*****
Of course, I got lost.
I haven’t had a car since mine was stolen last spring. Well, according to the insurance company, it wasn’t stolen. It was more like gifted to whoever took it. I did leave it running with the keys in the ignition. I was actually in hot pursuit of a mugger but if I had told the insurance company that, they probably would have thought I was lying. Besides, it’s not like I had paid my insurance premium anyway. There was nothing they could do about it.
The point is that I hadn’t been driving in almost a year, I wasn’t familiar with Mike’s car, and I wasn’t familiar with the area this warehouse was in. I ended up having to call Nathaniel and get directions. He didn’t sound pleased at all about it. But I got to the lookout position eventually and parked. “I’m here,” I said into the phone.
“Good. And remember, you are a lookout only,” he emphasized. “Don’t leave that exact spot. Whistle if you see anything suspicious.” He hung up on me without waiting for my answer.
On the bright side, taking so long to get there gave me time to practice some whistling. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it at all. It was that I had to concentrate really, really hard to do it. Something about the right combination of wetness and lip shape. I did a few practice runs on the way to the warehouse. Most of the time I sounded like I had a bad case of asthma but I did get one or two decent ones in there. I’d just have to make it work.
I rolled down the windows of the car and took a look around. It was an industrial area with lots of warehouses and machinery shops. Although it was night, there was an undercurrent of activity in the area. The sounds of industrial machines could be heard. Trucks were coming up and down the street. I could see the warehouse where the Noches were supposed to be running their chop shop tucked into a row of similar looking buildings. I didn’t see Nathaniel and his crew but I wasn’t surprised. They were supposed to be going in covertly.
I adjusted the driver’s seat back and tried to get comfortable—a difficult task considering I was wearing a too tight Super suit under a hoodie. Suddenly, I remembered that I was in Mike’s car. Mike was a police detective so he spent most of his day in a car from the department pool. I’d been in his work car once when he’d almost hit me. But this was my first time in his personal car and I was all alone. I’d been in such a hurry to get to the mission meetup, I hadn’t quite realized that I was in the perfect position to snoop.
If I had taken a moment to examine what I was doing, I might have found it strange that I was taking the time to snoop through the things of a man I had been saying I wasn’t that interested in to anyone who would listen. If you’re just casually seeing someone, you don’t really care what else happens when you’re not around. But then again, introspection isn’t really my thing.
I rifled through the glove compartment. Insurance ID card. Registration. A pack of gum. Nothing interesting. I turned my attention to the center console. A receipt for lunch. A brochure from a renters’ insurance company. A couple of CDs from some really terrible pop singers. Who even has CDs even more, Mike? I wondered. Other than that, the car was clean. Ten minutes of rummaging and all I knew about Mike was that he had terrible taste in music. So terrible, in fact, that it rivaled his taste in women.
My mind flipped back to how he had just given me his car. I knew I’d caught him when he was half asleep but something told me he probably would have given me the car even if he had been wide awake. I can’t believe this dude. What does he see in me?
Before I could figure out the answer, the sound of an explosion blasted into the car. I looked over at the Noches’ warehouse but it didn’t look anything different. But I knew something was happening because I could hear gunshots and yelling. Then, a black sports car came screeching out of the back dock of the warehouse with the headlights off. It was coming right toward me. As the car passed me, I looked into the driver’s side window and saw a young, caramel colored guy looking right back at me. Our eyes met.
El Gato.
I recognized him from the picture Nathaniel had passed around at the meeting. I leaned my head out of the window and tried to let out a good, loud whistle two or three times. I only succeeded in spitting all over myself and the side of Mike’s car. “Fuck it,” I yelled. I jammed the keys in the ignition, turned it on, and sped after El Gato.
He was going fast but Mike’s Volkswagen had a little more get-up-and-go than I thought it would. Between that and El Gato having to navigate the other traffic on the main road, I wasn’t too far behind.
El Gato knew how to handle a car and whatever he was driving could take those turns well. He jumped from lane to lane and ignored every traffic signal in his path. I was nowhere near as good of a driver but I was keeping up through sheer will. We turned onto Fort Hamilton Parkway and I cut off an SUV to get behind him again. I didn’t know how much gas he had in that four wheeled rocket he was driving but I had a full tank of gas thanks to Mr. Responsible Mike. I had plenty of steam left.
But that’s when I noticed my luck was running out. El Gato’s car was pulling away from me. Somehow he got a second burst of speed but no matter how hard a pushed down the Volkswagen’s gas pedal, the gap between us was getting bigger and bigger.
I saw a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye and hit the brake hard before I even realized that I was reacting to an eighteen wheeler pulling out into the space between me and El Gato. I was going too fast to stop, though. I lost control of the car and spun out, skidding to a stop, perpendicular to the flow of traffic.
Somehow I managed to avoid hitting anything. Other cars navigated around me, each one letting me know how they felt about my reckless driving. Through the hail of honking horns and screaming curses from other drivers, I looked out the passenger side window to see the truck make its way down the road oblivious to how close we had just come to crashing. There was no sign of El Gato. I’d lost him.
I banged my fist on the steering wheel in anger. Shit!
*****
I sat there in Mike’s car mad at myself and at the driver of the truck for a few more minutes before sound of sirens jerked me out of my pity party. Mike had given me strict instructions not to crash his car but he probably wouldn’t be happy about me getting it impounded during my arrest either.
I was almost back to the warehouse when my phone rang. Nathaniel’s name flashed across the screen. I answered it. “Hel—”
His angry voice interrupted me with the “Where are you?”
“I’m headed back to the warehouse now. I saw El Gato coming out the back so I followed—”
“Where did he go?”
“I lost him—”
“That’s why I didn’t put you in charge of following anybody. Why didn’t you just give the damn signal?”
“I did!”
His anger was palatable. In the background, I could hear wind whipping around him. Was he flying while he was calling me? “This is your problem. You cannot take directions. You don’t listen. It’s not your job to deviate from the plan. When I tell you to stay somewhere, that’s where you stay!”
I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. I’d done what I thought was the best thing at the time. He’d told me the other night that me being on this task force was very important to him and he was treating me like a kid instead. “I’m heading back to the warehouse now.”
“Don’t bother,” he sneered. “Go home. There’s nothing else for you to mess up tonight.” And then the phone went dead.
Chapter 10
Dating as a Super is tricky. Technically there are no rules about who you date. As long as you keep your Oath, you’re free to go out with anyone you want. But the Super Oath demands secrecy above all else. So, if your boyfriend is not a Super and he wants to know why you disappear at night or why you can pop your eyeball back in with no problems, you can’t tell him. And for some reason, dudes don’t really like it when you keep secrets from them.
This is probably why Supers tend to date Sup
ers. It’s also probably why I tended to date no one.
Mike came down early Tuesday morning to get his car keys back. He still didn’t question me about using his car but he did ask me to have dinner with his friends that night. They had a tradition of having dinner together and watching a show about a cop that solved mysteries using the ghost of his dead brother. I’d heard of the show but I thought it sounded terrible—and that was saying something considering I watched the Real Housewives franchise like my life depended on it. But I was still feeling a little sleepy and a lot guilty about being so reckless with his car so I said yes. How bad could it be?
That night Mike picked me up around seven and we headed to his friend Lorrie’s house. On the way there, he filled me in on the basics. Mike knew Lorrie because they went to the police academy together and worked together a lot over the years. She was married to Justin and they had a baby on the way. His other friend CJ would also be there with his fiancé Lorenzo. Mike went to college with CJ and Lorenzo was in Mike’s poker league. He was the one who introduced them, which he seemed to be very proud of. I geared myself up for the couples’ night ahead of me.
Mike expertly pulled into a space in front of Lorrie’s Queens high rise building and turned the car off. Then he turned to me and interrupted my jealous thoughts about his parallel parking abilities. “Nervous?”
I’ve never understood why people ask you if you’re nervous. If you’re not, you’re going to be nervous after they ask you. If you are nervous, questions about it would just make it worst. “Why would you ask me that?”
He shrugged. “I’d be nervous if I was meeting a room full of your friends. That is, if you ever let me meet any of your friends,” he added.
I ignored the obvious bait about when he was going to meet everyone I’d ever hung out with in my entire life and focused on the situation at hand. “Well, I know you didn’t bring me here as some secret test so I’m not worried or nervous or anything.”
Mike reached over and gave me a peck on the lips. “Good. I’m not worried, either. Everyone will love you as much as I do.”
Love me? All of the sudden, I was nervous.
Upstairs, Lorrie welcomed us with a loud greeting and big hugs. She was dark with a short curly afro. She was also petite, her big pregnant belly almost engulfing her. “I’m am so excited to be finally meeting you,” she cooed into my ear during our hug. The way she it made me think that Mike had really been talking me up. The butterflies in my stomach took it up a notch.
Justin was as big as pale as Lorrie was as small and dark. He must have been part lumberjack or something. He was even wearing a flannel shirt. CJ and Lorenzo looked so similar they might have been brothers. They had the same caramel skin tones, similar curly haircuts, and matching beards. I could see why Mike thought they’d like each other. They were practically sitting on top of each other and spent the entire night holding hands. All of them greeted me with the same enthusiasm as Lorrie did.
Almost as soon as we got there, Lorrie ushered us all into the dining room for dinner. Mike and I sat next to each other, across from CJ and Lorenzo. Lorrie and Justin sat at the ends. They’d put together a big lasagna feast with salad and fresh baked bread. Food has always been my friend so I dug in and let the conversation flow around me.
They were talking about Lorrie’s maternity leave and whether she would go back to work after. CJ and Lorenzo were going to Italy for a month because CJ got a job on a movie that was filming over there. Mike and Justin had plans to go to Atlantic City with two other guys the following month. “Don’t worry, Audrey,” he said to me. “It’s just a weekend. We won’t keep you guys apart for too long.” Everyone at the table laughed. I just ate more lasagna and drank more wine to keep the butterflies at bay.
I tried to imagine Nathaniel, Rocky, and Frankie at something like this. Somehow, I couldn’t. Like all Supers, I’m sure they had alter egos. They had to live in the real world. But I doubted that their alter egos had a lives of their own.
To their credit, they really tried to keep me in the conversation, too. They asked all the normal questions—where I lived, what I did for a living, how I met Mike. I tried to be my best not-a-sociopath self. But pretending to be normal is tiring. By the end of dinner, I was full, slightly tipsy, and kinda exhausted.
It was almost time for the show. Justin and CJ took a smoke break out on the fire escape while the rest of us headed to the living room. Mike gave me a playful squeeze as he sank into the couch next to me. “Audrey hasn’t seen the show yet, guys. She’s a newbie.”
Lorenzo tried to reassure me. “Don’t worry. I’d never heard of the show before I started dating CJ. But after coming to enough Sunday night dinners, I eventually got into it.”
Great. I hope I have to come to these things enough that I start to like something I don’t really like, I thought to myself.
Justin came back in and made a big show of turning on the TV. “Mike, you’re the only one who hasn’t seen this yet. I finally replaced the one I had to give up when me and Lorrie moved in together.” Everybody let out a collective groan. Apparently this wasn’t the first time they’d heard about the TV.
“I’m so tired about hearing about that damn TV!” Lorrie cried. “It was too big for the apartment we were moving into. It just didn’t fit. There were no walls in that apartment that would have fit that TV.”
Justin planted a kiss on Lorrie’s head and rubbed her pregnant stomach. “OK, OK, let’s not upset the baby. It’s OK.” He turned to me. “You’ll see, Audrey, when you Mike move in together. It’s all about compromises.”
Suddenly, it felt very hot in there. “Where was that fire escape again?” I asked.
“Right down the hall, through window in the kitchen. I didn’t know you smoked,” CJ added.
“I don’t. I just need a little fresh air.”
Mike stood up. “I’ll come with you.”
“No!” I said, a bit too forcefully. “I mean, I don’t want you to miss your show. I’ll be right back.” I made a beeline back down the hall to the kitchen and out onto the fire escape. It was a tiny space but Lorrie and Justin had made it as homey as possible. There was a chair out there next to a small table. On the table was a small ceramic dish that looked like it was being used as an ash tray. It was pretty cold out there and I hadn’t bothered to bring my coat. But, I preferred shivering out there to going back inside.
I sat on the chair and I looked down at the street below. This high up, I couldn’t make out any people individually but the lights on the cars and from the nearby buildings made for a mesmerizing scene. Nathaniel crossed my mind again. He probably sees stuff like this all of the time. He’s always flying above everything. He can leave anywhere he wants, any time he wants. People respect him. He doesn’t have to worry about fitting in because he’s impressive enough that other people want to fit in with him. Nice life if you can get it.
I knew Mike was going to interrogate me on the way home about whether I’d had a good time. Truthfully, I wasn’t having a bad time at all. They were all nice, normal people who seemed to really like Mike. Because of that relationship, they really wanted to like me, too. I had gotten the impression that Mike had definitely spent more time talking about me to his friends than I had with my own, though. But that wasn’t hard to do, considering I had one friend and I had spent zero time talking about him with Mellie. A wave of guilt washed over me. I knew it should have made me want to call everyone I know and fill them in on Mike. Instead, it made me just want to go back in time and ask Mike not to mention me to anyone ever.
But I couldn’t do that. For now, I just needed to go back inside and hang out until it was time to go. I figured it was the least I could do. I stood up to do just that but bumped the table pretty hard, knocking the ceramic dish off the fire escape and down into the darkness below. “Shit!” I peered over the side and down into the night. I could go back in and pretend like it never happened. But if Lorrie or Justin realized that I was the last
one out there, they might think I stole it. What if they told Mike?
The other choice was to go get it. But I didn’t know if I could sneak past the living room and to the front door to get down there. And what if it was broken when I got there? I’d still have to tell them that I dropped it in the first place. What if Mike got mad?
I leaned over a little further. Maybe if I could see it, I could figure out what to do. I leaned a little further. Once again, being able to fly would really come in handy right about now. I thought I saw a glimpse of the dish but it may have been wishful thinking on my part.
I leaned over a little further and lost my footing, falling over the side of the fire escape. For the second time in a week, I had fallen over the side of a building—only this time, there was no one to save me.
*****
As many times as I’ve been hurt, I had yet to figure out how to take it with grace. I fell like anyone else who had made a big mistake would fall—screaming my head off and flapping my arms, hoping to suddenly develop a talent for flying. I hit the ground with a chorus of snaps, groans, and thuds.
The good news is that I didn’t go splat in the street or the sidewalk. Instead, I landed in one of the big bushes that lined the walkway to the building. The bad news was that whatever that bush grew, it had thorns. So in addition to the broken bones that inevitably accompanied a fall like that, I also had a bunch of little thorns stabbing me all over.
I lay there, unable to move for what seemed like a long time. I didn’t know exactly how long it was because I couldn’t raise my hand to see my watch. But, it was long enough for me to spend a little time thinking. Surprisingly, this is not far off from what I expected the night to end. But, how pathetic was that?
Being a C-list Super on probation was one thing. I’d done that for so long that I had a routine. I understood my place in the universe. But this boyfriend/girlfriend thing might be a little too much for me. I couldn’t even get through dinner without falling off a building. This was probably going to end badly—even more badly than lying in a bush full of thorns with a body full of broken bones.
Super (Book 4): Supervised Page 5
