I headed back down to my apartment after cleaning
up Mrs. Pham’s bathroom and making her promise not to go
back in there until I could get a plumber to look at it. I told her
to use the toilet down in the janitor’s room in the basement
until then. My stomach did a few flips at the thought of
dealing with a big plumbing problem. And the smell from a
toilet exploding on me wasn’t helping, either.
As I reached for the doorknob of my apartment, I heard
a voice behind me. I turned around, fully aware that I smelled
like an out of order restroom in Penn Station. “No solicitors.”
It was a woman. She stood there with her hands in the
pockets of her black trench coat. Her dark hair was pulled
back into a severe bun. Blood red lipstick covered her slight
frown. Combined with her stern black glasses and her pale
skin, she gave off the air of the Angel of Death in a sensible
pair of loafers. She raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Listen, I’m the super here. I know you don’t live here.
And we don’t allow solicitation. So just leave before I have
you arrested for trespassing.”
The woman produced a business card out of nowhere
and took a few steps toward me. “I’m not selling anything.”
She handed me the card. “I’m Auditor Fine. I’m conducting
your Super audit.”
My mind flashed back to the notice I’d gotten three
months earlier in a panic. Being a Super isn’t just about justice
and order. It’s about paperwork, too. The Super Council runs
the whole shebang. As a Super, you have to swear an oath,
keep your license in good standing, and pay your dues on
time. It’s a lot of responsibility.
And I’m not exactly the responsible type.
Things got away from me. I got behind on my dues.
And then I got
really
behind on my dues. I stopped opening
my mail from the Super Council. And then three months ago,
I’d gotten a certified letter from the Council that said that due
to poor performance and lack of response to other inquiries,
I was going to get audited. I’d prompted folded the notice up
at small as possible, stuffed it under my bed, and tried not to
think too much about it.
Now I was looking at this woman, wondering if she
would fit under my bed.
As if reading my mind, Miss Fine said “Yeah, it didn’t
go away.”
“I, uh, um— “I started.
“Save it,” she cut me off. “I’ve read your file. I know all
about you, Audrey. I know you’re good at excuses but they
won’t work with me. And I won’t be ignored.”
I audibly gulped. “Uhh— “
Miss Fine ignored me and continued on. “Here’s how
this is gonna work: I’m going to audit your Super work.
You’re going to cooperate. At the end of my audit, I’m going
to make a recommendation to the Council about what they
should do with you.” She pointed the card I was holding in
my hand. “Tomorrow morning at eight, you need to be at
that address.”
I stared at the card. “Um, OK, but— “
“No buts. If you’re not there, we’ll go straight to the
punishment phase of this process. Best case scenario? Losing
your license. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you did some time
over this. Is that what you want?”
“No.” It was the first full sentence I’d spoken since
Miss Fine had walked into my life.
“Good. Then I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early.”
She turned to go but stopped short and turned back to me.
“And clean yourself up, will ya?” And with that, Miss Fine
left.
Standing alone in the hallway, I looked at the card she
left and then back down at my stained clothing.
Shhhhiiiiiiitttttt.
When Miss Fine left, I went straight inside my
apartment, stripped, and got into the shower. At the moment
the plumbing problems seem to only be affecting the Phams.
Which was good for me because I did my best thinking in the
shower. My best thinking was telling me that I was fucked.
Being a Super isn’t a job. Jobs come with paychecks and
vacation days. I was born a Super. My parents were Supers.
I developed powers around puberty and headed off to Super
school. Then I graduated, took my Super oath, got my district
assignment, and headed off to make the world a safer place
to live each day.
But I don’t remember a time I actually
decided
to be a
Super. I just kinda did it. It was all I knew. And now, it looked
like I might actually have to stop doing it. I didn’t know how
I felt about that.
I hopped out of the shower and changed into another
pair of jeans and a shirt. I promptly took the ones I’d been
wearing before and dumped them in the trash can in my
kitchen. I didn’t need to wear those clothes ever again.
Walking into the kitchen reminded me that between
the candy thieves and the Phams’ toilet, I’d never gotten that
bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich this morning. My stomach
growled in response. I opened my fridge—a box of baking
soda and some old Chinese leftovers that had seen better
days. I grabbed the container and chucked that into the trash,
too.
My phone buzzed with a text message from Mrs.
Pham. She’d never texted me before. I didn’t even know she
knew how to text. I tapped the message to open it. It said one
word—
Toilet
.
Oh yeah.
All that stuff with Miss Fine distracted me
from the plumbing problem. I checked the list of emergency
numbers Hy had given me and dialed the one for plumber.
I got someone at the answering service who told me that
someone would be out to look at the situation tomorrow.
A seed of an idea took root in my mind.
What would
happen if I just let them take my Super license?
I didn’t know. But
I knew where I could find the answer—my Super handbook.
“Have you seen my handbook?” I called out to Crash, who
seemed to be awake now. He circled the bowl as if to ask why
would he know where my handbook was.
“You’re no help.” I started searching my place for it.
Even though the one-bedroom apartment was the largest
place I’d ever had on my own, I really didn’t own very much
stuff. After checking under the bed, my closet, and the pile of
dirty laundry in the living room, I was out of places. I’d found
a pen cap, a shirt I’d thought I’d left somewhere, and about
sixty-one cents in change. No handbook, though.
I’d gotten it when I was a teenager, right when I
graduated Super school. I was still living with my parents
back then. So maybe it was still there. I’d have to go over there
and look for it.
Earlier this year, when I’d lost both my job and my
apartment in the same day, my parents had let me move back
into their brownstone until I got my shit together. Well, I’ve
been trying to get my shit together since I was fifteen years old
and I still hadn’t succeeded. But by the end of the summer, I
had
found this job as a super and it included an apartment in
the deal so I moved out.
I actually didn’t live that deep into Brooklyn but it was
in an odd place on the subway lines. The 5 train was running
funny so I ended up taking the 2 train to Union Square and
then the 4 train to Upper West Side. The fact that it always
took me a while to get up there was one reason I hadn’t
visited much since I moved out. The fact that I always felt like
a failure when I around my family was probably the main
one.
My parents were Supers, too. They had retired but
they still were involved in the community. Both had served
on boards for the Council. And something told me that they
probably knew where their Super handbooks were.
I still had my key so I just opened the door to my
parents’ place and went in. “Mom? Dad?” I called out. No one
answered. They were probably off being productive citizens.
I mean, it was 11am on a Monday morning.
Good
, I thought.
I
don’t need to share this with them just yet. They’re just gonna yell
at me.
Seeing as I had some time alone, I went into the kitchen.
The fridge was full, as usual. I grabbed a soda and started
making myself a sandwich. After throwing on an extra piece
of cheese on my creation and taking a few bites, I headed up
the stairs to my old room.
Right away, noticed that Mom had spruced up my
old room. The bed was made with the quilt arranged just so.
There were new matching curtains. It looked like a magazine
ad. Basically, the complete opposite of how I left it. The only
thing I’d contributed to the place was the faint smell of cat
pee. While I’d been back home the past summer, I’d rescued a
cat during a Super session. When I left it in my room without
a litter box for a few hours, I came back to the cat pee smell.
Let’s just say my parents were not happy with it. My sister
was still pissed off that I left the cat with her and didn’t come
pick it up when I moved out. Her texts were getting more and
more threatening by the day.
Remembering that Super shift reminded me why I was
there in the first place. I stuffed the remains of the sandwich
into my mouth and looked around the room. There were
a few family pictures on the shelf. I had the same shocked
look in each of them. I ran my finger along the books on the
shelf. Mostly self-help titles but no handbook. I opened the
closet. There were a few boxes stacked inside with neatly
handwritten labels. Near the bottom, I spotted what I was
looking for—
Audrey’s Stuff.
Bingo!
I thought.
“What are you doing?” I jumped at the voice from
the hallway and whirled around. My dad was leaning on the
doorframe, watching me dig the box out of the closet. “Shit,
Dad! You scared me! Don’t do that.”
Dad was a big guy, even though the grey mixed in with
his reddish brown hair around his temples was telling me he
was getting older. As usual, he was dressed like a color blind
old man but I was pretty sure he just did that to mess with
my mom. He crossed his arms. “Sure. I’ll try not to startle the
person that snuck into
my
house. That sounds like the right
thing to do.”
I rolled my eyes as the sarcasm laced words oozed out
of his mouth. “I didn’t sneak in. I used my key. You weren’t
home when I got here so I just let myself in.” I sat on the bed
and shook my keyring at him.
“Oh I forgot you still had that.”
“How’d you know I was here?”
“You left a big ass mess on the counter when you used
my food to make a sandwich. I figured it was either Goldilocks
or my younger daughter. What are you doing here anyway?”
I wasn’t quite ready to tell him about the audit. He’d
freak out and tell my mom, who would freak out and then
they’d freak out all over me. “Oh nothing,” I said, trying to
sound nonchalant. “I figured I’d come pick up the stuff that I
left here when I moved out.”
“Which time? The first time when you were eighteen?
The second time when you were nineteen? The third time
when you were twenty-one? Or— “
“The first time,” I sighed. “Hey Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“What happens to Supers who lose their licenses?”
Dad raised an eyebrow. “Why? Did you lose your
license?”
“No! You always think the worst of me. I just read
something in the last newsletter from the Council and I got
curious.”
As if I ever read the Council newsletter. Ha!
“If a Super loses her license, she becomes a civilian.”
“That’s it?” That doesn’t sound too bad, I said to
myself. No Council dues. No Super work. No alter ego.
“Well, after the jail time,” Dad added.
“What?!”
“A Super doesn’t just
lose
her license. All of those
things we promised to do—uphold justice, fight chaos, pay
our dues, report to the Council, etc.—are sworn under oath. If
the oath is broken, the Council can put punishments in place.
That includes jail time, if necessary. It’s definitely not a good
thing. So it’s a good thing you’re not losing
your
license,” he
finished.
“Riiiigggghhhhtttt.” I stood up from the bed and
started towards the door. “I’m out of here. Gotta get back to
my side of town.”
He jerked his thumb to the closet. “Don’t forget your
box.”
I’d forgotten all about the box of my old things. I didn’t
even know if my handbook was inside and now I didn’t even
want it. But I couldn’t say that to Dad. “Oh, yeah. Wouldn’t
want to forget my box.” I picked up the box and followed him
out of the room and down the stairs.
I put the box down at the front door so I could open it
and I remembered I still had the key. “Hey Dad, do you want
your key back?”
“Nah, Junior,” he said, using my childhood nickname
and automatically adding affection to the statement. “Let’s
make sure you won’t need it again first.”
Lugging that box back to Brooklyn made me wish I
had just said that I didn’t want it. By the time I opened my
apartment door, I was red in the face and breathing hard.
Crash eyed me suspiciously. “Hey, it’s a long story. And no,
nothing in here is for you.”
I dropped the box on the ground near the couch and
collapsed down onto the cushions. I was exhausted. The box
had been heavy but the stuff in my head was heavier. I had
an appointment with Miss Fine tomorrow morning and right
now it looked like I was going to lose my license. I didn’t
know how I felt about it all just yet. But I knew for sure that I
didn’t want to go to jail. And yet, I didn’t even know if there
was anything I could even do about it. I was lost.
Bling Bling Bling
The caller ID announced that it was my sister Ella
calling me. Although people told me that we looked alike, she
was a few years older than me and lot more put together. It
was hard having a brainiac as a sister but I had been making
an effort to be nicer to her. These days, we were talking more
than we ever had in the past.
I answered the phone. “Yeah?”
“Come get this cat, Audrey.”
The cat I’d found during my Super shift was called
Din-Din because she had almost been dinner. Ella offered to
take her in because I couldn’t keep her at my parents’ house.
It sounded like a nice gesture until I remembered that she
only did it because she figured the cat would be less trouble
to take in than I would be.
“Ella, I’ve told you over and over again that my
building doesn’t allow pets.”
“I know,” Ella sighed. “Have you made any progress
finding her a home?”
“Nope. All of the shelters are full and I don’t know
anyone responsible enough to take her in.” This was a lie. I
hadn’t been looking for a home for Din-Din. She already had
a home with Ella. “Besides, I think you secretly like having
her. You could use a little company.”
“I need a boyfriend, Audrey. Not a cat. Getting a cat
is the exact opposite of getting a boyfriend. The more cats I
have the more likely I will never have a boyfriend again.” Ella
had a brain that worked faster, held more, and did more than
most people could ever comprehend. But somehow she kept
ending up with these guys that were practically brain dead
compared to her. It never worked out.
“Hold on,” she said. I listened to dead air for a minute
before she came back on the line. “OK, I’m back.”
While I was on hold I opened the box I dragged from
my parents’ house and start pulling out stuff. Old clothes.
Comics from high school. Some old homemade CD mixes.
My Super school yearbook. No handbook, though. “Where
are you?”
“Work. I have a faculty meeting soon.” Ella was a
professor of astrophysics at NYU. She, like my parents, had
done well enough for herself that her Super assignment was
based around her altar ego’s job. She did her part to serve the
Super Council. But as someone who just barely finished Super
school and didn’t show any promise in anything, I didn’t get
those assignments. “Where are you?”
“At work. Well, home,” I admitted. “But work and
home are the same place for me now. I went Mom and Dad’s
today, though.”
I could hear Ella’s sneer through the phone. “Why? To
borrow money?”
“Actually, no. I haven’t borrowed money from anyone
in at least three months. And I’ve even paid some people
back. Thank you very much, Little Miss Know-It All.”
She ignored my sarcasm. “Then why?”
I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about my audit yet so I
lied. “To pick up a box of stuff I left there.”
“Oh that? Mom’s been nagging you to get it forever.
Did you find anything good in there?”
“Nothing I couldn’t live without.”
It was about time for Ella’s meeting so we said our
goodbyes and hung up. Since I didn’t have my handbook, I
picked up my yearbook and leafed through the pages. Most of
it looked slightly familiar, like a movie I saw once a long time
ago but I didn’t remember much about. I found my picture.
Light brown skin with a smattering of freckles, wild kinky,
curly hair pulled back into a puff, and thick glasses. The only
thing that had really changed in the twelve or thirteen years
since was the fact that I couldn’t find my glasses. Under my
name read my senior quote:
It can’t get any worse than this.
I
remember fighting with my mom about that, her telling me
not to do it, and me sneaking it in anyway.
“Oh, young Audrey,” I said to the photo. “You have
no idea.”