Heroine Complex

by Sarah Kuhn

  “Now let’s talk about something more important,” she said, veering back to perky. “Like: have you had any sex since this horrible-sounding Richard person? I know we’ve joked about your Dead-Inside-O-Tron and surely you would have confided in me about any recent exploits. But three years of vaginal hiatus seems extreme.”

  “Lucy! No. Nothing since then.” I hoped she’d let me leave it at that. I did not want to discuss Richard. The truth was, sex with him had never been that exciting. He’d often insisted on discussing “the way mainstream fictions reinforce dated gender roles” right in the middle of the act, claiming nothing was quite as stimulating as “robust academic conversation.” I disagreed and faked more than a few noises of passion just to get him to shut up. In retrospect I wasn’t sure why a person who’d failed to inspire my libido went on to inspire so much rage. Maybe in addition to being pissed about his secret second girlfriend, I’d been furious he’d never managed to give me an orgasm.

  “Three barren years. So tragic,” Lucy said. “Speaking of tragic, Letta isn’t responding to my texts. I still need you to help me pick out that deal-closing karaoke number.”

  We reached the bottom of the stairs and she gave me a shove toward Aveda’s room. “In the meantime, I’m going to put the finishing touches on your workout regimen. And it’s going to involve honing your own deal-closing skills. You must use this whole fake superhero thing to get some.”

  She made a not-at-all-subtle hip-thrusting motion.

  Was this part of being Aveda? Your friend ordered you to have sex via X-rated mime?

  Another reason I wanted no part of it. That and the exercise. And the whole “I could possibly kill people with fire” thing.

  Seriously, of all the people in all the world, I was probably least equipped to be a superhero. Or even impersonate one.

  I squared my shoulders and marched into Aveda’s bedroom.

  “Oh, there you are!”

  Aveda beamed at me from her perch on the bed and waved me over with a french fry. Which was inexplicably clutched in her hand. As I entered the room, my eyes darted to another unexpected element: Scott. Sitting in a rocking chair next to the bed.

  I looked from the fry to Scott and back again. It was hard to say which element of this little scene weirded me out the most. Nate, at least, was ever reliable, leaning against the dresser with his usual scowl in place.

  “Scott,” I said. My brain grasped a possible explanation. “Are you here to do a healing spell on Aveda’s ankle?”

  “No,” he said. “You know that sort of thing is way outside the range of my abilities—”

  “Scott and I have come up with a most excellent plan for you,” Aveda interrupted. She popped the fry in her mouth and rooted around in the McDonald’s bag sitting next to her.

  “Plan?” I stared dumbly at her and Scott and couldn’t help but flash back to them sitting side by side in our junior high cafeteria. He had always reveled in needling her, in trying like mad to get her haughty exterior to crack. Usually this translated into something like stuffing his mouth full of grapes and offering advice for her sixth-grade presidential campaign in a garbled cartoon voice (“Free nuts for all, Annie! Capture the rabid squirrel vote!”). I’d egged him on by giggling until my sides hurt. She’d responded by giving us A Look and going back to her work. In retrospect, it had probably seemed like we were ganging up on her by refusing to take her seriously.

  And now they were ganging up on me.

  “You two don’t even get along,” I blurted out. I picked irritably at the cupcake demon bite on my wrist. It had already almost healed.

  “We’re getting along for your sake, Evie,” Aveda said sternly. “Isn’t that generous of us?”

  “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all morning,” Scott cut in. “Annie called me—”

  “Aveda,” Aveda corrected through a mouthful of fries.

  “Annie. She has an idea.”

  “An idea I strongly oppose,” Nate grumbled.

  “It’s the spell!” Aveda shrieked. “The one you’ve been begging him to try for years. I’ve convinced him to give it a go!”

  That pretty much stopped my entire thought process.

  “The depowering spell?” I said, my voice small and quavery. I turned to Scott. “But you always said—”

  “Everything I’ve always said holds true,” he said. “I still think it’s too dangerous.”

  “At least we agree on something,” muttered Nate.

  I ignored him. “Then why now?” I asked Scott. “Why are you willing to—”

  “Because you and Annie clearly need some kind of intervention,” he interrupted. His voice was low, tight, controlled. He frowned at me and suddenly it felt like we were the only two people in the room. “How could you let her convince you to go through with that charade at the party? How could you . . .” He shook his head, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it. “Maybe if I finally give you what you want, you’ll feel less tethered to this version of ‘stability.’” He gestured to our surroundings. “And maybe that will make the two of you reevaluate this toxic, codependent bond you’ve got going on.”

  “Since when are you so melodramatic?” Aveda said. She rolled her eyes and poked him with a french fry. “What Scott’s not getting to is the fact that I made him see the spell in a whole new light.” She thwacked him in the arm with the fry. “Go on, tell her!”

  Scott batted her fry away. “Annie and I have an idea that might make the magic that goes into this less dangerous. Normally this kind of spell—like a healing spell—is beyond the scope of what I can do. I can manipulate small bits of magic to create equally small things—the glamours, the love tokens—but I can’t just up and eliminate something. Especially something as huge as an injury or a superpower.”

  “But?” Aveda prompted.

  “But if I can take something that already exists and, rather than eliminating it, move it somewhere else—”

  “Scott’s going to put your power in me!” squealed Aveda, no longer able to contain herself. She dragged a pair of fries through a ketchup splotch on a napkin. “I told you: freakin’ brilliant! I’m saving your life again!”

  “But it will take some time,” Scott said. “I have to make sure all elements of this spell are going to work and that means—”

  “He estimates it’ll take four to six weeks!” chirped Aveda. “Perfect timing. I’ll be all healed up by then. So you only have to be Aveda Jupiter for a little bit longer.”

  She looked at me expectantly. I gnawed on my lower lip, my brain awhirl.

  Scott was going to try the spell. The spell. The one I’d been begging him to try forever. If he succeeded, I’d be free of my long-held curse.

  In short, he’d finally make me normal.

  But was “normal” enough of a reason to risk calling forth the fire I couldn’t really control? To willfully put myself in danger?

  I opened my mouth to tell Scott that I was, in fact, not intent on going through with this and was about to successfully talk Aveda out of the whole thing and—

  “I know you’re worried about going out there as me, what with the demons and all,” Aveda said, as if reading my thoughts. “I know you, Evie. And while I may have gotten carried away in my thrill over seeing you finally fulfill that Michelle Yeoh-an heroic promise after all these years, don’t worry: I realize you don’t actually want to be Michelle forever, and I will do everything in my power to protect you.” She gave me a smile that actually verged on reassuring. “Rest assured, Lucy will take a more active role whenever there’s actual danger or demon-fighting to be done. She’ll keep you safe. She has all those weapons and she knows all my best moves, even if she’s not as skilled at them. You won’t even have to use your fire power. The public’s already seen it in action; now it’s just a matter of keeping up the heroic Aveda Jupiter appearance w
hile my ankle heals and Scott figures out the transfer.”

  Normal. Normal. Normal. That single word pulsed through my brain, overwhelming any further protests I might have had. “Normal” was something that hadn’t been even remotely within my grasp for years. Now here it was: a beautiful possibility. I could already anticipate the sweet, crashing sensation of relief I would surely experience once I didn’t have to worry about the fire ever again.

  God, what would that even be like?

  “When you think about it, Evie, this whole fire thing is more suited to my superheroing lifestyle, anyway,” Aveda said. “Imagine how much more awesome my spinning backhand will be with a fist of flames.”

  That was probably true. The fire was nothing but wild, unpredictable danger to me. To her, it would be a new weapon in her artillery, a powerful force she could use to enhance her already kickass moves and level up her demon slayage. Although . . . she would need to rein in those diva mood swings. Maybe once Scott figured out the transfer, I could delicately recommend some good therapy.

  Okay. I could do this. True, the party the night before hadn’t gone as planned, but it had at least given me a little practice being a fake superhero. Lucy would be there for me the whole way through, and at the end of this little adventure, I’d finally get what I wanted more than anything.

  Normal.

  “I don’t know why we’re even considering this.” Nate’s rumble of a voice cut into my thoughts. “Evie hasn’t had a chance to think about the ramifications of—”

  “Evie thinks this is a fine plan,” I interrupted. “And it’s my decision, isn’t it?”

  He gave me an exasperated look. “Which is one of the many reasons you should take some time to think it through.”

  “I have thought about it. I’ve thought about pretty much nothing else for the past three years. And I know this is right.”

  “But Scott himself correctly points out that it could be dangerous,” Nate pressed. “And he’s never tried anything like this before.” He turned his scowl on Scott. “What makes you think you can go from treacly love spells to pulling an incredibly complicated power out of a human being?”

  “As I already explained—” Scott began.

  “We need to look at this from every possible angle,” Nate interrupted. “To collect more data, to—”

  “No.” My voice was clear and firm. “We don’t need to do anything. I trust him.” I inclined my head toward Scott. “And this is the perfect answer for both me and Aveda. End of story.”

  Scott nodded, his eyes unreadable. “Then I’ll get started,” he said, standing and striding out of the room.

  “Wonderful!” Aveda clapped her greasy hands together. “I’m glad you decided not to be a stick-in-the-mud about this, Evie. See, Little Sis: she’s not always a stick-in-the-mud.”

  I realized Aveda was grinning at a spot beyond my shoulder. I turned to see Bea standing in the doorway. Well, Bea trying to back away from the doorway.

  “Beatrice, what are you doing here? ‘Here’ not being anywhere near school?” I said.

  She gave me an insolent look. “It’s an in-service day.”

  “Right.” I narrowed my eyes. “In-service.”

  Ignoring me, she crossed over to Aveda’s bed and plopped herself down, snagging a fry.

  “So, Evie,” she said, feigning nonchalance, “I hear you’ve become an overnight master of superheroic disguise. But I guess that wasn’t worth mentioning to me, huh? Can’t trust your frakballs crazy Little Sis with important info like that.”

  Goddammit. There hadn’t been a good moment to relate my adventures to her last night. And I’d planned on getting out of further adventuring until the whole spell thing came up. But if I tried to explain this convoluted bit of waffling, she’d never believe me. For her, it was always easier to believe I was trying to make her life difficult.

  “Anyway,” Aveda said, glossing over the sudden tension in the room, “tonight’s gonna be a blast for you, Evelyn.”

  “Tonight?” I mentally scanned my to-do list bulletin board. What was on Aveda’s schedule for tonight?

  “Aveda,” said Nate, “under the circumstances, considering that you aren’t . . . you, I think we should—”

  “No cancelling.” Aveda gave him a cool look. “League of Social Betterment Through Bettering Oneself events are crucial to the Aveda Jupiter image. And it’ll be fun for Evie. She gets to wear an amazing dress.”

  League . . . dress . . . Oh, right.

  “The benefit,” I said, the event finally coming into focus in my mental calendar. “Aveda, I can’t. Bea and I have plans tonight.”

  I tried to meet Bea’s eyes, hoping this would get her to cut me some slack. Instead she shot me a full Tanaka Glare.

  “Not a problem,” Aveda said. “I can take care of Beatrice. She and I will have this place all to ourselves. She already did a great job fetching me breakfast.” She waved a fry around. “Since I don’t have to wear that dress tonight, I can indulge a little, right?”

  “Hanging out with Aveda sounds good to me,” said Bea.

  “But—” I started to protest.

  “Stop right there.” Aveda held up a hand. “Aveda Jupiter must attend the benefit. And people.” She frowned at her now-empty fast food bag, then picked it up and waved it around like a grease-soaked flag of surrender. “Someone get me more of these.”

  I had forgotten about the dress.

  It was an odd thing to forget. While Aveda claimed League of Social Betterment Through Bettering Oneself events were crucial to her image, they also tended to be packed with self-congratulatory types. This brought out her competitive edge even more than usual. And that meant her dress had to be the best.

  Aveda usually loved nothing more than shopping for beautiful clothes, but her demonbusting/promotional appearance schedule had been more packed than usual lately, so the task had fallen to me. I’d dedicated myself to the quest for the perfect dress, scouring vintage shops and the internet and even the ninety-nine cent bin at Goodwill. I’d finally found just the thing at an out-of-the-way estate sale in San Leandro: a daring gown that had once graced the body of some eccentric old lady whose overflowing mansion of possessions clearly belonged on Hoarders.

  As I admired my pre-glamoured self in the mirror, I had to admit: the dress was pretty great, a confection of glittery beads sprinkled over pearly tulle, like a swirl of Cake My Day’s sparkly icing. The tulle wrapped itself around my body like a second skin and plunged low in the front. I wouldn’t wear anything like this of my own volition, ever—but I was literally not myself.

  I was incredibly, irrefutably, uncharacteristically hot.

  Or I would be, once I put the glamour token to use. Because I’d be at the benefit for longer than three hours, Scott had given me an extra one. At some point I’d have to slip off to the bathroom to refresh my Aveda-ness.

  In the meantime, I needed to figure out the buttons. The gown fastened up the back in a series of tiny pearl beads that started at the tailbone and snaked up my spine. No matter how much I bent my body into various twisty positions, there was no way I could reach them all.

  I contorted my torso, my fingers scrabbling at the minuscule buttons and the even more minuscule loops they were supposed to fit into. I tried turning my head, but that just made my neck cramp. After a few moments of attempting to twist myself into a button-reaching position, I gave up. I was getting sweaty, and sweat, as Aveda would be quick to remind me, definitely didn’t go with this dress. I stretched my right arm around to my back so I could hold the dress semi-closed. Then I slithered over to the doorway, each small step reminding me that the hip-hugging skirt restricted movement in a way that bordered on painful.

  Between this and the corset, I was starting to wonder if all Aveda’s outfits were so cumbersome.

  I needed . . . well, I needed me. A ver
sion of Assistant Me to help Aveda Me into these binding clothes.

  I made it to the doorway and peered into the hall. I’d opted to change in one of the vacant upstairs bedrooms. Because Aveda currently couldn’t do stairs, this ensured me a moment of peace to collect myself. But I hadn’t counted on the buttons issue.

  I looked left, looked right, hoping Lucy or even Bea would magically spring out of the woodwork.

  Nothing. Silence. Well, silence interrupted by the swish of tulle rubbing together as I adjusted my grip, trying to keep the back of the dress closed. Then I heard something else: a heavy footfall connecting with the stairs.

  Clomp. Clomp, clomp!

  Unless she was flinging her entire tiny body quite forcefully against the stairs, definitely not Lucy.

  Clomp, clomp.

  And despite her noisy state of teenage rebellion, probably not Bea, either.

  Clomp!

  Scott?

  No, of course not, I thought as the large, scowly figure emerged at the top of the stairs. It would have to be him.

  Given my current state of near immobility, I couldn’t afford to be picky.

  “Nate!” I waved to him from the doorway. “Can you help me with . . . wow. What are you wearing?”

  Like me, Nate had a uniform of sorts: black, black, and more black. The idea that he owned clothing in other shades was completely foreign, yet here he was in a beautifully cut charcoal gray suit. The jacket hung nicely off his broad shoulders, softening his thuggish appearance and giving the shock of dark hair falling onto his forehead a rakish cast (as opposed to its usual cast, which translated to “I do not own a hairbrush”). For a second, I could almost see the off-kilter attractiveness that Lucy was always going on about.

  I mean, almost. Let’s not get crazy. This was still Nate we were talking about.

  “A suit,” he said.

  I cocked an eyebrow, indicating he needed to elaborate.

  “I’m . . . escorting you,” he relented, shoving a hand through his hair and taking it back to hairbrush-needed land. “Aveda decided you could use some extra security. In addition to Lucy.”