Not so super -- Chapter 3

 

“Because I’m going to be your wife, and I have superpowers, too.”

 

The sentence hung in the air like some noxious cloud.  I could feel it emanating from her and mixing with my own personal shame.  While my pulse quickened, I wrestled with the fear that someone would notice us.  I feared that someone would instantly see that I was abnormal.  I worried that they would see that I heard voices, a thing which ought not to be done.  How could this demon of a girl appear out of nowhere and expose my freakishness to the entire world?  But as the moment stretched into seconds, and the world didn't end, that fear receded.  It was quickly replaced by something worse.

 

Although the girl was anything but tall, I felt like she was towering over me.  Her face was calm and impassive.  It put me in mind of quiet pond in an untouched forest.  I feared that something horrible lay under those waters.  Her peaceful face contrasted painfully with the roiling waters that continued to ratchet up inside me.  That peace was like a magnet.  I couldn’t tear myself away from the serene calm of her face.  But as calm as it was, it was anything but benign.  The left corner of her lip curled imperceptibly upwards.  That tiny aberration in her smile hinted that she knew something that was making her smug.  And then it hit me.

 

She.  Had.  Superpowers.

 

She was reading my mind.  Her appearance had unleashed a series of escalating fears, each worse than the last.  I worried that she saw me staring.  I worried that she was going to make a scene.  I worried that she was going to expose me as a freak.  But the last wave washed the rest away.  This was the tsunami.  I feared that she knew everything.

 

All of my hopes.  

All of my fears.  

All of my guilt.  

 

Everything that represented me was laid bare before that smug, serene girl.  In that moment, I experienced a horror worse than anything I could imagine.

 

I wanted to say something to her, to make her leave.  I wanted her out of my head.  I wanted to open my mouth and make her go.   But it was totally unresponsive.  Even my limbs had left my control.  And then it hit me -- she was in my mind.  I could say something in my mind.  I could get rid of her.

 

But what could I say?  What would chase her away?  I couldn’t think of anything.  But I could scream.  I imagined a scream.  At first, it felt silly and foolish.  It was a caricature of a scream.  But the longer I sat there, trapped in her psychological talons, the more real it felt.  In my mind, the scream grew, becoming raw and horrible.  I imagined a noise without end. Windows shattered and sirens blared.  The baristas ran for cover amidst the wreckage of my voice.  In my mind.

 

But there she stood.

 

If my inner attack had reached her, she handled it easily.  The scream faded away.  Silence, the soundtrack of the agony of defeat, returned to my head.  It felt like we could have stayed that way forever, me the conquered prey, her the victorious predator.  But the moment of abject defeat was broken suddenly by a movement to my right.  We both looked over and saw Mom, coming out of the restroom.  When I turned back to the girl, she was gone.

 

Well, not gone.  She was back by her bag, packing up her stuff.  She looked back with an expression that was an odd combination of frustration and regret.  Then she slung her thin backpack over her shoulder and wobbled out of the cafe.  I had the strangest feeling watching her go -- something about her departure was out of tune with the horror she had been.

 

“Are you okay, honey? You don’t look well,” Mom said.

 

“I… don’t feel well,” I answered, tearing my gaze away from the closing door.

 

“We should get you home and tuck you into bed.  Mama’s got a big day today, but you need to go home and recuperate,” she said, gathering up our stuff.

 

I liked the idea of recuperating.  As I stood up, I suddenly realized what had struck me oddly about the girl’s departure.  She had walked like she wasn’t used to wearing heels.  That was totally at odds with everything else about her.  Why would some all powerful, demonic mind-reader go wandering about Cambridge on heels she couldn’t wear?  

 

As we walked out of the cafe, other oddities struck me.  I understood how she knew I had superpowers -- she had read my mind the moment I walked in.  But how had she tracked me to the cafe?  How had she known about me in the first place?  And what the hell was that thing about us being married?  I needed to go home and get this whole bizarre incident out of my head.

 

With phones in our pockets and drinks in our hands, we headed back into the nippy November morning.  As I reached to button up the jeans jacket I wasn't wearing, I glanced around anxiously.  The scary mind-reader was nowhere to be seen.  Mom filled the uncomfortable silence, picking up where she had left off.  She tossed her hair and launched into a story at random.  Something about her friend Rosa and the band she’d try to start.

 

I tried to be part of the conversation, but my mind was everywhere else.  Until just moments before, my life had reached an imperfectly stable place.  I accepted my superpower and I accepted that nobody else would ever know about it.  But her very existence boke that delicate balance.  What would she do?  Would she tell my friends?  Would she tell my mom?  Would she change my life?

 

For once, ironically, it was mom who read my mind.

 

“Rick, honey, is there something bothering you?  Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“Yeah…” I started, before I realized what I was saying.  I couldn’t talk about it.  Confession of freakishness was only one poorly thought-through utterance away.

 

I hated when I did this to myself.  For ten years, I’d been doing everything in my power to keep the entire world from knowing about the voices.  That was a Big Lie to maintain.  I had to make up explanations for the expressions that passed across my face when I heard the voices.  I had to pretend not to know things I couldn’t possibly know.  I had to pretend not to think things that I couldn’t possibly think.

 

Once I figured out how my parents felt about the voices, I cut myself off from anything abnormal.  I never asked “what people were thinking.”  I avoided phrases like “mind-reading” and “ESP.”  I avoided science fiction and fantasy.  I did everything in my power so that nobody would wonder if there was something fantastical about me.  I was even the first kid in my class to reject Santa and the Tooth Fairy.  I never wanted my parents to see a hint that I thought about anything out of the ordinary.  I wanted to make sure that they never thought about the voices again.

 

But I wasn’t up to that level of constant and consistent dissemblage.  Too many topics bordered on that which needed to stay hidden.  And here I was, risking a conversation about the one thing I could never, ever talk about.  I cast my mind about looking for some safe way of continuing the conversation.  If I’d the presence of mind, I would have totally lied.  I would have said that Dro was razzing me or that I was worried about the math team.  But there was only one card left in my mental deck: The joker with the smug, serene smile.

 

I looked down and to the right.  Mom’s hair bounced in wind, complaining about the growing stretch of silence.  I knew that I had to say something.  I loaded up my defenses and then let fly.  The words that came out of my mouth were so foreign that they may as well have come from some passing stranger.

 

“Mom… Do you believe in love at first sight?”

 

She barked one of her explosive laughs.  On one hand, I loved to hear that laugh.  It had disappeared for years.  It made me feel like something crucial could return to our little household.  On the other hand, she was laughing at me.  My cheeks, already raw in the cold, reddened even further.

 

“If you mean that spousy-spousy stuff, no.  There are no guarantees in life,” she said.

 

I was suddenly sorry.  Whatever I’d thought I was talking about, I certainly hadn’t meant to remind her of Dad.

 

“I’m sorry.  What was it like for Dad and you?”

 

“Don’t change the subject young man,” she said, with mock admonition.  “Was there some girl in the coffee shop?”

 

“Uh, no,” I mumbled, averting my eyes.  “There wasn’t any girl.”  Thankfully, my lying facility had come back online.  But I certainly hadn’t fallen in love at first sight.  Not with that spooky girl.  But I was still trying to get my hands around ‘going to be your wife.’  Didn’t that mean that I’d fall in love with her some day?  And if it did, what did that mean for today?

 

“Not even that cute girl behind the counter?  With the blue hair?”  And the nose ring.  And the tattoos.  

 

“No.  Not even her,” I replied, happy to be back on honest terra firma.

 

“Huh,” she grunted.  “The way you look at girls like that, I was beginning to worry that they might be your type.”

 

That seemed unfair.  I looked at all girls.  Not that I had anything against tattoos or unusual hair.  We walked in silence for a little while, not far from our apartment.

 

“Well,” Mom started, thoughtfully and uneasily, “I was dating by the time I was your age.  I guess it is time that we had the birds and bees talk.”

 

“Mom!” I was shocked.  “I know where babies come from!”

 

“Oh?  You’re an expert on female anatomy?  Is there something I should know?”

 

It was no longer a gentle tease.  There was something else there.  Something edgy, like a challenge.  Her words implied something deeper which I didn’t understand.  Feeling more than a little uncomfortable, we walked on in silence.  Mom was lost in her thoughts and I was trying to understand why “know if he already” Mom was reacting so strongly.

 

Know if I already?

Know if I already what?

 

And then I got it.

 

She was worried that I had matured in some way and she had missed my developmental milestone.  Maybe she thought I had already lost my virginity.  Who knows what she was worrying about, but I could tell she was worrying.  Her thoughts dripped with anxiety as they hit my brain.

 

“Really, Mom, there’s no girl.  There’s never been a girl.  But we took sex ed in high school.  I just meant that I understand that kids can get pregnant when they’re not careful.”  Words tripped over each other as they raced to reassure Mom about whatever was bothering her.

 

“Rick,” Mom turned to face me, stopping us both in our tracks.  “Kids can get pregnant even when they are careful.  Ricky, honey, you have such a strong sense of what’s right, but you never think about the future.  I don’t want you fooling around when you’re not ready for the consequences.”

 

We were close to home and walked the rest of the way in a silence that was now more prickly than uncomfortable.  Even Mom, lost in her own thoughts, couldn't bring herself to fill it.

 

When we got home, I was all set to retreat behind my curtain.  But Mom ordered me into a chair in the small dining area.  But for the sound of the microwave, I would have fidgeted in complete silence.  The timer went off and she joined me at the tiny, round table, handing me the remains of my drink.

 

“Having a kid is life-changing -- wonderful, but life-changing,” she said, shuffling in her seat.  “You don’t always get to choose when it happens, so you need to make all the other choices carefully, too.”

 

She was trying to tell me something.  I wasn’t getting it.  With a sigh, she continued.

 

“Ricky.  Honey.  You weren’t planned.”

 

Oh.

 

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me, sweetie.  But we were married.  And we had savings we could rely on.  We knew that we wanted kids, we just…  Well, we were both still pursuing our careers.  I had a pretty decent salary back then.  It was a big decision for me to take a few years off, but it was the right thing to do.  I wouldn’t trade those years for anything.”

 

Her smile was thick with mixed emotions.  I listened for all I was worth.

 

“If your dad and I hadn’t been ready to be parents, things could have been a lot worse than this,” she said, gesturing to the cramped walls around us.  Something was nagging at me.

 

“Dad was ready?” I asked.

 

“Don’t judge your father by the man he became,” she reprimanded.  “He was the greatest dad in the world for a few years.  While I was pregnant, he would talk lovingly about the future with you.  He would talk about playing baseball with you, teaching you economics, going hiking… I worried what he’d make of you when you first came out.  I knew that, when you were born, there would be no batting practices, no forest trails and no law of supply -- just demand.  There would be eating, and crying, and pooping.  As it turned out, he was amazing.  For the first fifteen months, I took care of all of your eating, so he took care of the poop -- at least when he was home.  When he wasn’t working, he was part of the team.  Heck, I think he looked forward to those diaper changes.”

 

“Really?” I said in a burst in surprise.  This version of my father was beyond my imagination.

 

“He called it his ‘close-up’ time.  He would get his face right next to yours, as you lay on the changing table.  He’d have a goofy grin, you’d have a goofy grin.  He’d make up silly poems about poop and you’d laugh and laugh…”  She shut her eyes and leaned back, allowing herself to revel in a rare positive memory of him.

 

“It was just about the best side of him.”

 

“So,” I struggled for the right question.  “Do you blame Nina for what happened?”

 

Nina wasn’t the nanny’s actual name.  I don’t remember what her name was and Mom never said it aloud.  So on those rare occasions we talked about her, she was Nina.  Nina the ninny.

 

“You can’t blame Nina for that.  She didn’t have the brains to pull off a seduction.  No, Gareth gets all the credit.  He had a hundred excuses he might have used.  I wasn’t pretty enough any more.  I asked too much.  I spent too much time with you.  And it wasn't like I was totally taken by surprise, either.  I always knew that he had a dishonest streak.  He never felt like the rules of the game applied to him.  But I always hoped that the rules of marriage were something he would follow.”

 

The briefly positive memory of Dad shriveled back to its usual, filthy state in mere seconds.  The emotional whiplash brought tears to mom’s eyes.  She was no longer making eye contact.  She casually brought a hand up to her face, trying to avoid the appearance of a woman dabbing away tears.

 

I didn’t know exactly what I needed to do, but I knew that it involved hugging.  I could see the emotion welling up in her eyes.  Awkwardly, I got out of my seat and put my arms around her.  I’m not really a huggy guy.  But I thought about the way mom hugged me and tried to reproduce it.  On the outside, I could hear Mom’s little sniffles.  Nothing came from inside.   She wrapped one hand around my forearm and squeezed. 

 

We stayed there until I couldn’t take it anymore.  I unwrapped myself and plopped back into my seat.  Mom looked at me with a deep, penetrating gaze that made me uncomfortable.

 

“Well, I’m happy there’s a girl,” she said, with a shallow intake of breath.  “Or that there might be a girl.  Or someone who could be special to you, honey.  I really am.”

 

I forced a smile.  I had no idea what to say to that.  Don’t worry, Mom.  It’s just some crazy older girl who says that she’s going to marry me.

 

“Make good choices, honey.  And whatever choices you make, please know that you can always talk to me about anything.  I’m here for you.”

 

I wished that were true.  I knew that I couldn’t tell her about the voices.  How could I tell her about this other girl who heard them, too?

 

“Thanks, Mom.  I love you.”

 

“I love you, too, Ricky.  You look so tired, sweety.  Why don’t you take yourself to bed.”

 

“Okay, Mommy,” I mumbled, enjoying the brief feeling of being nurtured.

 

I lumbered through the curtains and into my room.  I plugged in my phone and stripped down to underwear and a t-shirt.  Just as my head hit the pillow my eyes slammed open.  With my heart beating fast, I reached for the phone.  Navigating past my security codes, I opened up my spreadsheet app and went to the beginning.  I usually saved this app for the voices I heard.  But somehow, I felt that this one sentence might still deserve top billing.  I made a new entry and typed it as she had said it.

 

“Because I’m going to be your wife, and I have superpowers, too.”