Mary Robb - Down the Rabbit Hole

“Yeah, well, where was my amazing intuition when I first met him? Or the whole time we dated . . . or during the first year of our marriage?”

“It was there—it’s always there, watching for yellow flags. Maybe there was just nothing to see. What if he wasn’t looking to fleece you in the beginning? Could be that didn’t occur to him until after he took up with that floozy—and that’s when his game started falling apart. He got sloppy, took too many chances, made too many fouls, and flags started falling all over the place.” He raised his hands palms up. “Maybe not. Maybe he was a rat bastard all along. Maybe you made a mistake. Hell, even Tom Landry made mistakes from time to time.”

“What if I keep making mistakes?”

“What if you do? And what if the mistake is seeing red flags where there aren’t any? What if it’s choking under the slightest pressure? What if it’s shutting down and running in the opposite direction if someone tries to . . . well, you know . . . love you? What if you keep living in fear or you quit and never play the game again? Isn’t that like scoring for the other team? Who wins then?”

Daria wasn’t a huge fan of sports analogies, but when Hank Hill used them they made sense. Alas.

He turned and walked into the next row of getups—nature costumes. Trees and mushrooms; fall leaves and rainbows; butterflies and snowflakes.

“I hate being lonely,” she said, barely noticing the large yellow sun partially blocking the path. “I do. Also I’m allergic to cats. So I’ll probably end up being a crazy bird woman—the one who talks to herself and feeds the pigeons in the park all day? But I’m so afraid of being hurt again that it might not be so bad if—”

This time the loud rumbling noise came from deep inside—of her . Churning, vibrating, uneven. More confused than frightened, she put her hands on her stomach and looked down, but as quickly as it had come, the reverberating and stirring died away to nothing.

“Okay. Are you ever going to tell me what that sound is, or—” She looked up and frowned for several long seconds. “Who are you supposed to be?”

Martin looked like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man . . . with clothes on. Legs apart, arms out, he looked like a human kaleidoscope of what appeared to be superheroes.

His arms and legs presented random bursts of green or black or red or blue sleeves and leggings; some limbs were scaled, some hairy, some metallic. Frosty, flaming and electrified. There were some with contrasting gloves and boots and some without, and some looked distinctly . . . well, turtlelike. His head and torso popped, hit and miss, body armor, mammoth muscles and capes with various caps, masks and helmets.

“I appear to be having an identity crisis,” he said, his voice a booming whisper mix that was creepier than it was cool. “Pick your favorite. Please.”

“Do I have to?”

The light in his eyes changed from uncertain to unamused. “Yes. And quickly, I feel nauseous.”

Elise offered him another rare Daria smile. It was friendly and fond. “Spidey then, I suppose. No! Wait! Superman.” She wrinkled her nose and gave her head a shake. “I don’t know . . . those Spidey-eyes . . . and Superman is, taken as a whole, less bizarre, more emotionally available and socially adept, I think.”

Immediately his hands fisted on his splendid red trunks and his crimson cape billowed—without a breeze—behind him. Superman . . . though his face was quickly morphing from DC Comics to George Reeves to the Christopher Reeves version that was her personal favorite. Even after his laser-blue eyes faded to Martin’s lively golden-green, he was still the Superman by which all other contemporary Supermans were measured.

“You’re a pain in the neck, you know that?”

“I’ve been told before,” she said.

“It bears repeating.”

She agreed with a lopsided smile, then she went serious and worried. “Why haven’t I changed?”

“Maybe your feelings haven’t changed.” He dazzled her with his supersmile. “Or maybe I’m here because you need a new perspective on an old problem.”

She thought about it briefly. “Are we back to the book and its cover again?”

“I love working with people I don’t have to drag every inch of the way. And yes, we’re back to your extraordinary ability to be judgmental and arrive at false assumptions.”

Hadn’t she already admitted to those unflattering flaws in her character? She looked away, disappointed that Superman would kick a sad little IRS agent when she was down.

But then he added, “Except this time, instead of polarizing people and ideas you barely know or understand, let’s take a look at some you do know.”

“Some what? Some people I know? My friends? My family?” Tears pricked at Elise’s eyes, her throat got tight and her remote, dispassionate Daria-shield slipped a bit. “I’m alienating my family? And my friends? Hurting them? No one’s said—and Roger would say . . .” Now she was feeling nauseous. She took a deep breath and let it out slow and dazed. “I didn’t know. My family is stuck with me, I guess, but how can my friends stand me if . . . Why do they stay?”

Her hands were trembling. She clenched them, open and closed, looking up at the iconic champion of truth, justice and the American way—he didn’t lie.

“Your friends love you, Elise,” he said with understanding and compassion in his handsome face. “They accept and cherish what you’ve allowed them to see in you—the good and the not so good.”

“I love them, too. Fay and Trudy know me better than my mother. Carol Ann, she’s the best; she drove me everywhere for three weeks after I sprained my right ankle last year. Abby and Leigh . . . and Molly and . . . all of them. I have great friends. I’d jump in front of a locomotive for any of them. They know that, right?”

“They know you.”

“So they think and agree that I’m . . . Daria Downer? That I’m fault-finding; that I take a lot for granted?”

“ All about you.” He held up a finger. “I’m not saying they approve of the practice or that it doesn’t bother them at times—only that they accept it as a part of you. And they do that because there’s so much more about you that is worthy of their friendship and love.” He stopped at another four-way aisle intersection. “Their primary concern is that you’re not seeing the damage it’s doing to you . They’re afraid that you don’t know how self-destructive it is.”

The gray shadows fell across period costumes—Colonial gentleman and Southern belle; flapper, pilgrim and disco dancer—and then scattered away from a scene that had played repeatedly in her mind for weeks. For three weeks and two days, to be exact.

“It’s that night, after our six-month anniversary dinner,” Elise muttered, watching intently.

She’d let Max park his car, turn off the engine, get out, take the elevator and walk her all the way to her apartment door knowing full well what he was anticipating and equally as certain that she had no intention of letting him in.

She had come to a decision; she just didn’t know how to tell him.

“Max.” It was an odd moment to note how perfect he was to hold hands with. He wasn’t so tall and she wasn’t so short that either one of them had to compensate for the length of their arms—their hands were just right, back to back then palm to palm, coming together easily and inevitably.

“Hmm?” He smiled at her.

“We need to talk.”

“Good.” She could barely glance at him. “You’ve been acting . . . not yourself all night. Is something wrong?”