Lady Superior

by Alex Ziebart

  Sorry, Em. Not today.

  Opening her eyes, Kristen dismissed the call notification and skipped to her text messages.

  Nodding to no one, she tapped out a message to Jack.

  Busy today? Can’t stay out too late, but have some free time.

  Kristen waited, tapping her foot. After talking to Jane, every second seemed more precious than the last, each passing moment wasted in the march toward the next inevitable emergency. No, she wasn't required to stare at her phone until Jack replied—but his answer, if he had one at all, determined whether or not she had to find alternate plans.

  Five minutes later, Kristen was pacing, phone still in hand. It buzzed.

  Joel invited me to his place tonight. Between you and me, I’d rather hang with you. Canceling on my boss might be a bad idea though.

  Hold on. Kristen tapped back. She dialed Joel's number. “Sup, Kris?” he answered.

  “I'm trying to get Jack to go out tonight. He already has plans with you. If I talk him into canceling on you, will you be mad about it?”

  “You want to go out with Jack?”

  “Is that bad? Is he a weirdo?”

  “No, he's cool. I mean, I think he's cool, but that's because I'm a dork.”

  “We're all dorks. Answer the question, Joel. Is it okay with you?”

  “Yeah, it's cool. I think I'd be more pissed off if he didn't cancel. If your options are going out with a hot blonde or painting orc statues...” Joel let the sentence hang.

  “Joel, you're an asshole, you know that?”

  “What? I said it was fine!”

  Kristen rolled her eyes. “At least you're my asshole. Thanks. Catch ya later.”

  “Later!”

  Click. Kristen swiped back to her texts. Joel said it’s okay.

  You asked him?

  He’s like my brother. So yeah, if you want to go out, it’s fine. If you don’t, that’s fine too. Another time maybe?

  No, let’s do it. Movie?

  How about dinner?

  I could do dinner. Casual or fancy?

  Kristen pursed her lips. Casual made more sense for a first date, but a fancy dinner did sound nice. Would saying fancy put him off, though? Fancy dinners set certain expectations. Requesting a fancy dinner on the first date could send the message she had expensive taste.

  She tapped out a message. Can I call you? Easier to make plans.

  Go for it.

  She called. He answered with an eager, “Hey!”

  “Hey.” Kristen forced herself to smile; she learned a person could, in fact, hear a smile over the telephone. A person’s voice was just different with a smile behind it. “We’re going to enter the no-judgment zone, okay?”

  She could hear Jack’s hesitation in the slow way a single word escaped his lips. “Okay.”

  “I don’t usually go to fancy places, I’d like to go somewhere fancy just this once to celebrate my new job. Let’s pay for our own stuff so neither of us gets slapped with a huge bill. Are you okay with going somewhere expensive? This is the no-judgment zone. If you’re not, just say so and we can do something else. If all you want to do is fast food and some video games, that’s cool with me.”

  “I just got my first paycheck and wouldn’t mind celebrating that. As long as we’re in the no-judgment zone, I’ll warn you that I can’t go fancy very often and have any paycheck left. You won’t think I’m an asshole if I don’t pick up the bill?”

  “I’d think you were an asshole for insisting you pick up the bill after I said I want to split it. I don’t go for chivalry. Do you have something to wear to a fancy place?”

  “What's your idea of fancy?”

  “More than twenty dollars per plate, less than a hundred.”

  “That's great, I think we'd have to go to Chicago for a hundred per plate. Yeah, I think I have something to wear. Do you?”

  “I think so.”

  “Cool. Let me see where we can get reservations on a Saturday and I'll call you back?”

  “Sure. I'll start getting ready. If you can't find a place, we'll just get a booth at McDonald's, light a candle, and play pretend.”

  Jack laughed. “That almost sounds like a better idea. I'll see what I can do. Talk to you soon.”

  “Bye!”

  Kristen hung up and clutched her phone, suddenly excited. Even if Jack didn't turn out to be her type, a nice dinner was cause enough for anticipation. With a prior agreement that they'd each pay for themselves, there were no strings attached, either. If it worked, wonderful. If it didn't, no harm done. Who wouldn't get excited by a guilt-free dinner?

  Kristen unloaded her pockets, dumping items on any nearby surface as she moved to her closet. She swung the closet doors open and wasted no time picking through it. She pushed laden plastic hangers aside one by one to part the sea of clothes. The closet was anything but organized. Sporting clothes hung next to casual tops with formal attire shoved in the middle. As she perused her collection, Jane's warning about her shortage of black became fresh in her mind. Black wasn't her preferred color by any means. Those few garments that'd been riddled by bullets were all she had; if she didn't get a proper outfit soon, Lady Superior would be on the news in pink and yellow.

  She pulled a dress from a closet and held it out, letting the hanger dangle from one finger while she looked it over in contemplation: an emerald asymmetrical spaghetti strap dress that shimmered when the light hit it. The material tapered at the bottom, knee-length on one side, mid-thigh on the other. Though she liked it, opportunities to wear it were few and far between; it never seemed like the right choice, no matter the occasion.

  Kristen jammed the dress back into the closet. She pushed the next hanger aside. She stopped, then pushed it back, looking at the emerald dress again. She did like it.

  Is it too much, though?

  Kristen pressed the dress to her body and faced the mirror. She recalled what the saleswoman had said when she bought it: the emerald green brought out her hair—her blonde hair. Kristen let the dress fall away to hang limp over her forearm.

  What am I doing?

  Going on a date was stupid. What did she expect to happen? Even if it went perfectly, even if Jack ended up being the mythical one, it would never go well. She wasn’t a blonde. She didn’t work security at Temple Financial. It was worse than that. She was Maiden Milwaukee—Lady Superior—and had absolutely no idea where she would be or when at any given moment. Jane could call her in the middle of dinner, and she’d have no choice but to get up and go. Doing anything else would be selfish, and she knew in her heart that no matter how much she whined about it, she didn’t want to do anything differently. If someone died because she ignored something important for a fancy dinner, she’d never forgive herself.

  Kristen put her face into her hand. She was a living cliché and she knew it. Every hero in every comic book faced that problem: how do you live that double life? How do you live that lie?

  She envisioned the possibility of sleeping with Jack, or any other guy. In her mind she saw herself riding someone and losing her wig in the process. What was the alternative? Revealing herself before every first date? Damn good way to lose a secret identity.

  Go just this once, she told herself, and think about it later. If you change your mind, you can call it off.

  Nodding to herself, she returned to the closet. After slinging her dress over her shoulder, she used both hands to untangle a nest of bras hanging from a single wire hook. She hated every last one of them. After a struggle, she pulled free a black, unadorned, strapless number. Pre-emptive anger welled in her stomach. She wasn’t made for strapless, but spaghetti strap dresses weren’t made for anything else.

  After finding a matching purse and heels, Kristen showered, toweled off, and brushed out her wig. She supposed she’d need to get a few new wigs, too. They didn’t last forever, especially given she wore hers at nearly constantly. Still wrapped in a towel, she moved onto makeup, applying it, wiping it off, then applying it
again. Too little became too much with a single stroke of the brush. Her inexperience became a source of frustration, her knowledge of makeup limited to applying lipstick and, in her high school days, gratuitous amounts of eyeliner. She settled on a dusting of rose on her cheeks and a coral red lipstick. Whether those colors were a fashionable combination for blonde hair and a green dress, she didn’t know. She hoped Jack wouldn’t know, either.

  Paranoid, Kristen checked her phone to make sure she hadn’t missed Jack’s call. She hadn’t—he’d texted her.

  Bacchus at 6?

  “You were supposed to call me, dumbass.” She checked the time—there was time to finish preparations—and tapped her reply. Never heard of it, but works for me.

  Pick you up at 5?

  Can I meet you there at 5:30 instead?

  Do you know how to get there?

  GPS.

  K. Meet you there 5:30.

  As Kristen laid the phone down, it buzzed again. She turned it over in her hand to look and winced reflexively as an image popped up, averting her eyes. She didn’t even see it, but instinct screamed dick pic. It wouldn’t be her first time for that particular rodeo, but it wasn’t a rodeo she ever wanted to revisit—or ever visit in the first place. She tried to talk herself away from the possibility. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. She’d gotten pictures of men flexing in a mirror before—still embarrassing to look at, but not quite as revolting or violating.

  Kristen took a breath to steel herself and looked at the picture. Jack stood in front of a mirror wearing a white button-up collared shirt—the top two buttons left undone—beneath an open, black jacket. Kristen’s brow rose as she looked him over, the fit of his shirt suggesting muscle definition previously hidden by his hyper-casual Otherworlds’ attire. His shoulders seemed broader than she remembered, though it could have been the jacket. He wore his hair in a subdued, modern pompadour, dark hair messy in a styled sort of way. Stubble had grown in on his face since she last saw him, too. With the picture, he attached an accompanying message: Too formal or not formal enough? Do we match?

  I still need some time to get ready. You look great.

  I need time too. Need to shave.

  Don’t shave.

  Really?

  Just shave your neck. Clean up a little. That’s it.

  Roger roger.

  Kristen looked at herself in the mirror. Sirens screamed to life in her mind, every logical portion of her brain sounding the klaxon of bad idea. Heedless, she raised her phone, snapped a selfie in her towel, and sent it to Jack with the message, See? Still working on it. Be there at 5:30.

  Pushing the phone aside, she resolved not to look at anything else he might send her. She tempted fate; better to be ignorant of the result until she was ready for it. Kristen dropped her towel and began the laborious process of getting dressed; battling changelings paled in comparison to the struggles of a strapless bra. She pulled, lifted, tucked, swept, squeezed, and cursed, cursed, and cursed some more. When finally she managed to strap herself in, she glowered at the sight in the mirror; overflowing flesh proved to be an unwelcome reminder such garments simply weren’t made for women her size. Looking down to retrieve her dress from the floor, she found she couldn’t see past herself anymore. Feeling for the soft cloth with her toes, she knelt when she found it, picking it up blind. Bundling it in her hands, she pulled it over her head and stood upright in one motion. The stretchy fabric clung to her body. Plucking at wrinkles and smoothing out any ridges, she walked from the bathroom to the full-length mirror in the back room.

  She turned one way, then the other, a severe frown creeping its way across her painted lips. The dress fit worse than she remembered and an ill-fitting bra didn’t help; her own reflection made her think of an overflowing sausage casing. She tried to pull the top of the dress higher—it wasn’t meant to show that much cleavage, if any at all—to no avail. The fabric snapped right back to where it was and she regretted even trying; she knew in her heart those spaghetti straps weren’t long for the world. Turning, she looked back over her shoulder. Thanks to a lifetime of squats and lunges, the situation back there wasn’t much better.

  Good God. I look like a balloon smuggler. I can’t wear this.

  Kristen swept across the room to her closet. She thrust a hand into the sea of hangers, but hesitated. Why couldn’t she wear the green dress? She paid for it. She liked it. She wanted to wear it. Someone else might have a problem with it, but why should she care about that? It was her choice. Some days she felt like baggy hoodies and sweatpants. Some days she didn’t.

  Lady Superior—she had to call herself by that name before anybody else would—sure as hell wouldn’t let someone give her grief about her clothes. Lady Superior was a badass. Kristen Anderson was a badass. The two of them could do whatever they damn well wanted to do.

  Back to the mirror, she looked herself over once more and flexed, feeling a surge of confidence as solid as her biceps. She spoke to herself through her teeth, hyping herself up like her own personal trainer. “Hell yeah, Kris. You’re going to date the shit out of this guy!”

  She took a fighting stance, dress stretching around her legs, and boxed the air. A jab, a hook, a hand sudden clasping her chest to stifle a painful bounce.

  “God, I hate this bra.”

  At five o’clock, Kristen sat in her car—it was Temple’s car, but she’d already started to think of it as hers—in the parking structure down the street from Bacchus, her happy thoughts playlist at full volume. She’d given herself extra time to get there and was glad she did; she hadn’t realized Bacchus was downtown until she left the house. The restaurant didn’t have its own parking—almost nothing downtown had its own parking—and she had nothing to do but wait until Jack showed up. She could have taken a walk along the lakefront, she supposed, but that wasn’t worth the pain of walking in heels.

  Her playlist looped around to “Cameo Lover.”

  This is nonstop baby, you’ve got me going crazy.

  Kristen’s lips parted to sing along. The music cut off, interrupted by her phone ringing. She snatched at it with an impatient fury: Emma. Kristen hit the ignore button and her music started up again.

  You’re heavier than I knew.

  She opened her texts and tapped a message to her sister. I need you to handle your own shit for just one day. Okay? I cannot help you today. If Chad is hurting you CALL THE COPS.

  The moment she sent the message, exhaustion hit her like a punch in the mouth. She turned off her music, no longer in the mood, and let her head fall against the car window. Telling Emma off wasn’t the right thing to do, she was sure, and the guilt ate at her immediately. She stared through the bright sliver of light in the stone barricades of the structure, out toward the rippling blue of Lake Michigan and the sweeping white wings of the art museum on the shoreline.

  She should cancel dinner, she was sure. Emma wouldn’t call that many times if it wasn’t important. If it wasn’t important, she’d text. How could she choose dinner with Jack over her sister? It was only the first date. There was no attachment there. Jack would be mad, but it wasn’t like she’d lose anything.

  The phone rang. Kristen answered without looking. “What’s wrong?” she blurted.

  Jack’s voice. “Uh, hi. Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to let you know I’m down here early. Are you okay?”

  Kristen closed her eyes. He was already there? Canceling on him would be even worse now. “I’m fine. Where did you find parking?”

  “My car's at O'Donnel Park. It's about a half mile from the restaurant, but it was the closest place that wasn't a parking meter.”

  “Okay. Where are you?”

  “I'm sitting outside the Calatrava. My car doesn't have AC and the parking garage smelled like a dirty diaper, so...”

  Kristen stayed on the line, but climbed out of the car. Walking to the sliver of light, she peered out at the Calatrava—the art museum—and saw a shape that might have been him, holding a phone to his ear.
The parking garage did, in fact, smell like a diaper. “I think I can see you from here.”

  The shape suddenly jerked around, twisting back and forth to scan the area in front of the Calatrava. “Uh, I don't think I see you.”

  “You're sitting on a bench? In the grass, next to some bushes?”

  “Yeah?”

  She squinted, trying to make out a few more details. Jack suddenly came into focus. She could see him with complete clarity, as if looking through a pair of binoculars. Kristen felt a surge of excitement and a sudden desire to bite him, which was weird even to her. He looked amazing. “Your phone has a navy blue case, your sleeves are rolled up, and you’re wearing a… Zenith watch?”

  Kristen heard a nervous laugh from Jack’s end as he said, “Yeah, but where are you?”

  “Stay where you are. I’ll be right there.”

  She hung up and stuffed the phone in her little green purse. Her excitement only grew as she looked at him afar, amazed at the clarity of his image in her vision. She set her hands on the concrete ledge. A voice inside of her screamed. Jump. Jump down. You’ll be fine. It’ll be faster.

  She pushed away from the ledge with a shake of her head. Her hands were trembling and she balled them into fists to calm the tremors. Breathing in and out to gather herself, Kristen locked her car doors and set off toward the Calatrava, high heels click-clacking beneath her. Once outside the garage, the oppressive summer heat fell on her like a viper, but a cool breeze blowing off the lake soothed its venom. She pulled off her heels and strode down the sidewalk in a pair of sheer slip-on socks, every loose pebble sharp on her soles. She felt the urge to run, but made it only a step before deciding otherwise, instead walking as swiftly as her dress would allow.

  In only a minute’s time, she was across the street and striding through the grass, its chilly blades soothing her feet. Jack’s head was down as she approached, staring at the phone in his hand. She rolled her eyes, but felt guilty afterwards. He should have been watching for her—she said she’d be right down—but knew she would have been doing the same thing in his place. “Hey.”