After the Golden Age

thin, dark-suited shoulder. Not touching it. Leaning forward, keeping her eyes open and looking, she kissed him on the lips. It was just a press; he didn’t respond. His lips were dry, frozen. She pulled back, waiting for a response.

“Don’t do that again,” he said. He pointed to a door behind her. So much for her vast powers of seduction.

In the days that followed, she spent a lot of time sitting on tables at the periphery while he plotted, planned, schemed, whatever. She didn’t pay much attention. He ignored her. Kept her around because it might be amusing. She fetched coffee sometimes. At his command, all his henchmen ignored her as well. She might have had a little fun, otherwise. They all treated her like a kid.

His latest plan—bombs set to destroy government buildings all over the city—was nearing fruition. She could stop this, she occasionally considered. Sabotage the mechanism or call her parents. Redeem herself.

She kind of wanted to see how they stopped it on their own. It would be interesting, watching from the other side.

She perched in the window of the skyscraper where he worked that day, looking down on the canyons of a tiny cardboard city. Cars crawled, people were only specks of dirt shifting around. Everything looked flat.

“I read what the papers say about me. Do you?” The Destructor spoke to her for the first time in weeks. He stood beside her, gazing out the window with her, amusement brightening his features.

“Lots of speculation about why I do what I do. Am I mad? Disturbed? Was I abused as a child? Why am I so bent on destruction? There is so much they don’t consider, you know. They don’t consider how much worse I could be.”

She quirked a smile.

“You’ve been watching me. I think you’ve been taking notes. If you wanted to be worse than me, what would you do? What could be worse than mass destruction?”

Mass destruction sounded pretty good to her. It was partly why she was here. She’d never been able to create or save. Maybe she could destroy. Except she didn’t seem to be very good at that, either.

“The pundits are wrong about me,” he said. “I’m essentially lazy. Mass destruction is for the lazy. It’s not difficult. Anyone can crash an airplane. But using an airplane to destroy a cultural icon? That creates despair. That’s where the real power lies. In symbols. Money is easy to steal. But a rare gem? A unique painting? These things are truly worthwhile. People will die for them when they will not die for money. So tell me, what can be worse than mass destruction?”

She said, “Specific loss. You choose your target.”

He smiled, and she felt as if she’d been rewarded. “How much worse for your parents, to turn you into their next great adversary. Better I had destroyed you last year. How does that sound?”

“Like you’re planning to use me to get your own revenge. Again.”

“Maybe when the time comes I’ll let you push the button,” he said.

SEVENTEEN

SHE never got around to ordering dinner. Too much ice cream made her lose her appetite. She didn’t even pull herself off the sofa to go to bed. It was much easier to flip channels until she found a decade-old action movie playing on cable. It looked more dated than it should have, and the good bits of dialogue had been edited out. When that movie ended, another one started, and she stared at the TV until she fell asleep.

Halfway through the next morning, her doorbell rang. She flinched to wakefulness and looked at the clock: ten. Sunshine filled the living room. She wanted it to be night again, to get the day over with.

If she stayed quiet, whoever it was would go away. Some kid selling magazine subscriptions or a charity looking for donations. She didn’t want to deal with it.

Then the thought burst upon her like a migraine.

—Celia, it’s me. Open the door.—

Arthur Mentis. Couldn’t hide from him.

She looked at her unshowered self, ratty pajamas and all, wondered if she ought to tell him she needed to change clothes. On the other hand, he could read her mind; what did it matter what she was wearing? Running her fingers through her unkempt hair, she reached the door, opened it, and moved aside to let him in. He studied her, his brow raised, and remained standing in the doorway, hands shoved in the pockets of his trench coat.

“If you don’t want me here, I can leave,” he said.

She sighed. “If you were anyone else I’d never have opened the door in the first place. Come in.”

He did, and she closed the door after him. He said, “You weren’t at the courthouse yesterday. I tried calling you to check on you, but there wasn’t an answer.”

“Worried I was getting in trouble?”

“Just worried,” he said.

“I had my phone, I would have gotten your call— Wait.” The cell phone was still lying on the floor. She retrieved it, checked the display, hit a couple buttons. “I think it’s broken. I threw it.”

“Did it make you feel better?”

“Not really.”

“I see you’re not at work.”

“I thought everyone would have heard by now. I’ve been fired. Well, not fired. But almost.”

“I see. That’s hardly fair.”

“That’s what I thought. And Mark isn’t speaking to me. That’s why I threw the phone.”

“So when I ask, ‘How are you?’ the answer is, ‘Not good.’”

“I’m fine.” She said this through gritted teeth.

“Right. Is there anything I can do?”

She could scream and throw him out. But he was only trying to be nice. It was hard having him around when she didn’t want to talk about it. With him, she didn’t have to talk about it. He just knew, and while that was often convenient when she was trying to explain things to her parents, she didn’t need that now.

“I’ll be okay. I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

He started to turn, then hesitated. “What’s your plan B?”

“Plan B?”

“I don’t expect you to stay at home moping.”

“What do you expect me to do? My career is ruined. No one will hire me to pick up trash after this. My friends aren’t speaking to me. Maybe I can find a nice dry hole to bury myself in.” She rubbed her face, which was warm and flushed. “If I haven’t made up for what I did by now, what hope is there? Maybe I should just go be a criminal mastermind myself. Prove everyone right.”

“I know you don’t mean that.” And he did, because he could see it in her mind.

She probably wouldn’t make a very good criminal mastermind, either.

“Plan B, huh? What do you recommend?”

He shrugged. “Maybe stop trying to prove to everyone you’ve reformed, and just do what you think is right.”

“The old ‘ignore them’ ploy? How often does that work?”

“Just because everyone else is looking backward doesn’t mean you have to. Call me if you need anything.” He closed the door behind him on his way out.

Do what’s right, she thought. Maybe that was part of the problem—she was having trouble locating right, at the moment. Her gut was tied up in too many knots right now for her to listen to it.

If she had to work this hard to prove that she had worth, that she wasn’t a bad person, maybe that said something about her. If she really were good, she wouldn’t have to work so hard. In the end, she hadn’t left the Destructor’s clutches of her own free will. The only reason she hadn’t stayed with him was because he’d abandoned her. Not because, deep down, she was good.

She’d been seventeen and out of her mind. Dr. Mentis said so.