Dreams of the Golden Age (2 page)

“How was your day?”

Thirteen-year-old Bethy went first. “We had a quiz today, you know that quiz I told you about, and I think I did okay, but I don’t really know. You won’t be mad if I flunk it, right? ’Cause you saw me studying for it, right?”

“I know you studied. I don’t think you flunked.”

She went on for another minute about gym class, about how she needed a new pair of gym shoes because her old ones were too small, and so on, and on one hand Celia wanted to shake her and tell her stop with the minutiae. But really, the greater impulse was to sit back, smile, and let her go on all day long, just to hear the sound of her not-quite-mature voice tumbling forth. Right now, Celia could fool herself that Bethy was still a little girl, with round cheeks, hair in a ponytail, foot swinging to kick at her chair leg. In a couple of years, she’d be like Anna, slouched in her seat, her mind a million miles away, on boys or school or the problems of the world, or maybe just wanting to get out of her mother’s crummy office and back to the sanctity of her own private life.

Bethy was strawberry blond, but Anna had inherited Celia’s own flame red hair, which she in turn had inherited from her mother. The West redheads. God help her.

Bethy finally wound down and let out a sigh. Amused, Celia said, “I know you’re not going to believe me, kid, but you shouldn’t worry so much. You’ll have plenty to worry about soon enough, don’t spend it all on a math quiz.”

Her youngeest pouted, clearly not believing her, but Celia didn’t expect her to.

“Grandma’s cooking dinner tonight. You guys’ll be ready for it in a couple of hours?”

They brightened at that, which was a comfort. Family still held some attraction for them, for however long that lasted. Gathering their bags, they stood to make their exit.

Celia said, “Anna, you mind talking to me for just a minute?”

Bethy looked at her sister with a wide-eyed expression, like someone rubbernecking at a car accident. Anna herself put on a blank face, a prisoner walking into a courtroom, and returned to her seat.

Eggshells. Celia couldn’t pinpoint the moment when dealing with Anna had become like walking on eggshells, or handling fine china. The change had happened slowly, and then one day she looked up and her oldest daughter wasn’t a little girl anymore, and Celia didn’t know what to say to her.

Treat her with respect.
First rule. Celia remembered being that age, how she felt when people didn’t take her seriously. She wouldn’t inflict that on her own kids if she could help it.

“Hi, Anna,” she said.

“Hi, Mom,” the teenager answered, her thin smile a mask. Her hair was chin length, loose, the color bringing out the faint freckles on her nose. She let Celia catch her gaze, but her expression was neutral.

“I got a call from Director Benitez today. You were late to school. Very late.”

Anna sighed and looked at the ceiling. “It wasn’t that big a deal. It
shouldn’t
have been, I wasn’t hurting anything.”

“You sure about that?”

She didn’t answer.

“So, where were you this morning?”

Her mouth worked, as if chewing over words. “A friend of mine needed help. I couldn’t ignore that, could I?”

Celia believed her, because neither of the girls was a practiced liar. They were smart enough to know that lying wouldn’t get them anywhere, with their father the telepath around. That was something, at least.

“No, of course not. If your friend was really in trouble and if you were really the only person who could help.”

“I was.” She stated it as a challenge.

Celia leaned forward and asked, “Was this friend of yours Teddy Donaldson by any chance?”

Anna gaped. “How—” She clamped her mouth shut, then changed her mind about talking. “Did Dad tell you that?”

“I don’t think Dad knows anything about it. You haven’t seen him since this morning, have you? So how would he know?”

She went into full shutdown mode, as Celia expected, but that was okay. She had her confirmation.

“I applaud your efforts to help your friend. But next time, call me first. We can get you a permission slip or something. Don’t go haring off just because you think something’s a good idea. Got it?”

“Fine.”

“You’re still grounded for skipping school, but just for the weekend instead of till the end of the month, like you would have been if you were off smoking or something. Okay?”

No response, not that Celia needed one.

“And for the next three weeks Tom’s going to be dropping you off in the town car and watching you go through the front doors.”

“Oh, come on!” Anna said.

“Three weeks. Then we renegotiate.”

“Two weeks.”

“Three. Argue again and I’m riding in the car with you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Celia glared. Anna wilted.

“Agreed?” Celia said.

Her daughter slumped in the chair, looking sullen. Looking trapped, really. A familiar expression lately. Celia risked a further prompt, stepping gently. “How was the rest of your day? School, classes … anything else you want to talk about?”

She grimaced. “The usual. It’s fine, I shouldn’t complain, but it’s so … It feels like I’m just going through the motions.”

“Jumping through hoops,” Celia added. “I guarantee you, jumping through the hoops now will make things easier later on. You just have to stick with it.”

Oh, that sigh she gave would power wind turbines. “Then I should get started on my homework, shouldn’t I?” She gathered her things, edging off the chair.

One of these days, Celia feared, Anna was going to walk out of the office and never come back. “Okay. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” she muttered perfunctorily, stalking to the door with her bag over her shoulder.

Celia spent a moment indulging in blind panic, convinced that she’d failed as a mother, her children hated her and were destined to become terrorists or trophy wives, that her entire life would come crashing down around her any day now. The moment passed.

She pulled herself together and finished up a last bit of work, reviewing company financials and arranging her task list for the next day.

“Celia? Your mother has dinner ready.”

A man in his fifties stood in the doorway. He wore tailored slacks, and the top button of his dress shirt was undone. His brown hair needed a trim. He seemed like he would be most at home at a university, standing before a chalkboard, lecturing—studious, upstanding. In fact, he was a practicing psychiatrist and a semiretired superhuman vigilante. Dr. Arthur Mentis.

“Hey.” Celia smiled at her partner of twenty years. “How was your day?”

“Calm. Saw a couple of patients, did some record keeping. Nothing else to report. You?” He spoke with a mild British accent, which added to his intellectual air. He approached her desk and sat on the edge to look down at her. The only person who could get away with that.

“Something’s up with Anna,” she said.

“Being seventeen is what’s up with Anna.”

“Something a little more specific.”

“I couldn’t say what it might be,” he said, shrugging oh so innocently.

“You’re not even tempted to pry?”

“No, because I have a good idea of what else I’d find in that stew of a mind. There are so many things fathers are not meant to know about their daughters, I’m terrified at what she might let slip out.”

What she already had let slip, Celia suspected. Arthur Mentis was very good at picking up stray thoughts, and though Anna had by sheer force of necessity become very good at keeping her thoughts to herself, she wasn’t perfect. But Arthur was also one of the most discreet and understanding men Celia had ever met.

Fathers and daughters, yes. Not that Celia was anything of an expert on the subject. She winced and rubbed at a crick in her neck. She’d been sitting here too long. She seemed to get tired earlier and earlier these days.

“Would she tell us if she had powers?” Celia asked. If Anna had powers, Arthur probably already knew, but he wouldn’t say a word about it until Anna did, no matter how much Celia wheedled. It was one of the things they’d agreed on when they became parents. The girls deserved to keep their secrets, as long as no one got hurt.

Arthur nodded. “I think she would. We have to have faith in her.”

“She ditched school this morning to help out a friend.”

“You see? She has her priorities straight. I think.”

“Tell you what: Next time, you can talk to the headmistress.”

“The headmistress hangs up the phone whenever I answer her calls. She won’t stay in the same room with me, did you know that?”

Arthur had been open and public with his powers for a long time. Everyone knew he was a telepath, and people usually got very nervous around him.

Celia never had.

“I’d noticed, yes. I think it’s funny.”

“It makes me wonder what she’s hiding,” he said.

Indeed. She patted his hand. “Faith, Arthur.”

TWO

A
NNA
rushed out of the sleek black town car before Tom could walk around to open the door for her. Bad enough that everyone would see the limo dropping her off. She could try to lessen the association, keep some of her dignity. Usually, she took the city bus to school, to try to blend in. She didn’t like being noticed.

It would be easier if she could
act
like one of the richest girls at school, showing off ultra-expensive phones and gadgets, driving her own sports car, wearing diamond studs with her school uniform. Other girls did that, forming their own cliques based on brand names and spending in excess rather than on any real friendship, and Anna did everything she could to separate herself from that. She got enough attention as it was, being Anna West-Mentis, daughter and granddaughter of superheroes, and of wealth and influence. And when would she develop superpowers and don a mask to fight crime?

Someday. Someday soon. But no one would know because she wasn’t going to tell them. She was going to do it on her own terms, and she didn’t want everyone—and with her family involved that meant
everyone—
watching.

Bethy was still in the middle school, and Tom would drop her off a block up the road at the next building. She didn’t seem to care what people thought of her or the company car or the superfamily in West Plaza. At least not yet. She got straight A’s and shrugged off the attention, while Anna felt like she was constantly walking through minefields.

Anna had to talk to Teddy before class started, and he wasn’t where he should have been, on the front steps or in the fountain courtyard with the rest of their friends—Teia, Lew, Sam. The certainty of her power confirmed their presence. She imagined it as a compass in the back of her mind, exerting pressure as it pointed the way. She could find people. She wanted to find Teddy, and she knew exactly where he was: in the nurse’s office, which couldn’t be good. The news websites had a story on him today—someone had leaked a still image from the security footage at the jewelry store. Anna had hoped this would pass under the radar of anyone who cared. Fat chance, it turned out. Seriously, what was the point of
having
a secret identity if you got your picture in the paper on your first outing?

She put her head down and marched, hoping to get inside quickly, but didn’t make it past the front steps.

“Oh my God, Anna, what’s up with Teddy?”

Reluctantly, she stopped to answer. Izzy, the girl who’d called her, was tall and loud and way too nosy. One of the girls with a sports car who
wanted
to be noticed. Anna decided to play dumb. “Why? What’s the matter?”

“He looked like he got hit by a truck. Is that why he wasn’t in school yesterday?”

“I can’t say anything until I’ve talked to him.”

“But—”

Anna walked off and through the front doors.

Elmwood prided itself on not looking like a school but more like some hundred-year-old English manor, with carpeted halls, polished wood doors, manicured courtyards, and so on. Like they weren’t students at a school but guests in someone’s mansion. But who made guests take midterms? It was all vaguely ridiculous.

She would have reached the end of the corridor without interruption, but Teia and Lew had moved inside from the courtyard and were waiting to ambush her. They’d probably been watching for her. She’d have avoided them if there was another way out of the corridor and to the nurse’s office. They were twins; Lew’s brown skin was a shade or two darker than Teia’s, but they had the same round dark eyes and sharp features. Teia wore her curly hair back with a headband, making a halo around her face. Lew kept his cropped short. They both blocked her path and studied her like they were about to dissect her.

“What happened to Teddy?” Teia whispered as Lew took her arm and pulled her into a corner. Unlike Izzy, they were in on the whole thing and wouldn’t let her just walk away.

“He did it, didn’t he?” Lew said. “He went out on patrol. He really did it.” His eyes gleamed with excitement. Maybe even with envy.

“And then got the shit beat out of him,” Teia said.

Anna sighed. “And he got his freaking picture in the paper.”

“I know!” Teia exclaimed. “It’s great!”

“Be quiet!” Anna hissed. They were supposed to be keeping this secret. “I have to go talk to him before class starts.”

Lew pointed a thumb over his shoulder and said, “He got called to the nurse’s office—”

“I know that. Can I go now?” She pulled her arm out of his grip and marched on.

“Anna—” they called after her, but she ignored them.

Yesterday, Teddy had called her before school and begged her to come help. He’d had a run-in the night before. She thought he was crazy for going out at all, for thinking he could battle crime, right wrongs, whatever, all by himself. That was why they were practicing as a team, but he just couldn’t wait, could he? Over the phone he kept insisting that the expedition had been successful. He’d stopped a real-live, honest-to-God robbery. He’d just gotten a little banged up was all, and he didn’t want his folks to know. She’d taken the bus to his town house, where he’d been hiding in the garden shed out back.