Now it was Dad’s turn. “And who wants my idea of dressing in comfortable clothes that we also take a nap in later? Raise your hand.” Dad raised his hand and I continued to study my plate intently. “Audrey you didn’t vote.”
“I’m abstaining,” I said.
“You can’t abstain!” Mom cried. “You have to vote!”
“Fine!” I yelled back. “I vote for Dad.”
Dad pumped his fist in the air and shouted “Yes!”
“Don’t get so excited, Dad,” Ella said drily. “All she did was make it a tie. How do we settle this?”
“Coin toss,” Mom and Dad said in unison from opposite sides of the table.
Dad was digging in his pockets for a coin before anyone else could say anything. “Call it!”
“Heads!” Mom shouted back.
Dad tossed the coin in the air toward the middle of the table and we all leaned in to see what the result would be. It was heads. We all sat there in a stunned silence for a moment, waiting for Mom to crow about her win. But all she did was break out into a big smile and say “Good. Now let’s have dessert.”
Mom and Ella got up and started clearing the table to make room for the cherry cobbler. While they were in the kitchen, I turned to Dad. “Sorry you didn’t win.”
“Oh I don’t know about that,” he said, taking a sip of his beer. “Your mother won today but in a few weeks she’s going to want me to get dressed up and go to that Council winter ball. And she’ll feel so bad for winning today that she won’t give me much shit when I tell her I don’t feel so good so I’m gonna stay home to watch football.”
I felt a renewed admiration for my dad. “So you never were serious about wanting to pick the theme anyway, huh?”
He winked at me. “Come on now, girl. Pajamas? In what world would your mother take a picture in pajamas?”
Before I could answer, Mom and Ella came back with plates of warm cobbler covered in thick vanilla ice cream. Mom set down an extra-large portion in front of Dad and gave him a little kiss on the forehead. Dad raised his eyebrows knowingly at me and dug into this cobbler.
I just shook my head and took a bite of dessert. The more I think I know, the less I actually do.
“Hey, wait up!” I was chasing Ella down the sidewalk in front of my parents’ place after dinner. She bought a place pretty close to my parents’ years ago when she sold her first book. She usually walked home from family dinners.
She was only half a block ahead of me but I was loaded down with the leftovers I’d taken from dinner. At first, I thought Mom wouldn’t give them to me because I had voted against her. But she did it without comment. It was only when she handed them to me that she said “You owe me.” The way she said it made me think twice about taking the food but in the end, I did it. I was doing OK financially but I was no fool. Free food was still free food.
“Are you following me home to pick up your cat?” Ella asked when I finally caught up to her.
I knew she wasn’t serious. “No, I told you I can’t do it.”
“Then what do you want?”
Ella was really into fitness. She worked out five times a week. I wasn’t sure if it was just another way for her to be an overachiever, but I knew she could help me with what I needed next. “I need some gym recommendations.”
“What?” Ella’s mouth dropped open. “You want to work out?”
I balanced my mother’s Tupperware on my hip. “Well, I have this physical fitness test coming up and I—”
Ella narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Is this for the building manager’s license?”
“Yes!” I said, kinda excited that I’d already told a lie that would fit for this situation, too. “Yes, that’s exactly it. And I want to get some endurance up. Maybe help with my flexibility.”
“I guess I can take you to my gym on Saturday.”
“Well, the test is Friday.”
Ella put her hand on her hip and for a second she looked even more like Mom than usual. “You think you’re going to increase your endurance and flexibility by going to the gym one time?”
I shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt.”
Ella shook her head. “You’re hopeless, but I’ll take you.”
“Great!”
“I’m working from home this week. Meet me at my place tomorrow morning.”
I winced. “Ugh. Morning?”
“Yes, you have to get there before it gets crowded. We could make it ten. That’s not that early.”
Beggars can’t be choosers. “Sure. I just have to find something I could work out in. I don’t think I have anything.”
Ella looked my tee and jeans combo up and down. “Just wear your regular clothes. It’s not like you’re ever wearing anything nice. You could probably dig a ditch most of your stuff and no one would even notice.”
“You’re late,” Ella said as she opened the door on Thursday morning.
Of course I was late. If you ask me to come some place before noon, I’m probably going to be late. The only time I’d even really worried about it was with Miss Fine. And as annoying as my sister was, she wasn’t anyway as scary as Miss Fine.
But I couldn’t tell Ella that. “It was a crazy morning. I’m still collecting rent. And I think one of the tenants is hiding a dog. I was hearing weird noises last night.”
“But you said it’s a pet free building!” Ella cried. “If they have a dog, you can take Din-Din.” At the sound of her name, Din-Din appeared behind Ella and rubbed her body up and down Ella’s leg.
“It is! It is! If there’s a dog, he’s got to go.”
Ella narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously. “Sure. Let’s get going.” We both gave Din-Din some goodbye petting, Ella locked up, and then we headed down the street to her gym.
On the walk there, I had time to compare Ella’s outfit to mine. She was wearing form fitting workout capris, a racerback top with the logo of a very expensive athletics company, and a matching jacket. And she was wearing sneakers that probably cost more than my Twinkie budget each month, which was pretty considerable. On the other hand, I was wearing an oversized white tee shirt, a pair of ratty, holey sweats, and an old pair of sneakers I’d found in the back of my closet. But for our reddish brown curls and the fact that we always seemed on the edge of a fight, people might not know we were sisters.
I was huffing to keep up with Ella. “Why are you walking so fast?”
“It helps to get your warmup up on the way there. Then you can go right into the workout,” she explained. “I’m going to show you a few exercises you can perform and some machines you can use. And I’m going to get you a temporary guest pass for you to come back on your own.”
“My test is tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll need to come back.”
“You’re getting older. It’s time for you to start taking care of yourself. What did you eat for breakfast?”
I thought about it a moment. “Ice cream,” I mumbled.
Ella opened the door of the gym. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
Her gym was just what I’d expected. Loud music pumped from speakers in every corner of the space. The walls were covered with mirrors. Rows of machinery filled the main space with a large weight area off to the side. Even before noon, it was filled with people wearing outfits much more similar to Ella’s than to mine.
“Come on.” Ella grabbed my tee shirt and pulled me over the receptionist desk. The receptionist, a beefy guy in a tiny tank top, was turned away from us. “Excuse me,” Ella said. “I need to check in and I want to get a guest pass for my sister.”
“Is this her first time here.” The receptionist turned around and I gasped. I knew this guy. He used to date my sister. I’d only met him once but he was typical of the inappropriate guys my sister tended to date. As smart as Ella was, it wasn’t until I pointed out that a monosyllable bodybuilder wasn’t a match that she broke up with him. Also, his name was Rodney.
“Rodney.” Ella said his name exactly the wa
y she said mine when she wished I wasn’t there. It wasn’t a greeting. It wasn’t a question. It was just an acknowledgement that he still existed. Ella gestured to me as she filled out the form he passed her. “You remember Audrey, don’t you?”
He gave me a tight lipped smile. “Sure. Audrey how have you been?”
“Good,” I replied. “How’s your diet going?” Ella gave me a warning look but I went on. “Also, I don’t know if you know this, but that tank top is too small for you. Is that the only size they make them in?”
Rodney just smiled. “The diet is going great. I cut out the cheat days, though. Go big or go home, right? I’m really serious about treating my body like a temple. And this shirt? I love it. I think this is how it’s supposed to be worn, though.” He knitted his eyebrows together and stared down at the shirt like it might give him the answer.
Ella passed the form back to Rodney and grabbed the guest pass on a lanyard that he slid back to her. “Ignore her. She has emotional problems.” She tugged the lanyard over my head, grabbed me, and dragged me away from the desk toward a treadmill.
Her grip was pinching me. “Owwww! That hurts!”
Ella started mashing buttons on the treadmill and it came to life. “You deserve it! Why are you so ridiculous? Get on this treadmill.”
I stepped onto it and immediately started moving. “I’m childish? You could see his nipples. Why aren’t you hitting him?”
Ella pushed some buttons on the treadmill next to mine and hopped on. “I come here every day. You’re embarrassing me. Rod and I are still friendly.”
“Rod? When you call him that, it makes it even worse.” I huffed. The treadmill was going a little faster than I’d like. I tried to slow it down but she reached over and slapped my hand away from the controls. “I want to slow down,” I complained.
Ella pushed some buttons on her treadmill and sped up. “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”
I laughed so hard, I almost fell off the treadmill. “Did Rod teach you that?”
“Stop it! Just stop it! Every time you make fun of him, you’re not really making fun of him—you’re making fun of me. And you’re only making fun of me because I’m doing something you can’t do.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you can’t really connect with people. You’ve never had a boyfriend. I actually don’t think you’ve been on a date since high school. You don’t take any chances to get out of your comfort zone. And you’re getting older and you’re realizing that you’re going to end up alone and probably living at Mom and Dad’s.”
“That’s mean!” She was wrong, of course. I’d been on date just six months earlier. So there.
“No, you’re mean. And immature. And self-absorbed. When was the last time you even cared about anyone but yourself? When was the last time you made a real connection with anyone?”
For a second, my mind flashed to Mike holding my newly healed hand. That felt like something. But what?
Before I could think about it anymore, I lost my balance on the treadmill and fell forward. My face landed hard onto the moving belt. I yelled and tried to get up but I was caught in something. The damn guest pass they’d given me was caught in the machinery of the treadmill.
I tried to yell but my face was being dragged against the moving belt. My arms and legs were flailing in every direction. Ella and everyone around me was screaming. Hands were on my body trying to drag me up but the guest pass was holding my face down on the treadmill. Finally, the machine just stopped. I felt myself being pulled up and I was able to open my eyes a bit. The first thing I saw was Ella’s stricken face.
“Are you OK?” a voice asked behind me. It might have been Rodney’s but I wasn’t sure. “Someone call 911.”
“No!” Ella screamed. Then she reached over the flipped my shirt over my head, effectively blocking my view and exposing my bra and back fat to the world. “She’s fine! She’s fine! I’ll take her the bathroom and get her cleaned up. Everything’s fine.”
I felt someone’s hands on my shoulders—presumably Ella’s—pushing me along. “I can’t breathe,” I tried to say but it was muffled by the shirt. “It’s wet and sticky under here.” But there was no response. I felt like I’d gotten the worst rug burn in history and my head was throbbing. Finally, I stopped being pushed. I heard a door slam closed and a lock click. Only then did she pull the shirt off my head.
I looked at Ella’s pale face. “What is wrong with you?”
“What is wrong with you?!” she hissed back. Then she answered her own question. “You’re the clumsiest person on earth, you know?” She yanked a towel from the rack in the bathroom and pushed it my way.
“It’s not my fault! Rodney gave me a defective guest pass. And isn’t that machine supposed to cut off automatically? And did you have to pull up my shirt?!”
“Yes, I did! It was either that or explain why your face fell off and you’re still walking around like it’s nothing. And you should be thanking Rod. He’s the one that cut off that lanyard and got you unstuck.”
“Hmph.” I patted my face with the towel and it was red and wet when I pulled it back. I was bleeding a lot. And the burning that started back at the treadmill was now a full on fire. It felt like someone had rubbed my face off with a piece of carpet. “Do I even want to look in the mirror?”
Ella shuttered. “No. You look like your face is melting.” She shoved the towel back up to my face. “I forgot how gross you were when you did this.”
Well that was just rude. I was the one growing back my face. And it hurt like hell. “Oh well I’m sorry to gross you out. It’s just my face we’re talking about here.”
She was still staring at me with a grossed out look on her face. “How long does it usually take?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes. We just need to wait.”
Ella put her hands up in defeat. Then she put the toilet seat down, sat down it, and crossed her legs. I leaned against a wall, strategically placing myself where I couldn’t see myself in the mirror. We stayed like that in silence for two or three minutes. It was me that broke it. “Ella, do you ever wonder what life would be like if you didn’t have to be a Super?”
Her eyes flitted to me. “I don’t have to be one. Neither do you.”
“I know. I mean, do you ever wonder what it would be like if you had just a normal life?”
She thought about it for a moment. “I think my life would probably be the same as it is now. But I think that my life is pretty normal now. It’s all I’ve ever known.”
“Right. But what if you weren’t a Super?” I pushed. “No license. No Council. Just you living life however you wanted. Do you think you’d like it?”
“Sure,” she shrugged. “What about you? What if you didn’t have a license anymore?”
If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking you. Before I could answer, there was a knock on the bathroom door. Rodney’s voice called through the door. “Hello? Ella? Audrey? Are you guys all right in there? We have a first aid kit if you need it.”
“We’re fine!” Ella’s shrill voice echoed off of the tiled walls of the bathroom. “We’re just cleaning up now. We’ll be right out.”
I touched my face and felt a smooth surface instead of shredded skin. “How do I look? Am I good?”
She studied my face seriously for a half a moment. Finally, she said “It’s back to normal. But you need to do something about your pores.”
* * * * *
Even though I was sore, I walked Ella home from the gym. I don’t even know why I was sore. I hadn’t done anything but run for three minutes and then fall on my face. But the experience was enough for me to realize I didn’t want anything else to do with the gym. I wasn’t cut out for it. I’d have to take whatever Miss Fine had to dish out with whatever I had on hand.
As I walked down the sidewalk to the train, I pulled out my phone to check my messages. Scrolling past the three texts from my mom
about the family picture that I didn’t care about, I saw a message from my friend Mellie asking me to hang soon. We did get much time together and last time she had to bail because her boyfriend had planned something. I texted back “yes” in all caps.
I also had a voicemail. That was weird. My outgoing voicemail specifically said for callers not to leave messages because I’d never listen to them and deleting them was a pain. I hit the voicemail speed dial and held the phone to my ear. After the usual prerecorded stuff, I heard a voice that made my heart trip on its own beat.
“Hello, Audrey. This is Miss Fine, your auditor. Meet me at the Brooklyn Bridge Friday at midnight. We’ll test your field skills then. By the way, you’re still past due on your Council dues. I suggest you make this a priority.”
Chapter 9
All Supers are not created equal. Those who do well in school and on the tests get good assignments. If you’re really good, your assignment coincides with your alter ego. This means that the Council places you in a job or position where you can do Super work as a part of your everyday life. It makes balancing everything a lot easier. My sister and my parents all had this type of assignment. None of them had to do patrols or handle street crime.
But for us Supers who don’t do so well on those things, we get simple district assignments. Brooklyn was my district. Me and some other Supers were assigned to fight chaos and promote order there. I didn’t know the exact number. It’s not like we spent holidays together. My assignment was just to spend as much time there, keeping order. Not preventing assassinations, invasions, or the world blowing up. Think more catching muggers, robbers, and street vandals. I had no set schedule and I only got notices to go to certain locations when the Council gave them. I was completely independent as long as my district crime stats didn’t dip.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t been doing many Super patrols lately. Between all of my personal drama earlier that year, I just hadn’t had time to be that effective. And my numbers had been getting progressively worse since spring, according to the many Council notices I’d been ignoring before my audit. Now I had to prove to Miss Fine that I could be effective on the streets.
Super (Book 2): Super Duper Page 5
