Hero (16 page)

"Let's see ..." Golden Boy leafed through another pile of folders, apparently dockets on each of us, the background infor¬mation we'd filled out, data, and results from our tryouts. "Larry, how 'bout you go next."

Larry popped two aspirin and chased it with a swig from a tiny bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

"Where's the bathroom on this floor?" He sneezed, and Miss Scarlett fanned away the air with her wet hands.

"I'm Ruth, I see things, and that's all you need to know. Who's next?"

Now I was the only one left. I thought about what I was going to say: Oh, hi there, I'm Thorn. I just want to say what an honor it is to be a part of this prestigious team. A leader that wants to kick my ass, some bitchy girl with a major attitude problem, a geriatric precog, a guy who should probably be quarantined at the Center for Disease Control, and me, just your average, ordinary, gay teen superhero. Surely we're what the founding members had in mind when they banded together to form the world's premier superhero group. What's not to be excited about?

"I'm Thom." I scratched a dry patch above my elbow. "I can heal things. Sometimes."

The rest of the day was spent getting certified in CPR and first aid. It was redundant for me because I'd been getting my certification renewed every year for the past few summers as a lifeguard. Larry got in a fight with the Red Cross volunteer because he wouldn't put his lips on the dummy to practice mouth-to-mouth. I, for one, thought he was being awfully considerate of his other teammates.

When it came her turn to practice on the dummy, Ruth took a deep drag and blew smoke into the doll. She fell into another coughing fit, laughing as smoke came out of the dummy's ears. The Red Cross volunteer was unamused. I hoped the next practice would offer a little more challenge, maybe we'd even see a little action soon.

Golden Boy suggested that next time we try a few ice¬breakers to get to know each other. Ruth balked at the idea of the trust fall, so Scarlett suggested suck-me/blow-me.

"What's that?"

"Yeah, right," she said. "Like you don't know."

I still didn't know what she was talking about, but I definitely knew I didn't like the way she implied that sucking and blowing were things I'd know more about than anyone else.

After the workout session, I went to the guys' locker room on our floor to shower, and I heard voices while I was toweling off. I crouched behind the last row of lockers and saw Golden Boy follow Silver Bullet into the room. Silver Bullet was carrying a crate full of personal items.

"Why can't I keep my locker upstairs with you guys?" Golden Boy had a slight whine to his voice. Maybe he was younger than I thought.

"Look, Kevin, Justice was very clear. This is the way it needs to be for now. I know it's hard, but I expect you to handle

this with the dignity and valor of the hero I've taught you to be, understand?"

Golden Boy puckered his mouth like he wanted to say something but was too frustrated. Finally, he relaxed and nodded.

"Look at it as an opportunity," Silver Bullet said. "This team is like a lump of clay for you to shape. If you do well with them, you'll be back on the team in no time."

Silver Bullet handed Golden Boy the personal items from his locker. I could make out a few trophies, a couple of pictures of sports heroes, some socks. I barely blinked and Silver Bullet was gone. Golden Boy stood there alone with his stuff and faced his new locker, a blank stare on his face. Then he dropped the crate and it landed on the concrete floor with a loud smack that made me jump.

Golden Boy looked up and saw me, my towel wrapped around my waist.

"What the hell are you looking at?" He leveled me a look of death. I turned around and finished changing and got out of there as quickly as someone without superspeed could.

Miss Scarlett blew past me on her way out of the womens' locker room.

"Make way, loser, I'm late for work." She swung her pizza carrier and swiped me in the back of the knee, and I crumpled down to the floor. I closed my eyes, savoring the comfort of the cold, hard tile.

"You know, they have cots in the back if you really want to lie down." I looked up and saw Ruth standing over me. She lit a cigarette and pressed the elevator button. She went fishing for her keys in an old Jazzercise gym bag slung over her shoulder,

and I figured it was a good time to make conversation. Out of everyone on this team, she seemed to hate me the least.

"Those things will kill you, you know," I said, and pushed myself off the floor.

Her expression was hard to read.

"Not me, they won't." She took a long drag.

"I had an uncle who died of lung cancer. He didn't think they'd kill him, either." I realized I was doing a pretty lousy job of making a new friend, but I kept going on with it anyway because at least she hadn't knocked me back down on the floor yet.

She gave me a look like she thought I might be pulling her leg.

"I can see the future, remember? Superpower ..."

God, I really am an idiot. She took another drag and mut¬tered something to herself under her breath as she fiddled around in her purse for a mint. She scraped some lint off the candy and popped it in her mouth.

"So what's going to happen to me, you know, in the future? Do I make the team?" I knew it was a stupid thing to say before I even finished saying it, but I just wanted to keep the con¬versation going. She shot me a weary look that said, You can't possibly think you're the first person to ask me that. I looked in her eyes and couldn't figure out if I saw disappointment or aggravation. I like to think that she expected more of me.

"It doesn't work that way," she said, the same way she'd talk to a puppy who'd just peed on her rug.

"You mean you can't always see the future?" I asked.

She turned the candy over in her mouth and let a deliberate silence fill the air.

"Oh, you mean you just won't tell me," I said. What was I doing now? Challenging her? She eyed me for a second.

"You can't slip a coin in me and expect me to tell you everything you want to know," she said. "Cigarettes and booze, maybe, a couple of Vicodins or Percodans, definitely. But coins, no."

I laughed out loud and thought I saw her crack a smile, just barely, in the left corner of her mouth, hidden by the long ash of her cigarette. "Here, step into the light, let me look at you."

She spun me around and gave me a serious once-over. I waited a long beat for her to say something. It felt like a year's worth of years passed in that moment, and I wondered what exactly it was that she was seeing. Or was it that she was seeing something so horrible that she was trying to figure out the best way to break the bad news to me.

My mind raced with possibilities. She could have been seeing good things, too. Maybe I ended up living in a beach shack on a tropical island with Viggo Mortensen and we'd go horseback riding on the shore every day. No, more likely it was bad. Maybe I got sick: Parkinson's, maybe; heart disease. Did I ever get a chance to have kids? Did they die before me? Was I going to be bald before thirty? Would I ever get to see my mom again? Or maybe she saw who was following me—the outcome revealed in the future in such a terrible way that it rendered her speechless.

"You got secrets."

She stated it matter-of-factly. My eyes grew wide. I couldn't help it. My stomach dropped, and I suddenly wished I'd listened to the directions when Golden Boy showed Typhoid Larry to the nearest bathroom. She knew. She had to.

"I hate secrets," she said.

The elevator door opened and she stepped inside and hit a button.

"I'll tell you this much," she said. "You got your work cut out for you."

She patted my head, making me feel like the incontinent puppy I was. Then the elevator doors closed and she disappeared.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I HAVE A BAD HABIT of trying to carry too many things at once. It almost got me fired my first day on the job at the Picadilly Cafeteria when I stacked too many dessert plates in the plastic bin so that a giant blob of blueberry pie and chocolate pudding leftovers teetered on top of the last saucer. The saucer flipped over and spilled the mess into some old lady's lap. And it turned out to be my manager's mother.

So today I was trying to be fast and efficient, but careful not to spill. I kept my eye on the clock. If I could clear the tables from the lunch rush fast enough, I could get a head start on the dish washing, which would put me out of there with a full twenty minutes to spare to make it to the League headquarters. Maybe I'd even be early.

I'd vowed never to be late again, that's for sure. The one and only time I showed up late for my League probationary

training, I wa$ called in for a one-on-one sit-down with the

heavy hitters.

"They're waiting for you," Golden Boy said, looking down at his watch.

"Sorry I'm late, I—"

"Just go, you've already kept them waiting long enough." Golden Boy swept me through the door. I wanted to smack that smirk right off Scarlett's face as I passed by her.

Inside I discovered it was worse than I'd expected. It was the whole League. All of them, seated on the dais, a tribunal staring at me. I swallowed. This was it, I was going to be let go. I should have known better than to keep two jobs on top of my training, but we needed the money. I didn't want to make excuses. I thought about my father, and I decided to stand my ground.

"Have a seat," Justice said from his lofty position. I could feel their eyes bearing down upon me. I thought I even heard Warrior Woman growl.

I closed my eyes and cleared my throat, ready for the worst. When I looked up, Silver Bullet was standing right in front of me.

"Hold out your hand," he said. His face betrayed no emotion.

What was this? Were they going to whack my knuckles with a ruler?

I tentatively held out my hand, scanned the eyes of the League on the dais in front of me.

Silver Bullet slipped a ring on my finger.

"Congratulations," Justice said. A few smiles crept over their faces. "Your League probationary ring."

I stared down at the ring, couldn't believe it was on my finger.

"This is an outward symbol of an inner belief, a reminder that wherever you go, you're part of a team." Justice hovered closer to me. "It also serves as a tracking device, if you're ever in trouble and you need help." He floated directly in front of me, slightly above my eye line and then descended to my level. "And most important"-—he shook my hand—"it has the League emer¬gency signal."

The next day I dropped the ring in the sink at work and thought for sure I'd lost it. I searched everywhere, even unscrewed the pipes, but nothing. Before I went into a full panic, I heard a funny noise from the Hobart dishwasher. I'd just put a load in, but something sounded loose in the machine, like a piece of dish had chipped off. I heaved open the door to the industrial-size machine and pulled out the trays of plates and mugs, and there in a coffee cup was my ring.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one could see me and slipped the ring back on my finger. Still hot from the wash cycle, it burned my skin. But I didn't care. It actually felt good. I hoped it had burned a place onto my finger so it would never fall off again.

Since today I was in a hurry, I contemplated stacking one more dinner plate on top of the dishes in my bin, but decided against it. One more sweep in the dining room, I could get started load¬ing my dishes and be out of there by— "Hello."

My heart did a somersault.     

Goran sat in a booth, his little brother across from him picking at a piece of corn bread with his fork. He wore his security guard uniform, which made his shoulders look even broader. I looked for bags under his eyes from working the late shift, but I couldn't find any. Even in the dismal lighting of the Picadilly Cafeteria, his dark eyes lit up the room.

Then he smiled at me again.

I opened my mouth and somehow managed to say "Hi."

"Thorn." My shift manager pulled me aside by the arm, and I almost dropped all my dishes. "I need you to stay late, Manny went home sick."

Trying to hide my disappointment, I wiped the sweat off my forehead. I looked over at Goran, who pretended not to look at me as my boss ordered me around. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw his little brother snickering at me.

"Look, just finish Manny's dishes and you can go, okay?"

"Okay," I said, and hurried into the kitchen with my tray.

I loaded that Hobart faster than any human ever had before, Manny's dishes, too. I noticed my reflection in the sink full of rinse water and saw that when I'd wiped the sweat off my brow, I'd accidentally smeared whipped cream from a chocolate pudding dish all over it. That must have been what Goran's lit¬tle brother was laughing at. I didn't have time to feel the embarrassment; I scrubbed off the mess with the corner of my apron and studied the tall stack of pots and pans that still needed to be washed. How was I ever going to get out of there on time?

"Someone's looking for you out front," my manager called out to me. "Says he has a tip for the busboy." I dropped my shoulders. I didn't have time for this. Plus, I was a total mess and I really didn't like the thought of Goran giving me some token tip because I looked so pathetic at work. It was patroniz¬ing, and it made me mad. Who did he think he was, anyway?

I stopped short of the register, surprised because my father had never come to see me at work before.

"Hey, kiddo."

"I'm kinda busy, Dad." I glanced down at my watch. "I'm trying to get out of here."

Irma behind the register rang up Dad's to-go meal. This was totally unlike him. He never spent money on lunch. He pre¬pared a brown bag every day, which he ate alone in the factory cafeteria. What was he doing here? Was he checking up on me?

"Just wanted to give my favorite busboy a tip." Dad pulled a twenty out of his pocket to pay Irma. He handed her the money first, and then took the bag with his good hand.

I cleared empty serving trays from under the sneeze guards and stacked them in my arms. I spotted Goran and his little brother looking over the dessert section. Goran paid careful attention to his brother's selection, but I could tell he was eye¬ing me with his peripheral vision.