Action Figures - Issue Four: Cruel Summer Read online

  “I know. There was a lot of serious talk.”

  “Good serious talk?”

  “I think so.”

  Sara nods and holds her mug out as if proposing a toast. “Here’s hoping some of that good talk mojo rubs off on me.”

  “Right, you have your family meeting with Bart today,” I say. We clink mugs. “I hope things work out for you.”

  “Me too,” she says.

  Instead of my go-to Pop Tarts, I break out the Bisquick and make pancakes for us. I don’t tackle breakfast very often, but with Granddad gone, I figure someone has to take up the mantle of in-house breakfast cook. Might as well be me, right?

  After feasting like a lumberjack, Sara changes into fresh clothes for her meeting. I hug her at the door and wish her good luck, and as she leaves I notice Granddad’s car sitting in the driveway, untouched since he died, covered in a layer of grainy pollen. I’ve thought about asking Mom if she wants to sell it, or perhaps let me have it so I can put my driver’s license to use (whenever I finally get around to getting it, that is), but the car has become a shrine of sorts, a centerpiece attraction in the Museum of Gregory Briggs. Granddad’s car, like everything he once owned, is now sacred and cannot be disturbed from the condition in which he left it.

  Yet I can’t find it within me to let his car sit there looking so gross. I change into a T-shirt and shorts, grab a bucket and a sponge, my Mom’s portable radio, and one of my Springsteen mix CDs and head outside.

  The weather is delightfully summerlike for so early in the season, perfect conditions for working outside. Maybe when I’m done, I’ll dig the deck chair out of the basement and set up in the backyard for a little sunbathing. Sure, why not? Me and the sun and a good book. Fine way to spend the morning.

  As I finish soaping up the car, Malcolm pulls up. Right, we were going to spend the day together. How in the world could I forget that?

  “When you’re done there, want to do my car?” Malcolm says.

  “Yeah, right. Wash your own car, lazy, your arms aren’t broken.”

  “Yeah, but I like watching you do it.”

  “Oh, really?” I say with a wicked smirk.

  “I’m sorry, was that pervy of me?”

  “Maybe. What would you like to do today?”

  “I don’t know. Didn’t have anything in mind, I thought we could maybe play it by ear.”

  “That works for me. Let me finish up here, grab a shower, then we can head out,” I say, and Hungry Heart pops up on the radio. Love this song. I let the music take over. I dance and strut around the car as I hose it down, water streaked with yellow swirls of pollen and clouds of foam spilling at my feet and cascading down the driveway.

  I glance over at Malcolm. His eyes are glazed over, and his mouth hangs slightly open — he’s totally mesmerized by me. I can’t resist turning up the bump-and-grind factor a notch or two. He swallows hard and light perspiration breaks out along his forehead.

  Oh, poor boy, getting all hot and bothered. I can fix that.

  I turn the hose on Malcolm, dousing him from head to toe. He yelps as the cold water jolts him out of his stupor, his expression changing from one of aroused fascination to pure shock. He stands there for a moment, dripping and confused, and then a deadly serious expression settles on his face.

  “I’m going to get you for that,” he says.

  “Bring it.”

  Malcolm charges. I squeal with laughter and try to ward him off with the hose, but he manages to steal it from me. Now it’s my turn for an unwanted shower. I duck and I weave, but I can’t avoid the spray. Malcolm advances on me. When he gets close enough I twist the nozzle in his grip, turning the water back on him. We struggle with the hose, trying to wrench it from one another’s grip.

  We let go at the same time, no longer interested in the hose, or the car, or anything else. I kiss him, hard, and he returns the kiss with equal vigor. Malcolm holds me tight, pressing his body to mine.

  The next thing I know we’re in the house. I don’t recall how we got inside. I don’t care. Not important. Only Malcolm matters. He’s been the one thing in my life I’ve been able to count on, the only thing that hasn’t disappointed me or hurt me. He’s always been there when I needed him. God, do I need him now.

  We fumble our way upstairs. I break away long enough to dash into Mom’s bedroom and root through her nightstand, hoping and praying to find —

  Yes. A string of condoms, a half-dozen of them. I tear one off the strip and turn to leave.

  I hesitate. I look at the foil envelope in my fingers and ask myself: do I really want this?

  Hell yes, I want this. I deserve this.

  I return to Malcolm. We pick up where we left off. We plow through the door to my bedroom, and that’s when things kick into overdrive. Clothes start to come off. We fall into my bed.

  “Carrie,” Malcolm pants.

  Oh. Oh boy.

  This is happening.

  SIXTEEN

  We lie there for I don’t know how long, a heavy silence hanging between us. My body buzzes dully, like there’s a weak electrical current running through me, and I’m way too warm for comfort, but other than that I feel...I don’t know. The same. I thought I’d feel different somehow.

  Malcolm plays with my hair absent-mindedly and stares at the ceiling, his face bright and dull at the same time, like he’s been shocked into a pleasant daze.

  Should I say something? I should say something.

  I have no idea what to say.

  Man, this is awkward.

  Malcolm gently kisses my forehead, and I suddenly become extremely aware that there is a naked guy in my bed, pressed up against my equally naked body. A flush of prickly heat surges up my face. Why am I embarrassed? Jeez, we just...you know. Did it. I shouldn’t be embarrassed now. What the heck? Is this normal? Do people always feel like this after they have sex?

  Oh my God, I just had sex.

  “Malcolm?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m having a weird panic attack and I don’t know why.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah.”

  Malcolm lets loose an enormous sigh. “Oh, thank God!”

  “What, you’re having one too?”

  “Yeah! I started freaking out for no reason. I’m lying here and it’s nice and I’m feeling good, a little sleepy, maybe, then I’m like, oh my God, I just lost my virginity, and then my brain went completely off the rails.”

  “Mine too! I realized we were both in my bed and completely naked and all of a sudden I’m going mental,” I say, sitting up and clutching the sheet to my chest (which is absurd. It’s not like he hasn’t seen it). “How stupid is that?”

  “Pretty stupid.”

  That makes me smile. Malcolm returns the smile, and that turns into a giggle, and soon we’re lying in bed, howling with laughter. It’s a cathartic reaction, a release of nervous energy that, after it subsides, leaves us feeling much more relaxed and at ease with our new situation — so much so that Malcolm asks if I’m up for a repeat performance.

  “Philosophically, yes,” I say, “but I think we need to decompress a little first. Why don’t we get dressed, get up for a while, maybe get something to eat...?”

  “Mmm, yeah. I could eat.”

  We slide out of bed and get dressed, our backs turned toward one another.

  “Carrie? Was I...I mean, was it, you know...good?” Malcolm asks.

  “It was nice.”

  Malcolm smiles at my answer.

  We head downstairs to call in a pizza order. We pass the time chatting about nothing important, both of us conspicuously avoiding the weighty topic of our status as a newly sexually active couple and what it actually means for us.

  It does mean something, right? This is supposed to be a big moment in a person’s life, yet we’re going out of our way to act like nothing has changed. I don’t want sex to be this weird for us all the time. This kind of thing is supposed to bring us closer together, not
make us so uncomfortable that we bury our feelings beneath a mountain of pointless small talk. We shouldn’t ignore this. We should discuss it.

  Not that I know what to say.

  The delivery guy arrives, providing us with hot, yummy pizza and an excuse to forestall a conversation Malcolm and I really need to have.

  Soon. We’ll talk soon. I promise.

  Throughout lunch, I run a dozen different potential opening lines through my head, but none of them hook me. Malcolm, I think we should talk about what being sexually active means for our relationship sounds too clinical. Malcolm, did you like being with me? sounds needy. Malcolm, I don’t want sex to ruin our relationship comes close — maybe a little too close for comfort.

  I don’t get a chance to try any of my approaches out. Sara storms in, eyes blazing, Bart hot on her heels. She stomps past us, disappearing into the kitchen.

  “Carrie, hello,” Bart says.

  “Dr. Connors,” I say. “Oh, uh, Dr. Connors, this is my boyfriend, Malcolm. Malcolm, this is Sara’s, uh, therapist.”

  “Ah, okay. Hi,” Malcolm says, rising to shake Bart’s hand.

  “I don’t want to interrupt your lunch,” Bart says, gesturing at the pizza box on the coffee table, “but I need to borrow Carrie.”

  “Things didn’t go well, huh?” I say. Bart makes a face. “Malcolm, could you give me a few minutes, please?”

  “I think you’re going to need more than a few minutes. Why don’t I clear out for a while, give you some privacy? You call me when you know what’s going on.”

  “Okay,” I say. I walk him to the door and kiss him goodbye. “I love you,” I whisper.

  “Love you too.”

  So much for that heart-to-heart.

  “What happened?” I ask Bart.

  “Her father,” Bart mutters like a curse. “I’ve dealt with difficult people before, but that man...he wouldn’t budge an inch, not one inch. He spent the entire time sitting there demanding that I ‘fix’ Sara, and if I couldn’t make her ‘normal’ again, well, then, what good was I?”

  “Jeez. What about Mrs. Danvers? Did you get through to her?”

  “Once I got her alone, yeah. She wants Sara to come home, she doesn’t agree with her husband at all, but she won’t stand up to him. She’s just as frustrating in her own way.”

  “So...what do we do now?”

  “I hate to impose on you further,” he begins.

  “Sara can stay as long as she needs to. My mother already said she could.”

  “Good. Good.”

  “Is she going to be all right? She’s been wicked moody and I swear it’s been getting worse.”

  “I’ve noticed that myself.” Bart peers past me, toward the kitchen, and lowers his voice. “The poor girl’s at a breaking point. On top of the King of Pain mess and the grief from her parents, she feels like she’s being abandoned by her friends.”

  “What? Bart, that’s nuts, we aren’t abandoning Sara.”

  “I didn’t say you were, but that’s what it feels like to her. You and Matt have jobs now, you have a boyfriend, Missy and her father have repaired their damaged relationship...from her perspective, you’re all moving forward and leaving her behind.”

  “What can we do? We can’t stop living our lives.”

  “All you can do is be there for her as much as you can and reassure her that none of you are going anywhere.” He pauses for a moment to think. “Are you going to Meg’s party tomorrow?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, we were planning to go.”

  “Good. I think that’ll be good for her. Tell you what, if you kids want to meet at HQ tomorrow, I’ll see if maybe Natalie can give you a lift.”

  “That’d be great, thanks.”

  Bart nods. “Sara?”

  Sara shuffles in, swigging a soda. “Are you done talking about me behind my back?”

  “I’m going to take off, unless you need anything else,” Bart says. Sara shakes her head. Bart opens his arms, a silent request for a hug. Sara accepts. “See you girls tomorrow.”

  Sara flops onto the couch. “Hope your morning went better than mine,” she says. “Not that I set the bar that high.”

  “My morning was...um. It was interesting.” Sara gives me a curious look. “Malcolm came over. We, uh...we might have, umm...you know.”

  Her jaw drops. “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow. That’s great,” she says, but her surly edge tells me she thinks it’s anything but. “You got to bang your boyfriend and my life fell apart some more. Yeah, that’s totally fair.”

  “Sara, I didn’t plan on it happening,” I say, “and I sure didn’t do it to spite you or rub my happiness in your face.”

  “Whatever. Congrats on giving it up. I’m happy for you.” Sara curls into a ball in the corner of the sofa. “M’tired. Want to take a nap.”

  I stand. “If you need anything, I’ll be in my room.”

  “I won’t.”

  Nevertheless, I spend the rest of the day in my bedroom.

  It’s déjà vu all over again the next morning when I come downstairs. Sara is exactly where she was when I last saw her, asleep in the same position. She stays asleep until I get close to check on her, at which point she snaps awake. Once the cobwebs clear, she proceeds to apologize at length for her behavior.

  “Sara?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I love you. You know that, right?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “And you know Matt and Missy and Stuart love you too, right?”

  “Why do I feel like this is the start of an intervention?”

  I take her by the hands. “I’m letting you know that we’re here for you, all of us, and we always will be. We’re never going to abandon you or let you down. I’m never going to abandon you.”

  Sara’s eyes glisten. She sniffs, wipes her eyes, gives me a wobbly smile. “Dammit, don’t make me cry,” she says. “I want to look good for the party.”

  “Come on, then,” I say. “Let’s have some breakfast and then go make ourselves pretty.”

  “My, don’t you two look pretty today?” Natalie says.

  “Yes we do, thank you for noticing,” I say. Sara, who I insisted must wear something other than baggy jeans and a hoodie, shrinks into herself but smiles nonetheless. I found a pair of more fitted jeans in her backpack and paired that with a blouse from my own wardrobe. It’s casual, but dressier than she normally gets. I couldn’t do much with her hair, which has been frizzy and untamable since I’ve known her, so we pulled it back into a loose ponytail to keep it under control (and out of her face).

  “We’ll get going as soon as the others show up. Astrid’ll be riding with us too,” Natalie says. I cast a skeptical glance at her car, a dinky little thing that can barely hold one passenger, much less five. Does it run on a hamster wheel, or does Natalie have a giant key she uses to wind it up?

  “No, I do not expect you to all cram into this thing. We’ll be caravanning with Astrid,” she says.

  “Ah.”

  Natalie furrows her brow at me. “Hm.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she says. Okay...

  Astrid is the next to arrive, in a VW Beetle of all things. Did not see that one coming. She steps out, offers morning greetings to everyone, and when she gets to me, she gives me the same curious grunt as Natalie.

  “What?” I say.

  “Nothing,” Astrid says.

  “What about you? Do you have anything you’d like to share?” I say to Matt when he arrives, Stuart and Missy in tow.

  “Um...no, not really,” Matt says. “Good morning? Oh, and shotgun.”

  Matt, Sara, and I pile into Natalie’s car, which sags slightly under our combined weight. Stuart and Missy jump into Astrid’s car.

  “All right, ramblers, let’s get rambling,” Natalie says.

  “That was the Partridge Family’s ‘Doesn’t S
omebody Want to be Wanted?’,” Matt says is a sleepy monotone, “followed by Edison Lighthouse’s ‘Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes,’ as K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies just keeps on truckin’.”

  Matt and Natalie laugh. Sara and I exchange baffled looks.

  “Tell me you have the soundtrack on you,” Matt says.

  “Sorry, no, but I do have a lovely collection of ska mix CDs,” Natalie says. “Number one rule for this car: music will be played at top volume. Number two rule: no shop talk. We’re not super-heroes today, we’re a bunch of normal people gathering to celebrate Megan’s graduation and that’s it.”

  “She’s not the only one who gets to celebrate her graduation.”

  “No no no, this is not about me.”

  “Natalie, you’re graduating college?” I say.

  “I am not graduating,” Natalie says. “That implies I’m leaving college, which I’m not. I’m going for my master’s degree, so I ain’t goin’ nowhere for a while.”

  “Still, congratulations,” Sara says.

  “Thank you, but seriously, we might all have reasons to celebrate recent personal milestones,” Natalie says, giving me a knowing wink in the rearview mirror (what the heck, Natalie?), “but today is Megan’s day. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Matt says.

  “Good. Okay, kiddies, let’s get this party started,” Natalie says, slipping a disc into her stereo. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ blaring horns fill the car, kicking off a raucous rolling ska party starring the Clash, the Toasters, Save Ferris, old-school No Doubt, Rancid, Desmond Dekker, Madness, Fishbone, Bim Skala Bim, Sublime...we are the hippest car on the highway.

  (I can’t help but believe that the half-demon sorceress in the car behind us is pumping out heavy metal on her car stereo. Is that racial profiling?)

  The trip to the Quantum Compound passes quickly, and as the car reaches the top of the hill the compound sits on, I spot a plume of light gray smoke rising from the back of the building.

  “That’s not bad, is it?” I ask. It’s a reasonable question, considering the Quantums were once, shall we say, politely evicted from Worcester after one of Doc Quantum’s experiments caused a city-wide blackout.