Superpowered

Josie picked up her pace on the treadmill and adjusted her earbuds, through which she intended to master Survival Spanish. Today’s lesson: how to order food in a restaurant. El flan, por favor. A man’s voice, pleading. Dessert elevated to a matter of life and death.

She mouthed the words while watching, through the small gym’s big window, rain plummet from a charcoal Las Vegas sky. The drops ricocheted when they struck the lonely parking lot, home to only three vehicles this inclement afternoon, including her tired Honda.

The only other exerciser here today, a spindly old-timer in a snug headband and short-shorts, panted aboard one of the stair-steppers. The beautiful young man who managed the gym reclined in his narrow office, long legs propped on the bare desk, and gazed out at the rare desert downpour. He was around the same age as Josie’s twin boys—twenty-five, all grown up now. She loved the look of him, his dark curls and sinewy forearms. He didn’t look back at her. And hadn’t once in the three months since she joined the gym. Nunca. She might as well be invisible.

When they were small, her boys, Jordy and Adam, had sometimes asked each other which superpower they would choose, if they could choose just one. Most of the time, they wanted to fly. But every now and then, they wanted to be invisible instead. To travel the world undetected, see without being seen. They probably fantasized about spying on the pretty freckled girl over on Roadrunner Road, little perverts.

Josie couldn’t remember ever wanting to be invisible. But at some point, middle age had rendered her so, nonetheless. Suddenly, like a ghost or a virus, nobody saw her and nobody wanted to.

La cuenta, por favor. She took a sip from her neon water bottle. The old-timer huffed and puffed on his climb to nowhere. The beautiful young man in the office tapped something into his cellphone. Josie spent the next few minutes imagining him ogling her the way other men once had. “I’m a happily married woman!” she would helplessly protest when he cornered her over by the water fountain.

Outside, the rain fell slantwise now. An empty shopping cart migrated across the nearby intersection. A classic wood-paneled station wagon with tinted windows splashed into the parking lot and trundled toward the gym, its windshield wipers engaged in a frantic battle against the elements.

Yes, Josie thought, her days of turning heads were over. At forty-nine, she found it difficult to get the attention she needed, anymore, at the deli and the post office and the ER. She had to say, “Excuse me,” all the time, at ever-increasing volumes. She’d taken to shouting it—“Excuse me!”—while flashing a contrite smile, as if in apology for having the nerve, at her age, to go on existing and needing salami or stamps or stitches.

And she still had menopause to look forward to. Then, death.

On the bright side, her new superpower made it easier to surveil people. In fact, espionage had become a real breeze. She liked the word espionage because it sounded glamorous, international. She liked using the word, in her head, to describe the aggressive people-watching she’d taken up about six months ago at the grocery store and the library.

She began experimenting by openly staring at strangers—men and women—from ten feet away. Then five. Then two. This progressed to trailing them through the aisles, plucking from the shelves the same items they had: pretzels, pork chops or antacids, books on dieting and betting odds and beating addictions. In checkout lines, she’d drawn close enough to practically breathe on the backs of their necks while they fondled their phones. Not one of them had reacted. Nadie.

How easy it would be, she’d thought at the time, to sneak her fingers into their pockets or purses and extract a pack of gum, a pair of sunglasses, a wallet. Frankly, it surprised her that more women her age didn’t take up crime. But she’d resisted the temptation. With great power, she’d half-joked to herself, comes great responsibility.

She’d forgotten to charge her cellphone today, and now she noticed its red battery icon. If it died before she finished her workout, no more Survival Spanish. Instead, she’d have to endure the piped-in house music more suitable for a Strip nightclub than a modest neighborhood gym. Qué lastima.

Out front, the station wagon had parked in one of many available spaces and now sat there, idling. A fellow gym member probably lingered within, Josie figured, maybe finishing a phone call before coming inside.

She had grown depressed; she saw that now. She’d started spending more and more time alone on a bench in the park at the corner of Roadrunner and Chickadee. From there, you could see the polychromatic Strip in the distance, admire the neon skyline of a city known for imploding its casinos the second they started showing their age. She seldom visited the tourist trap herself, preferring the monochromatic suburbs that resembled those of any other city. Or so she imagined, having traveled so little and never lived anywhere else. Her grandfather had come to town to help build Hoover Dam and never left. Her father had dealt blackjack at the Golden Nugget while her mother kept house. All three now buried under patchy Bermuda grass at Woodlawn Cemetery.

Josie had spent hours each day on that worn bench sandwiched between fragrant creosote bushes, watching other parkgoers chase their wayward children and dogs, and thinking about how she felt less like a person these days than like a blurry, person-sized smudge.

One velvety spring evening, a large man of about thirty, carrying a cupcake piled high with frosting, had plopped down next to her, so close their thighs squished together. This, despite plenty of room at the other end of the bench, and several other, empty benches nearby. Judging by his oblivious expression, he hadn’t noticed her sitting there.

“Excuse me,” Josie said.

The man, who stank of beer and barbecue sauce, ignored her. He turned his head in the direction of a young woman stretching. Then began unwrapping his cupcake.

How good it would feel to seize the cupcake and mash it into his clueless face. How satisfying his astonishment. If only she had the nerve.

“Excuse me!”

The man flinched at the sound of her raised voice and dropped his cupcake, which landed upside-down in the dirt. He gaped at her in horror a moment, as if she were a terrifying specter that had materialized out of thin air. Then he cursed, hauled himself to his feet, and strode away, tossing a perplexed glance at her over his broad shoulder as he went.

Her equilibrium restored, Josie had watched him go with passive interest. Her new reality left her feeling scientifically detached and mildly entertained. She’d begun to experience the world as separate from herself, a never-ending production broadcast from the other side of a virtually impenetrable screen.

Three miles down, one to go. She tightened her graying ponytail. In the mirrors, she watched the old-timer, at the back corner of the gym, now pedaling a stationary bike as though his waning life depended on it. The beautiful young man in the office reached deep into one of his desk drawers, fiddled with something inside, and then glanced furtively around the gym—everywhere but at Josie.

“You need a hobby,” Maxwell told her a few months back. He’d found her sitting on the bedroom carpet, writing DANGER on her upper arms in black marker. She’d planned to jaywalk across Roadrunner in a bright tank top to see if anyone noticed her. A test. Maxwell passed the test, of course; he was impervious to her superpower. When he looked at her, through his thick bifocals, he still saw the slim-hipped, fanciful girl he’d fallen for in high school. Sturdy, reasonable Maxwell, too considerate to have a midlife crisis. Looking at his wide, placid face, reddish-brown from the sun, made Josie feel pleasantly sleepy.

“Raising the boys was my hobby,” she’d said, then capped the marker and extended a hand for help up.

“A new hobby.” His voice was steady, soothing. He smelled like the outdoors. He kept hold of her hand. She found his callouses comforting.

She looked at one of her arms, at the word written on it, and thought about her social experiments at the library and the grocery store. “I found a new hobby.”

“A different hobby,” he said, and she knew he was right. She had too much time on her hands, the boys long grown, and her attempts to fill it had taken a weird turn.

She had no siblings of her own, and Petra, her best and only friend since middle school, had moved to New Zealand a year ago with a mustachioed man she’d met at the World of Concrete convention. So, in an effort to occupy herself with more acceptable pursuits, Josie had applied for two dozen menial jobs—and hadn’t received a single phone call in response. She’d played bingo at a casino built for locals, but couldn’t stand the cigarette smoke and the slack, hopeless faces of the other players. She’d volunteered to pick up litter on urban trails that ran alongside the Las Vegas Wash, wielding her trash-picker while younger volunteers chatted and laughed and flirted in the blinding sunshine, but the activity hadn’t done enough to calm her restless mind and body. Finally, she’d joined the gym on Hummingbird, which they could afford since Maxwell’s promotion to supervisor. And he’d promised to take her on their first international adventure, a long weekend in Puerto Vallarta, next year for her fiftieth birthday. She laughed, now, at the thought of him in a ten-gallon sombrero, sipping from a glass shaped like a full-figured woman. Dos piña coladas, por favor.

Outside, a bolt of lightning split the sky, followed by a crack of thunder loud enough to penetrate Josie’s earbuds. She might have stayed home with Maxwell today; the weather had postponed his construction job. She might have curled up with a book about Mexico. But she hated to miss a workout now that she’d acquired the habit. Already she considered the gym a second home, as comfortable and familiar as her old sneakers. Usually, a great place to see lots of brightly dressed people of every size and shape moving their bodies in unusual, ungraceful ways—a vibrant display of imperfect humanity.

The air conditioner kicked on unnecessarily. Josie shivered in her thin t-shirt. She increased the speed on the treadmill from a speed-walk to a jog. Might as well finish strong. The cool air felt good, whooshing in and out of her lungs. Her stomach growled. On the way home, she would pick up Maxwell’s favorite chicken fingers and fries.

Just then, her cellphone died. Adiós, Survival Spanish. She removed her earbuds, then immediately replaced them to blunt the gym’s thumping house music. “Mierda,” she said to her phone’s blank screen.

Suddenly, two giants came barreling through the gym door, propelled by a powerful gust of wind. Not actual giants, she quickly realized. Implausibly huge human beings. A twenty-something man and woman. A couple, or maybe brother and sister. Huge as in superhumanly muscular. As in limbs like the trunks of trees so big they get their own national park. As in steroids, probably. Both well over six feet tall, wrapped in banana-yellow spandex, and spray-tanned the color of prunes.

Josie stared in amazement as they shook the rain from their bulging biceps, smoothed their bottle-blond hair, and surveyed the gym, their leathery faces swiveling side to side. The station wagon out front must belong to these purple Adonises. But what on earth were they doing here? Had the big gym on Sage Grouse gone out of business? Had they taken a wrong turn on the way to a bodybuilding expo at the convention center?

The beautiful young man exited his office and ambled over to the burly pair, bestowing upon them a winsome smile. Laughing, they slapped his back in greeting. These must be the manager’s friends, thought Josie, come to visit him at his humble Hummingbird gym on a wet midweek afternoon.

He gestured toward his office, but the giants pointed toward the free weights on the opposite side of the gym. While we’re here, they seemed to say, may as well check it out. Josie watched them hulk over to the section of the gym she had not once visited. There, they stacked the heaviest weights onto a barbell and took turns squatting with it, their bleached teeth clenched, their neck veins popping, their mammoth thighs like fleshy bags stuffed with too many hams. The old-timer appeared to be engrossed in the show, Josie noted in the mirrors, where he pedaled in seeming desperation, his jaw hinged open.

The beautiful young man stood by the giants, his track pants clinging attractively to his chiseled quads. Josie wondered what he looked like beneath his clothes. That famous marble sculpture, she imagined, the naked one in Italy. Then she felt a pang of embarrassment for entertaining such thoughts about a kid the same age as Jordy and Adam, give or take a year. To break the spell, she focused on thoughts of the boys. What a relief when they turned out okay. A miracle, considering what bad little boys they had been. Their favorite activity had involved toddling up to her, displaying their adorable gummy grins, and then punching her squarely in the jaw. Later, they enjoyed throwing rocks at the neighbor’s car, then blaming it on an imaginary friend named Jelly. Once, they got suspended for yanking the freckled Roadrunner girl’s dress up over her head during a lunchtime game of tag on a fertile spring day.

“We’re raising sex offenders,” she had told Maxwell in tears.

“They’re six years old,” Maxwell had reasonably responded.

But she had worried that they would one day end up expelled or incarcerated. Instead, they morphed into studious teenagers who ran track, helped with dinner, and didn’t talk back. Both now employed by the same company as their father and enrolled in community college classes. Qué milagro. Sure, the boys sometimes over-indulged in Sin City’s famous nightlife. But so did every other local their age. Overall, she felt blessed on the family front—if somewhat extraneous, lately.

The giants and the gym manager now abruptly halted a conversation they’d been having about protein shakes or whatever. They stood staring in Josie’s direction, faces frozen in alarm. She held her breath and tried not to panic. Then realized they were looking past her.

In the mirrors, she saw that the old-timer was no longer pedaling the stationary bike. In fact, he now slumped over it, his limp arms dangling floorward, and his balding head bowed as if in unconscious prayer. One foot, in its Velcro sneaker, resting on a pedal. The other at an odd angle on the carpet. And then, the old man’s reflected body suddenly shifted and poured off the bike.

Everything that followed happened so quickly. When she thought about it later, Josie would recall the scene unfolding in double time, as though somebody had hit fast-forward on the world’s remote control while she continued on at regular speed, falling further behind by the second.

The beautiful young man and the giants raced to the rear of the gym, grabbed the incapacitated old-timer, and arranged him face-up on the floor. Even from a distance, Josie could see that his face had gone green. The gym manager checked for vital signs and then stepped aside so the giants could take turns pumping the old man’s chest the way they might jack up a car.

Josie, meanwhile, found herself too stunned to do anything but maintain her pace on the treadmill, her legs lifting and falling as if of their own accord. She could see herself there in the mirrors—unflattering sweatpants, loose ponytail, vacant eyes—but felt as though she had left her own body. Untethered, she observed the scene as though from a far-off land or some other dimension, separated by time and that same unbreachable screen.

Silently, she berated herself for not having learned CPR. For failing to keep her cellphone charged. For having stood by so long, passively watching the world, that she had apparently forgotten how to participate in it, even in an emergency.

Do something, she told herself. But she couldn’t think of a single thing to do.

Fortunately, the old-timer soon rallied, coughed, and wiped his bulbous nose with the back of a shaky hand. Then clutched his chest. The beautiful young man spoke words Josie couldn’t hear into his cellphone. The giants conferred a moment, intimately. Then one of them seized the old man by the arms, the other by the ankles. They hoisted him like a sentient sandbag, then hustled him across the gym and out the door. The manager followed, his phone pressed to his ear. As he left the gym, he locked the door behind him.

Josie kept jogging, inhaling and exhaling. Out the window, she watched the four of them get pelted with rain. She watched the giants heave the patient onto the backseat of the station wagon, which then tore down Hummingbird on its way, she assumed, to the closest hospital. She watched the gym manager jump into his glossy SUV, then peel out after the station wagon, leaving only her Honda and a green Volkswagen Beetle (which must have belonged to the unfortunate old man) in the parking lot. Finally, she watched a ragged pigeon peck at a dark spot on the ground next to the dumpsters. A chill passed through her.

Four miles down. She stopped the treadmill and tightened her ponytail. She removed her earbuds and then replaced them, cursing the still-throbbing house music. She took a long drink from her water bottle and waited for her breathing to slow. Outside, the rain continued to fall, but the sky had lightened to a pale granite-gray. She stepped off the treadmill and checked the door, confirming its deadbolt, double cylinder. Confirming she had once again gone unnoticed.

She wandered around the abandoned gym a few minutes, feeling like a ghost haunting the premises. She tried to force open the big window, then pounded pointlessly on the solid glass door. In the bathroom, she splashed lukewarm water on her face and scrutinized her dowdy reflection: a wilted version of her younger self. She searched the manager’s tiny office for a phone or spare key but found neither. In the back of one of his desk drawers, she discovered a baggie full of marijuana.

She sat cross-legged in front of the gym door, facing the desolate parking lot and the shifting sky. She looked at the old man’s Beetle and whispered a prayer for him.

Maxwell would by now be wondering what was keeping her. He had probably tried calling her dead cellphone. She pictured a wrinkle of concern crossing his sedate brow and wished that she could smooth it. She adjusted her silent earbuds and practiced what she remembered from the Survival Spanish lesson on public transportation. ¿Dónde está la estación de tren? ¿El aeropuerto?

The rain stopped and the clouds slipped apart, exposing a sinking red sun. Josie shivered. She considered attempting a few squat thrusts. Braving the inner-thigh machine. Curling into fetal position and indulging in a good cry. Her stomach growled again. The cold air sank into her bones.

Once, as a girl, she had performed magic tricks alone onstage in a bowtie and top hat, her fine hair dancing down her back. Once, she won an award for writing a poem about a lonesome coyote howling at the moon. Her mother had loved her; her father only slightly less so. Last Christmas, the boys had presented her with a golden heart necklace that had a real diamond at its center. By this time next year, she would know what her feet felt like buried in sand on a Mexican beach.

It would have to be enough.

It wasn’t nearly enough.

She remembered how strong and springy her body once felt, how she and Petra had turned cartwheels by the dozen on the hot blacktop behind their middle school. She remembered how vital she’d felt while pregnant with the boys, her robust body bursting with new life, and how they had depended on her for sustenance, safety, warmth. Now here she sat, cold and useless, still as a statue.

She wanted to fly to Italy and see that famous nude sculpture with her own eyes. She wanted to visit Petra in New Zealand. She wanted to spy internationally and run a multi-national corporation. She wanted to wander the earth, gathering flowers and children and acclaim. Also, she wanted a motorcycle. A tattoo. A commanding presence. More than anything, she wanted to start over.

She stood and headed for the free weights. Here, she picked up an empty barbell, shocked at how heavy it was. She regretted never taking up weight training; she’d read about how fast bone density shrank in a woman her age. She dropped the barbell, then picked up a fifteen-pound dumbbell. This she carried over to the gym’s big window, raised over her head, and swung with all her meager might.

The window did not shatter. The strike made only a modest thwack, followed by a short reverberation, as if someone had hurled a soft stone at the glass. Pain shot through Josie’s right shoulder. She dropped the dumbbell, narrowly missing her foot. Defeated, she resumed her cross-legged post at the door.

A few minutes later, she spotted the familiar white pickup with rusty doors, inching up Hummingbird toward the gym. The truck edged into the lot, splashed through a puddle, and parked on the far side, next to her Honda. Out stepped Maxwell in his work boots, patched jeans and the flannel shirt she bought on sale last summer. Bifocals perched on the tip of his nose. He examined her car, checking both locked doors and all four tires. Then turned toward the door at which she sat. She smiled and offered a goofy wave before remembering that the glass was tinted in such a way that you couldn’t see through it from a distance.

The sky opened up again, but the rain fell gently now, in big lavender drops that landed in Maxwell’s thinning hair and streaked his glasses. His slightly lopsided walk, the result of a bad ankle break in his twenties, filled her with tenderness. Her breath caught in her throat. Mi amor.

She patted the pocket of her sweatpants, into which she had stuffed the beautiful young man’s marijuana. Nobody would ever suspect her.

She’d smoked the drug a few times before, with Maxwell, in high school. He grew even mellower under its influence, reclining in a beanbag chair while she flitted around his mother’s attic, bouncing off walls. She felt like she could float right out of the room, up through the vaulted ceiling, into the electric night sky. Maxwell had caught her and held her, burying his face in her neck, grounding her. She could still remember how his careful lips had felt against her charged skin.

She watched him draw nearer now, glasses foggy, hair stuck unevenly to his scalp. The sight of his tranquil face flooded her with warmth and thoughts of home.

Llévame a casa, por favor.

His cloudy eyes scanned the exterior of the gym and then, squinting over his bifocals, landed on her and widened in recognition. She smiled again, pressing her hand against the door’s cool glass, and marveled at his supernatural ability to see what no one else could.