15
Despite what Howard and numerous supporters of her fan base believed, there was always some thing on television that disproved that there was a girl in a comic book costume who could fly and flip over cars. The Mythbusters had shown on their program that in one segment of footage from the year before a device was shown that helped in flipping a car. They also used their red-haired co-hostess to help prove how lines could be used to fake flight, but Howard got on-line that night and wrote a 5,000 word essay chastising their results and proving that they had only proved that those two cases had been frauds perpetuated by imposters. The following month, Howard was on the Internet praising the cast of "Fact Or Faked" for their episode devoted to testing superhuman strength, resistance to bullets and the debate between flight and levitation. If there was a real Supergirl, they argued, her flying abilities were more rooted in levitation, but they couldn't agree on a likely propulsion source. If anything, the two paranormal documentaries ended that any true Supergirl's greatest power was that like ghosts, Bigfoot or the Bermuda Triangle that so few people believed she existed and she could stay hidden in society almost forever. Kerry had watched and recorded both programs for fresh new insight on her sister's whereabouts. She kept most of her research to herself – not even sharing it with her mother.
Following a business lunch with a client of Elaine Flockhart, her mentor, Kerry passed a collectibles store three blocks from her law firm with Supergirl paraphernalia in the window. She stopped and looked at it all out of passing interest. Elaine even stopped and perused it too. There were Supergirl dolls, Supergirl action figures, reprints of old newspaper articles about the sightings and even a collector's cape with the Kryptonian emblem on it. The most common object was the Supergirl book collection. They had titles like "Supergirl and Other Alleged Superhuman Sightings," "A Kryptonian Guide To Supergirl" and "Why The World Needs Supergirl: The Best Evidence." It was a phenomenon that had gone out of control. Everyone was making money off it, particularly DC Comics enjoying the attention of the mystery person who seemingly had the power to impersonate their fictional character.
"That's a lot of crap for someone that no one believes in." Elaine commented.
"It's gotten a little out of hand." Kerry added. None of the dolls, plush toys or merchandise really looked like Bridget, and that was possibly a good thing. It probably made it harder for anyone to recognize in the street out of costume. "Do you think anyone will ever uncover the truth?"
"I doubt it." Elaine took a short breath. "It's probably going to keep going until she runs out of steam." She looked through the window. "Scotland has its Lock Ness memorabilia, Canada has its Bigfoot memorabilia, and we've got out our Supergirl artifacts…" She sighed and looked closer in side. "I wonder whose face they use in all the likenesses."
"Probably Reese Witherspoon…" Kerry answered.
"What makes you say that?"
"No particular reason." Kerry echoed back.
"You know…" Elaine continued on her way. "What really scares me is the number of girls who are getting to get hurt because of her." She looked to Kerry catching up with her. "I mean… no one knows who she really is, so what's to stop some lunatic from just opening fire on a girl in that costume."
"I never thought about that…" Kerry subconsciously debated on it. "But don't you think most girls are smarter than trying to do something that can get them killed."
"If people had any smarts, Kerry…" Elaine looked upon her protégé. "We'd be out of a job." She paused. "So, any new progress on finding your sister?"
"Kind of," Kerry looked up and pulled a lock of her wind-tossed red locks from her face. "I think I have a lead in California, but it's one of those things I really need to be there in person to check out and confirm."
"Well, Kerry," Elaine looked toward her. "I can help you get to the West Coast." They stopped to wait for the crosswalk signal at the corner crossing. "I take occasional cases in Los Angeles, and I can take you with me on my next trip. You would have plenty of time to do whatever you need to do to find her."
"You think so?" Kerry sounded interested, but as the crossing light came up and she started across, she looked up and thought she saw Bridget coming toward her. She was the right height, the same hairstyle, but up close, she looked different. This girl was wearing a Supergirl t-shirt, but her skin tone was lighter, more like alabaster and her eyes were a bit narrower. Her eyes were blue azure rather than the bright blue she remembered her sister had. Kerry's eyes locked on the twenty-year old college girl talking on her cell phone and continued on across the street as the girl passed her.
"Kerry?" Elaine looked back at her.
"When are you going to Los Angeles?" She asked. She was getting obsessed with this fixation to find her sister. If she had to look and study the faces of every twenty-something blonde who wore the t-shirts or track down every photo of a faked sighting, she was going to do it. The problem was there were hundreds of them. Girls purchased the costumes to entice their boyfriends, struggling actresses wore them in low-budget commercials and college sororities had parties with girls of every type in the same costume. Most of them were girls looking for a bit of confidence. In Malibu, California, high school student Miley Stewart knew the type of confidence that came from having an alter ego. Strolling into the cottage home on the property of her new ranch home, she looked round for her best friend.
"Miley, is that you?" Lily called from their clothes closet.
"Yeah," Miley had just recently outed herself as pop star Hannah Montana to the world. Gone was her privacy, gone was her secret identity and gone was her crazy lifestyle as she decided to take a few years off to attend college. She thumbed through her mail on the table as Lily moved about out of sight.
"You still wanna go to Jesse's beach party with me?" She called.
"I don't know…" Lily came strolling out. "Think I should wear this?" She was wearing the Supergirl costume she had ordered on-line. It was just a cheap blue leotard and red skirt and cape with red boots. Her chest was emblazoned with a thin veneer covering of the red Kryptonian "S" on a yellow background. At the adult level, she looked ridiculous, but as a teenager, she felt cool and almost felt that if she jumped off the roof, she just might fly.
"Yikes!" Miley's eyes rounded in stunned surprise. "Where the heck did you get that?"
"I ordered it." Lily posed like the comic book character and turned round modeling her new favorite outfit. "What do you think?"
"Well…" Miley looked her over once and again. "It looks a bit… tight." She noticed something else. "That can't all be you…" She pointed her Lily's chest.
"I padded it a bit to stick out a little." Lily pushed down and molded her cleavage. "I mean – I don't want to look like a boy in this; I want to look hot… Hey…" She grinned with a thought. "Wouldn't it be funny if we could convince Jackson that I was Supergirl…"
"Lily…" Miley rolled her eyes away and placed a supportive and cynical hand to her best friend's shoulder. "Look, my brother is a lot of things, but even he is not that…"
"Miley," Jackson entered her cottage. "Dad says you've got…" He looked across to his sister and then Lily in that costume. That red cape, that form fitting blue costume with the huge red "S" on yellow across her bosom, the red pleated skirt with the yellow belt, it couldn't be! It just couldn't be! His eyes flared a bit, his eyes glazed over a bit and his voice began stammering as he started backing away in denial.
"No, it couldn't be…" He mumbled. "It just couldn't be… You couldn't possibly…"
"Oh no, Miley…" Lily unconvincingly improvised a scene. Her voice was slow and static; her act stiff and unconvincing. "Jackson busted my secret identity. My secret is out." She unconvincingly pretended to be surprised.
"No!" Jackson refused to accept it. "No! It can't be you! It just can't…" He turned running back to the main house.
"Well, what do you know?" Miley looked back the way he had departed. "He really is that…."
"Wait a minute!" Jackson had got as far as the inside of the kitchen when he realized he was mistaken and returned. "You were on the plane that Supergirl saved! You can't be her!"
"Was I really, Jackson?" Lily strolled over to him grinning mischievously. "Was I really?" She came up to him with her cape swaying side to side off her shoulders. "Just think… this whole time you've been wondering about and worshipping me, I've been right under your nose…" She tapped his nose to spite him.
"No!" Jackson once more refused to accept it. "No! It can't be you! It just can't… Please tell me it isn't you!" He turned and ran back to the main house.
"I stand corrected…" Miley looked as if she was about to start laughing. "He really is that simple."
At that moment, the real blonde in the red cape was softly cruising the skies over Detroit just under the radar of the nearby airport. She had secretly eavesdropped on her parents being romantic just before CJ entered the house and then she cruised the perimeter of the city once more before starting to drift further out of town. Her left hand dipped as her body turned counterclockwise in the wind current blowing her along the magnetic ley line on the planet. Her long blonde tresses poured past her head in the breeze as her aerobic ballet carried her just a bit lower. Nothing was happening that her senses could pick up. Maybe she really had cleaned up her hometown. Her nearly clairvoyant senses reached out further and further, sifting through conversations and dialogues and discussions at a subconscious level. It was like listening to a muffled audience of over five thousand people with numerous voices moving in and out as her proximity to them moved.
"You need to get away from that computer."
"We had spaghetti last night."
"How much did that dress cost?"
"Why are you wearing my sister's dress?"
"The dog is pregnant!"
"Your mother-in-law has got to go!"
"I can't believe I'd like salads so much!" Local contractor Jim Belushi beamed to his wife over dinner.
"And haven't you been feeling so much better?" His beautiful wife, Cheryl, beamed to him. She was his life, his love, his reason for being, and yet, he did nothing but take her for granted. Jim's basic belief was that lying was only lying when he got caught, and he got caught often. This had been a nice romantic night for them. Their two daughters were off at the movies with her sister Dana, either watching a nice family movie or a god awful pretentious animated featured based on a bad idea.
"You know…" Jim pretended to agree with her. "I really do think I am." He grinned to her. "You know… I got you a gift too!"
"Jim," Cheryl lit up as a contented wife. "You didn't have to do that!"
"I know…" He crossed their living room and reached behind the chair by the front door. He took out a large flat box wrapped in a ribbon without a bow. "I just wanted to show that… I love you." He kissed her as he gave it to her.
"I can't wait to see what it is!" Cheryl pulled the ribbon off and sat on the sofa to pull the box apart. She found a swatch of red fabric then pulled out a blue leotard with a big red and yellow "S" on the chest. Her expression was of surprise then turned to confusion. She looked to her husband with the big grin on his face. He had ordered it from the official novelty store as the majority of the phenomenon's merchandise.
"Jim, are you…"
"I thought you could wear it while we fooled around."
"What?"
"Well, " Jim detected reluctance on her part. "Didn't you say you wanted to role-play a bit to spice up our sex lives?"
"Well, yeah…"
"Great!" Jim acted like a big kid. "Tonight, I'll be the bad guy robbing the bank, and you'll be Super-Babe coming to stop me. You can change in the downstairs bathroom!" He giddily chuckled to himself and raced upstairs pulling his sweatshirt off to jump in bed and wait for her. Left behind on the sofa, Cheryl didn't know what to think. Her idea was for her and Jim to pretend to be single again, maybe act like strangers, not commit to clandestine costumes. As she stood up again to hesitantly consider it, someone knocked at the door.
"Cheryl, whoever that is, get rid of them!" Jim yelled from upstairs. "I'm waiting for my Kryptonian cutie!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah…" Cheryl draped the costume over the end of the sofa, strided to the door and opened it, standing face to face with a blonde girl in the Supergirl costume. At first, she thought this was some demented perverse fantasy, but her presence, her bearing, the offended glare on her face… She just had to be the real thing! Cheryl's jaw dropped in shock, her eyes widened with surprise. She thought she was some sort of prank, but her look, her posture, her hair, the way her arms were folded with that annoyed sort of look in her face. It had to be her.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Bridget exclaimed with disgust.
"Oh, my god…" Cheryl reacted with awe. "Oh, my god!" She could barely breath. "It's you! It's really you!"
"Yeah…." Bridget pulled a strand of her hair back. "Look, I think you should know your husband went off his diet about two weeks ago, and he and your brother have since been stuffing themselves since then at lunch on barbecued ribs and French fries at some place called Fat Tony's." She paused a bit. "Now, I can do a lot of things, but I can't stop a heart attack. Believe me, I have tried."
"What?" Cheryl got over her star struck behavior to get annoyed. "You mean he's been lying to me?"
"Cheryl…" Jim called happily from upstairs. "Get rid of whosever at the door. I'm waiting for my own Kryptonian fantasy to come true…"
"Like a cheap rug…." Bridget answered.
"That rat bastard!" Cheryl was getting so tired of her husband lying to her. She looked at the costume over the end of the sofa and back to Bridget. "Do you want this?"
"Let's see…" Bridget stepped inside, picked it up and checked the fabric. "No, it's cheap fabric. I need better stuff to hold when I fly. If I wore this, it's rip right off me at 150 miles an hour." She laid it back down. "Give it to your sister."
"Thank you so much!" Cheryl grinned again. "And it was so nice to meet you!"
"Yeah, me too! Take care…" Bridget shined, stepped out the front door and off the front porch into the air. Closing the door behind her, Cheryl felt something else for her lying and conniving husband. It was more like frustration, anger and hostility. If it was in her power, she be a much different comic book character for him… someone bigger, stronger and greener.
"Oh, Jim…." She pretended to be sweet before she broke another vase over his head.
Several neighborhoods over in another part of Detroit, Kerry had returned home with the newspaper to find her parents out for dinner. Bridget had been reported a few blocks away tossing gang members in the freezer of the local Long John Silvers. One minute, they robbing the place and then a red and blue flash later, they were stripped to their underwear and locked in the restaurant freezer. If that didn't teach them not to break the law, they knew she'd be back, either stringing them up by their underwear from a cell phone tower or trapping them in a trash dumpster with a car on top. Expecting a new photo, Kerry sighed to find the story buried on the next to last page of the first section. She clipped it out in the kitchen to tape into her scrapbook.
"Ooooo…." CJ caught a glimpse of the newspaper account about his grandfather and the two hold-up guys at the drugstore. Al and Trudy Borland were mentioned in it as well. "Another story about Super-Babe in the newspaper? I wouldn't try using kryptonite on her in bed."
"CJ!" Both Kerry and her grandfather reacted. CJ might not have known it was Bridget, but they didn't need him talking about her in that manner. It was decent and immoral, and the mere thought of it disgusted them.
"My God, CJ!" Jim Eagan looked repulsed at what CJ had implied. "That girl does a lot for a lot of people. She's not some sort of hootchy-cootchy girl!"
"I'm sorry!" CJ apologized. "I didn't think you cared that much about her."
"Well," Jim looked at Kerry and back again. "I do, and I respect her too. I think she's a great American."
"Sorry, Grampy…" CJ stood by the old codger. "I didn't know."
"Well, now you do."
"I do." CJ paused. "By the way, what's the family secret?"
"You were born with a tail." Jim announced and Kerry started laughing out loud. She got a lot of laughs from watching her cousin and grandfather go at it. Absorbing the misinformation, CJ just stood there taking in the teasing, and waiting for them to trust him. He could keep a secret. Why couldn't they see it? Forcing a little smile to deflect some of the embarrassment, he motioned toward the staircase to go get ready for his date.
"So, the cover-up continues…" He mumbled and tramped up the stairs for Rory's old room trying to contain his humility.
"I love you, grandpa." Kerry hugged and kissed her grandfather. "You're so funny." She carried her scrapbook under her arm.
"Yeah, I'm a regular Henny Youngman." He read the paper.
"Who?" Kerry didn't know that 1950s comedian. Jim suddenly started feeling old. Feeling better, Kerry turned toward the family computer and logged in as she slid into the chair. She checked for her regular websites and pulled up Howard Wolowitz's Incredible Supergirl Sightings Database. It looked like the chat room was already going without her. She signed in with her G-Mail account, and her KHennessey86 screen-name immediately popped up on top. Howard and Justin were debating again as Sir Howard and Web-Wizard. Jackson Stewart got a few lines in the debate under the name Dark-Knight along with Phil using the name Phil-Of-The-Future. Lizzie McGuire's little brother, Matt McGuire, just tried getting another discussion started by reposting the same line over and over: "Does anyone have new images?"
"I got one." Kerry answered him.
"Is it good?" Matt answered.
"No, it's blurry." Kerry answered. It was from the news footage by Randy Taylor.
"I've got one." Bud Bundy entered as Grandmaster-B.
"Your sister as the Verminator again?" Chad Dylan Cooper finally got on after just reading the posts.
"Forget it." Bud responded.
"My sister looks more like Supergirl than yours." Matt McGuire posted.
"I had a dream the real Supergirl logs in and reads our posts." Chad announced.
"You posted that last week."
"Well, I had the same dream again."
"Kerry, any relationship to the Hennessey in the Detroit story?" Howard tried contacting Kerry.
"My mother and grandfather." Kerry answered. By time she hit "Send," several messages started going up one atop each other. Howard and Justin and Jackson and Phil and Rory and Matt and Zack and Derek….
Kerry gave them all the same response.
"I wasn't there."
"Anyone get the book, "Supergirl: The Best Evidence." Justin asked.
"Mine's on back-order." Bud typed in.
"It's not that good." Phil entered. "Mostly stuff and photos covered in the last seventeen books."
"Do you guys really care that much about that stuff?" Kerry asked.
Nearly everyone answered, "Yes."
"My best friend Leonard got a great Supergirl prop." Howard typed in his message and posted it before adding the second part. "He got a cape Helen Slater wore in the 1984 movie!"
"Wow…" Justin chimed in his message. "That must have cost a fortune."
"Actually, it's just a reproduction." Howard added. "He got it from a girl in his building."
"Where did she get it?" Phil asked.
"E-Bay." Howard posted then added. "Ironically, I thought she was Supergirl once."
Kerry saw his message come up and was about to log off. She typed back in.
"What changed your mind?"
"She's too busy to be Supergirl." Howard posted. Kerry looked at his post. She had a feeling about it. Something deep down was nagging at her. Could this be Bridget in California?
"Wouldn't it be cool if she was?" Jackson posted.
"Maybe she is!" Chad added.
"What does she look like?" Kerry finally asked.
"Tall, blonde, beautiful and scented like a cheesecake goddess." Howard grinned a bit as he typed his reply. He noticed the time on his screen. He was due to meet Raj in a few minutes to head over to Leonard and Sheldon.
"It's a shame it wasn't her." Bud posted.
"Think we'll ever know who she really is?" Justin typed in.
"I don't know." Matt typed in.
"I've got to go, guys." Howard was getting ready to sign out. "Keep up the chat." He quickly wrapped. "I'll read the messages tomorrow."
"Howard…" Kerry was quickly trying to type in. "What do you know…" Howard's icon indicated he had logged out. "No!" She had just missed him. She closed her message, clicked on his icon and pulled up his profile. Immediately she saw his real face with the thick Beatles-era haircut and his big goofy grin, the same one he tried obviously to charm girls. His homepage link took her to a page for the Engineering Department at the California Institute of Technology. It had a phone number on it. Kerry reached for her cell phone. In Pasadena, Howard was tramping down the stairs of his mother's house. He took his jacket off its peg at the bottom of the stairs. His route took him to the front door.
"Ma, I'm going to go see Raj and the guys!" He called to his mother in the kitchen as the phone started ringing. "The phone is ringing!"
"How late are you going to be?" His mother yelled back as the phone stopped ringing.
"I don't know!" Howard started out the door. "Between eleven and twelve." He closed the door behind him.
"Howard, there's a girl on the phone for you!"
"Did you say a girl?" Howard re-entered the house. "A real one?"
"She asked for you!"
Howard tossed himself backward on to his mother's plastic-covered sofa, changed his voice to suave and debonair and tried to sound like James Bond. He picked up the cordless phone in the living room.
"Hello…" He tried to sound suave.
"Howard…" Kerry recaught her breath in Detroit and talked on her cell phone. "Hi, this is Kerry in Detroit from the Supergirl Chat."
"Kerry, hey…." Howard relaxed. "Could you hold a minute?" He placed her on hold then jumped up and raced back to his upstairs bedroom over the living room, jumped into his seat at his computer and pulled up his website again, scanned for her name in his chat list and hit her icon. She didn't have a picture on her chat profile, but her homepage link went to her Facebook page where he saw a beautiful redhead with long curly hair staring back at him. "Whoa! Hot mama!" Howard became suave and sophisticated as he released her from hold. "Kerry…." He tried to sound friendly. "Fancy hearing from you."
"Yeah…" Kerry unconsciously sounded alluring to him. "Look, you logged out of the chat a bit quick…" She logged herself out of it as the chat started questioning what actress other than Reese Witherspoon they thought Supergirl looked like. "The blonde girl in your friend's building… um…" She took a deep breath. "What initially made you think that she was Supergirl?"
"What?" Howard was a bit put off by that question; he had hoped she was calling for him. "Well, I guess it started first with a photo my buddy, Raj, got from India of his sister. There was a girl that looked just like Penny in it and we started wondering how that happened. I mean… Penny is not exactly a world traveler."
"Really…" Kerry wanted a last name for this Penny. "And what happened with that?"
"We lost the picture." Howard revealed. "My buddy's laptop somehow erased it." He paused. "So, Kerry, do you have a boyfriend?"
"Interesting…" Kerry ignored the boyfriend remark. She recalled when her camera inexplicably rejected Kyle's testimony he had seen Bridget in her costume. "But did something else change your mind?"
"Yeah…" Howard continued. "I digitally-enhanced some existing film footage and it started looking like Penny again, but as Leonard pointed out, Penny works constantly. She couldn't possibly have a dual identity."
"Yeah, sounds logical…" Kerry started turning devious herself. "So, this Penny… What's her last name? Do you have any images of her?"
"Yeah, on my Facebook page…" Howard had just friended Kerry on the social website. Kerry ran a Google search for Penny Parker and got sites and images for a brunette 90s actress with the same name. "So, Kerry, you know, if you're ever in Pasadena, you know, I could show you around town."
"Pasadena…" Kerry thought about it. "Yeah, I could come to Pasadena. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll be coming to Pasadena very soon." She noticed an e-mail notification about Howard friending her on Facebook. His Facebook picture was the same as on his Cal-Tech profile. She confirmed their friendship then went straight to his photos. There were a lot of them. Science Fiction fairs, Howard in fantasy costumes, Howard in super hero costumes, Howard with Rajesh Koothrapalli, Howard and Leonard, Howard with his mother. She clicked to more pictures.
"Great!" Howard grinned. "Just let me know when you're coming."
"Yeah, I'll see you there." Kerry listened as Howard hung up his phone in Pasadena to catch up with Raj and Leonard. In Detroit, Kerry continued searching through Howard's Facebook photos and clicked on another on-line album. She noticed another image with Howard with a blonde. It looked as if it was taken at arm's length, surprising the unprepared beauty, but when Kerry looked at it, she recognized Penny Parker as someone else. It was definitely Bridget. There was no doubt about it. She was taller now, even more beautiful, even more blonde, but it was her. Kerry wanted to jump up screaming and shouting, but she didn't. She was too numb. She had found her sister. She could go see her if she wanted. She had found her. She sat looking at her sister's face.
"Oh my god…" She felt she was about to break down crying from the emotion she was feeling.
A pop-up came up on the computer to let her know she had received another e-mail. Starring at the photo of the girl believed to be Penny Parker, Kerry tried to ignore it, but her hand unconsciously reached up and tapped on the pop-up. In her e-mail account, she had received a message from someone she didn't know. Kerry's eyes forced herself to read it.
"Miss Hennessey, I believe I might have info pertaining to the whereabouts of your sister. Please meet me at the northeast entrance of the park near your law firm on your lunch break between Twelve and One PM."
It was signed, "Fox Mulder."