Authors: Alex Ziebart
“Sure. When I’m doing hero stuff.”
For a moment, Bernice looked like she might explode. She reeled it in, took a breath, and started again in a calm voice. “You’re going to talk to Temple. They’re going to help you buy a house. They’re going to give you a car. Do whatever you want with Emma, that part isn’t my business. You know what is my business, though?”
“What?”
Bernice scooped a pile of comic books from the far side of her desk and dropped them in Kristen’s lap. Kristen grimaced. “This again?”
“You have to pick a name, and I’m not letting you out of this room until you do.”
Kristen rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you’re going to stop the girl with superpowers from escaping your office.”
“You’re going to disappoint your best friend?”
“Don’t try guilting me.”
Bernice threw her arms out in an exaggerated shrug. “If I wanted to guilt you, I’d say you’d have an easier time paying for a nice place if you were selling your own merchandise. But if you want Emma with a dude named Chad for the rest of her life, then…”
Kristen bopped Bernice on the head with the pile of comics. “Don’t say it. I just wish it wasn’t these comics. Don’t I have any options that are less…shit?”
“Nope.” Bernice leaned forward. A mischievous smirk bloomed on her lips. “If you pick one, I’ll speak Spanish for you.”
Kristen gave her a look that said
I am not amused
. Bernice replied by running her tongue across her upper lip. Kristen feigned a shiver of disgust. “You’re such a creep. Why am I friends with you?”
“You probably love me or something stupid like that.”
“Nah.” Kristen shook her head. “That doesn’t sound right. Seriously though, picking something from this shit pile is torture and you know it.”
“Then close your eyes and pick one.”
Kristen shrugged and did just that. Blindly, she chose one from the stack and passed it to Bernice. Bernice laughed. “Good choice.”
Kristen looked over.
The Rhinelander.
She took it back and threw it across the room. More serious now, she flipped through the covers, setting the
absolutely not
items on the floor. She narrowed it down to a few heroes who didn’t conjure up immediate revulsion. She finally held one up. “This one. Lady Superior. It sounds…super.”
Bernice side-eyed the book. “Sounds like a nun.”
“A nun? What?”
“The boss nun of a convent is called Lady Superior.”
Kristen looked at the cover again. The woman depicted on it certainly didn’t seem like a nun. She wore a glorified one-piece bathing suit that revealed more breast and butt cheek than it covered, and was posed in such a way that both faced the reader simultaneously.
Broken-spine syndrome.
“I don’t care. That’s the name I want. The rest of them suck harder than an industrial vacuum. But whoever draws this thing is putting more clothes on her. No cleavage. No ass cheek.”
Bernice rubbed her face. “You’re going with the nun? Are you for real?”
“Is she a nun in the comic? You said this guy names his heroes after Midwest stuff. I guessed she was named for the lake.”
“No, you’re right. She’s named for the lake. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t sound like a nun. But if you want it, I guess I’ll make it happen.”
Kristen took a pencil from Bernice’s desk. She drew three overlapping circles on the back of the apartment listings, like the design Jane had shown her on the park bench, then erased the lines that didn’t overlap any other part. She passed the symbol that remained to Bernice. “I want that on the costume. It’s called a triquetra.”
Bernice looked it over, then cast a yet more dubious glance at Kristen. “You pick Lady Superior, and you want this on your costume?”
“Yeah, sure. What’s the problem?”
“This is a symbol for the Trinity.” Bernice waited a beat to see if Kristen would say anything, but she didn’t, so she went on. “You know, the Christian Trinity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit?”
Kristen shook her head. “No it isn’t. It’s body, mind, and soul.”
“It’s Christian, Kris. You’re not even Christian. Why do you want to be Bible Girl?”
“It’s
not
Christian. It has nothing to do with religion.”
Bernice put her head in her hands. “Even if you don’t think so, that
is
what it means. And you already picked the name Sister Jesus. You can’t do that.”
You’re not just hard to replace, Kris. You’re irreplaceable.
Kristen hopped off of the desk and turned to face Bernice fully. She set her feet, ready to stand her ground. “That’s the name I picked. That’s my symbol. If you’re not cool with that, then we’re calling it off. I’m not going to be The Rhinelander. I’m not going to be The Husker. I’m abso-fucking-lutely not The Milkmaid. Or Miss Hochunk. Because first of all, I’m not Native American. Second, I’m pretty sure that’s racist.”
“What about Mad Madison?”
Kristen squinted at her. “Does putting
mad
in my name seem like a good idea to you?”
“Better than being a nun.”
“Superior, Bernice. Superpowers. Superior. Get it?”
Bernice groaned. “Yeah, I know. I get it. And the symbol, too? That’s the part that kills it for me, Kris. The name
and
the symbol.”
“Body. Mind. Soul. It’s like…it’s a message, okay? Striving to be the best. In every possible way. Strong, smart, and a good person.”
“Fine.” Bernice threw her arms out. “Okay. I’ll talk to this guy and see if I can get that for you. Where do you want the symbol?”
Kristen shrugged. “Same place every hero puts their symbol.”
“Your chest?”
“Yeah.”
Bernice leaned forward. Again, she buried her face in her hands. She sounded muffled as she spoke. “I know you probably want that real bad, but it’s not going to work.”
“Why not?”
Bernice peeked over her fingers. “When’s the last time you wore a t-shirt with words on it?”
Kristen narrowed her eyes. Her head turned slightly as she tried to discern what Bernice was driving at. “I don’t know. I don’t buy shirts with words on them.”
“Can I be blunt with you?”
“I guess so.”
“Your boobs are way too big for that.”
“Oh.”
“Where else on your costume can we put it?”
Kristen looked askance. She felt hollow suddenly. Things seemed like they’d been coming together: she was coming to terms with her powers, her position, and her capabilities. She’d saved people. She’d found another person like her. She’d finally had her unmasking moment with Bernice, as shallow as it might have been. She’d picked a name. She’d picked a symbol. Every superhero with a symbol wore it proudly on their chest. She couldn’t. She remembered why she stopped buying shirts with words or designs on them; without fail, they’d be warped to uselessness. She looked back to Bernice. Her voice lost volume. “If we make a real one, it would be tailored to me, right? So we could make it work.”
Bernice took her hands from her face. She matched Kristen’s volume, soft and comforting. “Honey, we could try, but think about it. If it covers your whole chest, half of it would be looking at the ground. Only way it’d work is if we put you in a puffy coat. Or a vest. If you’re cool with that, then we can do it, but—”
“No.” Kristen shook her head. She couldn’t explain why, but she hated the thought of that even more. Her chest could be a nuisance, but it was still
her
.
“I want to be covered up,” Kristen said, “but still
me
. I want to look like me. Just not with everything hanging out. Does that make sense?”
Bernice nodded. Kristen understood the silence; Bernice was letting her work through it.
“This sounds silly even to me, but what about my stomach?”
“Can I be blunt again?”
“Sure.”
“Lady Superior and the symbol are two strikes. You want them, so I’ll let you have them. But if you’re a nun with the Trinity on your stomach, you’re pushing it. It’s a little Virgin Mary.”
Kristen winced. In that case, she agreed with Bernice. “Okay. What if it was like a badge? Instead of a big symbol in the middle of my chest, it’s a small symbol to one side?”
Bernice shrugged. “Could work. I still think your boob will be in the way, but it’ll probably be alright. What about colors? Don’t say black and white. Not happening.”
“The nun thing again?”
“Damn right.”
“What about navy bl—” Kristen cut herself short at the trilling pulse of her Temple phone’s ringtone. Few people had that number. Anyone who did was worth answering. She looked at Bernice with apologetic eyes and pulled the phone from her pocket. “Hello?”
“Hey.” Jane’s voice. “I need you to come downtown.”
Kristen turned her back to Bernice. “Why? What happened?”
“Nothing yet. Michael wants to meet you.”
Michael
. Kristen had to think for a moment to recall the name.
Jane’s boss.
She nodded, though Jane couldn’t see it. “Yeah, okay. But what happened to having a day off?”
“I had every intention of giving it to you, but we might be on a timeline here. If you can get in touch with Todd, Michael wants to see him, too.”
Kristen sighed. “I had plans today. I have things to do. I’ve been running around for a
week
. If there’s no emergency, can’t I have just a little time to get caught up?”
Jane’s voice grew firm. “There’s no emergency right now. That doesn’t mean there won’t be. We’ve been behind the curve on this thing the entire time, and we might have a chance to get ahead. Kristen, this is what you’re signing up for. You have lives in your hands. If you put them down, you can’t pick them up again.”
She closed her eyes, and thought about banging her head on something. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see what I can do.”
“You can use the parking structure behind the Temple building. Tell the attendant you’re meeting Jane Miller. I’ll meet you in the ground floor lobby.”
Kristen hung up without a
goodbye
and turned back to Bernice. “I have to go.”
“Alright.” Bernice smiled, but Kristen recognized the sadness in her eyes. “I’ll try to get this Lady Superior thing moving. Stay safe, okay?”
Kristen offered a tight-lipped smile of her own. “I will.”
Bernice let Kristen get halfway to the door before calling out. “Hey, I brought up the house on my block for a reason. With your new job, I get the feeling we’re not going to be able to hang out as much as we used to. It’d be nice to be close-by.”
“I’ll look into it.”
Bernice nodded. “Cool.”
An hour later—well into the afternoon—Kristen drove up highway 794 toward downtown Milwaukee. Without a cloud in the summer sky, the sun baked the city, making the road shimmer with heat waves. Kristen took a hand off of the wheel and adjusted an air vent. She directed the air conditioning at her face and cranked it up. Cold wind made her wig flutter. She glanced at Todd in the passenger’s seat before turning her attention back to the road. He hadn’t said a word since he’d gotten into the car. “So…you like to hunt? I’ve always wanted to, but my family wasn’t into that. A friend of mine would bring venison jerky to school when I was a little kid and wouldn’t share it. I was
super
jealous.”
Todd grunted. “Yeah. I hunt.”
“Deer?”
“Deer. Turkeys. Whatever’s in season.”
“Do you have a place up north or do you camp out? I don’t really know how it works. Where do people stay when they drive six hours away to shoot things?”
“Depends on where you go.” Todd leaned against the inside of the car door, face turned away from her. She could see his reflection in the window gazing out over Lake Michigan’s gently rolling waves. “You could stop at a campsite. Or rent a cabin if you want to spend the money.”
“I take it you camp, then?”
In a slow, fluid motion, Todd’s gaze moved from the lake and across the car to settle on her. Kristen hid a wince; she’d brought money into it, unwittingly needling a sore spot. His voice had an edge to it now. “We have a cabin on Noquebay a ways outside Crivitz. You know where that is?”
How does he own a house and a cabin without a job?
“Not a clue.”
“About four hours north of here.”
“Nice place?”
Todd scratched his beard. “Used to be better. You could say that about everywhere, though. Quiet places don’t stay quiet.”
“Something happen recently?”
“It’s a slow boil. Less people living there full time, more people renting out their property. More vacationers. More morons. There’s a casino in town, and I think people spend more time there than anywhere else.” Todd shook his head. “Dumbest goddamn thing I can think to do. Rent out a cabin on the lake and go to the casino?”
“Vacation spots need something for everyone, I guess. Dad can go fishing while mom hits the slots.”
Todd snorted a laugh. “I guess so. Don’t give my wife that idea.”
“She’s not the outdoorsy type?”
“No. She usually watches TV while I’m out. Even before the girls were born.”
Kristen paused while she eyed traffic. She hit her blinker and merged into the exit lane. “What’d a place like that cost you?”
Kristen braced for backlash—she knew she hit a sore point—but it never came. Todd kept on, seeming eager and willing to discuss the place.
“Dad left it to me. It’s been in the family for a while. Survived the depression and a TB outbreak that killed half the town. There’re taxes, but it isn’t as bad as you’d think. My dad has a garage—he called it his garage, but I’d call it a barn—packed full of shit he’d picked up over the years. I think someone of it was my granddad’s, even. Mom always called it his trash heap. I thought so, too. But when he died, I left it all right where it was. I know better these days. He had an eye for garbage. It’s what got me through the last few years. If I couldn’t make our mortgage, I’d drive up to the cabin, hunt down something to eat, pick a treasure out of dad’s garage, and sell it off on the way back home. The wife hates that I have to do that, but hell, that’s why dad kept that crap around. He’d sell any of it for a buck.”
As Kristen slowed the car, the highway transitioned seamlessly into downtown Milwaukee’s city streets, 794 becoming North Lincoln Memorial. She spoke more slowly, keeping a closer eye on her surroundings. What’d been a stress free trip down the highway dumped her into a late afternoon buzz, the city alive for the weekend with the sounds of car horns and the pounding music of nearby festival grounds. “Can you do that? I mean, hunt whenever you want? Aren’t there hunting seasons?”