I don’t answer. One aggravating, frustrating customer at a time, please.

  “Carrie,” Matt says.

  “I thought we were good,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Us. You and me. I thought we were good. I thought you’d forgiven me for leaving but you haven’t, have you? You’re still pissed and this is how you’re getting back at me, you vindictive son of a bitch!”

  I hurl my phone across the kitchen. Sara snags it with her telekinesis before it hits the wall and brings it back to her hand.

  “Matt?” she says. “Hey, look, I need to — what? Oh. Okay. Yeah, I’ll tell her. Bye.”

  “What? Tell me what?”

  In a soft, level voice, Sara says, “The reason you didn’t get the alert is because Edison still has you on the inactive roster, which means you won’t get HeroNet alerts for anything less than a red-level threat. Matt had nothing to do with it. He thought you got the notice.”

  “Oh. Ohhh, dammit,” I moan, pressing my palms into my temples to ward off a growing headache — the back end of a massive adrenaline surge as it subsides.

  “Carrie —”

  “I know, I know, I overreacted. I’ll apologize when I see him, I’m just — I’m frazzled is all. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “Again.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Maybe you should sit this one out and try to get some rest.”

  “I’m okay,” I insist. “It’s just a team meeting, Sara. I can handle a meeting.”

  “But —”

  “I. Can handle. A meeting.”

  “Okay,” Sara says. “But on the way home, we’re stopping by the drug store and getting you some kind of sleep aid, and then we’re coming right home and you’re going to bed.”

  “Yes. Fine. Whatever.”

  “You go sit. I’ll make breakfast.”

  I sit, and I mope. Sara brings out fresh coffee that tastes like watery mud and omelets that taste like plastic, and she spends the meal making inane small talk — bland, inoffensive chit-chat that won’t upset me — and watching me out of the corner of her eye, like I’m a bomb she doesn’t trust not to go off. She obviously has something she wants to say to me, but she’s afraid to say it.

  Good. I don’t want to hear it anyway.

  ***

  We drive to Protectorate headquarters. Sorry, I should say that Sara drives. She drives my Granddad’s car, and I ride with her. We don’t talk.

  We’re the last to arrive. The full rosters of the Protectorate and the Squad are present, including receptionist-slash-aspiring graphic artist Catherine Hannaford. I also see Meg milling about, conspicuously avoiding eye contact with me. I’m in the room for all of two seconds before people are lining up to hug me. Natalie, Astrid, and Catherine welcome me back home in turn, take a moment to admire my tattoo, and then ruin the good vibes by hitting me with a bunch of questions about my time in space. I choke back the urge to tell them to back the hell off and leave me alone and focus all my energy on responding as vaguely as possible.

  Yeah, the Vanguard kept me busy.

  Training. Drills. Patrolling space. You know.

  Uh-huh, aliens all over the place, all shapes and sizes and colors.

  I made a lot of friends.

  Yep, saw lots of action.

  While I’m busy pulling evasive conversational maneuvers, I catch sight of Sara having a quiet, intense conversation with Matt. He glances toward me and frowns. He’s not going to make this easy on me, is he? No, of course he isn’t. This is Matt Steiger we’re talking about, and he’s —

  “The Entity’s right behind me, isn’t he?” I say.

  “Uh-huh,” Natalie says.

  I turn, and there he is, skulking in the corner, all faceless and weird. “You I did not miss that much.”

  “I care,” the Entity says in his whispery monotone.

  “You be nice,” Missy chides. The Entity grunts and stalks off. I use that as an opportunity to weave my way over to Matt. I owe him a huge apology — another huge apology. No sense procrastinating.

  Halfway there, Meg intercepts me. “Hey,” she says.

  “Morning,” I say neutrally.

  “I’m so sorry about last night. I know that was really awkward for you.”

  “It’s okay. Excuse me,” I say, slipping past her. Matt moves too, keeping the meeting table between us. Okay, I get it; not the right time, not the right place. Message received.

  I take a seat at the head of the table and wait for the meeting to begin, which doesn’t happen for several minutes. Whatever this is about, it’s big; Edison spends the time setting up Skype connections with the entire New England He
roNet, turning the meeting room’s big screen into a Times Square mosaic. The guest list includes, to my surprise, the Wardens, who appear to be joining us from someone’s bedroom. Less surprising is that they’re among the few participants in full costume.

  My phone buzzes. It’s Dennis. Why is he calling?

  “Hey,” I say. “What’s up?”

  “Not much, but I can’t talk for long,” Dennis says. “I’m Skyping in on this big important super-hero meeting and it’s going to start any minute now.”

  “Yeah? What a coincidence; I’m at a big important super-hero meeting too.”

  “How about that?”

  “I know. What are the chances?”

  “Oh, hey, there you are. Hi.”

  I find the Wardens’ square on the big monitor. Skyblazer waves. “Goof,” I laugh.

  “Will you stop screwing around?” Rando says somewhere in the background.

  “Got to go,” Dennis says. “The boss is in a mood.”

  “I don’t know what that’s like at all. Talk to you later.”

  “Later,” Dennis says, and what good timing on our part.

  “All right, everyone, listen up,” Edison says, calling the meeting to order. “We’re going to get started, so please give your full attention to Matt.”

  Matt gets to call meetings and run them? Someone’s really moved up the career ladder.

  “Morning, everyone,” he says, stepping to the head of the table, tablet in hand. “I’ll try to keep this brief. Two nights ago, a woman named Jessica Lee, a former super-villain from the Chicago area known as Influenca, was found murdered at her Vermont home.”

  Matt throws up on the main screen an old mug shot of the late Ms. Lee. Her picture is joined by several more, all of them police mug shots.

  “Lee is one of nine known homicides that have occurred over the past few months in which the victim was an active or retired super-villain.”

  “Are you suggesting a serial killer is targeting super-villains?” Natalie says.

  (Sara fidgets at the phrase serial killer. The King of Pain has been dead for more than a year, but the memories are still alive and kicking.)