Less Than Hero (24 page)

“You didn’t answer my question,” Sophie says, apparently unimpressed by our pseudonyms. “How is it possible that you’re all able to do these things?”

“Well,” I say, trying to come up with some way to sugarcoat my answer, but at this point it’s just a bitter pill. “We decided that it’s probably a result of all the pharmaceutical drugs we’ve taken over the past five years. And possibly because of this one specific clinical trial we all volunteered for a few months ago.”

Sophie stares at me through a long and uncomfortable silence that makes me wish I’d kept my mouth shut. I’d rather she get angry or yell at me. At least then I’d know what she was thinking. This inscrutable silence is worse. I just hope she doesn’t ask me how long this has been going on.

“So . . . how long has this been going on?” she asks.

I don’t have to be a mind reader to know that Sophie isn’t going to be happy if I tell her the truth. But if I’m coming clean, I might as well bring out the soap and water.

“A few weeks,” I say, using more water than soap.

“Really?” There’s a sense of hurt and disappointment in her voice and on her face, which makes it that much more difficult to keep going.

“Give or take,” I say.

“Give or take how much?”

I shrug and decide that my fingernails look fascinating at the moment. “Give or take a couple of months.”

Sophie opens her mouth, then closes it and looks down at the newspaper. I’m guessing she’s not doing it to get any more information. It’s just someplace to look other than at me.

“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this before?” she asks, her voice calm, almost comforting, like we’re discussing a traumatic experience. Or erectile dysfunction.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” I say. “And the longer I waited, the harder it got to say anything.”

In my head, that sounded like a reasonable excuse. But hearing the words come out of my mouth, they just sound trite and pathetic and empty.

Something a coward would say, not a superhero.

“Lloyd . . . you should have told me,” she says.

Sophie never calls me Lloyd, which isn’t a good sign. It’s more like
C
LOSED FOR
R
EPAIRS.
Or
G
OING
O
UT OF
B
USINESS.

“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. I was afraid you wouldn’t understand and would want me to go see a doctor.”

“You’re right. I don’t understand. And you should go see a doctor.” She stands up and grabs a bag of pixie dust off the side table. “Having the ability to make other people fall asleep isn’t normal. And it’s not natural.”

“Not everything has to be natural,” I say. “Look at Spider-Man. Or Captain America. Or any of a bunch of other superheroes . . . What are you doing?”

Sophie is sprinkling pixie dust over the plants. “This helps me to relax. And superheroes aren’t real, Lloyd. They’re make-believe. Comic book characters. You’re not a comic book character.”

“I know I’m not a comic book character,” I say, then decide to appeal to her charitable and practical sides. “But I’m helping people, doing something that matters. Being more ambitious. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“I wanted you to find something that you cared about,” she says. “I didn’t expect you to get dressed up in boots and a cape and go out to fight crime.”

“We don’t wear costumes,” I say. “And I do care about this. As a matter of fact, it’s the first time I’ve ever cared about anything in my life.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth I want them back—like when you press
SEND
on an e-mail to your company mailing list and realize you’ve included a link to porn spam a second after you click the mouse.

“What I mean is . . . something other than you,” I say. “Like a job or a hobby. Like the way you feel about working at Westerly or helping people to eat healthy or volunteering at the SPCA. That’s how I feel about this.”

She doesn’t say anything but just continues to sprinkle her pixie dust over her plants.

“Don’t you like the idea of having a boyfriend who’s a superhero?” I say.

“I don’t want a superhero,” she says. “I just want Lloyd.”

“I
am
Lloyd,” I say. “A new and improved Lloyd. You even said you noticed something different about me and that you liked it. You only wished you understood where it came from. Well, now you know where it came from. It’s because I’m happy with who I am. For the first time in my life. And isn’t that what you said? That was all you wanted for me? To be happy?”

Sophie’s quiet for several moments, looking at one of the plants, a Chinese evergreen that isn’t quite living up to its name.

“I do want you to be happy, Lollipop,” she says. The fact that we’re back to Lollipop is a good sign. “But I’m worried about this ability you’ve developed. Whatever is causing this to happen, you need to get it fixed.”

“I don’t know if I
can
get it fixed. For all I know, it might be permanent.”

“You don’t know that,” she says. “Maybe if you tell someone about what’s happened to you, they can figure out how to make it better.”

“Maybe,” I say. “Or I might end up in some kind of research facility where they would do tests on me and you’d never see me again.”

Yet another example of something that sounded more reasonable in my head than coming out of my mouth.

“Besides, even if I wanted to get it fixed,” I say, “even if someone could reverse this or make it stop . . . I can’t do it now.”

“Why not?” Sophie sprinkles pixie dust on a spider plant that looks closer to an actual web.

“Because we have to do something about Blaine.”

“Blaine? What did he do?”

“He’s Mr. Blank,” I say. “A supervillain. He came over to Randy’s and stole Vic’s memories and may have put Charlie in a coma. By the way, I think all the pixie dust you’re using is what’s killing the plants.”

Sophie turns to face me. “Charlie’s in a coma? Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“Because I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Really?” She now most definitely looks upset. I think I prefer the calm and enigmatic Sophie. “Is that why you just told me you think I’m killing the plants?”

“It was more of an observation,” I say. “But while we’re on the subject, I think the pixie dust is also what’s causing Vegan’s upper-respiratory infections.”

Maybe not the best time to bring this up, but eventually I was going to have to say something. And since I’m baring the truth, I figure I might as well let it all hang out.

“I also may have inadvertently used my superpower on Vegan and made him fall asleep,” I say. “Which is probably why he’s been so weird lately.”

Sophie just stares at me, not saying anything. Then her face scrunches up and her brow furrows before she takes the rest of her pixie dust and thows it in my face, blinding me with sparkling metallic glitter. I can feel it stuck in my eyelashes as well as on my lips and up my nose, making it difficult for me to breathe.

No wonder Vegan gets URIs and all of the plants die. This stuff is like cosmic mucus.

By the time I’m able to get most of the pixie dust out of my eyes and nose, Sophie has retreated to the bedroom and locked the door.

“Sophie?” I say, knocking on the door.

No response. Just Simon and Garfunkel and the sound of silence.

I’m beginning to sound like Randy.

“Sophie . . . ?”

“I think you should go,” she says through the door. Not with anger or resentment or muffled by tears, just a simple statement of fact.

“Okay,” I say, thinking she just needs some time alone. “When should I come back?”

“No. I mean I think you should
go
. As in,
go
go.”

I look around as if expecting to find an interpreter who can explain what she just said.

“You mean permanently?” I say. “As in never coming back?”

There’s a long, drawn out silence before she answers: “Maybe.”

While I didn’t expect that Sophie would be happy when I told her the truth about everything, it never occurred to me that she might kick me out.

A moment later the bedroom door opens and Sophie walks out carrying her backpack, dressed in her Westerly shirt.

“Can we talk about this?” I ask.

“We already talked,” she says, walking away from me and into the kitchen.

I follow along behind her, making sure to give her some
angry-girlfriend space as she prepares Vegan’s dinner and puts fresh water in his bowl.

“Is this because of what I did to Vegan?” I ask. “Or because of what I said about your pixie dust?”

She pushes past me out of the kitchen without making eye contact and starts putting on her coat and scarf.

“Sophie?”

“It’s because of everything,” she says, her back to me, her voice low and subdued. “But mostly it’s because you didn’t respect our relationship enough to share what was happening with you. You didn’t respect what we have enough to be
honest
with me.”

As she puts on her coat and slips her arms through her backpack, I try to think of something to say to fix this, but I realize at this point I’ve said enough. Probably too much. While Neil Young might not be around to lament about needles, the damage is done.

Fucking Randy.

Sophie turns around and looks at me and I realize she’s been crying.

“Can you stay with one of your friends for a while?” she asks.

“Yeah. I guess so.”

She nods once and purses her lips. “When I come home from work, I think it would be a good idea if you weren’t here.”

I consider arguing that this is my apartment, too. That I’ve lived here for five years and I shouldn’t have to leave, but that would just make things worse. So I nod and say, “Okay.”

Sophie looks at me a moment longer, then turns and grabs her umbrella and walks out the front door.

S
he kicked you out?” Frank says, then bites into his third piece of pepperoni pizza. Or maybe it’s his fourth. I’ve lost count. We ordered two large pies from Domino’s and had them delivered to the hospital. From the looks of it, Frank intends to eat at least one of the pies by himself.

In the aftermath of Charlie’s seizure and stroke, Frank has ballooned to over 250 pounds.

I can’t say I expected to be spending Thanksgiving in the hospital cafeteria eating Domino’s with Frank, Randy, Isaac, and Vic, but it’s nice to do something to support Charlie, even if he doesn’t know we’re here.

“I’m staying at Charlie’s until Sophie and I can work things out,” I say, taking a bite of pizza and wishing it was Sophie’s gluten-free vegan cornbread and wondering who she’s spending Thanksgiving with.

“Why’d she k-kick you out?” Isaac asks.

“She was upset that I waited three months to tell her about everything,” I say. “And that I wasn’t honest with her from the beginning.”

I leave out how I told Sophie she was responsible for Vegan’s health problems and that she was killing the houseplants with her pixie dust. And that I used my superpower on her cat.

There are some things your friends don’t really need to know.

“So what are we going to do about Blaine?” Randy says. He’s been mostly silent and serious and hasn’t made any obscure references to classic rock bands or his sexual exploits.

“Who?” Vic asks.

Isaac snickers. “Every t-time you say that you s-sound like an owl.”

“And every time you open your mouth, you sound like a jackass,” Vic says.

At least we’re all supportive of one another in this time of crisis.

The good news is that Blaine apparently didn’t have enough time to permanently erase our memories about how to access our superpowers. The bad news, other than Charlie suffering a seizure and a stroke and being in a coma, is that Vic’s memory of Blaine is still MIA.

“I have an idea about Blaine,” I say.

“Let’s hear it,” Randy says.

It’s an idea that’s been brewing in my head for the last few days, something that started percolating when Vic and I took care of a couple of would-be muggers in Tompkins Square.

“Blaine and I used to play chess a couple of times a month,” I say. The five of us are sitting far enough away from everyone else in the cafeteria so no one can hear our conversation. Still, I lean forward and speak in a conspiratorial voice. “We’d play at Tompkins Square, Bryant Park, all over the city. Sometimes we’d play for drinks or doughnuts.”

“Dunkin’ Donuts?” Frank asks, licking his fingers.

“Doughnut Plant,” I say. “Jesus, who cares? It doesn’t matter what kind of doughnuts. What matters is that most of the time, I’d win. Until he developed his superpower.”

“What was his superpower again?” Vic asks.

“Memory loss,” I say. “Anyway, I was thinking I could convince Blaine to meet me somewhere by suggesting we play for something a little more substantial than drinks or doughnuts.”

“Like w-w-what?” Isaac asks.

“I don’t know yet,” I say. “But once I convince him to meet me, preferably somewhere with lots of people, then the four of you sneak up and surround him so he doesn’t see you coming. Then we all hit him with our superpowers at the same time.”