Heroine Addiction

by Matarese, Jennifer

  Lines of ink mark his fingers, accidental streaks of color sprinkled across his knuckles. Sometimes he twirls his pens when he's blocked, that much I notice at the cafe. He's not exactly agile. He drops them a lot, which gives me plenty of opportunities I never have the nerve to take to assist him by bending over to pick them up while wearing my tightest dresses. Mostly I just stare as he does it himself and let Dixie tease about my strange taste in men and wonder when in heaven's name I turned into a damn wallflower.

  I think I need mental help. Or an intervention.

  “Are you angry?”

  He chuckles at that, soft but harsh, steel wool scratching across my eardrums. “No, I'm just … I'm just stupid, I guess.”

  “I wouldn't have brought you here if you were an idiot. Particularly if you were any more idiotic than I currently feel. I haven't felt this moronic since Private Patriot dispersed amnesia gas into the underground mall –”

  Troy groans, shaking his head. “I guess this is what I get for burying myself in my writing.”

  “I don't exactly advertise my past.”

  “Oh, you don't have to,” he retorts. “I imagine People magazine and US Weekly do just fine all on their own.”

  It's not an exaggeration, really. Departing for the great unknown and opening Tea and Strumpets in a one-cow town in the middle of nowhere lends itself to puff pieces and “Where are they now?” stories, all liberally sprinkled with cheery pictures of me pouring coffee for Mrs. Santamaria arranged next to dated images of me from way back when. I've only allowed three since I left the business, however, all fawning complimentary pieces with little actual substance.

  I imagine my official Brigade studio portraits would look nice sized down to fit between an update on my love life that starts out, “Speculation that Miss Noble lied about her bisexuality to create controversy to assist her exit from the Fairness Brigade abound ...” Fortunately I left the superhero field at just the right moment, if you're morbid enough to call it that. I left my old life in between the Lemur getting arrested for routinely doing unspeakable things to his underage sidekicks for the previous two decades and an alien craft crashing into the Lord Disturbio Plaza building and killing hundreds.

  I just wasn't interesting enough to beat those, and slipped out of public life like a wet fish through clumsy fingers.

  “You're not going to tell anyone, I hope,” I say quietly.

  He shoots me a disbelieving smirk, but I know he understands what I'm getting at. It's not the regulars whose coffee orders I've memorized or Dixie and Tara I worry about. It's some superhuman reporter or caped gossip blogger I fear tracking me down, picking up a scent and following it all the way back to Tea and Strumpets. I managed to shake most of them after a while, but now it's eager young pups straight out of journalism school searching for the salacious secret that any woman who's not completely straight or wearing a purity ring simply must be hiding.

  They can harass me all they want when I'm in the city, but this is my home, damn it.

  “Yes, now is the perfect time to ask me that,” he says, but his voice teases more than anything else. “Which part am I not supposed to be telling anyone again?”

  It takes me a moment to realize what he's searching for, a gentle wave of his free hand towards the far wall directing my gaze back to the matter at hand. Oh, right. I'd almost forgotten about my ludicrous family problems. Sighing and blowing a lock of hair from my eyes, I say, “Preferably any of it, actually, with a focus on the fact that Wavelength has been having a torrid love affair with the Quiz Master for the past five years.”

  Troy grimaces and reaches up to scratch absently at his scruff. “You had to say it out loud, didn't you?” Another swift toss of the glass empties it, and he signals for me to pass him the bottle.

  I make a face, but hand it over anyway.

  “How did your family even manage to cover this up?”

  He removes the cap from the bottle, ready to pour another glass, then glances my way and cocks an eyebrow. When I hold up my hands in surrender, he has the decency to place the empty glass on a coaster on the coffee table before taking a healthy swig of scotch straight from the bottle.

  “My dad's the most powerful telepath on the planet,” I point out. “If he doesn't want you to notice him kissing a notorious reformed criminal in Oktoberfest Park, you won't. Plus, there's the plastic surgery machine –“

  “Okay, okay, I think I know too much about your family already.”

  He scrambles to his feet, stumbles around a bit before righting himself. There's a moment where I'm terrified he's drunk too much and is of no use to me anymore whatsoever. But his eyes clear as he stares at the wall, at my tiny handwriting made sloppy from stress. The seconds drag by, taking him with them, leaving me still sitting on the floor in an ungainly sprawl.

  “I don't mean to be a bother,” I say after a couple of minutes pass, the silence stifling, “but my dad's the one who's telepathic, not me.”

  He ignores me for a moment, tapping out a silent tune with the bottle dangling from his fingertips against his thigh. Then he freezes, a soft “Huh” rising from him before he blurts out, “Tell me again what you said to your dad at that dance club about the Quiz Master.”

  My brow furrows as I try to remember the exact wording of what I'd said, the words clouding in my mind beneath a cacophonous cover of trumpets and laughter and confusion screaming through my mind. “I said that Morris told me Dad had been missing for three days, and Dad said he'd take care of it.”

  “You didn't elaborate?”

  “What would there be to elaborate?”

  “I need you to think, Vera,” Troy says, his voice curt as he turns around and crouches before me. He looks for the briefest of moment like he'll reach out to grasp me in a reassuring clutch, his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs teasing the soft skin of my neck. Instead he settles back on his ankles, an uncomfortable angle, and says, “Pretend your dad only knew what any guy on the street would know about your family. Pretend that he thinks that the Quiz Master is his enemy. What exactly did you say to him?”

  I nod absently in silent understanding, my eyelids sliding shut in a heartbeat. I run through the memory filed away in my mind, weave through smiling swing dancers frozen in time in my head. I filter out the din of live music and mingled conversation, focusing on the words my father and I shared.

  "To be honest, I'm here on behalf of Morris. According to him, you've been missing for three days."

  "Don't worry, sweetie. I'll take care of Morris, all right?"

  A dead cold weight sinks in my stomach.

  “I think I may have given him a vague idea that Morris contacted me to imply that he'd kidnapped my father, presumably with the intention of forcing me into a dangerous situation,” I murmur. “At least, that's how Dad would have taken it if he … you know, wasn't Dad.”

  Troy sighs, “Would he have read your mind to double-check?”

  “He doesn't read his family's minds. Haven't you read his autobiography?”

  He pushes to his feet and scans the floor for his slippers in an obvious attempt to avoid looking at me. “Right. That must have been a quote that came later in the book than the puffed-up glory stories from his college days. I threw the book onto my lawn when I hit that adverb-laden anecdote about turning back the Martian bird people invasion all by himself. I think it may still be out there under my grass collecting moisture, mold and more bad literary reviews as we speak.”

  I block him out as much as I can manage, mentally snatching at the loose threads from today while attempting to uncover where my father's reaction might fit into it all. So let's say the man who returned to my mother with open arms and a dimmed smile really isn't who he says he is. He arrives at their condo as though nothing is out of the ordinary, as though their public cover story of white picket fences never ended, and imagining my mother's reaction to his surprise arrival slips my arms around my chest in a sorry effort to warm myself up.

  “M
y mother would have noticed,” I rasp out.

  “Would she want him back enough to fake it?”

  Would she? Mom would strong-arm every reporter at the Town Crier if it meant she could stop living the lie she's been suffering through the past few years. God knows she's got more than enough experience with lying through a bright clenched smile to smokescreen anybody at this point. It doesn't matter what my father might have told her before he packed his bags and left. A magically dim Everett Noble would be a public relations gold mine for her, easy and affectionate and buying into the traditional-family lie enough to tilt it towards reality.

  “I want to be adopted,” I groan, letting my head drop into my hands.

  Troy puts the bottle on the kitchen counter, slowly tightening the cap back on. “I can't help you with that.”

  “Any other bright ideas?”

  He glances around, a little dazed, possibly more than a little exhausted, and murmurs, “I should probably go.”

  I frown. “What's so bright about that?”

  “You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow. You need time to rest before you do something you'll regret. And I'll do a hell of a lot better trying to help you sort this mess out if I can head back to the privacy of my own place and talk to myself like an escaped mental patient. So I should probably start walking home before it gets late enough for the first-shift folks in town to start hitting the road and catch me in this,” he says, doing a dramatic turn in his robe.

  I giggle in spite of myself, on the verge of tears. “I stand corrected. That's brighter than I would have thought for this time of night.” I take a deep steadying breath, then say, “You know, I can give you a ride.”

  “And I can throw up on your pretty dress. We all have our talents.” He pauses to bless me with a gentle smile. “Go to bed, Vera,” he says, heading for the steps down to the sidewalk.

  He's still looking at me when I take the easy way out and teleport into the bedroom, materializing right under the blankets like the pro that I can be. His surprised laughter carries through the apartment, nudging me towards sleep, and a moment later the far-off click of the downstairs lock pushes me over the edge.

  10.

  My cell phone buzzes me awake on Sunday morning, jolting me out of a deep sleep at ten after five with demanding vibrations that jostle it off the nightstand and send it clattering to the floor.

  I groan and press my pillow over my head, wishing I were the sort who could just roll over and slip back to sleep once again once the alarm's gone off in the morning. I've been trained out of that kind of indulgence, however, too many years of waking bright and early to open Tea and Strumpets ruining my ability to sleep in even on weekends or holidays.

  Shoving the dark heavy mass of my hair away from my face, I slither over the edge of the bed to snag the cell phone from under the edge of the bedspread where it's landed in the wake of its tumble. A quick check of the screen reveals a text message from my mother. Parade @ 11, party @ 10, remember your bells! :D

  She cannot possibly be serious.

  Wait, what am I talking about? Of course she's serious. Why wouldn't she throw a spontaneous party to celebrate Morris's sudden death? She'd probably even give up precious beauty sleep to make all of the little paper hats herself.

  And now that I've jammed my foot back in the door to my old life, she's apparently decided to latch onto my ankle and haul me in.

  There's no such thing as saying “No” to my mother.

  “I hate my life,” I declare to my bedroom.

  After giving myself an appropriate length of time to mourn my tragic existence, I finally crawl myself out of bed with the lure of hot tea, warm muffins, and my usual cold shower to jolt me awake. Caffeine never works quite as well for trashing the still-fresh memory of my toasty bed as the icy splash of chilly water across my back.

  I'm almost enjoying the leisurely stroll of my morning routine, my mind stubbornly avoiding any thought of my troubling family situation. It's easier to focus on brushing out my hair until it gleams, humming along to Eddie Cochrane as I scrub the breakfast dishes, and whatever else passes for inconsequential in my daily routine.

  Today will be hard enough for my mental stability, as far as I'm concerned. I might as well take it easy while I still can.

  I'm fine until I get to my closet, nibbling at my bottom lip as I scan the contents. My mother will want me in Cynthia Rowley or Isaac Mizrahi, something current and striking, preferably a dress that makes me cross my eyes and silently calculate the dent its cost could put in my rent. She'll want the posh socialite she used to pretend I was, right up until I stopped fitting into even the largest sizes of whichever designer disaster she brought home and refused to starve myself anymore to squeeze into them.

  Showing up in a low-cut poison-green wiggle dress is tempting, but I imagine I'll get farther with honey than vinegar in this instance. Sighing, I rifle through a colorful array of dresses before picking out the one least likely to get me disemboweled for my troubles.

  By the time I saunter into Tea and Strumpets thirty minutes later, decked out in a red satin swing dress with its hem flaring out around my knees and a pair of black patent-leather heels with ankle straps on my feet, my nerves have finally started to crawl up on me. Luckily we're two hours away from the lunch rush, all of the booths empty save one, so if I do indulge in a minor nervous breakdown while I'm here I won't embarrass myself all that badly.

  Troy shoots a sideways glance my way from his seat in booth two, the tip of his pen between his teeth, the only sign that he's affected by my outfit the slight slackening of his jaw as I head into the kitchen.

  My cheeks warm with color as he stares my way. I'm almost grateful Dixie's not there to witness it and douse us both in a massive amount of playful teasing.

  All conversation in the kitchen – the grand sum of it coming from Tara, one bubbly flirtatious stream of jokes – deadens as soon as I walk in. Benny lets out a low whistle, and Tara says, “What in heaven's name are you wearing?”

  I swish the dress from side to side, barely concealing an uneven smile. “I know this might come as quite a surprise to you, but this is what's commonly referred to as a dress.”

  “That's not a dress,” Benny rumbles. “That's a Frank Sinatra song.”

  My smile brightens. “I'll take that as a compliment.”

  “You'd better.” He shakes his head, turning back to the pile of dishes he's working his way through washing.

  “So where's Dixie?”

  Tara frowns. “You don't remember? Her niece's bat mitzvah is next weekend. She went to pick up a dress at the mall while she still had a chance.”

  “Oh, right.” I can't help but blush as I shoot a worried glance towards the dining area. Dixie mentioned something last week about possibly being late on Sunday, the only day this week she could afford to be late between the cafe and the two college classes she's taken this semester. Suddenly I feel like a horrible boss, sucking up all of Dixie's free time when Lord knows she doesn't have much to begin with.

  “Oh, don't get your fancy panties in a wad,” Benny snaps as soon as he sees the look on my face. “We can handle this hole-in-the-wall just fine for one morning. I know this place means a lot to you, princess, but it isn't half as complicated as you make it out to be.”

  Tara shoos him away with a warning look, her sun-browned arms casually crossed as she approaches to take a closer look at my outfit. I'd love to show off my dress for her to fawn over, but I'm more concerned about the day-to-day operations of Tea and Strumpets that I've been missing out on. “We're not a hole in the wall,” I blurt out, mildly offended.

  Tara ignores the change of subject. “We're fine, Vera. We've had to scare off a few reporters who thought they were all sneaky, but Benny's been waiting to slip laxatives into the soup for ages now.”

  “Please tell me you're not being serious about the laxatives.”

  She just grins, snapping her gum until the chemically-produced scent of cher
ries wafts through the air. “Look, we'll call you if things really go haywire. You handle what you have to handle.” She tilts her head just so, her crystal-blue eyes locking with mine as she tones down the sugar in her voice. “You holding up all right?”

  I try to shrug good-naturedly, but in the end all I can manage is a fidgety squirm. “I'm not having a nervous breakdown. That's an accomplishment, right?”

  “I hear your brother got out of the clink this morning,” she offers. “At least you've got that going for you.”

  It's hard not to pull a disgusted face at that announcement. If Tara knows Graham is free to move about the planet as he pleases, his face must have been plastered all over the morning news the moment Hollyoak spit him back out into the world like an unwanted watermelon seed. I'd like to think that my mother didn't bother to text me the news of his release because she assumed I already watched the news, but then again I have met the woman before. With my luck, she'll probably spring him on me at the party with an enormous bow wrapped around his neck, at which point both Graham and I can share something in common for once and wish incredibly hard that we'd both been adopted.

  “Oh, good, one less thing to worry about,” I say, my lips pulling into a pained smile that makes my entire face feel tight and numb.

  Something outside draws my attention – a honk of a car horn, the wail of someone's toddler; I'm not entirely sure – and I glance over my shoulder in time for a shock of platinum blond hair to catch my eye as it moves past the front window. For a brief distressing moment I picture myself at the party, hovering next to the catering table as I try to avoid my delighted parents, silently seething as I poke holes into an innocent plate of flan with a silver fork.

  Nobody says I have to go into this mess alone. And to be completely fair, my parents did encourage me to bring someone. It's just a question of whether or not that particular someone would be willing.

  “I'll check in on you guys later, all right?”