The She-Hulk Diaries

by Acosta, Marta

  Genoa blushed and said, “Don’t you have work to do?”

  “Yes, but I actually have a reason to be here,” Donner said and then told me that Sven had asked me to call, but it wasn’t urgent.

  I returned to my office and called Sven. He picked up on the third ring—not too soon and not too late.

  “Hello, Sven, how are you?”

  “I only wanted to say that I appreciate all you’re doing. I look forward to this being over, when I can return to my research—and also see you on a personal basis.”

  “Me, too!” I’m sure that after a few more sessions with Rene, I’ll fall madly in love with Sven.

  “I’m so glad to hear that, Jennifer,” he said. “I wondered if you’ve spoken to your friend She-Hulk recently. I heard about the incident last night with the suspected superhuman. What are they calling him? Superbrat. She’s frequently in the proximity of dangerous situations, and I wonder if this could be at all connected with the foiled abduction at Club Nice.”

  He was sort of making it all about himself, but it was understandable since he’d been the target of the kidnapping attempt. “The NYPD has not made a connection between those incidents, Sven. The trail’s gone cold for the nightclub assault—but at least there hasn’t been another. As for Superbrat, I think he’s an inventive crackpot. Last night’s situation was more of a prank. You still have your security team protecting you, right?”

  “Of course, just as you advised. I listen very carefully to everything you say, Jennifer. Your opinion is important to me.”

  My ooky radar began swinging around, probably because I wasn’t comfortable with effusive compliments. “Thank you, Sven. I’ll be in touch.”

  MALICIOUS PROSECUTION

  APRIL 25

  I go to sleep thinking of the case. I dream of the case. I wake up thinking about it. I desperately needed a break from the legal world, and so I took Saturday off and went to a Forestiers fight practice session held in an old ballroom dance studio.

  When I arrived, a dozen little girls in leotards were pulling on their tiny jackets and tiny warm-up pants. At that age, my classmates and I always went out with our dance togs on, wanting everyone to see that we were ballerinas. Shooting up six inches in one year had slapped the attitude and coordination right out of me.

  The little girls stared at the adults with our Nerf swords, balsa wood shields, and lacrosse helmets decorated with silver foil.

  Nelson and Amy were already there, wearing matching vestments made from striped beach towels with crests pinned to their chests.

  “You guys look so cute together!” I said. “I hope I’m not embarrassing you.”

  Amy reached up to tug at my ponytail. “Jen, if wearing a towel poncho doesn’t embarrass me, nothing will.”

  One of the little girls said to her friends, “What a bunch of nerds!”

  My friends and I looked at one another and burst out laughing. Nelson said, “Scorn even from the youngest. I’ll remember that the next time a kid begs me not to tell his mother that he hasn’t been brushing.”

  We had a fantastic workout. I got to practice several different kinds of injuries and was given great direction for more dramatic stealth attack scenes.

  “You’ve just been smote with a two-headed ax, so we need you to emote, Jennifer!”

  “I’m emoting smoting! I’m emoting smoting!”

  I was having so much fun that I didn’t realize our session was over until our leader clapped and thanked us for coming.

  I was trying to straighten out my muslin tunic, which had twisted over my coarse cotton leggings, when I heard someone say, “Jennifer?”

  I looked up and saw Fritz Durning, holding hands with a darling little girl with white-blond hair who was squinting at me. “Oh, hi, Fritz.”

  “Jennifer, this is my daughter Maisie. She’s staying with me this week.”

  “Hi, Maisie.”

  She scrunched her face and said, “You’re not a ballerina. Daddy. You said this was a ballet class!”

  “I am bringing you to ballet.” Fritz looked around at the motley crew of mostly young adults in faux medieval garb. “What is this?”

  “It’s a sword-fighting class for a live action role-playing group.”

  “You were on the floor,” the little girl said. “It’s all dirty.”

  “It’s okay for girls to get dirty,” Amy said.

  “I think so,” Fritz replied. “Maisie, go on and say hello to the other girls.”

  I introduced Fritz to Amy and Nelson, and they did that New York thing of finding out what friends they had in common. Then Amy and Nelson said good-bye, and I was alone with Fritz.

  He smiled and said, “You continually surprise me, Jennifer Walters. I wouldn’t take you for a LARPer.”

  “You know about LARPing?”

  He laughed and said, “I wasn’t always the polished metrosexual you see before you. I still miss those games.”

  “You can join our team.”

  “No, you already lured me into Krav Maga, and Azzan thinks I need to practice more. You know, we have some unfinished business.”

  “Are my sixty days up already?”

  “You know they are,” Fritz said. “Actually, my ex and I are trying to work out a way to be together.”

  “So you’re rescinding your offer?”

  “If I thought you were interested, I’d extend it,” he said with a wink. “So who is he, Jennifer—the guy you’re hiding?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not dating anyone.”

  Fritz held out his arms to display his body and said, “Hon, if you weren’t interested in anyone else, you wouldn’t pass on all this!”

  I started laughing and was saved from a serious response by Maisie, who skipped back with a new friend.

  Question 1: Does everyone assume I’m dating someone? Question 2: Whom do they think I’m dating?

  2:00 P.M.

  Rene has office hours every other Saturday, so I came in, bringing a Joocey Jooce for him and a double latte for me. He sat in his big armchair, looking like a nice hippie grampa, and said, “You handled the situation at Lincoln Center very efficiently. Well, except for stealing the motorcycle, breaking dozens of traffic laws, and damaging all those taxis.”

  “Thanks, Rene, but that was Shulky, not me.”

  “Okay, we’ll keep working on merging your bifurcated personality,” he said. “But Shulky didn’t go out afterward and cause a ruckus, and that’s a huge improvement. She also collaborated with a former antagonist.”

  “Thanks, I guess, but I think she’s feeling a little down at being left out of things with the other superheroes. She finally goes out to have some innocent fun—”

  “Which involved vehicular theft and damage.”

  “Innocent fun—the bike was a loan—only to have her evening interrupted by Superbrat, who seems to have it in for her. Once again, she saved the city from devastating economic and emotional collapse, and all the media says is that she’s a superloser and a She-Hasbeen.”

  “That hurts your feelings?”

  “Yes… because I care about her. She’s cheerful and brave, and her primary desire in life is to defend the vulnerable.”

  “I see,” he said, sipping thoughtfully on his Joocey Jooce. “Are you ready to talk about your mother’s death yet?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Later then, but you have to face the source of your rage or else you’ll—Shulky, I mean—will keep acting out inappropriately.”

  “I will face it, but not just yet.” I hoped the calming herbs had worked on him already. “There’s something else I’d like to talk about, but you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

  He looked affronted. “Jennifer, everything you say here as yourself or as She-Hulk is strictly confidential.”

  “Just confirming that. Okay, you know how you were talking about passion and you brought up ‘Flesh-Eating Bacteria Girl’?”

  “The Fri
nge Theory song? It’s one of my favorites.”

  I took a breath and got up my nerve. “Rene, I’m the flesh-eating bacteria girl.”

  He choked on his smoothie and went into a coughing fit. I got up to pat him on the back until he caught his breath. He gazed up into my face and said, “Holy moley! Seriously? Your green eyes, your long legs, your pert—Of course, you are.”

  So I told him about meeting Ellis Tesla and having the most passionate weekend of my life, waiting desperately for Ellis to call me, and eventually giving up on him. “Every time I heard one of his songs from the Gin Cycle, it was like a knife turning in my back. I knew it was just a lie because he hadn’t called me.”

  “He might have had a good reason for not calling, and you could have gone to him, Gin. I mean, Jennifer.”

  “Right, I could have showed up at a concert and hoped he’d pick me out of the crowd again. But what if he didn’t? What if he picked out some other girl and told me, ‘Hey, it’s only rock ’n’ roll’?”

  “You’ll never know, though, because you gave up after leaving one message.”

  “Everyone gives up after leaving one message,” I said, and then I saw him smile. “Except you, Rene. You kept trying to get me to come back here.”

  “I like a challenge, and you’re a challenge,” he said warmly. “You overcome resistance in your career, yet you relent so easily in your emotional life. How does She-Hulk feel about Ellis Tesla? Didn’t she kiss him at the Club Nice incident?”

  “She thinks he’s sexy and dynamic.”

  “You think he’s sexy and dynamic, Jen.”

  “It’s different because he was interested in her, too. All men are interested in her. Even Victor von Doom has a sick fascination with her,” I said. “It’s more complicated anyway. Ellis is engaged to my heinous colleague, Amber Hammerhead. I don’t stand a chance.”

  Rene stared at me for a long time while he tugged at his beard and then fiddled with his wooden prayer beads. There was a tapping at his door. “I think we’re getting more to the meat of the matter, and we need to continue this discussion, Jennifer, okay?”

  “Next time.” And I don’t know why, but I hugged the crunchy little man before I left.

  5:00 P.M.

  I went for a run in favorite neighborhoods to look for moving trucks and people vacating apartments. Saturdays are for couples, and that’s all I saw—couples holding hands, having drinks at window tables, pushing baby strollers together, carrying groceries… While I was looking into a flower shop window, an attractive couple bumped into me as they ran by in their matching gear.

  They didn’t even say sorry, which meant that things were a little more normal in the city, but I was annoyed. I picked up my pace and passed them easily. I could hear their footsteps behind me, trying to catch up to me, and I turned and ran backward. I smiled and waved at them before leaving them in the dust.

  I’m usually not so petty and show-offy, but I feel like I’ve hit a wall with my resolutions. The prospect of an OMG! amazing boyfriend is not the same as the actuality of one on a Saturday night when everyone else is going out. Even amnesiac superhumans had better social lives than me. I know because Dahlia called to ask me if I thought it was okay for her to have dinner with Adam.

  “Absolutely, but go somewhere low-key. He’s still got an enemy out there.”

  “I’m going to his place and he’s cooking. Evidently that’s one of his talents.”

  “Be careful, Dahlia, and you can always call me if there’s any problem.”

  “What are you going to do tonight?”

  “Work.”

  “But it’s Saturday night.”

  “I already took the afternoon off and had lots of fun.”

  “Yes, because you’re a sparkling goddess of whimsy. What did you really do?”

  “I went to an amazing salon and got a brand-new cut and went blond.”

  “You didn’t! You couldn’t! How could you!”

  “Kidding! Bye, and be careful, D.”

  I will enjoy a worthwhile evening of important self-improvement tasks!

  Filed even my ragged fingernails

  Folded my towels so the edges all face the same way

  Threw out all the mini-containers of condiments from takeout meals

  Ordered recordings of the Three Tenors to be delivered to Bruce

  Cut up old sheets so I can make cute dish towels from the material

  Ordered sewing books from Amazon

  Bid on a sewing machine at eBay

  Bid on an autographed cast photo of Wicked

  Bid on Fringe Theory’s rare Grilled & Melted LP

  9:00 P.M.

  Yippee! Just got a call from Ruth, and I thought it was because I was the only one available for a Saturday night crisis because everyone else was out either saving the world or on a date or both. But she said, “Hi, Jen! Are you still looking for a new place?”

  “Yes, I was looking today. Have you heard of something?”

  “I have—so long as you don’t mind that there’s not a lot of natural light. Actually, there’s no natural light, but it’s totally bombproof. It’s huge, completely updated, with high ceilings, two full master suites, an office, a guest bedroom, and an additional bath. The best part is that it’s got OMG! amazing secret access to the entire city.”

  “It sounds too good to be true. What’s the rent?”

  “Take a seat because this is OMG! amazing! The cost is nothing! The apartment is in one of the old subway tunnels and it’s available only to superheroes. You can live there for a month or for years. It’s completely up to you.”

  I was standing up and clutching the phone. “How come I haven’t heard of it before?”

  “Hawkeye built it one of the times the Mansion was wrecked, and you know how he and Shulky are always at each other’s throats. It’s a fantastic place, fully furnished. I’m sending you pics now.”

  Her photos showed a luxurious space with an expansive wall of windows and a skyline view. “It’s marvelous,” I said. “But I’m looking at a panoramic view.”

  “The windows display time-accurate scenes with artificial sun so you can keep a sense of the day. The space can function as an emergency bunker, and there’s a fully equipped personal gym. You can throw bodies around and no one will hear you.”

  That cinched the deal.

  “There’s just one thing,” Ruth said. “You’ve got to promise that Shulky won’t demolish it.”

  “That’s no problem, because She-Hulk has turned a corner and matured. She’s got her wild personality completely under control.”

  “That’s amazing, Jen! I knew you would work things out.”

  I left a message for Holden that I’d be out of the loft by the end of the month.

  I wished that South American soccer announcer could yell, “Goooooooooal!” for me, because I’ve completed another resolution. As I was writing this, I saw the goldenrod flyer about the bar band at Juliet & Snickers. I suddenly feel energized, and I still have time to score more culture and outside-comfort-zone points.

  10:30 PM.

  Arrived at Juliet & Snickers wearing new jeans, demi-boots that I can kick off if necessary, a tight black T, and a sixties cropped leather jacket. I’d used Dahlia’s four tips to achieve big hair, which actually require fourteen steps and three products, and applied extra mascara and dark liner so my eyes would look sexy behind my glasses.

  A homemade poster announcing FRACTIOUS FARADAY LIVE! was in the window. The crowd filled the sidewalk, no one bothering to stand in line. I edged forward, inextricably drawn by the band, even though the sound was muddled on the street.

  The bouncer waved at me, saying, “Squeeze yourself in, stretch.”

  Once I was inside the jam-packed bar, the noise coalesced into music, which I recognized yet didn’t recognize. Because Ellis Tesla was at the front of the small stage looking as if he’d stepped right out of my fantasies and memories, with his thick brown hair mussed up, wearing a vinta
ge Laika and the Cosmonauts T-shirt and beat-up jeans.

  He said, “This is a new one. It’s about how we delude ourselves about the one that got away. It’s called ‘Incomplete Data,’ ” and then the lead guitarist let loose with a surf rock intro, and Ellis began to sing in that tequila-and-gravel voice that made all my girly parts thrum.

  An individual incident

  Is not a valid set of information

  But I extrapolated

  Arriving at the wrong destination

  And when he sang the next line, the crowd roared as they recognized who he was.

  That green-eyed bacteria girl

  Threw me into confusion

  When I lost her, I thought I’d lost a dream

  But she was only my delusion

  Because she isn’t what she seemed

  Because she’s hard and cold and mean

  Because I wasted all that time

  Singing Gin with every rhyme

  Because infection wrecked my brain

  I didn’t even know her name.

  I don’t care, don’t care, won’t care

  Anymore ’bout that green-eyed girl.

  It was at that moment that he stood at the edge of the stage, leaning out over the first row of the audience. He looked around and he saw me and jerked back as if he’d been struck. There was a second when we were caught in each other’s gaze. And then he sang directly to me, about me, and I felt a deep, overwhelming ache as my heart broke all over again, just as it had when I’d realized he was never going to call me.

  Don’t care, don’t care, won’t care

  Anymore.

  A woman who is real’s worth far more

  Than someone who never was what I thought

  Shouldn’t have extrapolated

  With insufficient data because

  That green-eyed girl was only a brief, wild ride

  And I’ve got a long journey ahead.

  Don’t care, don’t care, won’t care

  Anymore about her.