All My Friends Are Superheroes - Andrew Kaufman [13]
‘Thank you for your time,’ the Perfectionist said. She took his card and gently escorted him to the front door of the apartment.
The Perfectionist returned to the kitchen and noticed her lit cigarette in the ashtray. It was half burnt. She reached out and extinguished it. She flipped through the yellow pages and phoned the first travel agency she saw. She purchased a one-way ticket to Vancouver.
TEN
TASKS #5 TO #7
The Perfectionist wakes up. She watches clouds and mentally rechecks her ‘Things To Do Before Leaving’ list. Tasks #5 to #7 were all ‘call sister’ (#4 final mop and wax; #8 call airport to check for a flight delay). The Perfectionist replays these phone conversations in her mind. The first call (#5) was to her eldest sister, the Face.
The Face was eight years old when she first noticed how photographs taken of her were slightly out of focus. When the Face looked in mirrors, even if she kept very still, her reflection was always blurry. During high school she was very popular but she had no close friends.
After high school the Face studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In painting class the first assignment was a self-portrait. Holding her brush, the Face studied her classmates. They mixed colours and applied thick brushstrokes to the canvas. The Face’s brush was still. She didn’t know how to begin.
That night she phoned three of her classmates and asked them to describe what she looked like. They all responded that she was the most beautiful woman they’d ever seen. But when she asked for details, they couldn’t provide any. They couldn’t tell her what colour her eyes were. They didn’t know if her teeth were straight, or if her hair was wavy, or if her lips were thick. They only knew she the most beautiful woman they’d ever seen.
The Face submitted a blank canvas and got an A+. Everyone agreed it was the most beautiful self-portrait they’d ever seen and it looked exactly like her. That afternoon she started sewing a hood. She finished it the following Wednesday. She hasn’t taken it off in seventeen years.
The Face wasn’t home. The Perfectionist had planned this. She left a message apologizing for missing her and a promise that she’d call as soon as she landed in Vancouver.
The Perfectionist went on to task #6. She called her other older sister, the Elongating Woman, who was named Donna at birth. On Donna’s eighteenth birthday her boyfriend was the passenger in a Toyota Corolla that was t-boned by a pickup truck. He died on his way to the hospital and for the next three years all Donna could think about was timing. What if he’d stopped for something? What if they’d hit a red light? What if he’d gotten into that car ten seconds later? It seemed like such a simple thing, so easy to change, and she started believing she could change it. All she had to do was reach back into time and delay him, so she stretched out her arms.
She stretched her arms down Queen Street, past people and streetcars. She stretched her arms onto the Gardiner Expressway. She stretched her arms faster than highway traffic. She stretched and stretched and stretched but she was only able to put her arms around the city. She couldn’t reach back in time and she’s never forgiven herself.
The Elongating Woman answered her phone.
‘It’s me,’ the Perfectionist said.
‘Don’t go,’ said the Elongating Woman.
‘I can’t wait any longer,’ the Perfectionist said. ‘There are limits.’
‘I know,’ the Elongating Woman said. ‘I know that.’ The Perfectionist promised to call the moment she landed in Vancouver. She hung up the phone and called her younger sister, the Ticker (task #7).
The Ticker is a quiet superhero who makes everyone nervous. Her superpower is her amazing potential. Sitting at the edge of parties, responding to inquiries but never starting them, the Ticker is always watching and waiting – as is everybody else.
Certainly she could do anything she wanted to, but what would that anything be? Brilliant art? Mass crime? World peace or