Being Jamie Baker

by Kelly Oram

  “Jamielynn, you get back here right now and tell me where you’re going, young lady!” my mom called out to the thin air, knowing I could still hear her.

  “Sorry, Mom.” I was out of breath because I was slightly panicked, not because I was tired. “I was just going to go for a run. I’ve been cooped up too much, and I need to get some of this energy out. You want me to bring back a souvenir from somewhere?”

  You should see our refrigerator. I’m not sure if having so many magnets is really healthy, but I can’t help picking them up from the random places I stop at when I’m bored. I like the look my mom always gives me when I come home with one and she realizes that I was just in Nebraska or wherever.

  “Jamie, sweetheart.” Oh great. She was in one of those lecturing moods. Not exactly the best time when Ryan was going to show up any second. “I don’t think going for a run is what you need. Why don’t you try to find where all the kids are hanging out? Isn’t there a school football game to watch or something?”

  “The football games are on Friday nights here,” I answered dryly.

  “Oh. Well, there has to be something going on. Jamie, when your father and I said you needed to get out more, we didn’t mean running around the country all by yourself. You should use all this energy to be with kids your age. You need to be social.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll go see what Ryan’s up to.”

  “Jamie.”

  I could tell my mom wanted to say yes, but I suppose I couldn’t blame her for worrying.

  Just then I heard Ryan’s truck pull up to the curb of my house, and I nearly had a heart attack.

  “All right, fine,” I said, not having any more time to argue. “I’ll go out and look for a job. Will that make you happy?”

  My mother’s face lit up with a glimpse of hope that actually made me feel very guilty all the sudden. “Very!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “But you can’t get a job wearing that. Go put on something nice.”

  I frowned down at the jeans and T-shirt I’d pulled off my floor in my haste to stop Ryan. I disappeared so fast that I was standing in front of my mom again in a businesslike skirt and jacket before she could even shake her head. “Better?”

  “Beautiful,” my mom said. “Good luck, honey. You won’t regret this, I promise!” She was calling out to the air again because I was already gone.

  I tugged on Ryan’s arm just before he had the chance to knock on the door. If I weren’t so paranoid about my parents seeing him there, I would have enjoyed the confused look on his face as he realized I’d just appeared out of thin air and was dragging him off my porch. The only words he seemed capable of spitting out were “What the—”

  “I’ll explain in a minute,” I grumbled. “Just get us out of here before my parents see you.”

  Ryan frowned but obeyed, obviously happy that even though I was making him leave, at least I was going with him.

  “Good morning?” he finally said, very unsure of himself for once in his life as he rounded the corner, putting my house out of sight behind us.

  “I’m sorry.” I sighed. “It’s just that I heard you pull up, and I didn’t want my dad to have an aneurism if you mentioned something about knowing my secret.”

  “They don’t know about your powers?”

  “Oh, no. They know about me. They don’t know that you know. I would have told them, except my father sort of banned me from ever speaking to you again.”

  “What? But I thought your parents liked me.” I don’t know what was cuter, the surprise in his voice, or the wounded look on his face. “Your dad told me to come back anytime. You’re mom actually hugged me.”

  That confession made me cringe. “Yeah, she gets a little excited sometimes—sorry about that. But it’s not you. They just freaked after I mentioned the accident and you helping me out with the cops. They’re afraid you’re going to figure me out and expose me to the world. My dad went into his usual secret-government-lab-testing rant.”

  “But I don’t want anyone to take you away any more than he does.”

  “He’s a great dad. It’s his job to be overprotective.”

  Ryan’s face slowly straightened out of its frown. “I guess if you were mine, I’d be crazy overprotective too.” He sighed and then smiled at me. “I’d probably be worse, judging by how I felt when that reporter showed up.”

  I couldn’t believe my heart was fluttering over that, but it was, and even worse, I liked the feeling. “That was quite a punch you threw.” I laughed, trying not to let myself blush.

  “Yeah, I was quite impressed myself.”

  “I’m not surprised—you’re always impressed with yourself.”

  Ryan laughed but didn’t deny the accusation. “I’ve never really been a fighter, but I’ll admit I wanted to kill that guy.”

  Ryan wasn’t the only one. I wanted to put Carter six feet under too. The only difference between me and Ryan is that I could have. All too easily. My power scares me, but sometimes the feelings that come with that power are a lot scarier. I can almost understand how supervillains get the way they are, because it’s so hard not to want to use your power to hurt someone when they’re hurting you first. Of course my conscience always gets the better of me, but if I had to deal with guys like Carter all the time, forever and ever, eventually I’d crack.

  I shuddered at my train of thought, and when Ryan questioned it, I quickly changed the subject. “Where are we going?”

  Ryan grinned, successfully distracted. “I hope you didn’t have any plans today.”

  “No, but you obviously do. Would you mind filling me in?”

  “Practice.”

  “No offense, Ryan, but I’m not exactly excited by the idea of watching you and Mike smear each other into the ground for hours.”

  “Not me—you. You’re going to learn how to control your power.”

  “And how do you suggest I do that?”

  “Practice,” he said again. “Haven’t you seen Smallville?”

  “Everyone’s seen Smallville,” I said, not amused that he was now comparing my life to a TV series about a fictional town full of freaks.

  “Every time Clark gets a new ability, he practices. It never takes him very long, so if you’re as much like Superman as you claim, then I bet we could be making out by next week.”

  I gave him a sideways glance, but he just laughed. “You know you want to.”

  “This plan is right up there with your plan for getting to take Becky to homecoming.”

  “Hey! Technically, that plan worked.”

  I was annoyed to high heaven that he was right about that. “Okay, Einstein, then do you have a strategy for this game plan?”

  “Interesting choice of words,” Ryan said, and then intentionally changed the subject. “You look so hot, by the way. Very Lois Lane.”

  “Oh, shut up!”

  “Sorry, it’s just a little ironic, considering what we’re about to do.”

  “And that would be?”

  “A surprise.”

  Ryan wouldn’t tell me his plan any more than he would tell me where we were going. Of course it wasn’t really a mystery when he turned off I-80 toward Tahoe City. I wondered why he was taking me to Lake Tahoe, but I have to admit, after that dream I had about the Grand Canyon, I wasn’t exactly opposed to being alone with him in the wilderness.

  We wound through the mountains, and there was nothing but forest to see out the windows until suddenly we were pulling up to a big log house with a huge veranda that wrapped all the way around the side. I couldn’t help but stare at the beautiful structure. It seemed to be hidden so perfectly from the world that I felt like Ryan and I were the last two people on earth. Again, not complaining.

  “You like it?” Ryan asked, seeing the smile on my face.

  “It’s hard to believe that something so beautiful can be so close to Sacramento. It looks like a jigsaw puzzle.”

  “Close. It was featured in a wall calendar once.” Ryan chuck
led. “It’s my stepdad’s cabin.”

  “You call this a cabin?”

  “Gene does. When he married my mom, he moved into our house so that we would feel more comfortable because the house he used to own was a good three times bigger than this.”

  I blinked. I couldn’t help it. My dad manages a sawmill in West Sacramento. He makes enough to afford our nice little cookie-cutter piece of suburban heaven, but he’d have to win the lottery to own a house like this.

  “A lot of screwed-up people in this world need motivating,” Ryan joked. “Come on, the view from the back is better.”

  He was right; the view from the back was much better. The deck hung over the side of the mountain, granting a view of the entire lake. I actually recognized the back of the house. I’d seen it from across the lake on the many trips I’ve made here to do my homework in a little peace and quiet. It was one of the nicest houses visible from the lakeshore, and I’d often wondered what kinds of people own a place like this. It felt strange to be standing there now.

  “Thank you for bringing me here, it’s absolutely beautiful, but what exactly are we doing here?”

  “Well, if we’re going to unleash these powers of yours, then we need to be someplace where no one is going to see us. This was the most private place I could think of.”

  “You want me to ‘unleash’ my powers?”

  “Yeah, show me whatcha got.”

  “What do you want, a front-row seat to the freak show? I’m not going to stand here and do tricks for a handful of doggie biscuits.”

  “Jamie.” Ryan rolled his eyes at me like I was the one being ridiculous. “I get that you’re self-conscious about being different, but you’re really not going to scare me away, so stop worrying so much. I’m not looking for cheap entertainment. I’m just trying to help you. If we’re going to practice, then I need to know what you’re capable of first. Like tryouts.”

  “Tryouts?”

  “Yeah.” Ryan reached into a duffel bag he’d brought with him and retrieved a lightbulb. “Then, after I know what you can do, we start with the fundamentals.”

  Ryan grinned really big. I hate it when he does that. It’s so not fair! He was being too cute, and I was eating it up. I couldn’t stop myself from humoring him. “What is that for?”

  “Can you light it up?”

  I glared at him, but he waited for me to do as he asked, so I grabbed the lightbulb out of his hand and pumped the thing so full of power that it exploded.

  “That’s what I thought.” Ryan laughed, pulling a second light bulb from his bag. “Now, can you hold this one without lighting it up?” I was still not amused. “Well, can you?”

  I took the bulb and closed my fist around the bottom. “Satisfied?” I asked when the light stayed dark.

  Ryan smiled bigger than I’d ever seen him smile before. “Completely,” he admitted, and then stepped closer to me. “You see? You do have some authority over it. You just have to figure out what that feels like, and then try doing it when you start to lose control.”

  Ryan slowly took my free hand in his, and the minute his fingers touched my skin I could feel butterflies in my stomach.

  “Like right now, for instance,” Ryan said, looking at the dim glow now shining from the light in my hand. “You’re starting to lose control. See if you can turn it off.”

  I was dying of embarrassment, but I was also curious to see if I could do it, so I played along. I kept my eyes focused on the lightbulb because looking at Ryan’s face as close as it was to mine now was sure to be a guaranteed repeat lightbulb explosion. After a moment the light slowly started to fade. I felt a tinge of excitement, and it started to glow again, so I concentrated even harder. Again the light faded.

  Ryan dropped my hand with a proud smile on his face that screamed, “I told you so,” but I was too amazed to care. Even though it was on a tiny scale, I was actually controlling myself.

  I smiled at the dark lightbulb, but then, without warning, Ryan put his hand to my cheek and started to bring his lips to mine. He took me by surprise and I jumped back, shocking Ryan’s fingers when I pulled away from them. The lightbulb lit up so bright it was nearly blinding.

  Ryan laughed. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I won’t do that again. But you can’t blame me for wanting to make sure.”

  I didn’t think it was so funny. My hand tightened on the light until the brightness was squelched, and the bulb lay in tiny pieces on the deck.

  “I’m sorry,” Ryan said again, more seriously this time. “I promise, no more surprises. But did you see that? You controlled it. If we keep working on it, you’re only going to get better and better. And we could do that with all of your powers.”

  “Fine.” I sighed. “You want to see what I can do?”

  “I’m dying to see everything you can do.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” I grumbled, and then took off running.

  I was gone for probably about ten seconds. When I got back, Ryan still looked dazed from seeing me disappear.

  “Here.” I dumped a fistful of sand into his hand.

  Ryan looked down with wide eyes. “Is that…” He cast his gaze down the mountain behind us at the lake. “Did you just go—”

  I looked over his shoulder at the lake below and shook my head. “Nope. That would be Pacific Ocean sand. Carmel Beach, actually, in Monterey.” I shrugged when his mouth fell open. “Nothing but the best.”

  I waited for Ryan to do or say something. It took him a minute, but as he’d promised earlier, he didn’t freak out. “You just went all the way to Monterey? That’s like a five-hour drive from here.”

  I shrugged again. “I’m fast. Of all my powers, speed is the strongest, then probably the hearing. Those are the ones I use the most. All the others I can’t do quite as well.”

  Ryan was still trying to keep his game face on, but he had that overwhelmed look in his eyes again. He couldn’t stop staring at me, so I leaned against the porch railing and looked out over the water to avoid his gaze. After a minute he joined me. Once he was looking at the lake and not me, he was able to speak a lot easier. “So, you’re fast, you can hear, and you could murder me with a single touch. And you’re saying there’s more you can do?”

  “Not much. Aside from the walking battery part, everything seems to be strictly physical. My dad has a theory about that.”

  “I love theories!” After I gave him a peculiar look Ryan explained himself. “Remember the one about you and the mafia?” He shrugged, guilty. “That wasn’t my first.”

  I don’t know how Ryan managed to keep a straight face because I sure couldn’t. I cracked up, but that made it a lot easier to tell the story. “The truck that was carrying the waste I was doused in had come from a fertilizer plant. My dad thinks that the electricity from the power lines cooked all that fertilizer stuff into my body like some sort of super Miracle-Gro cocktail. We think it’s enhanced me physically, just like it would grass or whatever.”

  “So is that why your hair grows in green now?” he asked with a devilish grin.

  “Ha, ha,” I said.

  “Is it a grassy green? Or more of a neon green?”

  I ignored him.

  “Sorry,” he said, laughing at himself. “I just can’t picture you with green hair. You’ll have to show me sometime.”

  “Yeah,” I said, snorting. “Right.”

  “Why not?”

  “Uh, maybe because I’d have to let it grow out for you to see it, and I’d look like a major freak. I might be able to get away with it in Los Angeles, but Sacramento?”

  Ryan frowned and then tried to negotiate. “Okay, fine. But the eyes. You have to let me see the eyes.”

  I cut my gaze back to the water. Unlike with the hair, I didn’t really have a good excuse not to show Ryan my eyes. But I’m not just self-conscious about my post-accident looks—I’m superself-conscious. My eyes were the most freakish thing about me, and no way was I going to let Ryan win this one. “You’
ve seen them,” I said, my mind made up.

  “I barely saw the one, and only for a few seconds. That doesn’t count.”

  “Does too.”

  “So does not!”

  Whatever look I gave Ryan just then was enough to make him throw his hands up in defeat. “Okay, okay, fine,” he said. “We’re talking about the accident. Your dad’s theory about you being Miracle-Gro Girl…”

  I glared at him again, but decided to let the stupid nickname slide. This time. “The chemicals I was doused in somehow amped up all my physical senses. Speed and agility, sound, sight, strength, smell, taste.”

  “You have supertaste?” Ryan asked.

  “It’s not my favorite superpower. Basically my taste buds are supersensitive just like everything else. Mostly it just makes me superpicky. Drives my mom insane.”

  “The world’s first superhero food critic. Watch out, Wolfgang Puck.”

  Ryan laughed again, and I felt myself being intoxicated by his laughter. I’ve never joked around about my powers before. The only people I’ve ever talked about them with are my parents, and then we’re always so serious. I’ve never thought about the possibility of them being fun before, but standing there with Ryan, laughing and joking around, I was starting to see how he could be optimistic.

  Optimism obviously isn’t one of my stronger qualities, but it seemed to be a superpower for Ryan. “How come you are the way you are?” I asked when the laughter died down.

  Ryan was surprised by the question. He smiled a little warily and then asked, “What way am I?”

  “I’ve never met anyone like you before. You’re so laid-back all the time, and you can find the bright side of everything. You never let people upset you. You’re just so… happy. All the time. And it’s contagious. No one can light up a room the way you can.”

  “No one can light up a room the way you can either,” he joked.

  “I’m serious! No one can be as relaxed as you are all the time. How do you do it? If I could be half as calm as you are, I wouldn’t need to go through your superpower boot camp.”