The She-Hulk Diaries (3 page)

I couldn’t enjoy watching him go “uh-uh-uh” and collapse backward because the come-on man screamed, “Whadidya do to my brother?” and charged me like a rhino.

I took a step aside, hooking my foot around his ankle to trip him. As he stumbled, I gave a firm chop to the back of his neck and let gravity do the rest. He landed on top of his brother.

By this time, the bartender had come forward with a Louisville slugger. “I’ll take it from here. Thanks, ma’am,” he said, and other customers came over to drag the brawlers out into the street.

I took a deep breath and went back to the booth.

“Jen, you’re as pale as a ghost!” Holden said.

“He called me ma’am! Holden, am I really a ma’am?”

He had the nerve to laugh, but I knew the truth: once a girl gets her first “ma’am,” her chances of ever getting an interesting, sexy, intelligent boyfriend are numbered. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock!

As if things weren’t bad enough, Holden told me that the GLKH partners wanted to know when I planned to move out of the company loft. “I’d let you stay as long as you like, but as the premier firm specializing in superhuman law, our out-of-town and interplanetary guests have plenty of occasions to use a private elevator.”

My heart skidded sideways as I thought fondly of the loft’s panoramic windows with bulletproof glass, the heated floor, the deep whirlpool
bathtub, and the elevator that allowed me to sneak in and out. I thought of the friendly doormen and the proximity to both Dahlia’s salon and her longtime pet-sitting condo. “I really appreciate you letting me stay there.”

“Frankly, I was hoping you or Shulky or the both of you would come back to GLKH and then we could work the transfer of the property into your signing bonus.”

“Holden, I thought you didn’t want Shulky working for you.”

“Caught me. I don’t, but only because she prefers using her muscle even when she could resolve a situation more calmly with her impressive brain. I’d sure like
you
back, though.”

“You know I loved working for you, but the cases at GLKH require 24/7 involvement. I want to participate in activities other than intergalactic negotiations. I want to have a life outside of my profession.”

“I understand.” He patted my hand in that nice grandpa way of his. “There’s no rush. Take your time finding another place.”

We chatted a while longer, but I couldn’t remember anything we talked about because I was FREAKING OUT. There are lots of things I don’t like doing (tax returns, walk-of-super-shame barefoot and in shredded clothes after a hulk-out, yearly performance reviews at the Mansion), and moving was right there at the top of the list.

New priority resolution: find a new apartment as soon as I have a job and can pay deposits and rent.

Extremely
disturbed by Holden’s rubber chicken comment. Also perturbed by being called ma’am. Have I become an old lady rubber chicken? Shulky is annoyed with me trying to analyze this, and she’s grousing, which feels like someone is putting up drywall behind my eyes.

I have one month and nine days until the actual starting date for my resolutions. I picked up my aPhone and sorted through Shulky’s Tweets looking for invites. It’s not as if I have to get up early tomorrow, since I really don’t need to try to find a job just yet.

Fergie wanted to know if She-Hulk wanted to hit a few clubs in the Meat Packing District. Dancing
is
exercise and listening to music
is
a cultural experience, and the Meat Packing District
is
an important historical location.

Still in my pajamas but only because I’ve been working very hard on my goals. Sent off letters to top five dream firms. Okay, since the whole point of this journal is for me to be honest with myself, let me amend that. I sent letters to the top five law firms that haven’t already told me to leave and not let the door hit my ass on the way out. Or to forget we ever met. Or that they can’t miss me if I won’t go away. There have been a lot of variations.

Did a preliminary search on Craigslist for an apartment, but became distracted by vacation rentals. I’ve been to outer space, but never to Paris.
What does that say about me? On my
date romance
hookup with Ellis Tesla, he’d invited me to join the band on their tour of France, and he said dirty things in French with that sexy smutty gravelly voice.
Le sigh
.

It’s stupid to moon about a solitary weekend with him just because of the amazing sex and him singing to me and six-feet-five-inches of rock-solid flesh and brown-hazel eyes and conversations that were much too earnest for our brief acquaintance. Well, they were earnest for me, but he’s had a million girls and promised them all sorts of things.

I must be doing something wrong romantically, because even Shulky’s managed to sustain long-term boyfriends. I’ve only had sincere relationships that got me exactly nowhere.

I was about to add “Visit Paris” to my Valentine’s Day list, but I didn’t want to sabotage myself by getting overly ambitious. This way, if I do make it to Paris, I’ll score bonus points. Maybe I should assign different goals different weights because finding a fantastic boyfriend will be quantitatively more difficult than finding an apartment, once I have a good job.

Do I want to ask D to help me create a calibrated grid? She’s very good at that, but probably not, because she’ll trap me in her flowchart, Venn diagram madness. Sometimes I regret ever encouraging her to take a statistics course.

While I wait for a response to job inquiries, I’m watching public television. Instead of squandering time/money going out, I am becoming more cultured, one of my goals, while wearing my pajamas. Three Tenors = triple opera points. And they sing
way
better than Ellis Tesla.

Inspired by makeover shows, I went through my closet and pulled out all the clothes I’d never worn and never will wear—jackets with sleeves too
short for my long monkey arms, skirts that were too narrow for a roundhouse kick, and revealing dresses that Dahlia convinced me to buy. She doesn’t understand how high-powered attorneys are supposed to dress.

Superheroes have a different dress code, too. Shulky’s PVC, Lycra, leather, sequined, and studded ensembles crammed the guest closets. She always dumps her clothes on the floor, expecting me to put away her thigh-high boots, spangled bikini bottoms, and chain-mail bras. One of her halter tops had something gross and sticky on it. I threw it away and scrubbed my hands with hot water and antibacterial soap.

What advice would I give someone whose messy roommate often saved the world? I’d say, “If finding another roommate is not an option, request compensation for your additional household chores.” Well, that wouldn’t work. “If you have no alternatives, try to see the totality of the relationship and not fixate on individual tasks. Does your roommate provide other services that you are not taking into account?”

Well, Shulky had hung the drapes and she always changed the light-bulbs without complaining. She kills scary spiders in the corners. She only eats out, so she never leaves dirty dishes. Frequently, she brings back bottles of expensive wine, which are useful as hostess gifts, and she always gets passes to movie previews. I didn’t feel so irked as I organized her collection of BeDazzled booty shorts.

Revised/updated CV so it’s ready to go if I get a response to my inquiries. Emailed it to Amy Stewart-Lee for her expert opinion. Ten minutes later Amy called me.

“Jen, it’s so impressive! I sometimes forget all your accomplishments.”

“People tend to remember the chaos,” I said. “Did you find any typos?”

“No, but you might want to focus more on your Supreme Court win and not your extraterrestrial law because most firms want lawyers who’ll remain on terra firma. You should remove your martial arts expertise
from ‘Other Interests.’ You don’t need to remind anyone of unfortunate courtroom incidents. Not that I blame you one bit. Lord knows, if I had your mad wrestling skills I’d constantly be putting opposing counsel in headlocks.”

Amy gave me all the legal gossip from the DA’s office, and she said, “Look, I know you’ve got your online gaming and your real superhuman pals, but the Forestiers, my LARP team—you know what that is, right?”

“Live-action role-playing. I’m actually cutting back on online games. I think I should have more RL interaction.”

“What perfect timing! The Forestiers are having weekly meet-ups in preparation for our Mayfest battle games, and a few of our members moved away, so we’re recruiting. We’re an early Middle Ages team, based on Sherwood Forest legends. It would be great if you could come.”

“Er…” I was trying to think of a way out.

“Don’t
er
me, Jennifer Walters, Esquire! You always
er
before you let loose a scathing opposing argument. This is a way for normal people to enjoy creativity and questing in their lives. Knights and ladies, castles and magic, swords, costumes! We have scenarios and we practice fighting with weapons made of safety-approved materials.”

I sighed and then hoped she couldn’t hear me over the phone. One of my resolutions was to try new things and meet new people. “I really like Sherwood Forest stories. Okay, send me the information. This is not a setup, is it?”

“You are so weird about guys, in light of your adventurous dating history.”

“I’m not adventurous. I met most boyfriends through jobs. Anyway, if it was a setup, that would be
okay
. I’m open to meeting new guys.”

“That’s a change! Most of our team are in relationships, but there are always drop-ins. I can check for single guys at work.”

“None of your defendants, please. Allow me to clarify: I’m open to meeting new guys without a criminal history.”

“Picky, picky! We charge so many elite perps, and if the bail is high enough, they’re usually in town for a Saturday night date. I wish we could
hire you here, but we’re still getting claims from the time your client shot off lightning bolts in our conference room.”

“That was definitely one of the downsides of working in the superhuman branch of Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg, & Holliway. Also, occasionally I got stuck in alternate dimensions.”

“I hate when that happens. I’ll put you on the Forestiers newsletter list and tell our game master to email you info and schedules.”

After we hung up, I checked out the Forestiers’ website and forum. I set about creating my own avatar and dubbed her LadyGreene.

Dragged myself to mandatory session with Dr. Rene Alvarado. It always strikes me as
not
funny that his brownstone is on West 4th, which was once called Asylum Street. He told me that, hardy har har, at my first session. He’d thought I’d ask for Kleenex and confess that I had some terrible dark secret and then he could write up my case in the
Journal of Superhuman Psychiatric Disorders
.

I sat in one leather chair and he sat in another. He looked like an escapee from a hippie lovefest with his Birkenstocks and wooden prayer bead necklaces. His tight wavy hair was as jet-black as it was in old photos. I wondered if he’d stopped his aging process through magic.

He was drinking a Joocey Jooce, which was so predictable, because he’d buy into their “Play nice!” marketing.

We did that standoff thing, waiting for the other to speak, and I won. Our conversation was the usual “So, Jennifer, I would like you to take this opportunity to discuss anything that’s on your mind,” and “Thank you, Dr. Alvarado, and please call me
Ms
. Walters,” because I know about negotiating.

“
Ms
. Walters, you agreed to these meetings as part of your settlement with the Avengers Mansion Trust in order to work on your rage issues, so you have acknowledged that you have a problem.”

“I made no such admission, Dr. Alvarado. She-Hulk has rage issues.”

“Yet you choose to manifest as She-Hulk.”

“Do we really have to go over this again? She-Hulk is the natural consequence of my exposure to gamma radiation.”

“Is she?” He clicked his prayer beads against his teeth, which was really annoying. “There’s no definitive proof that gamma radiation
always
exhibits in rage. Did you choose this bestial form because of repressed pain over your mother’s murder?”

She-Hulk grumbled within me, but I knew Dr. Alvarado had used “bestial” to provoke a reaction. I didn’t say anything, and he finally gave up waiting for me to respond.

“Let’s move on, Jennifer.”

“Ms. Walters.”

“
Ms
. Walters.” He gave me that fake, granola-eating, wavy-arm-dancing smile. “Most people look at the New Year as a time to reflect and reassess their lives, as well as make positive changes. Have you made any New Year’s Resolutions?”

“No. New Year’s Resolutions are designed to fail since they’re made at a time when people are exhausted emotionally and physically.”