13
"See you Becca…" Becca Weller and her mother dropped off Bridget at home. She had met them at the mall while shopping. Two costume stores and a Halloween outlet and neither of them had a decent fresh Supergirl costume. Her own popularity had ruined her. There was not a decent costume left in town. They had been bought up by girls to earn money entertaining at parties and by guys for their girlfriends to wear. Despite this defeat to her alter ego, she had eight new tops, two new pairs of jeans and a new pair of shoes. As she entered her house carrying her shopping bags, she quickly realized she'd been on the news again. Her mother jumped out of worried depression from the sofa and raced over to her, happily hugging and squeezing her.
"My daughter's alive!! She's alive!" Cate screamed ecstatically overjoyed. "My first born child is still alive!" She held her sister's face. "And not a mark on her! I knew you weren't that girl!"
"What's going on around here?" Bridget looked to her father at the desk. Kerry and Rory had swarmed around her as well. They sniffed her clothes, picked her hair looking for ash and studied her arms and face looking for telltale scars. Kerry sniffed and inhaled every part of her sister trying to find a trace of the fire on her and Bridget responded in kind by sniffing and inhaling her back.
"What do we do next?" She asked her sister. "Go lift our legs on a fire hydrant?"
Kerry just gritted her teeth disgustedly and stormed the upstairs. She almost had her!
"I am making you your favorite dinner for not being that girl." Cate clanked the pots and pans together happily. "Baked fish, vegetable salad and macaroni cheese!"
"But, mom, my…" Bridget couldn't break her joy by correcting her. She looked over to her father working on his column. "Daddy?"
"Beej…" Paul composed himself a bit and stood to approach her. "That girl from the news… She gave her life to save a kid. Everyone thinks she… flew off to die from her burns."
"I taped it!" Rory looked up. "Let's watch the footage again!"
"Rory!!!" Paul screamed at the boy.
Bridget looked at her mother happily cooking with a big grin and singing to herself. Her father seemed to have made his peace with the moment and Kerry seemed to still be in denial. Rory was just waiting to see what happened next. Bridget tried to think how to treat this without tipping them off.
"Daddy, I got like the coolest tops!" She regressed back into her former personality. "Like my new thongs?"
"They're dental floss." Paul corrected her. "Honey, do you understand what has happened here?"
Cate was happily singing a new note in the kitchen as they looked at her in denial.
"Entirely!" Bridget shined free of worry. "Finally I can get back to my life without Kerry trying to draw blood from me or something. I was starting to worry about her."
"I'm still wondering about how you got that free college tuition." Rory still schemed a bit unsure about his sister. Paul swatted at his son withthe couch pillow for mentioning it. Cate happily sung over the kitchen stove to having a daughter who was normal.
"All I know is…" Paul kissed his daughter. "Our lives are going back to normal."
"Or what passes for it." Rory cracked and smarted off again only to get swatted again. Bridget meanwhile paused and lifted up the newspaper from the sofa. Pulling her long hair back, she noticed the article about the New York City detective looking for her help. Her lips slightly parted as she took a deep breath. Her mother was happy, and yet, Kerry was still indubitably frustrated. What would they do if Supergirl showed up again? This dead heroine was going to have to prove she was still very much alive, but first, she had to get her costume back. The first one had been found by chance on that discount rank at Galaxy Cards and Collectibles. When it was burned from the apartment fire, she made the second from the skirt of an old cheerleader uniform, Rory's childhood Superman costume from Halloween 1989 and a red sheet buried in the back of the closet. She was going to have to return to the Galaxy store and start scavenging again for a third. This time, she was going to have to pay seriously for it.
Fortunately, she'd been squirreling away a lot of money once spent on clothing in another bank on the other side of Detroit. Investing in the stock market had increased upon it as well. After her powers had kicked it, she had started making unconscious perceptions in the stock market that proved to be accurate. After watching stocks escalate, she started investing in them and making back her both her investment and more. She wanted to tell her parents she had made twenty thousand dollars so far, but then she'd have to explain why and how she had predicted to make those investments and how to make them work. Taking the bus to the Bank of America to avoid flying in her normal clothes, she took out the cash she expected to pay to replace her costume. A check or credit card could be traced back to her and then she'd have a lot of awkward questions to answer. After the bank, it was back to Galaxy and invading the racks of costumes for another Supergirl costume, or at least a Superman in her size she could alter to what she wanted. The store was in a former warehouse. It was the largest comics and collectibles store in Detroit and was decorated in everything, Sci-fi, Horror and Fantasy from literature, the motion pictures and media. Autographed pictures pf celebrities, such as Lou Ferrigno, Carrie Fisher, David Selby, Helen Slater and David McCallum, actors who had appeared here at one time or another, stared down from the walls. Surrounded by shelves of action figures and sci-fi toys, endless tables of comic books and a universe of once popular culture and merchandise, Bridget spanned and looked over several costumes. Several of them were stereotypical fake characters for amusement; others were crass and crude fake costumes with the wrong details or added icons. Why would the Hulk run around with a picture of himself on his chest? Why would the Spiderman costume have the Marvel Comics logo embossed in the middle?
"Excuse me?" Bridget had disguised herself with a wig of red hair and dark sunglasses to hide her true appearance and identity from the public. She looked up to Jason Howlett, a working high school student from this side of town who read horror novels and free comics behind the counter between selling comic books to his friends. "Do you have any Supergirl costumes?"
"No…" Howlett munched on pizza between customers. "I technically rented them out at first, but after you-know-who showed up, I sold all the ones had left to catering services and party shops to blondes for private parties. I only order new costumes as they get sold, and my last one was sold just last week."
"When do you get another one?"
"Next month."
"Can you specially order one for me and hold it?" Bridget asked.
"Yeah, sure…" Howlett reached under his register and pulled out his order pad and catalog. "It will take six to eight weeks. Will this be credit or debit?"
"Crap!" Bridget cursed. Six to eight weeks was a long time, and something serious could happen in that time. "Where can I find another costume retailer?" Her disgusted exasperation reached the ears of William Simpson in the office behind the counter. His employee was doing okay, but this red-haired lady really wanted a copy of that costume. He had listened to her searching and skirting through the costume racks five to six times looking exactly for what she wanted.
"There's the Sci-Fi Emporium at the mall… but they're kind of limited in what they stock." Howett started thinking through his memories of the area. "There's Masquerade over in Dearborn… A lot of places just don't sell superhero costumes all year round. You can try the Party Store in Warren."
"Where is the next major costume retailer around here?" Bridget was getting desperate.
"Chicago."
"Double crap!!" Bridget screeched frustratedly and grabbed up her purse with a stress-filled jerk. Her own legend was ruining her! Stepping back to avoid a pack of eleven-year-old boys buying up old comics, she clenched her teeth exasperatingly irritated. Trying to control her temper, she stomped out of the store with a determined mission to restore an identity to which she had become addicted. Behind her, Simpson opened an adjacent register to help check out the boys behind the disgruntled departing .
"Don't worry, Jason…" Simpson looked over his cashier. "You did okay. Sometimes we just can't help every customer."
"She really wanted a Supergirl costume." Jason was ringing up a stack of comic books for one of the kids. "It was almost as if it was a matter of life and death." Reacting with a thought, Simpson paused from typing in prices on his register to remember something.
"I just had a thought…" He talked out loud. "What if that was… I mean, maybe she was actually…"
He and Jason had the same thought.
"I think she was wearing a wig." Jason remarked by chance. He and his employer forgotten their adolescent customers for a second and looked out the front of their place for a trace of the frustrated blonde in the red wig.
"Oh my god! She was in my shop!!!" His imagination went off the scale. "If I had known, I'd have picked it up specially for her!!!" Their voiced excelled in pitch with their brush with celebrity.
Her temper abating, Bridget pulled off her wig and glasses once she was a block from the store and walked the length to the bus stop. Stuffing her accoutrements into her large purse, she stopped at the crosswalk and waited to cross with a group of people mulling around her. Coming up behind Bridget to wait to cross, Tricia Haltom and her daughter, Chloe, emerged alongside the distracted and stood next to her. Holding on to her mother's hand, trussed up in her pink winter coat and white stocking cap, cute and precocious Chloe looked over the Bridget and immediately recognized her. Bridget was the one who had pulled her from the front of the bus last month! Her eyes lit up, her little face beamed excitedly and she looked back to her mother.
"Mommie! Mommie!" The yanked on her mother's coat. "It's her! It's her!!"
"Honey…" Vaguely Marilyn Monroe-like in appearance, Tricia gently chided her only child. "We don't bother strangers." Bridget finally looked over to and noticed her. "She thinks you're someone else."
"I get it all the time." The light changed and Bridget hastened across the street and turned to head up along Plaza Drive. Reaching down, Tricia plucked her daughter up off her feet to ride on her hip.
"But mommie…" Chloe continued talking. "I want her at my birthday party!"
"Honey, we don't invite strangers…."
At the Bodies By U Aerobics Studio, Bridget strided inside recognized by a few of her friends. Russell McDonald and Jimmy Pratt grinned and wooed at her beauty. Lee Ferguson and a group of girls called and pulled Bridget over to share a few seconds. Despite what school or grade level, almost everyone loved Bridget and cared about her. Why was she not at the mall as often? Where was she keeping herself? Had she been grounded again? What had she done this time? Listening to a few new rumors and whispered stories, Bridget hugged a few close friends and platonically kissed a few closer friends. Only seventeen and she had already outgrown her high school peers and materialistic boundaries of empty and useless status quos, the one strolled through the studio to the lady's locker room and signed for a locker in her name. Subliminally estimating what she needed, she tucked the wad of bills she had into the pocket of her blue jeans and removed her jacket to hang in the locker. She primped her image in the mirror for a second before closing and locking the locker. Another friend from school passed by her as Bridget parted from the locker room. She turned to the direction of the exercise room, but instead of entering it, she departed out the side entrance into the garden area adjacent the Sushi restaurant next door. Observing a few faces, she continued mulling through her route as if she were just wandering around and stepped toward the back of the studio which she counted on being empty and unattended. Once out of sight, her pace picked up and her feet left the ground, her body once again lifted up by the ethereal ley lines of the planet and her hand before her to guide her path along her route. Detroit and the earth itself once more skewered beneath her to miniscule size as she ascended once more to godly heights. She had no cape flapping behind her this time; it was just her and her form-fitting dark blue sweater and blue jeans. Without a costume to distract witnesses, anyone could see she was just an ordinary girl and would want to know her name. The costume was more than just an identity for her; it was a distraction from her life as a mere blonde. At sub-orbital level above the planet, Bridget's azure blue eyes gazed beyond the landscape and analyzed the topography of her planet. She recognized the shape of Lake Michigan, realized the location of the city to the north and then dived to earth grabbing on to gravity to pull her along.
"Flight 13, you are ready to go on Runway 10." An air traffic controller at Chicago O'Hare Airport guided and aided all the traffic coming to the city. "United Airlines 85, remain in holding pattern, we have you in radar and…. What the hell is that?" An unidentified object without a radar signature streaked into controlled air space. "85, hold off, I'm getting a bogey."
FAA Officer James Luttrell leaned in to view the spectacle.
"It's coming in like a missile." Luttrell watched the blip on the screen. Activity in the tower started panicking.
"The air field swears it's not one of theirs!"
"What is it? What is it!!!"
"Get me a visual!"
"Flight 10, you're closest!" Luttrell sweated another 9-11 was occurring as he yelled through his headset. "Get me a visual! What do you see?"
"Object dodged us, passed 75 meters north-northwest out of Detroit!!!" Pilot Frank Wise and his crew rushed to see what it was. "Object in excess of 250 miles an hour. No visual!!"
"Get me a visual!"
"Detroit?" Controller Bill West had relatives living near the Motor City. "It's her!" He realized the rumors were true.
"Object vanished off the grid over the city!"
"Hi…." Bridget appeared sweetly and cheerfully twenty minutes later in L. & B. Costumers on Roosevelt Avenue. "I'm ready to check out." She draped a Supergirl costume wrapped in transparent plastic over the counter. This place wasn't as cluttered as Galaxy in Detroit. It was illuminated brightly with white walls, wide open walk areas and orderly posters on the walls. All the toys were behind the counter to deter shoplifters.
"That's a good collector's item." Thirty-six year old Cathy Troutt started to ring Bridget up. "It's from the official DC costumers line that furnishes the motion pictures." She heard her phone ring and paused to get one of her cashiers to complete the transaction. Turning round to her office at the end of the counter, she stepped into her closet-sized cubbyhole and picked up her phone.
"L. & B. Costumers…"
"This is William Simpson at Galaxy Comics in Detroit…" The voice on the phone announced. "Do you have any Supergirl costumes?"
"I got one left."
"Look, I know you ain't going to believe this…" Simpson took a deep breath. "Did you see America's Most Wanted about the blonde girl in the Supergirl costume? I think she was just in my shop trying to get a costume and she could be heading up there…"
Cathy poked her head from her office. She watched the just departing the store.
"I just sold a costume to a blonde girl."
"She was there!!!" Simpson yelled to his employees. "We just missed her!!!"
"She made it up there in under twenty minutes!" Howlett checked his watch.
On Chicago's West Side, Miguel Hernandez tossed his shoplifted goods over a fence to make his escape and ran from the police officers on foot chasing him. He was six-feet and four inches tall, built like a linebacker and a former Marine as well thrown out of the service for physical assault and drug use. The police officers behind him were older and heavier but still staying on his tail even as he vaulted and climbed over fences, raced through backyards and through store alleys. Police sirens were shrieking through the block and every time he saw those flashing red and blue lights, he barreled back the way he came. Officer Joe Mitchell once got him but had his face caved in for the attempt. Another officer tried to mace him, but it just made the Hispanic American even more vicious. The Chicago police took it personally when their own was attacked. Racing through the intersection avoiding cars, Hernandez reached an SUV stopped at the light, pulled open the driver's side door and threw the mother of three from her vehicle to the asphalt to take her vehicle. She fought a second for her kids in the back seat and received a blow to the head for her effort. Hernandez slammed her door on her and pressed his foot to the gas pedal. The car started lurching for a second then stopped, it's back wheels screaming against the asphalt but not moving.
Bridget stood at the tail end of the car just barely out of sight. Clad in her red, blue and yellow once more, her street clothes in a backpack under her cape, her feet entrenched against the ground and her fingers curled around the bottom frame of the car, she heard the wheels screaming, smelled the exhaust billowing next to her and gritted her teeth holding on to the SUV. No one, but no one hit a mother of three and got away with it while she was around. Two officers raced around her barely paying attention to her and pulled Hernandez from the car screaming and cursing. More officers raced on to the scene to help their colleagues pin the felon to the ground and cuff him. A second more, they and the citizens by the lake arched their heads up to the blonde beauty rushing up to the sky.