In the words of my gal, Tori Amos, I never was a cornflake girl. When I first heard that phrase, 'cornflake girl', I knew immediately what she meant: a wholesome, blond, beautiful, All-American type of girl, the cheerleader, the Queen of the Prom, the most popular girl in school. The kind of girl who would be chosen to advertise cornflakes.
Of course, Tori then goes on to sing about 'Hanging with the raisin girls', and I can't say I was a raisin girl either—the quirky, artistic, alternative- music type who wore droopy black. I was more of a prune girl—less desirable and faintly embarrassing.
Susan Storm Richards was definitely a cornflake girl, the sort of girl on whom it seems the gods had showered all the good things in life.
Oh, well. Maybe this friendship would work, and maybe it wouldn't.
The unobtrusive car in which I was riding, one of the unmarked embassy cars, pulled up in front of the Baxter Building. The driver hastened to open the door for me, only to find I had already gotten out. He settled for seeing me to the door. I went in.
Security around me had changed; I had a new implant in my mastoid, so I could once again be tracked wherever I went, and in various cars around mine, Latverian security forces monitored what was going on around me at one remove. I would seem to be alone, until and unless something happened. I didn't want any other people to become targets on my account.
They didn't follow me into the Baxter, however. I identified myself and took the elevator up to the Fantastic Four's headquarters. The doors opened, and I stepped out to the sound of female laughter. "Joviana, hello!" Sue popped into view. "Come on in and meet everybody!"
I had never been in the Baxter Building before, so my first thought on seeing the area where the Four lived, worked, slept and played was: If Sue had any say in what this place looks like, I'd hate to see what it looked like before. It was first and foremost a laboratory, and a home about seventh or eight on the list, after 'headquarters', 'test chambers', aircraft hanger' and several other things. It seemed very small to me.
Maybe it wasn't fair to make comparisons. Not everybody has a 110-room castle to stretch out in, after all. Sue beckoned me over to the living-room area, where the Richards' son Franklin played on the rug. He was a sturdy pre-schooler with his mother's bright hair and a face very like Reed's. His nanny lurked in the background.
Two women were also there, one on the sofa and the other in a chair that was specially reinforced, obviously Ben's. I recognized them as Sue said, "Of course you know who everybody is, even if you haven't met."
"No, we haven't." I smiled at them, or at least bared my teeth. I really, really wanted to go home now…
"Hi. I'm Jennifer." said the She-Hulk, from her seat in Ben's chair. She was a living Barbie doll—if Barbie had bright green skin and deep green hair and eyes, and if Barbie was about seven feet tall, that is. She wore a magenta suit—for maximum contrast, I supposed—with a white blouse that was cut all the way down to the point where it was clear she wasn't wearing a bra. Maybe she was taped into place, but she was Oh-my-Gawd-how-does-she-manage-to-stand-upright busty. Damn. It wasn't fair…
But it was the other woman who made me truly uncomfortable, because it was the Wasp, whose real name was Janet Van Dyne, and as she sprang up from her seat, I could only pray she didn't recognize me, and wouldn't recognize me. Because I knew her. We had been girls together.
She was rich, the Van Dyne heiress, and I wasn't, but in the summer, when she was staying at the lake with her parents in one of their vacation homes, it didn't matter the way it would have during the school year, and from the time that I was seven, and she ten, until I was thirteen and she was sixteen, we hung out together.
That was when my mother was still married to her husband, my stepfather, until he decided he couldn't take any more. He was well-off enough to afford a summer house near the lake, but not on it. His daughter, my stepsister, was almost thirteen the first year—too young to hang out with babies. She was always with her friends, and Janet and I were inseparable.
Janet was isolated too; her mother, a dyed-in-the-wool snob, insisted on meeting any prospective friend to see if she was fit to associate with her child. Thanks to my grandmother, my manners passed muster and my reading had given me an impressive vocabulary, so I was permitted to play with the scion of old-money that was Janet Van Dyne.
I could count the number of friends I had while growing up on the fingers of one hand, but Janet was one of them. We went swimming, we played in the woods, we went to the playground and swung on swings. On rainy days we baked cookies and made friendship bracelets. Six years—six summers—and then my stepfather left, and there were no more summers at the lake.
The adult Janet, superhero, socialite, heiress and high-fashion designer, who made Paris Hilton bristle with envy, circled me, looking me up and down as she did so, with an appraising eye. "I have just got to get some designs on you. With your height, you were just made to show off clothes. What you've got on right now is—all right, but I can do much better by you."
"I—I'm..." I stammered. I don't like being given the hard sell. Still, she hadn't recognized me. Perhaps the veil of willful stupidity that protected the identities of costumed adventurers also covered me—and wasn't that an appalling thought! I was out to stop that kind of thing.
"I think she likes her own dressmaker, Janet, don't crowd her. This is Janet, by the way. Joviana, after I came home the other day, I realized how much I'd missed spending time with my friends, so I called them up and invited them along today. I hope that's okay with you." Sue explained.
"Of course," I said, with more warmth than I felt. Going shopping with the Gorgeous Green Giantess and the one person in the entire costumed adventuring community who could identify me—what fun! "Where are we going? I have great trouble buying garments off the rack because of my height." I let the Latverian accent make another appearance. I felt the need for concealment.
Jennifer laughed as she unfolded herself from Ben's chair. "There is absolutely nothing you can tell me about having trouble buying clothes off the rack."
"Looking at you, I can see that must be true." I said, looking up at another woman for the first time in my adult life. I felt—short. I didn't like it.
"Anyway, with what we'll be shopping for, it won't matter." said Sue. "Come on, time's a wasting!" She grabbed her purse as we made for the elevator.
"And what is that?" I asked as the doors closed.
"Well, you're getting married, aren't you? You need lingerie!"
"By the way," Sue said, as the four of us settled comfortably into the embassy car. "Do you happen to know anything about a fruit basket that arrived from Dean and Deluca about an hour ago? The card said it was from the two of you—you and Victor."
"Yes, it was my idea. I didn't think it would arrive so quickly, though."
"Oh, we practically live on top of the nearest D and D. Umm, I wish I'd known it was coming."
"Why? Was there something wrong with it?" I asked.
"No, nothing—or at least I don't think so. The moment he saw who it was from, Reed freaked, and pounced on it."
"He likes fresh fruit that much?" I did not smile, I did not laugh, my face was perfectly composed…
"Not exactly. He threw it into a chamber he uses for things that might explode, and started testing it for hazardous substances. He's still busy with it"
"But why?" I asked innocently.
"Well, you know the score. It may be a while before Reed can accept that Victor really meant what he said the other day."
"Right—once he's safely dead." snorted the She-Hulk.
"Jen!" scolded the Invisible Woman, and continued. "I called Dean and Deluca, and they said the order was phoned in, and the basket never left their hands until it was delivered here, and it never went anywhere near the Latverian Embassy, but Reed just—I'm sure Victor must be the same way about some things. Anyway, you couldn't have known. I'm sorry."
"No, I should be apologizing to you."
"Let's call it even, then." interjected the Wasp, leaning forward. She was beautiful, petite, brunette. "Now, you've got to tell us, because I'm just dying to know—how did you and Doom meet?"
I had thought about that ever since the interview. We definitely needed a better 'how we met' story than the one I had given the Daily Bugle. "As adults, or when I was a child?" I queried.
"You knew him when you were growing up?" Sue asked.
"Know him, no. But I met him then…
"You know that Victor is somewhat older than I am—but then Reed is somewhat older than you. My mother mentioned how I had leukemia. It was acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most treatable kind, but at that time, Latveria was very poor and very backward, still recovering from the Soviets and the Ceausescus. The Haasens were in power, and they spent nothing on health care. Even then, Victor was doing what he could for our country, sending money, medicines, and other aid. When he visited Latveria, he would sometimes make visits to the hospitals. All the doctors were anxious to get his attention, his help—they listened to him as they did to no other.
"I was in a hospital he visited, when I was eleven. I was very ill—if I had a photo from then, you would see how my eyes had sunk in, how my arms and legs were like sticks. The doctors weren't always tactful. They said things in front of me that they should not have said, about my condition, and my prognosis, which wasn't very good…"
I had an utterly rapt audience. They were so absorbed they were hardly even breathing.
"On the day he visited, they took him through the pediatric ward. It was an awful place—a long room, with two rows of single beds. Everything was left over from World War Two, except what Victor had provided." All those details were true. I had done my homework, back when I was learning the details of 'my' life.
"The doctors led him down the aisle, telling him about each case in turn. When they came to me, they told him about my case, and what my treatment was, and that I was not expected to live much longer. One of the doctors said, 'It's a shame, because she's such a bright child.'
"Victor asked, 'How bright?' and he looked at me—truly looked at me. 'You've been following every word, haven't you?'
"I said, 'Yes.'
"Then he gave the doctors a lecture on saying things like that in front of a patient of any age, telling them they were destroying the will to live when they did so. He told them their treatments were out-of-date and ineffectual, and that he would see to it they got the medicines and the equipment. Then he told me that with the proper treatments, the survival rate for childhood leukemia was very high almost 90 percent, and that once I was an adult, it would almost be as if I never had cancer at all.
"He kept his word. He sent the help. And I am alive today." It was none of it true—in my case— but there were many Latverians for whom it was true.
My three companions had very thoughtful expressions on their faces.
"And you never forgot." Sue said, very softly.
"Would you?" I countered.
"That explains a lot." said Jennifer, tapping her green chin.
"Yes." agreed Janet. "I understand how you must see him."
"Is it the sort of thing I should tell to the media, though? I'm not sure about sharing that."
"Oh, definitely!"
"Yes!"
"They'll eat it up with a spoon!"
The intercom crackled, and the driver said, "My lady, this is the first address I was given."
TBC….
A/N: I did the shout-outs--then a storm knocked out the net connection. I'm going to post before it goes again. I virtual hug GothikStrawberry, Chantrea Savann, Thornwitch, and Madripoor Rose! Thank you.