The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

from me,” Kay says. “I’m assuming you discussed keeping it a secret. How did you not tell me?”

“The day I found out, we just didn’t say anything,” says Avi. “We didn’t know how. Every day we didn’t tell you became one more thing we’d have to explain.” He’s aware that saying we over and over is a way to protect himself, to use Emmeline as a shield. He needs every defense. “Not telling you became easier.”

“Oh, good,” she says. “I’m glad it was easy for you.”

“It wasn’t—”

“What can she do?” Kay says. “What’s her superpower?”

“They don’t say superpower,” Avi says.

“What can she do?”

“We don’t know yet,” says Avi. “Sometimes it takes a while for abilities to manifest. Emmeline is young. But Kevin Bishop says—”

“This is the person who bribed me with a box of comic books.”

“He runs a school,” Avi says. “An academy.”

“I read the article,” Kay says.

“It’s in New York,” says Avi. “That’s not in the article, but it’s in Midtown. Emmeline and I have been talking, and we think—”

“You have a plan, Avi?” she snaps. “Because we’re still recovering from your last plan. We’re paying medical bills and waiting to see if you climb out of the pit you’ve been in since your last plan. Do you even recognize what this is? It’s one more war zone. It’s all the excitement of Darfur and Mosul right in our living room. And you get to bring Emmeline with you.” She rubs her hand over her face. “Fuck, this Kevin Bishop saw you coming. I mean, he piqued my interest with a fat check and a box of back issues. But they had you at go, didn’t they?”

Avi stands under her glare, waiting for it to cool. Silence is no better than yelling. He puts his hands up, patting the air between them. “I want us to talk about what’s best for Emmeline.”

“You don’t get to decide what we talk about,” she says. She slaps the newspaper again, the same way the man on television did. “What does this have to do with the church bombing? There’s nothing in here about Salem Baptist.”

“It was one of them,” Avi says. “They asked me not to write about it.”

“They can blow up buildings?”

“They caught him,” says Avi, as if her question is about Owen Curry in particular and not the dangers of the new world she’s watching dawn, the sharks their daughter might swim among.

—

Things become awful between them, but quietly. Silently. Kay speaks to him when it’s absolutely necessary. She finds reasons to stay late at work. When she comes home, she pours herself an overfull glass of wine and sits in the kitchen, reading old comic books, taking each out of its sleeve and holding it so it obscures her face. She eats dinner on her own, reheating whatever Avi and Emmeline had. Emmeline goes in to talk to her sometimes, and Avi strains his attention toward them, hoping to hear something. From what he can tell, they don’t discuss Emmeline’s ability. They talk about books and television shows. They make small talk like they’re on a first date or a layover in an airport bar. They tread neutral ground.

This goes on for a week, each of them retreating to his or her own area of the house as early in the evening as possible. Emmeline puts herself to bed. Kay sets the box of comics in front of her on the couch, a glass of wine on the end table. Avi ascends to the attic, going over his notes on Owen Curry. A piece he’s promised himself he’ll never publish. The hatch to the attic rattles. It does this in the winter when the front door opens, a shift in the house’s air pressure he’s learned to ignore. It’s after eight, so Avi climbs down to investigate. At the bottom of the stairs, Kay holds the door open for Kevin Bishop. He’s standing in the cold, brown paper bag tucked under his arm, while she decides whether to invite him in, hand on her hip. After leaving him in the cold a while, Kay steps aside.

Bishop looks up at Avi. “The articles have been well received,” he says. “Congratulations.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Kay says. She turns to go.

“Stay,” Bishop says. Kay stops abruptly, as if she’s forgotten something.

“Are you in my head right now?” she says. “Did you—”

“A reflex,” Bishop says. “I’m sorry. It’s disrespectful, and I won’t do it to you again. It’s you I came to speak with. I need to talk to you about Emmeline.”

“She’s the only reason I let you in this door,” Kay says. Avi catches her glance as she says this, spreading her anger around without thinning it one bit. “I don’t want you in my head or in my house. I don’t want your money or—”

“We can talk about that,” Bishop says. “Is there somewhere we can sit?”

“Kitchen,” says Kay.

Bishop hands the paper bag off to Avi. Inside, two glass bottles clink together. “Would you mind?” Bishop says. Exacting instructions for making a gin martini appear in Avi’s head, along with a specific craving for one. The craving is recognizably foreign to him, a thought that is not his own. It’s like having something on the surface of his eye that affects his vision, except it’s on his brain, overlaying his thoughts. He goes to the freezer to get ice as Bishop and Kay sit at the table, well within earshot.

“I’ve made every possible misstep with you,” Bishop says to Kay. Avi searches the cupboards for their martini glasses, which are tucked deep behind a legion of wineglasses. They are not cocktail people. “I’m usually so good at reading people.”

Kay laughs, a tight exhalation of air. Avi sets three glasses on the counter and drops ice cubes into each one to chill it. A chilled glass is an important and often overlooked part of the drink, he thinks. It’s not something he knew a minute ago.

“My impression of you was