Chum

The dining room is the place where the family congregates on all occasions, a small wedge of rowhouse in between the kitchen and the living room. It’s an old dining room, with out-of-fashion white tiles that have developed a thin layer of off-white, off-yellow grime over the years, and cabinets made out of some kind of faux-wood material in the same shade. I’ve had some of the worst smash-it-up, violently-screaming, blow-up fights in here with my parents. I’ve had perhaps a lesser amount of catharsis. I’ve eaten meals here. I’ve eaten pizza here, which doesn’t really count as a meal.

I guess now I am also deciding whether or not I want to be a superhero here.

Well, first, before this is going to happen, I apologized to Liberty Belle. I said “I don’t even know who ‘everyone’ is. It just felt right to say. Sorry.”

And she said back, very wisely, “I was also your age once, kiddo.”

Then, we went downstairs to join my parents at the dining room table, which brings us back up to speed. The table is stone silent, outside of the gentle noises of the television in the other room and the occasional bird chirp from outside reminding us that this is the morning. My stomach gurgles without my permission. I really don’t appreciate that.

My mom’s age-old technique for tea is simple. Here is how one makes tea like Rachel Small.

Get a mug. Fill it with tap water.

Put a teabag in the mug.

Microwave it for, I don’t know, two minutes?

Set it down on the table.

Wait for it to cool down a little bit.

Forget it is there while you are waiting for it to cool down.

Ask dad to drink it instead.

Repeat as desired until the cycle of tea is broken.

Until today, I didn’t even know we owned a tea kettle, much less that my mom knew how to use one. I guess that means it’s a big deal that she’s pouring tea how people are actually supposed to make it, albeit still in an interesting variety of funny graphic mugs.

“So, how much of that did you hear?” I ask meekly, trying to make myself as small as I can. I feel like I’ve offended someone, or insulted someone, or did something, somehow, that means I’m about to get in trouble, from someone. It’s not Liberty Belle, who is sitting at the opposite end of the table, drinking tea quietly, glancing around, catching everyone in her field of view and then continuing to flit through the room’s various nooks and crevices. It’s not my dad, who is the least threatening dad in the world, and it’s not my mom, who “doesn’t believe in punishment as an effective shaper of teenage psychological behavior patterns – or anyone’s behavior patterns, really,”.

Who am I afraid of? Is it me?

“Only the part where you started shouting at the end. It was very impassioned,” My dad answers. He’s sitting to the left of me. He’s wearing plaid.

“Sam, honey, I’m sorry if anything we ever did or said gave you the impression that we, you know… That you feel unduly pressured by us,” My mom continues. She’s sitting to the right of me. She’s wearing a long dress and a short jacket. “In your academic studies or anything else of the sort.”

“Can we not have the soul searching while there is an adult I’m trying to impress at the table?” I plead, bending down and curling my head up so I can cover my face with my hair like a Japanese ghost girl. I’m burning with shame. “Please?”

There’s another moment of extremely heavy silence, and then the air is cut by Liberty Belle’s deep, raucous laughter, echoing through the room like a bullet ricocheting off the walls. “Oh man, jeez, I’m telling you… These Smalls are something else, man,” she says to herself in between mouthfuls of chuckles being chewed like food impolitely. “Y’all are weird. Complimentary.”

“I take great pride in it. This is a nerd family and I stand by that,” My mom replies, indeed sounding quite proud of it. “So, what’s got you all worked up?”

Liberty Belle answers before I can. “I want to recruit your daughter for the Young Defenders. They’re a branch of the Delaware Valley Defenders focused on training, you know, young kids. Teens. Before anyone with ill intentions can put bad ideas in their heads about how they can use their powers.”

My mom smiles and my dad’s face remains completely still. “I hope you don’t think our Sam would do anything evil, do you?” he says, in as serious of a tone he can muster, almost to the point of being a little threatening.

“I mean–” she starts.

“I’m kidding. There’s no such thing as good and evil, only intent and outcome,” he interrupts her, grinning audaciously. Then his face slumpens back up into its typical flat affect. “But let’s save the philosophy for later. You need our permission to take Sam under your wing, and you need Sam to actually say yes to do it even if we want her to. Is that right?”

“Yessir,” she replies.

“Well, obviously, we couldn’t be more proud of her, you know, for everything in her life. I like to think we raised a pretty good girl for what we could,” my mom says, taking the softer side of the conversation, in what is an interesting reversal of their usual roles with me. Is this how they treat other adults, or is this just a weird situation from the context? The mind reels. I feel moderately guilt tripped.

“How familiar are you with Jewish philosophy, Liberty Belle? Can we just call you Belle?” my dad asks. “Sorry, I know I just said we’ll skip the philosophy, but this is actually relevant.”

“I can’t say I’m really all that boned up on it, Mr. Small,” she answers. I try to retreat even further in my shirt, knowing exactly what’s about to come. The conversation earlier with Liberty Belle was infuriating to me for some reason, but now I’m just pure embarrassed sludge, wanting to retreat like a sea turtle into my shell. “Belle is fine.”

He cracks his knuckles under the table and leans in enthusiastically. “My father, Morris, was much more devout than I was, and he taught me a lot of things. Most of them, sadly, did not take, because I was a rebellious little child, but there’s one thing that I want you and Sam both to know. ‘The only reward for doing good is doing good. The only punishment for doing wrong is doing wrong‘. Whatever Sam decides to do with her life is her decision to make, and I support her unconditionally whether or not she becomes a surgeon, a nurse, a superhero, or an arsonist.”

“Please don’t become an arsonist though, honey,” My mom cuts in, smiling wearily.

I watch a mixture of emotions churn like a smoothie across Liberty Belle’s face. There’s too many of them for me to interpret, and I was already not good at reading faces, so the only thing I can take into my interpretation machine that I call a brain is that her heart rate suddenly spiked, and that could be any one of a number of things. “If you want my consent, you have my consent as long as you can convince Sam. If she doesn’t want to do this, I will stonewall you with everything in my power to do so. If she says no and you hassle her about it, I have people that I will let know, and we will have problems.”

Liberty Belle’s heartrate spikes again. I watch her fingers put small dents in the table, and then she pulls them into her lap. “No worries, Mr. Small. If Sam says no, that’ll be the end of it. I’ll give her a card in case she changes her mind and leave all y’all alone.”

“I know you would. You’re a good person. You do a lot for this city and her people,” my dad says coolly. Is he… threatening her? I’m not nearly experienced enough in the art of communication to understand what’s happening across this table. My internal respect meter for him rises a notch. That takes chutzpah.

I’m still covering my face though.

“I’m very proud of my daughter. She’s been through a lot of hard changes in an extremely short period of time. I would love nothing more for her to decide that becoming a superhero and saving people’s lives – being a real mensch – is her calling. But she might decide that her life is for playing safe, and nobody can fault that.”

My mom reaches over and gently rubs my back, before pulling back to adjust her glasses. “If it wasn’t obvious, my decision is whatever the rest of my family decides,” she says, opening her mouth to swallow some air and gulping quietly. “I won’t pretend that there isn’t some interest in the prestige of becoming a superhero for a living. I’m sure it pays well, given what I hear a cop’s payroll is these days. I bet the overtime is great.”

“You have no idea,” Liberty Belle murmurs, chuckling.

“My husband is the one with laudable ideals. I’m the one who’s here to ask about the practical matters. How is the insurance? What’s the schedule? What’s the risk assessment? You know, I don’t… you don’t need to answer these right now, but I need to make sure my only daughter is capable of carrying on a life like this or if it will chew her up and spit her out like, I don’t know, like art school,” she babbles, before turning to me and brushing hair out of my face. I stubbornly put it back, wanting only to see this conversation through a curtain of curls. “Sorry if art school was what you wanted, dear.”

“No, don’t worry about it, it wasn’t,” I mumble extremely quietly.

“We can talk about it more later if you want,” she replies, before turning her body back towards Liberty Belle. “You know, I’m sure — I’m sure the cliques at superhero school are insane. You’re going to protect my daughter if they try to haze or bully her?”

Liberty Belle stifles a laugh, trying not to appear disrespectful. “Mrs. Small, the superhero school has a class size of…” she starts, counting them off on her fingers. “Seven. Eight, if we include Sam. Our curriculum, if you can call it that, is about… Ahem, ‘transferable, practical life skills like first aid training, gymnastics, self-defense, freerunning, and disaster response’. Skills. It’ll look great on a college application, assuming that’s something y’all care about.” She recites, shutting her eyes to remember some sort of pamphlet or presentation.

My mom folds her arms in front of her chest tightly and sort of harrumphs. “Come on, I’m a Jewish mother. What do you think?”

Liberty Belle cackles, loud enough to break some of the tension in the room, and my dad laughs along with her. I exhale sharply through my nose until the giggles get to my mom, but then she straightens her back in her chair and ahems herself back into coherence. “Yes. I very much care about Samantha’s college applications, and her future. If this is just going to eat all her time for living a normal teenage life, and, you know, four years down the road she decides its not for her, where does that leave us? She’s skipping all her extracurriculars to beat up vandals, she’s skipping studying to go out and put herself in danger… It’s just the practical things, right? God forbid, what if she gets busted up by some bad guy in tightie whities and has to stop being a superhero for good, you know? What’s left?”

Liberty Belle tries very hard to nod solemnly. “I get it. I do, I get it. Not everyone wants to dress up and play cops and robbers. I’m not going to try to sweet talk y’all with the finance game because that’s scummy. You know, us supes, we look out for our own. It’s a good network, but just my word for it isn’t enough, you need that ish in writing, I get it. It’s a commitment. She’s young.”

She grabs her tea, which has sat until now mostly undisturbed, and throws it back with one gulp before setting the mug down. She sighs contentedly and tries to relax in her chair, so I try to relax a little bit too, slowly pulling my body out of its crunched-up position. “It’s just what she thinks is best for her, long-term,” My mom summarizes. “Practically. In a practical, actionable sense.”

This whole time, it’s been just a bunch of people talking about me like I’m not in the room, talking about my future, talking about philosophy, and violence, and disasters. I’m not angry, but I know I’m a participant in this conversation too. “Can I just try it?”

I sip my tea. Liberty Belle leans into her elbow, remembers that she’s a guest in someone else’s home, and sits back up straight, trying visibly not to slouch. “Yeah? Whaddya mean, kiddo?”

“I feel like the obvious solution that everyone’s talking over here is that I just, like, try it. See if I like it. I’ve got three-ish weeks before the school week starts, maybe you take me out on patrol and I think it sucks and I ask if I can hit the bricks and you’re like, yeah, sure Sam, you gave it a good old college try. Is that not an option? Do I have to sign my soul away in perpetuity or something?” I elaborate.

Liberty Belle makes an expression at me I can’t understand, so I clarify. “Um, it means, like, forever.”

She laughs again, and it’s a sound I’m getting used to. Her low voice makes it never grating, but I do have to wonder what exactly she finds so funny about what I said. “Obviously you can quit if you don’t like it. Were you thinking the whole time that this was a forever thing?”

“Um… Yes?” I ask like it’s not obvious to me, which, until now, it wasn’t. My parents smile at me. My dad looks a little weary. I don’t know what expression my mom is wearing underneath her smile, I can’t place it. “You know, my parents care about college and ethics and stuff but, like, there’s also the fact that my power sucks and makes me scary and creepy. So I’m not sure why you’d want me to be on your team, but, like, if you want, and if my parents don’t have to pay for it. I’m not sure what use you’ll get out of me but it’s not like I’m going to be playing soccer this summer, so…”

Liberty Belle reaches over the table to gently put her gloved hand over mine. “There’s a girl whose sole power is being super good at tailoring. One of the strongest, bravest heroes I know is really good at making fire extinguishers. The most dangerous bad guy in Philly is this girl who can make surfaces rougher. There’s no stupid powers, kiddo.”

“I know you are trying to cheer me up about my weird monster teeth but it’s not really working.”

She shrugs. “Hey, look, you can wallow in it, get used to it, or try to make something of it. Those are the options.”

“I’m sure if you gave me five minutes and a NetSphere search I could get you at least two more options,” My dad says, which I think is him trying to make a joke, but it doesn’t really land. Liberty Belle and my mom just laugh awkwardly, and I don’t make any sort of noise, I guess except for breathing.

“Look, okay, let’s just… I think we’ve aga… agum… Um, mom? Taking a while to decide something,”

“Agonized, honey,” My mom says as she collects the empty mugs and starts to wash them in the sink.

“Right,” I continue. “I think we’ve agonized over this for long enough. I’ve heard everything I can from everyone and I think anything else would just be spinning our wheels, I think, is the saying. I’m going to make a decision.”

“Cool,” Liberty Belle says, leaning back in her chair a little. Her face and body language says relaxed, but her heart is beating hard still. She can’t hide it from me – her fear, her anxiety, and that makes me feel extremely strange. The idea that even adults, even superhero adults, have anxiety, something I intellectually knew but didn’t understand until I could sense it, feels like an alien revelation for me. What could she have to be anxious about? She’s fought supervillains capable of destroying buildings and killing dozens with a flick of their wrist. Is she so used to fighting and superheroing that these normal conversations are what she’s afraid of now? Once again, the mind reels with possibilities. “So?”

“I mean, I’ll try it. I figured that was obvious? Sorry. I’ll say it out loud. I’ll try it for a bit,” I answer, throwing my hair back behind me and uncovering my face. My parents both smile at me, and I get the feeling that this was the decision they wanted me to make, even if they don’t say so out loud – even if they’re trying to act like hardasses in front of a superhero and give… compelling arguments to both sides of the debate in front of their daughter. “If I like it, I’ll try it another bit. If I keep liking it, it’ll become the thing I do. If I start to hate it, then I’ll quit. I think this is a very sensible way of going about things, and I’m struggling to think of a reason why we don’t apply this to more things in life.”

Liberty Belle stares at me. “Should I explain what ‘sensible’ means?” I ask, and she swallows her laughter this time.

“Jesus, what a kid,” she mumbles, getting up from the table. “No, I know what sensible means – I did finish college, kiddo. I will accept your offer.”

She reaches her hand out for me and I feel a pulse in my chest. “You do have to send my mom all the information about pay and insurance and stuff though, too. If you can do that, we have a deal.”

Liberty Belle makes a face like she just kissed a ripe lemon, and then relaxes back into her neutral expression, while my mom nods vigorously and gives me a silent double thumbs up behind her back. “I will make sure to get the poindexters right on that, kiddo.”

I reach out and grasp her hand. We share a firm handshake.

I only have one thing to ask of Liberty Belle as she leaves the house, back on morning patrol, ready to scout the neighborhood for threats. At the front door, shutting it behind me so nobody can hear, I lean in to whisper. “Since I’m joining your group… can you tell me who gave you cancer?”

She turns back to me with one eyebrow quirked way up high. “Who? Cancer isn’t usually given by a person, Sammy, girl.”

“Usually,” I reply, trying to make a face right back at her.

She smirks and turns back around. “Yeah. Usually.”

She doesn’t answer the question, and I don’t press it any further.