Down the Rabbit Hole

Immediately his hands fisted on his splendid red trunks and his crimson cape billowed—without a breeze—behind him. Superman . . . though his face was quickly morphing from DC Comics to George Reeves to the Christopher Reeves version that was her personal favorite. Even after his laser-blue eyes faded to Martin’s lively golden-green, he was still the Superman by which all other contemporary Supermans were measured.

“You’re a pain in the neck, you know that?”

“I’ve been told before,” she said.

“It bears repeating.”

She agreed with a lopsided smile, then she went serious and worried. “Why haven’t I changed?”

“Maybe your feelings haven’t changed.” He dazzled her with his supersmile. “Or maybe I’m here because you need a new perspective on an old problem.”

She thought about it briefly. “Are we back to the book and its cover again?”

“I love working with people I don’t have to drag every inch of the way. And yes, we’re back to your extraordinary ability to be judgmental and arrive at false assumptions.”

Hadn’t she already admitted to those unflattering flaws in her character? She looked away, disappointed that Superman would kick a sad little IRS agent when she was down.

But then he added, “Except this time, instead of polarizing people and ideas you barely know or understand, let’s take a look at some you do know.”

“Some what? Some people I know? My friends? My family?” Tears pricked at Elise’s eyes, her throat got tight and her remote, dispassionate Daria-shield slipped a bit. “I’m alienating my family? And my friends? Hurting them? No one’s said—and Roger would say . . .” Now she was feeling nauseous. She took a deep breath and let it out slow and dazed. “I didn’t know. My family is stuck with me, I guess, but how can my friends stand me if . . . Why do they stay?”

Her hands were trembling. She clenched them, open and closed, looking up at the iconic champion of truth, justice and the American way—he didn’t lie.

“Your friends love you, Elise,” he said with understanding and compassion in his handsome face. “They accept and cherish what you’ve allowed them to see in you—the good and the not so good.”

“I love them, too. Fay and Trudy know me better than my mother. Carol Ann, she’s the best; she drove me everywhere for three weeks after I sprained my right ankle last year. Abby and Leigh . . . and Molly and . . . all of them. I have great friends. I’d jump in front of a locomotive for any of them. They know that, right?”

“They know you.”

“So they think and agree that I’m . . . Daria Downer? That I’m fault-finding; that I take a lot for granted?”

“All about you.” He held up a finger. “I’m not saying they approve of the practice or that it doesn’t bother them at times—only that they accept it as a part of you. And they do that because there’s so much more about you that is worthy of their friendship and love.” He stopped at another four-way aisle intersection. “Their primary concern is that you’re not seeing the damage it’s doing to you. They’re afraid that you don’t know how self-destructive it is.”

The gray shadows fell across period costumes—Colonial gentleman and Southern belle; flapper, pilgrim and disco dancer—and then scattered away from a scene that had played repeatedly in her mind for weeks. For three weeks and two days, to be exact.

“It’s that night, after our six-month anniversary dinner,” Elise muttered, watching intently.

She’d let Max park his car, turn off the engine, get out, take the elevator and walk her all the way to her apartment door knowing full well what he was anticipating and equally as certain that she had no intention of letting him in.

She had come to a decision; she just didn’t know how to tell him.

“Max.” It was an odd moment to note how perfect he was to hold hands with. He wasn’t so tall and she wasn’t so short that either one of them had to compensate for the length of their arms—their hands were just right, back to back then palm to palm, coming together easily and inevitably.

“Hmm?” He smiled at her.

“We need to talk.”

“Good.” She could barely glance at him. “You’ve been acting . . . not yourself all night. Is something wrong?”

Her tongue felt stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she was too aware that they were still holding hands. She let go and turned to face him.

“This isn’t going to work,” she said, blurting out words that were closer to the end of her prepared speech than the beginning.

“What?”

“Eh. That’s not how I meant to say it.”

“Say what?” He had the deepest, warmest brown eyes she’d ever seen. They were confused and cautious.

“I’m saying that this, you and me, it isn’t going to work. I’ve known for a while and I’m sorry now that I didn’t put an end to it sooner. Certainly before tonight.” She waved her fingers back and forth between them and their elegant attire. “All your plans and . . . the flowers and . . . I’m sorry.”

He studied her face. “What’s happened? What triggered this?”