I was still telling myself that Sally would be okay when I left work that night.
Then, following my usual routine, I started telling myself that I would be okay.
Due to some crappy building design, when I left Lai Lai, I had to walk through a dark alley to get back to campus. Every night, I told myself it was time for me to get a car. Every night I made it home safely and decided to procrastinate just one more day.
Tonight, as I left Lai Lai with a box of Pepper Steak in my hands and my keys on a cord around my neck, I was a bit more freaked than usual.
I thought I saw movement. The Joker? A shadow. The Scarecrow? I heard a sound like a footstep. Poison Ivy? Something like breathing. The Riddler? Two-Face? Someone else?
I felt like an idiot even as I broke into a run. And I felt oddly justified when something caught me from behind.
I tried to scream bloody murder before the hand clamped over my mouth. I tried to fight him off, whoever he was. My dinner spilled all over the alley. I tried elbowing him in the chest. It was like hitting a brick wall.
"Hold still," said a voice of gravelly doom. I felt him move, heard a thwap, and suddenly we were flying through the air. I screamed against his hand. "Go limp." Gravelly doom!
He deposited me on Lai Lai's roof, and carefully let me go. I spun around to face…Batman.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I screamed. "Do you get off on snatching girls from dark alleys and…and…you people are all insane!"
"I don't want to hurt you," he said. I knew that. That's why I was feeling brave enough to scream at him, since I couldn't very well scream at anyone else.
"You made me spill my Chinese food, Bat-tard!" I don't know where that one came from, but it didn't seem to faze him.
"I'm sorry. I just want to talk to you."
"About?"
He scowled at me. Gravelly doom!
"You've been getting a lot of new customers at Lai Lai's these last few days." He mispronounced it. Doof.
"It's lye-lye, not lay-lay. And there's no s. It doesn't belong to some guy named Lai Lai. It's not possessive. Lai Lai is Chinese for 'come here' or 'come in'—literally 'come come.' Okay?"
"There's no need to get upset about it."
"Well, I am upset! Why can't anyone get it right?" The look on his face silenced me. Okay, so he was one of the good guys, but I should have remembered that he was no boy scout. Well, I hadn't been having such a great day.
"I want to talk to you about your new customers. Why are they coming here all at once?"
"We're not a fence, or a drug ring, or whatever you probably think we are. We're just a Chinese restaurant. They've all been coming in because of the Joker. He likes the place…because of me, I think. Because of my hair, and because I get his jokes."
"Why would you do your hair like the Joker?" he asked, and I felt this irrational flash of anger.
"For the last time, I didn't do it like the Joker, I did it like I wanted it! Can I not just like the color green?"
"Not in Gotham."
"Then you explain to him why I'm suddenly out of the Joker fan club. I'm sure he'll take it well if you break it to him gently. Until then, I stay green."
"You're scared of him," Batman said.
"I'm afraid of a lot of people. What's your point?"
"Are you afraid of me?"
"Of course I am. You're Batman. The Dark Smegging Knight. You strike terror in the hearts of everyone you meet. Plus you have a habit of dangling your human yo-yos from rooftops and, oh, hey, lookee where we are."
That actually amused him. Yarrg.
Well, he pumped me for information, and I told him everything that had happened between me and my new customers. I didn't even have to be his yo-yo.
Then he escorted me home. Fairly cool of him.
I had frozen waffles for dinner and sat up all night waiting for Sally to come in. She wasn't as lucky as I was. She never made it home.
