"Uh..."
       It was all he could come up with at first, and she laughed at the look on his face, her arms still around his neck.
       "I mean..." he tried again. "Geez, where did...what are you doing here?"
       "I followed you from that bridge," she grinned, her nose hovering as close to his as she could get it without actually making contact. "Neat piece of work. I only showed up in time to see the finale. I can't believe you didn't see me tailing you!" She spoke this cutely, like a girlfriend expressing her disbelief at her beau remembering their six-month anniversary. "I thought any minute you were going to spin around and—"
       "No," he said, finding himself inching his face back away from hers and trying to ignore the feel of her against him (God he was trying). She had caught him off guard all right. He was stumbling over words, thoughts, feelings, everything. And she seemed to be enjoying it. "I mean what are you doing here. In Phoenix?"
       "I came to see you," she said, sweetly and seductively, running one of her hands down his jaw line. "I've been here for almost two weeks, flying around and hoping to spot you, watching the news. You don't get out much, do you? I started thinking I was going to have to rob a bank just to get your attention." She ran both hands over his face now and inhaled through her teeth appreciatively. "God, you're even cuter without the mask."
       She kissed him again. This time he managed to break it off without becoming too much of a participant.
       "Uh, hey, look," he said, pulling out of the kiss and feeling cornered against his Jeep. "I'm, like, not wearing any pants here..."
       "I noticed," she smiled. She let a hand drop and snapped the waistband of his boxers with her index finger. "And I always figured you for a Jockey man..."
       The snap made him jump, and he really had to get control of this now. "Hey, hey!" he said, and she giggled at his nervousness. "Can we just slow down a minute here? Let me just put something on? Okay? Please?"
       "If you must," she pouted playfully. Suddenly she shot up into the air—all he saw before him was a quick flash of her navel, then her toes, and then the desert. He turned. She'd dropped down into the jeep's passenger seat, and now nestled into it, smiling at him.
       "Thank you," he said, unmistakably grateful. He thought of his slacks on the ground, the quickest and most convenient choice, but something made him grab his bag and reach for his costume instead. Right now, he needed to be Windjammer. Something about her seeing him without his mask was really spooking him. A lot of things were spooking him. God, why now? How long had he spent after he'd watched her fly off into the sun, waiting, wondering when and if he'd get to see her again? She couldn't have come back then? Back when things were simpler? Back when things were...different?
       He sat down on the seat, his back to her, and started pulling the still-warm costume back over his legs again.
       "Wow, so this is the Jeep you told me about? The one you got for graduation?"
       "Yeah," he said, trying to sound casual and make up for some of his lack of coolness the past couple of minutes. "This is the one."
       "Nice," she said. "Leather seats and all. Hey, and you know what?" He could hear the glove compartment open. "I bet a girl could take a peek at the registration here and find out a certain super-hero's real name..."
       He jumped up, costume bunched around his waist. The look on his face when he turned to her most have reflected his panic perfectly, because Delight, her hand still on the glove door, burst out laughing.
       "I'm just kidding!" she laughed, closing the door with a click. "I wouldn't do that to you. God!" She climbed over to the driver's seat and slipped out to stand next to him. "'Jammer, what's wrong with you? Hello? Remember me? Back seat of an Olds a few months ago? Big, sweet wonderful kiss? Any of this ring a bell? Silly me, I thought you'd be happy to see me." The playfulness was draining from her voice, and she was starting to sound wounded.
       "Look, it's just—" he said, pulling his costume over his arms and straightening it around his neck. "You just caught me by surprise, that's all."
       "Well, okay," she said, tentatively taking him off probation. "You're forgiven." She just smiled again and batted her eyes. At least she wasn't trying to kiss him again. Yeah, he'd been the one who kissed her that summer day when he'd suddenly become an international media sensation, and she was right—it had been wonderful. But that was then.
       An image of Renee, her wandering lock dangling between her eyes, popped into his head.
       Delight looked around, enjoying the scenery. "What a beautiful night," she said. "I've been knocking around town for a while, but I've never been out here. I've mostly been shopping and stuff. I got a room at one of the big resorts...the Phoenician? But, geez, look at this place."
       She was right. Even in the dark, the desert was beautiful—in some ways even more so. Tonight, the stars were crystal clear, and the wind made a rustle through the saguaros like you couldn't hear anywhere else on Earth.
       She rubbed his bare foot with her light boot. "You want to put something on those and take a walk? Or do you want to fly, maybe?"
       "No, no, a walk sounds nice," he said, sounding relieved. Walking was good—it took energy, the kind of energy that might take one's mind off kissing. He reached into his bag and grabbed the boots, slipping them on while leaning on the Jeep. He looked up from them for a moment and got an eyeful of her legs, and a reminder of just how little she was wearing.        "Aren't you going to...um...be cold?"
       She looked down at him coyly. "I don't mind the cold," she said, then turned slowly and started walking toward the dirt path that wound up to the famous Hole in the equally famous Rock. The walk was very deliberate—and effective.
       He finished with his boots, and decided to leave the gloves behind. He paused before going, though, and looked down at his folded mask. He hesitated, but then snatched it up and put it on his face. He did a brief jog to catch up with her.
       She noticed the mask, and he wasn't quite sure what kind of look it was she gave him. "Expecting photographers to show up?" she asked.
       "Hey," he shrugged, covering. "You never know. Believe me." Sure, that sounded good. Photographers.
       They made the small hike up the trail and started the climb into the hole proper. She quickly gave up the effort and just drifted into the air and up to the base of the cave, turning in mid-air and gesturing to him with her finger to follow. He found himself grinning a little, despite himself, and called up a wind that lifted him delicately above the rocks and carried him to her. He landed there, where she waited for him, and she watched him with a look of shared intimacy. He felt it, too. Their little shortcut had somehow taken on sensual overtones.
       They walked through the cave, a wide expanse open on both ends. The floor was dotted with the occasional cigarette butt or discarded beer can. The walls, not marked with Indian hieroglyphics as the setting promised, but with scattered teenage graffiti, reminded him that their being alone here was close to miraculous.
       They sat on a large cropping of rock that faced out the eastern portal. This way faced the city, and the lights of downtown Phoenix sparkled all along the horizon.
       "Wow," she said quietly.
       "Yeah," he agreed. "I haven't been up here in a while. I forgot."
       They were quiet for a couple of minutes, just taking in the beauty of it, hearing the pleasantly fitting howl of a desert coyote mixing with the wind. Then he felt her slide close to him. He turned to her, and she was looking at him. She brought her small hand up and softly ran her fingers along the hairline over his ear. She sighed and smiled. He awkwardly smiled back, because it seemed like the thing to do. Even in the brisk wind, he could feel his face getting warm.
       "Well," she said, her tone creating a bridge. "Been quite an interesting few months for us, hasn't it?"
       He knew what she meant immediately. "Oh, yeah," he grinned. "I still have a hard time taking it all in."
       "Every little girl dreams of seeing herself on magazine covers, but I never saw it happening this way." There was genuine marvel in her voice. "Who'd have thought?"
       "I've seen them," he said. "All of them. I can't buy a pack of gum without seeing at least a couple of shots of you there by the checkout aisle."
       "With rumors that I'm dating Brad Pitt," she giggled. "You're one to talk. Time Magazine. GNN. I saw a thing on you in Omni. Rosie O'Donnell talks about you almost every day. Well, about me, too. Rosie doesn't seem to like me too much."
       He winced a little. "Yeah, I've heard about that." Rosie's Delight-bashing had become well-known. The word 'tramp' was almost always thrown in it somewhere.
       "That's okay," she smiled (but a there was a little bite in her voice). "Rosie's just jealous."
       She took this moment to move even closer to him, and to slip her fingers through his.
       "I mean," she continued, "you don't hardly see one of us mentioned without the other. We put on quite a show last summer. People loved it. People love us together. I think the whole world's waiting to see us get together again."
       Her other hand was now on his leg. Her eyes drifted away for a moment, then back to his.
       "Don't you think we owe it them?" she asked, moving her face closer to his. "Don't you think we should...you know..." Her pause was perfect. "Get together?" She parted her lips, leaning in to kiss him again.
       Windjammer pulled his fingers from hers abruptly, stood up, and walked several quick paces to the cave's precipice. He stood there with his back to her, and ran his fingers through his hair nervously.
       "What?" she asked, shocked and noticeably hurt. She sat up on the rock, planting her hands flat behind her for support. "What's the matter with you?"
       "It's not that easy," he said, turning around suddenly, flustered and agitated. He raised his hands, starting to speak again, then shook them as he was unable to put his thought together. He started pacing back and forth, trying work some kind of mental platform before he spoke again. Delight watched him, hands now on her hips, waiting impatiently and defensively.
       He stopped walking, raised his hands once more, then finally spoke.
       "Geez, I've been thinking about this moment for, like, months, going over all the things I wanted to say. I even had a couple of good speeches ready. Well, I thought I did. I ended up throwing them out a while ago."
       He was starting to ramble, as usual, and tried to reign things in early.
       "What happened between us—that fight, the kiss, me letting you go. You don't know how many times I've gone over it in my head. The kiss part stayed good every time, but the rest...the ending..."
       "Oh, I see," she interrupted venomously, standing up. "Now you're thinking you should have just turned me over to the cops. All that nice guy, give a girl a second chance stuff was just a bunch of crap."
       "No," he clarified, importantly. "No, it wasn't. Yeah, I still sometimes wonder if I did the right thing. I won't lie to you. But I did it for a reason, and better or worse, I stick by that. I really don't know much about you, but I get the feeling you're an okay girl. I don't agree with what you do, and I pray every day that you haven't been doing it since I let you off the hook, but I don't get the idea you're a bad person."
       "Gosh, that's big of you," she said with blatantly mock gratitude. "The big hero thinks I'm an okay girl. Now I can just skip all those commandments and head right for the pearly gates."
       "You're not getting my point," he tried.
       "I'm getting exactly your point," she hissed. "You're the mighty Windjammer and I'm just some super-powered white trash that you can't afford to be seen with. Heaven forbid I do anything to tarnish your sterling fucking reputation."
       "I'm not talking about my reputation!" he yelled, surprised at the almost never-heard sound of his own raised voice. "And that's exactly what I mean. I don't care about that. I don't care about the newspapers and the talk shows and all that garbage. God, everyone thinks my life, what I'm doing, is some big movie or something. This isn't a game! This isn't cowboys and Indians, and it's not Melrose Place! This thing is bigger than I ever thought it was going to be. I can't play with this. The minute I stop taking this seriously, people could die. People could die. This is life and death, can't you see that?"
       "I see it," she said, not wavering. "Just fine. The poor little rich boy from the suburbs just found out that the world isn't the big prom night he thought it was. Welcome to it, hero. But some of us know a lot more about life and death than you'll ever know. So if you want to make yourself out as the big martyr and savior the world, knock yourself out. But don't expect me to be impressed by it, and don't use your pedestal to hide behind. If I'm not worthy of your stature and your high ideals, just have the balls to come out and say it."
       "Delight—" This was going absolutely nowhere he'd wanted it to.
       "No," she said, her mind made up. "I don't need this. You don't want someone like me around, fine. I'll make it easy on you. You don't have to deal with me anymore." She gave him one last icy glare, then turned and stormed back toward the Hole's entrance. "Thanks for the bullshit, Superman."
       He wanted to say something, but knew there was nothing. He turned back toward the city, grinding his teeth and clenching eyes, praying for someone to tell him that all hadn't just happened. For months he's been trying to figure out what to say to her if he ever saw her again. He got his chance, and he did everything wrong. Old Shane had found yet another way to screw up. One of these days he was going to have to start keeping a list.
       All kinds of clashing emotions bombarded him, and he realized, painfully, that he had no idea what he was really thinking or feeling. He thought about the stolen moment in some guy's driveway when two people—who shared something between them unprecedented in human history—shared of each other, and felt right together. He thought of Porter, and all his lessons on right and wrong and responsibility. He thought of Renee, and wondered how much a part she'd played in what just happened—and if it was less than he wanted to believe. He thought of spinning armored cars and hostages in restaurants and terrorists with nuclear weapons. And he felt Delight's words stabbing into him, accusing him of not wanting her kind around him to cast a shadow on his shining image—and he had to wonder if deep down, maybe a sliver of what she felt might not be as impossible as he wanted to think.
       He breathed in the night, trying to calm down, get his heart and head under control. He listened to the wind, the one man in the world who knew its whispers better than anyone. He sought its sound to soothe him, to focus him.
       It was another sound that opened his eyes.
       Delight had not left. He could hear her back in the cave. The sound was unsure at first, lost in the breeze and the faraway car horns of the city. But he listened again, and soon, there was no doubt. What he heard, coming from the darkness, were quiet, involuntary sobs.
       She was crying.
       Oh, God. He shifted in his padded boots uncomfortably. He hated trig, he hated the dentist, he hated cleaning the toilet...but there was nothing he hated more than when girls cried.
       What made this even more unnerving, though, was that he honestly hadn't thought this one capable of doing it.
       He tried to wait, but the guilt overshadowed everything else, and he started a cautious walk into the cave. He had to let his eyes adjust for a moment, but he soon found her, half swallowed in darkness. She was sitting right near the Hole's center, down on the cold, hard rock, leaning up against the jagged wall. Her knees were up by her chin, and her arms were wrapped around them. She was jerking with periodic gulps of air into watery lungs.
       He stood still at the sight of her, unsure how to proceed, not knowing if his coming closer might just set her off again. When the holding pattern's usefulness began to wear out, he chose to advance instead of retreat. He stepped quietly to the wall and sat carefully down—not too close to her, not too far. They sat quiet in the dark, her hitches and sniffles the only breakers.
       "I don't know how to do this," she said, her words mucus-rich. The sound of it, the sadness, the vulnerability, cut him right through the engine room. He was suddenly dealing with a raw person, a wide-open soul. Something else he hadn't he hadn't seen coming in his relations with her.
       "What?" he asked, his voice soft and kind, he hoped draped in trust.
       She snuffed and coughed. What was coming was coming hard, and he resolved to do whatever he had to to make it easier for her.
       "I know how to make people...want me," she sniffed. "I've known that for a long time. It's a...tool. Whenever I—"
       She stopped, as lost in her words as he'd been minutes before.
       "I never wanted to need anybody," she started again. "I mean I'd use people for things that I needed, but not like... I didn't want to have to count on anybody but myself, not ever again. That way I'm self-contained, and nobody runs my life, and nobody can hurt me."
       "Okay," he said in the dark, letting her know he was still with her.
       "You don't know, you can't—" She stopped and sniffed hard, angrily, frustrated with herself, fighting against herself. "God, why is this so hard? Why does it have to be like this?"
       "It's okay," he said, reassuringly, scooting closer. He sat beside her, facing her, and took a chance, putting his hand over one of hers. He waited to see what she'd do, and she took it. Her touch, this time, was not soft and flirtatious. Her fingers were cold and rigid, and when they closed around his, they were tight and desperate. "Come on, it's okay."
       She sobbed a couple of more times and put her face down to her knees until it passed. She lifted her head again with a sniffle that was the highest and most frightened yet.
       "I didn't come here looking for a date. I don't care about all that tabloid crap either. I would have come a long time ago, but I was afraid. I am afraid."
       "What are you afraid of?" he asked, squeezing her hand in support.
       "I don't want to need anybody," she repeated, and then she nearly whispered the next. "But I do. I'm all alone. I don't have anybody, anybody in my life. I've got no one to talk to. No one to turn to. I've always felt different, like an outsider, like nobody could understand me. And then these things started happening to me—these powers, I mean—and at first I thought, God, finally, something good is happening to me. But I ended up feeling even more different than ever, like now there was no way anyone would understand me. And then—"
       She stopped, another hard speedbump.
       "And then I heard about you, and I thought, maybe there is somebody. But I didn't want to believe it. I told myself if you existed, you'd be nothing like me, and wouldn't want anything to do with me. And then I met you, and even wanted real bad to hate you. But I couldn't. You were sweet, and noble, and you were nice to me. And you let me go. You didn't think I was a monster. You believed in me. No one's ever—"
       She choked up again and cut herself off. Shane closed his eyes. God, he was a jerk. He ran over, in his head, every time he'd pulled away from her since she landed, over every word he'd said, all wrapped up in his own frustrations and questions about his place in the world. He'd had no clue any of this was going on in her own head.
       "I'm just tired of being alone," she said. "I've been alone for too long. Some scary things have been happening to me lately, and there's no one I can turn to. I just thought, if I came here—"
       He slid his open arm around her shoulders, and gently pulled her to him. They sat, side by side, her head falling to his neck, and she cried some more.
       "There's nobody?" he finally asked. "Friends, family?"
       She coughed a cruel laugh. "Friends? In L.A.? No, no friends. Nobody I can trust."
       "Family?" he asked again.
       She was quiet, and she pressed her face harder against his shoulder for moment. "No," she said. "Not for a long time. Even then it was just her, just Mom."
       Not knowing if it was a good idea or not, he asked anyway. "What happened? Where is she?"
       She didn't answer right away. She just rubbed her tears on his costume. "She came out to L.A. from Michigan, when she was pregnant with me. Some married guy knocked her up back there, and then didn't want her anymore. She bailed. I never met my grandparents, but I guess they didn't want her around after that either. She knew some people, people her folks didn't like, and she left for California with them and never went back. I kind of remember them. They were there for a while when I was little, but then they were gone. Mom started hanging around with bikers and people like that. I think she was always into drugs, but she got into them heavy when I was seven or eight. She wasn't my mother anymore after that. In body, yeah, but she was different inside."
       He felt his arm around her tingle, all the blood leaving it. His blood was scared of this, too, but he couldn't get away as easily.
       "Then one day," she said, her voice small and gravelly, "I came home from school. I always walked myself home. We didn't have a car. We didn't even have a phone. We lived in this roachy little apartment in Hollywood with stains on the walls and almost no furniture. I was ten. We had this 'save the planet' board in our classroom at school, and I made a little rain forest thing with colored paper and glue and these big colored markers. It was really good. I was happy with myself. And that day the teacher gave out ribbons for our stuff. I didn't win the big one. This girl named Becky did, but she always won everything." Her voice got very childlike. "But I was second. I got an award. I'd never done that before. I spent the rest of the day looking at that little red ribbon, not believing it. I kept thinking there was some mistake, and they were going to take it back and give it to somebody else, and everybody was going to laugh at me.
       "So I came home with it. I don't think my feet touched the sidewalk the whole way. I wanted to tell Mom about it. I kept seeing her face, all smiling and proud, pretty like she used to be. I came in and slammed the door and threw my bag on the floor and started calling her. But she didn't answer. I got really bummed because I thought she might be down at the bar on the corner, and then you never knew when she was going to come home, or if she'd be alone. I wanted to tell her right there and then."
       He tightened his fingers just a little around hers. He hadn't meant to. It occurred to him that he'd stopped breathing, and he realized that he was actually terrified.
       "So I went into her room, and she was there, in bed. Nothing new. She never slept at any set time. I thought she might get mad at me, but I went to wake her up anyway. I just had to tell her. I kept seeing that face in my head, her smiling. I wanted to see that so bad. She was so pretty. God, she was pretty."
       Another coyote howl drifted, spirit-like, through the cave.
       "I saw her arm first, laying there on top the covers. There was a rubber tube wrapped around it. All my good feelings just kind of went away. I hadn't seen that in a while. I always hated it. I didn't understand it then, but I knew it was bad, and I knew I didn't like her when she did that. I hated her right then. It was one of the best days of my life, and just like that, she ruined it. I thought she was the most selfish person in the world. She didn't care that I'd gotten a ribbon. She didn't care about me at all. All she cared about was having a good time and doing things to herself that made her forget the married guy. It was all about her. And this was my day. My best day."
       Her voice had gotten angry. Now it became dream-like and distant.
       "And then I saw her eyes. They were open. Kind of half-open, like not awake or asleep. They were just staring. They weren't moving. They weren't...anything."
       Shane heard himself swallow.
       "I got really scared. More scared than I'd ever been. But I just turned around and walked out. I pretended I hadn't seen it, like I just imagined it. I think I knew, but I made-believe she was just asleep, and I told myself she'd be mad if I woke her up. I went and sat down in the living room on this folding chair we had. I don't know how long I sat there. After a while, I got the idea to make her dinner. I thought I'd surprise her, and that would make her really happy. I didn't even need to tell her about the ribbon anymore. We didn't have much there, just a box of macaroni and cheese. But I made it. I needed a pot, so I cleaned one. Then I did all the dishes, and I put them away, and I cleaned up the kitchen. And I cooked the macaroni and cheese. I must have read the directions twenty times to make sure I was doing it right. And it turned out okay. I was so grateful that it turned out. The whole apartment smelled like cheese. I got two plates and clean forks and set them out on the counter. We didn't even have a table.
       "I went back into her room. It was dark now. I stood just inside the door, and I said 'Mom?'. I said it really quiet, so I told myself it was okay when she didn't answer. I said it again. Louder. I went a little further in, and I kept saying it. I finally went to the bed and started shaking her. Real soft. Then harder. Next thing I knew I was screaming at her, but no matter what I did, she wouldn't wake up. I tried and I tried, but she wouldn't—"
       Her control had been faltering. Now she fell completely apart. Shane didn't hesitate. He wrapped both his arms around her and squeezed her and her arms clenched him like a vise.
       "Oh, my God," he said, rocking her. "Oh, my God..."
       "I didn't know what to do," she blubbered into his chest. "We didn't have a phone. I couldn't think of anyone to get. Nobody there liked us. I couldn't get the police. Mom hated the police and told me never to talk to them. Even then I thought she'd get mad at me. I just sat there in the corner by her bed, crying and crying, wanting somebody to come save me, to make it all better. But there was nobody. They found me three days later. The only reason the landlord even came in was because we were four months late on the rent and she was going to kick us out."
       He was starting to shake, and she seemed so fragile right then he was afraid he was going to break her in his arms. She turned her face up just slightly, and that was enough. He kissed her, frantically, and she kissed back. It wasn't passionate. It was primal need, and unconditional mercy. He was crying, too. Nothing outside their dark cave mattered. All the mattered to him was taking care of her, being there for her without pause, without question. World's a big, mean place, Bonilla's voice repeated in his mind. Shane had had no idea. No idea at all.
       Maybe a half-hour passed, maybe an hour. There were no words. Just holding, just kissing, just togetherness and comfort. Desperation slowly became peace. He ran his hand through her hair, feeling dampness there, as her face rested back against his neck.
       "What happened then?" he finally had to ask, tenderly.
       She sniffed. "Ward of the state," she said, her control back (but shaky). "Turned out my grandparents had gotten killed in a car wreck a few years before. I was in a home for a while. Not a nice place. Then I got placed in a foster home when I was twelve. An older couple. The guy liked me a lot. So much so that I finally ran away when I was fourteen. No one cared much. I lived on the streets in Hollywood. I met a lot of people. I survived. I learned to get by pretty good. I don't like to think about it much, but it got me where I am. And then, the light. Just out of nowhere, I had these powers." She laughed a little. "I thought I got another ribbon. But sometimes it doesn't feel like much of a prize. For a while it made me feel special. These days? It just makes me feel more alone."
       She sat up, pulling her hair back, and wiped tears from her face with the back of her hand. He shifted his weight, feeling the pangs of too much time in the same position. But he dropped his hand right away and took hers, not wanting to lose the contact.
       "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm really, really sorry. I handled things lousy tonight. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to hurt you."
       "I know," she said, smiling kindly. "It's my fault. I came up here with all these big expectations, and when you didn't live up to all of them right away, I got scared. I thought I'd been fooling myself, and you really did think I was scum after all."
       "There's no way I think you're scum," he said, emphatically.
       "I know," she said, cutting him off. She squeezed his hand, twice. "I got scared, that's all."
       They looked into each other’s eyes. She leaned in and gave him a single kiss. Then she started to shiver.
       "I lied," she confessed, suddenly clutching her arms together in front of her. "I'm really cold."
       "Well, geez," he said, feeling like a heel, and stood up, using the wall to support him. "Don't move, hold on a sec."
       He stepped quickly to the cave entrance, looking down on his Jeep in the parking lot below. He waved his fingers slightly in the air and concentrated. His brown leather jacket, resting in the Jeep's back seat, flew up into the air. He willed it, and the jacket flapped on one current after the next, wavering its way swiftly up to him. He grabbed it out of the air and returned to Delight.
       "Here," he said with concern, kneeling down next to her and fanning the jacket out to wrap around her. She clutched the inner lining and pulled it as tightly about her as she could, and he sat back down next to her and wrapped both arms protectively around her.
       "For crying out loud, why didn't you say something? And why'd you come out in this weather wearing this thing in the first place?"
       She laughed a little as she fought off the chills. "I was trying to turn you on."
       "Oh," he said, and blushed. "Well, it...was working. But...you're probably going to think I'm weird for this..." He pulled the jacket around her a bit more snug. "...But I kind of like you better this way."
       "I don't think you're weird," she said. He'd been expecting a joke. He didn't get one. "I think you're wonderful."
       He wasn't sure what to say to that, so he said nothing, just letting her lean on him.
       "I know what you mean," he did say. "About being different. I go through it, too. That's why I didn't want to let you go that day. I wanted to know everything about you. I wanted to know somebody knew what it was like to be me."
       "Yeah," she breathed, thoughtfully, understanding.
       "It's not like they teach you about this in school. I was afraid for a long time. But I was lucky. I had Porter."
       "Porter?" she asked.
       Shane smiled. "That's a long story. He's...kind of like a dad to me, I guess. My real dad died before I was born. Porter's taught me a lot."
       "I think you talked about him last time," she remembered. "He sounds really great. You are lucky." She said it genuinely, glad for him.
       "Yep," he agreed. "He's like an anchor. All this stuff can get overwhelming. I don't know where it's all going sometimes. Suddenly, everybody wants a piece of me. And now Terrance Cross and his hair-plug publicist want me to go Hollywood."
       "What?" She sat up again, sharp with interest.
       He told her. Her told her all about Chester Fein calling him through Captain Bonilla, setting up a meeting at Terrance's Scottsdale home (one of his many homes around the world that sat empty most the year, until he came to town for a promotion, a film shoot, or to golf). He told her how the aging action hero and mega-producer wanted to fly him out to L.A. to talk about his future—his marketing, his publicity, and even a Windjammer movie. As much as Shane tried to deny it and convince himself he was still a normal college guy, he knew Terrance (oh so convincing Terrance) was right...the whole world did know who he was, and wanted to see a lot more of him.
       "Are you going to do it?" she asked when he finished the tale.
       "I don't know," he said, his voice perplexed. "He thinks I am, because I haven't said no. I'm not sure I'm going to say no. He makes some good points. I don't want all this idol stuff. I don't want to be on tee shirts and do Reebok commercials. But someone told me something tonight that I can't ignore. People need heroes. Maybe I owe it to them." He shook his head. "Geez, that sounds conceited. I hate this."
       "Do it," she said.
       He looked at her, and her eyes were bright. He realized then that while he'd been going on about heroics and stardom, her thinking had been on a totally different track.
       "Come to L.A." she said, taking his hand. The jacket started to slide off her shoulder, and he absently pulled it back in place as he listened. "Take him up on his offer. See the town. Have some fun for a couple of weeks. L.A.'s really exciting at Christmas time, and New Year's Eve...oh, man."
       She was speaking quickly, convincingly, and got to her point without much fanfare.
       "I want you to come. I want to see you. I've been to your town twice now. It's your turn to come see mine."
       He smiled at that, but then looked unsure again, tangling with his issues.
       "Please," she pleaded. "I need you to come, 'Jammer. I need you."
       "Dee," he started to speak, not realizing they'd fallen right into pet names already.
       "I know," she said, not defensive at all this time. "I know it's not that easy. I don't expect it to be. I just want a chance for us to get to know each other, spend a little time together. And not in costumes. I want to take you out and show you around. Just you and me, no cameras, no powers, no good guys and bad guys. Just two normal, scared people who like and care about each other. We do, don't we?"
       "Yes," he said, surprised at how naturally it came. "Of course we do."
       "Then come to L.A.," she said, taking both his hands. "Give us a chance. Give me my first good Christmas. Don't make me spend another one alone."
       All the months of indecision came to a head right then and there. All the doubts and questions came back at once. All the wondering about what Porter would think when he finally told him, what his friend, mentor, and father's face would tell. All the fears that this would be his first step into the one whirlwind that he couldn't control, and that his life would never be the same, never be his again.
       And he saw a dark king atop a pile of corpses, his queen beside him, shadows pouring from her and enveloping the whole world. And a bank clock across from an outdoor cafe, flashing the same date...the same time...again and again.
       "I need you to come," she said with finality. "Please. Come."
       He looked down at her hands, kneading them between his own, and looked up into her now-expectant eyes.
       "I'll come."
       She didn't kiss him. She hugged him. She embraced him joyfully, thankfully, and didn't let go.
       Renee's glasses perched lightly at the tip of her delicate nose, and the voice of Sam told him you couldn't help but know, not when it's real, not when it's meant to be.
       He didn't know.
       He didn't know a thing.
       A coyote—maybe the same one, maybe another—howled among the saguaros, crying the mystic, ancient song of the Arizona night.

I N T E R L U D E

Albuquerque, New Mexico

       Connie Prine sat at the creaky brown table in the corner of her studio that had become her desk. Her outdated computer sat lifeless next to an old-style dot matrix printer, the kind that fed perforated paper through it. A box of paper was kept behind the table/desk, the well the printer fed from, and the perpetual length of paper wound through the computer wires and cables, occasionally catching and tearing the fragile holes along the sheets that enabled their feed. She kept telling herself she'd get at the cables with some ties or rubber bands or something and end the problem once and for all. But she just never seemed to find the time.
       She was writing in a notebook, trying to get her books organized and up-to-date. Papers and order slips and sketches were scattered all around the desk. She hated the number-crunching part of what she did, so it tended to build up. This time, it gave her a rare satisfaction. She was actually coming close to the magical place above the waterline. That was something she hadn't been in the three years she'd been in New Mexico.
       Her studio was a vast place with dirty windows all around (she didn't care much for cleaning, either, if she could avoid it), a unit above an old closed-down dress shop off Stinson Street that had been forgotten by the city's extensive urban renewal projects of the 1970s. Here, upstairs, decades ago, a family of Italians crafted clothing with care and sold them down below. What caused them to finally close shop was anyone's guess. They'd been gone long before she'd shown up with a timid checkbook and an old, precious dream. She was able to rent the studio only. A store? Not something she saw in her dream anyway. Just the studio was all she needed. A place to do what she loved, and chance to get on the road to her final goal, which ended further west, a lot closer to the beach, and the stars.
       There was a deep, echoing knock on her large sliding front door.
       Connie looked up from her book, dropping her Casio calculator. She yanked her wrist to her face and checked her watch. 4:46. She tensed up all over in frustration. He was early!
       She jumped up and scampered across the wooden floor in stocking feet. She'd planned to have time to shower. Now all hope of that was gone. She was wearing her favorite light, baggy shorts that were nearly worn through, and an oversized LSU tee shirt. Oh, very professional. Very presentable.
       Very alluring, a small part of her scolded.
       "Shoot shoot shoot shoot!" she whined, running past her small regiment of wooden mannequins (most of which were left by the previous tenants) and behind the divider that sectioned off the area she'd made into her bedroom. There was a flowered dress hanging on a peg on the wall, and she grabbed for it, threw it on the bed, and started pulling her grubbies off.
       Another knock came as she fought her way into the dress, and more panic set in. "Oh, please don't leave," she said helplessly, reaching around and struggling with the zipper, almost dislocating one of her arms in the act. She flopped down on the bed and yanked her socks off with her toes, and looked around frantically for her shoes. She spotted one. Then she saw the other. In the corner, her thick-furred black kitten was wrapped around it, chewing on it, wrestling it like an alligator.
       "No, no, Fidget, no!" She finished with the zipper, grabbed the one unaccosted shoe, put it on, and did a manic pirate walk to the cat. She rescued the shoe, grabbed the kitten, and placed him on the bed. He watched her put on the shoe, missed it for a moment, then found a discarded bra to attack. By the time she bounced up and ran back into the studio, the bra was already winning.
       She jerked to a stop for a moment in front of one of her several full-length mirrors, quickly tying her hair back. She messed with it briefly, doing what she could with so little prep time. She checked herself, straightening her dress around her hips. Five pounds, she swore to herself again. Just five pounds more.
       She darted across to the south wall, where there were no windows, just the door, so her place hid the impressive view of the Rio Grande from her, and prayed he'd still be there. She grabbed the handle, unlatched it, and yanked the monster slider noisily open.
       He was still there.
       "Nathan," she smiled, trying to act relaxed (yeah, right. She was probably beet red and winded).
       He stood outside her door, dressed in jeans, a button-down white shirt, and a black leather jacket. He was a good seven inches taller than her, and she guessed his dark hair was even longer than hers. There was a dark green, deflated gym bag hanging over his shoulder on a strap, and it looked empty. He was looking at the floor, expressionless. His eyes rose to meet hers. His manner didn't change much at all.
       She kept smiling awkwardly. This was normally where the other person would say something back, but she remembered his demeanor from their previous—and first—meeting. Not much of a talker, this one. Pretty cold, in fact. But he wore that well. He felt a little bit dangerous, and some women—like her—didn't find that such a bad thing.
       "Um, come in," she said brightly, stepping aside and granting him entrance. He walked past her into the studio proper, his boots clomping slowly on the floor. "I'm really sorry about the wait, there. You're a little early, and you caught me off-guard. Not that it's a problem! Not at all."
       "Good," he said, his back to her. Yeah, not much of a talker.
       She pulled the door shut and followed him in, pulling on her dress one more time. "Pretty nice day out there, huh? The weatherman was actually right for a change. You don't see that happen everyday."
       He stopped in the middle of her work area, casually. Sewing machines and yards of fabric were on tables, stools, and boxes. The weather. Was she actually talking about the weather? One usually didn't have to carry all the weight in a chit-chat situation. Not having anything to work off of, she was falling back on the old stand-bys.
       Okay, so he wasn't going to play. That was fine. She put on her business face, happy to do so. That was what this meeting was all about, anyway.
       "Well, it's all done, as promised," she said, cheerfully. "If you'll just wait right here, I'll get it for you."
       He stood and waited as she walked across the room. She kept talking as she went, raising her voice so it could be heard over her shoulder.
       "I just want to thank you again, by the way. For the work. I'm always pretty loaded right up until Halloween, but things get slow for a while after that. I mainly end up doing renaissance fair stuff for people the rest of the year. That's kind of regular. Some stage stuff for local productions. And I do some prom dresses, when that time comes around. But it's great to get something different."
       She pulled a garment bag off a long metal rack, and grabbed a nice box on the floor next to it, then started back to him.
       "This must be some party you're going to," she said, trying to build some expectation as she brought his order to him—since he clearly wasn't bringing up the emotion himself. "This is an expensive piece of work. Oh, and thanks again for the payment up front. The leatherwork, especially, would have been a lot for me to front on spec. I appreciate your faith in me."
       He watched her approach him. More to the point, he watched the bag. His eyes didn't touch her.
       She stopped in front of him, tipping up once on her toes with a little of her own excitement. She liked this part, when a job was finished and she got to show it off. Especially when it turned out as well as this one had. It had been a labor of love for her. Her hope was to one day do costume work for one of the big studios in Hollywood, and this was probably the most complicated work she'd done in her freelance career. This would impress them, she was sure. She'd thought, briefly, about asking him to pose for a photo in it, one of the ones she took of her clients to put in her album—her Polaroid resume, she called it. But she dismissed the idea immediately. She knew he wouldn't go for it, so she didn't want to take the chance even suggesting it and offending such a well-paying—and yes, handsome—customer. Hopefully, her sketches would be enough.
       "Here it is," she said proudly, biting her grinning lip. "Ready to try it on?"
       "Yes," he said, taking the bag from her, staring at it all the while.
       She handed him the box. "Boots," she said. She motioned to another part of the room she'd partitioned off. "You can change right back there."
       "Thank you," he said, taking the box, and he walked to where she'd sent him and disappeared behind the barrier. Wow. 'Thank you'. There hadn't been much feeling behind it, but it was a start.
       She walked to one of her worktables and leaned on it while she waited. She picked up a light, summery scarf and started twisting it around in her hands.
       "I kept right to the sketches we worked out," she said, raising her volume again. "I was about dead-on with them, so I didn't have to make too many adjustments. I'm still a little worried about the shoulders, though, so let me know if they sit right. We can fix it if there's a problem. Not a big thing at all."
       She wasn't trying to, but since there was no other sound in the big, echoing room, she could clearly make out the noises of fabric coming off his body and dropping to the floor, piece by piece. She started smiling, slyly, at herself and rolled her eyes. She wasn't really thinking about trying anything with this guy. He was mysterious and interesting, but way too cold, younger than her, and maybe even a bit of a jerk. She'd been with a couple of jerks. Didn't want that history to repeat itself. But it was kind of fun to think about. Before he'd arrived, she'd even toyed with the idea of seeing if he wanted to grab a drink or something sometime. Dating was something she didn't do much, not since coming to New Mexico. She kept too busy, and she felt most guys found her a little weird, sitting up there amongst her wooden roommates all day and night, making medieval dresses and kilts. Fun to think about. A nice little fantasy. But not very practical, or smart.
       "I think that kind of stuff's going to get really big," she said, trying to drown out the dressing sounds. "With all this incredible stuff happening? In Phoenix, in Washington? And San Diego? People are going crazy over it. I bet in a few months I could open up a side business just on this kind of work alone."
       Again, he didn't answer. A Billy Idol lyric popped into her head. Dancin' with my-se-elf, ah, ah, ah oh... Nothing but rustling noises, silence, more of them. The quiet was starting to get uncomfortable. Then she heard Fidget, and probably her bra, fall off the bed and hit the floor with a comedic thump. She cupped her hand over her mouth, holding back a giggle.
       He stepped out. She rose to a stand in expectation, then looked perplexed. He was wearing the same clothes he'd come in with, his jacket back on and everything. The green bag was back over his shoulder. This time, it was bulging a little. She could see the imprint of one of the boots pressing against its side.
       "What, I don't get to see it?" she asked, good-heartedly, but not able to mask her disappointment. She didn't want to overstep her bounds, but she'd worked hard on it, and was dying to see how it looked...and how he looked in it.
       He walked to her, looking at her this time. "No one does," he said. "Not before the party." There was something ironic in his tone, the way he said the last.
       "Oh," she said, deflated. "I get it. Bad luck or something, huh?" She really didn't get it. A lot of things about this guy didn't make sense. Rats. All that work, and no payoff.
       "Bad luck," he repeated, now standing in front of her.
       She shifted a little. He was finally looking at her...right at her. Right through her, it almost felt like. She fought the urge to take her eyes away. His stare was crossing the line of social acceptance. She was trying to figure out if that meant something. Was he coming on to her? Finally? Did she want him to? Or, a little scared voice suggested, was he just nuts?
       She had to break the moment before it got so tense it snapped. "Well, do you like it? Did it turn out like you wanted?" She knew there was a mirror in her little shanty of a dressing room, so he'd had to have checked himself out.
       "Yes," he said. "It's exactly what I need."
       "Oh," she said, softening, finally feeling a little appreciated. "Great. I'm so glad. Like I said, I put a lot of work into this one. It's one of my best designs, I think."
       "People will see it," he said. "A lot of people. Your work is going to be known all over the world."
       "Wow," she laughed, thinking that was a funny thing to say, but taking it as just another compliment. "Guess it's a good thing for me you found me in the phone book, then."
       "I only hope that will give you some kind of peace," he said quietly. His eyes were still right on hers.
       Her smile faded, and her face kind of hovered in mid-shift, unsure of what expression to answer with. What in the world was that supposed to mean? Her little voice spoke to her again, this time with urgency.
       His eyes, his cold, captivatingly dangerous eyes, burst into flames right before her. Her jaw dropped and she fell back against the table, and she took in a huge gasp.
       She had time for half a scream.
       The top floor of the quaint old two-story building on Stinson Street exploded in a deafening fireball. Glass blew out in every direction, showering the streets and rooftops—glass, and burning fabric, and a melted Casio calculator, and debris of every kind. The building, and three unfortunate enough to be near it, burned to the ground as the night went on, and four fire stations did battle against the inferno before it finally gave out, sometime just before dawn. Investigators were baffled, and no matter how much the press hounded them, could give no reason for the senseless blaze that caused countless thousands of dollars in property damage and ended the life of one twenty-five year-old southern girl who'd dared to dream.
       One paper reported the ramblings of a street woman, one that police and fire officials had quickly dismissed. The old, crazed woman swore on the souls of her children that she'd seen the Devil walking right out of that fire. The Devil, she said, wore a black leather jacket, carried a green bag, and the fire just seemed to open up around him and not touch him at all.
       It was like, she said, the fire itself was afraid of him.

E N D  I N T E R L U D E