Chapter 12: Cat Food and Ice Cream

The television, still muted from a commercial break half an hour ago, silently flickered images and strobed the dark room, bathing it in a chaotic band of ever-changing colored light while Schrödinger softly and silently padded through. Her lean body cast long shadows from the television over the carpet, and her cursed collar was now laying on the bed upstairs. She took a seat on the soft carpet, licked one paw, and briefly considered the dozing boy on the couch. She knew this one. She had met him before. He was the one that brought that stupid dog over; the one that tried to rut with her.

An item dropped from his grasp and fell to the floor.

Schrödinger perked up. The thing he dropped was not food, but some plastic object, which was disappointing. The boy's hands were now empty, and she knew what that usually signaled. The woman who could vanish would routinely empty her hands before going to get food. Perhaps he would be doing that soon. She waited for the boy, and eagerly watched to see if he knew how to get water out of the sink and how to use the machine that opened the cans. She especially preferred the food that came in cans over that dry, crunchy stuff.

The boy rolled and turned to face the back of the couch.

If cats could sigh, she would have. He would be sleeping for a while, she decided, and the woman who could operate the can opener would not be returning until sunrise. She silently padded off to her warm vent and lay down on it. The warm comfortable breeze fluffed her fur and tickled her nose, and she pondered the possibility that the woman might not return one day. If that were to happen, she would have to rely on the boy for food and water here.

She really hoped he could use the can opener. She liked the food in the cans.

The boy mumbled something in his sleep, and she twitched her ears. She became concerned. What if he died here? That was always a possibility. What would she do then? Go somewhere else for food, she supposed.

She decided if that was the case, she should probably eat him first.

"You know, I had to check under a lot of bridges to find you." she added.

"Hi Sophia," he said.

She made herself comfortable, sitting cross-legged on a pile of clothes. "So, nice place you've got here. Very private. Secluded. What are you working on?"

Joey considered his drawing. "I'm trying to make her right. I'm trying to make her happy, but she keeps turning angry."

She cocked her head. "Do you think it is something you are doing wrong?"

"I don't know. But I need to fix her."

Sophia nodded and watched him as he drew. "Joey, I know that Tricia is a strong willed woman. I certainly learned that tonight. And she may not be someone you can easily fix by just redrawing her. She may need something more."

He shrugged. "I don't know what else to do."

"Well, maybe we can explore that." Sophia shifted on the pile of clothes. "So I've been thinking about your problem."

"Which one?" he asked sarcastically.

"Using your powers at range."

"Oh. That one." He looked at the pencil he was using. "I thought I just needed new pencils."

"Eventually we all do. But I was thinking. You and I are not that different. I had this same trouble too, using my powers at range. So I started thinking about what it took, and I realized, it wasn't how hard I tried or the number of times I practiced on people. It took something else."

Joey looked up at her. "Really?"

She nodded. "Yes. I would practice for hours every day, but for the longest time I couldn't affect people at a distance."

"So how did you do it?"

Sophia smiled. "It was the number of people I practiced on." He frowned, and she continued. "As long as I stayed with the same small number of people, I never got better. I had to affect more people. Branch out. Explore. Be willing to take more chances, and learn the dark secrets of others."

Joey lowered his head. "Hmm," he grunted.

"You don't seem to like this idea."

He shrugged.

Sophia sighed and looked about the small nest-hole under the bridge. "Is this where you used to live? Back before you met Tricia and Annie?"

He nodded. "One place. It gets pretty loud and stuffy, so not many people like it." He erased and started drawing again. "But I like it."

"You're alone a lot in here, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Being alone is easy. Dealing with new people is hard. But we have to do the hard things to get on in life."

"I like it here."

Sophia smirked to herself, and casually scratched the back of her head. Red sparks jumped from her hand as she released energy. "You know what would have happened if you always stayed here..."

The fire died down, and a screeching roar echoed outside the small hole. Joey snapped his head up in panic as he heard the demon's wings flapping nearby. A shadow passed over the blankets covering the only escape.

"No!" he gasped in terror.

"She would have found you," Sophia declared. "She would have killed you, you know. And then she would have killed everyone else. Including Tricia and Annie."

He shrunk back into the corner of the hole, watching the opening with dread.

"You had to leave here," she added. "You had to go out and meet them. That's what saved you, and them. Now it's time to grow again. Time for you to meet new people."

"Make her go away."

Sophia held out her hand. "Come with me. She can't come close to me. I'll protect you. But you have to come with me. Okay?"

Joey hesitated for the briefest moment, and nodded. "Okay." He reached out and took her hand.

They stepped out through the blanketed opening and onto the steep concrete under-structure of the bridge. Sophia took a moment to notice that from the angle of the sun and the position of the hole under the bridge, there was no possible way for a shadow to have passed over the nest-hole, but such is the logic of dreams. Together they made their way down the steep hill and onto the street below. Joey scanned the skies nervously and held onto Sophia's hand tightly. She walked confidently.

"She's not coming," she said with absolute certainty. "She can't. She fears you when you don't hide, you know."

Joey relaxed slightly. "Good." They walked for a little ways. "So, where are we going?"

"You tell me," Sophia answered. "The quest is for you to meet people. I'd like to see how that turns out. So who do you want to meet?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

They found themselves at the front gates of the Myer's Institute. How they got there hadn't been explained adequately, and Sophia grinned to herself. "There must be someone here you're interested in," she concluded.

Joey blushed slightly. "Well, yeah."

"Well, let's go meet her."

"School rule. No powers outside of class," he explained. "Mr. Grimes says if you use your powers too much, things get out of hand and people get hurt, even if your powers don't hurt people. Also, it's good practice to blend in with others."

"So who are we looking for?"

Joey hesitated. "Lynne," he finally confessed.

They wandered the halls, passing more students and the occasional teacher. Sophia would notice students he felt closer kinship to, and he would talk about them "That's Simon. He can control electronics," he said, pointing to his friend. "That's Kaelyn. She said she got bit by a radioactive cat but I think she made that up." "That's Raquel. She can reflect energy." He saw three boys in the distance. "Those are Clyde, Neal, and Brandon. They're assholes." He turned a corner to avoid the three boys.

"Why are they important to you?"

He sighed. "They're the ones I had to fight. I got in trouble because of them."

Sophia nodded and saw two young girls up ahead. "Who are they?"

"Sarah and Willow. They're mages."

"They're pretty," she observed.

"Yeah," he admitted. "Willow is dating Yamal. Sarah is in my class."

She nudged him. "You like her?"

Joey squirmed a bit. "Well, yeah," he conceded. "She's okay, I guess."

"So go talk to her."

He considered it, and hesitated.

"Go on," she encouraged.

"I have to go," Sarah said, and she turned and walked through the wall of lockers.

Sophia blinked in surprise and watched the boy as he stood impotently staring at the lockers. He reached out and touched the solid metal where she had just passed through. "Well, you don't see that everyday," she said walking up to him. "You know, seeing someone as a ghost usually means that you feel she's going to hurt you."

Joey shook his head. "No, she can just do that. She went in this room." He followed the wall until he found a door. Sophia followed him inside.

They were now in the school cafeteria. Tables had been set up, and although there was no sign of Sarah, a beautiful dark-haired girl sat nearly alone in the center of the room at one of the tables. A handsome boy stood nearby. "That's Lynne," Joey said, pointing to her.

"Whoa. She's gorgeous," Sophia said wistfully, admiring the dark-chocolate wavy hair, flawlessly fair skin, ruby lips, blushed cheeks, and killer curves. Sophia cocked her head. "I can see why you like her. Who's the boy?"

"Jeff. Her brother."

She shifted on her hips and smirked as she considered the handsome boy. "Not bad. You don't mind if I pay him a visit sometime, do you?"

Joey shrugged.

"Is he a good kisser?"

"Practicing," the boy answered.

Sophia walked up to Joey and tenderly placed one hand on his shoulder. "Okay. That's enough," she consoled him. "Let's go somewhere else."

"It's not fair," Joey complained. "He's not supposed to be using his powers."

"I'm sure that's not the reason why you couldn't reach her," Sophia surmised. "Let's go."

They walked out of the room together, and were soon on the streets. How they arrived on the streets was also inadequately explained, but Sophia said nothing about it. "Mazes mean indecision, confusion, and feeling lost and undirected," she said instead. "Yet you could see her in the center. You knew what you were going for, but you couldn't reach her. There are hidden obstacles."

"Jeff kept moving the tables," he explained impatiently.

"This isn't Jeff's fault. I think it's someone else's." Sophia thought for a moment. "Joey? Why do you like Lynne?"

Joey smiled and blushed. "Well, she's pretty."

"She's very pretty. So are Sarah and Willow and Kaelyn and Raquel. I saw a lot of pretty girls. Why Lynne?"

He shrugged and stepped past a juggler. Sophia noticed they were now in a small park filled with various street performers. "I don't know," he mumbled, and stopped. "I guess I just like her most." He cocked his head and looked into the distance. Sophia followed his gaze, and saw Lynne and Jeff playing guitar in the park. "The others don't notice me as much."

"So she notices you?"

At that moment she could see Lynne look around and spot Joey. Her smile was shy and lovely, and it easily penetrated the crowd.

"Yeah," he agreed. "She sees me."

"That's as good a reason as any," Sophia said.

They walked forward, and Sophia could hear their bright singing. Joey listened with enraptured attention, and picked up a CD from their table, dropping a ten dollar bill to pay for it. Lynne smiled graciously and switched to a strumming bridge in the song.

"Are you Joey Harper?" she asked.

"No. Sanchez," he replied. "You're very good. You should go professional."

"Thank you," she said quizzically. "You really look like Joey Harper. I always wanted to meet him."

As Joey wandered away from her, Sophia frowned. "That was a memory, wasn't it?" She trotted up to him. "That actually happened, right?"

"Yeah. It's a good CD."

"That was important. What do you suppose she meant by that?"

He shrugged. "Don't know." He continued walking through the throngs of people.

Sophia followed him closely, looking a bit exasperated. "Aren't you even curious?" she asked. "You must be. Why don't you ask her?"

They were standing under the bridge again, and Joey looked up to the blanketed entrance of his nest-hole. "I should go back now."

"No, you don't need to go back there anymore."

He ignored her and started climbing the embankment. But Sophia grabbed him and turned his body around. "No! I said you're not going back in there!"

"Let go of me!"

"Stop HIDING! Why aren't you curious about her?"

"Why don't you just leave me alone?"

"Because I have a responsibility to you."

"I don't even know you! I don't who you are, or what you are! What are you doing with me?"

"So are you asking now?"

"Yes! What are you?"

"You're asking the wrong person." Sophia said. "You shouldn't be asking me these things. You should be asking HER."

Joey stared at her with incomprehension. "I'm going back," he decided, and pushed himself away.

"What? You're just going home now?"

"Whatever."

"That hole is not your home!" Sophia shouted. "It's just where you go to hide. To disappear. To become a non-person."

"I'm used to it," Joey declared, and he strode towards the entrance. "I can do it again."

"So you want to go home, homeless boy?" Sophia asked, and she clenched her fists tightly. The red sparks flared from her hands, and the entrance to the hole collapsed. Joey stopped, and turned back to her. "Fine!" she continued. "Then let's go HOME."

Joey bit his lip. "Home? What do you mean?" he asked cautiously.

She marched up to him. "Home. You know."

He shook his head. "I don't want..."

"Home," she decided.

It was a small split-level house nestled in a cul-de-sac somewhere in suburban Pennsylvania, and Sophia and Joey stood outside on the front sidewalk. Some of his toys were scattered on the front lawn, and two cars were parked in the driveway.

"So this is home?" she asked.

"Yeah," he answered carefully. "But I don't want to go there."

"I think this is where the answers are." She gently touched his shoulder. "Let's go," she said, guiding him forward. "Who's home?"

Joey swallowed. "Dad."

"Is your mom home too?"

He shook his head.

They entered through the side door, and wandered into the kitchen. Sophia dragged her fingers across the kitchen table. It felt solid and textured, still holding a reality that could only come from years of early familiarity. Joey walked cautiously, exiting the kitchen and entering the front foyer. Family portraits decorated the walls, showing a happy couple fawning over a gurgling chubby infant. He took the stairs up and turned a corner. Sophia followed.

"This is my room," he said.

As he walked in and lay on his bed, Sophia examined the room. It was messy, like most kids rooms, with Lego bricks, Transformer toys, and dirty clothes scattered about the floor, making it difficult to walk through. Posters of superheroes blanketed the walls: Stargold and Black Guard, Hyperion and Technarch, Jade Hawk, Captain Justice, Impedus, Olympian.

"So you like superheroes, huh?" she asked.

He shrugged. "My dad gave me those."

She frowned. "No superheroines. I thought at least you would have Snow Angel here."

He shrugged again.

"Where's your father?"

Joey picked up a patchwork teddy bear and cuddled with it. "He's around," he said dejectedly.

"Don't you want to see him?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Why not?"

Joey didn't answer. He just curled onto the bed, clutching his teddy bear. Sophia watched him for a moment, and reached out towards him. "There must be some reason," she said softly as a flare of red sparks erupted from her hand, "that you do not want to see him."

He curled into a ball.

The room darkened in response as a memory took hold. Voices came in from down the hall. She turned her head and listened. An argument between a man and a woman echoed through the house from the far master bedroom.

"Stephen. Please, just tell me! What is the problem."

"I'm sorry. It's just not going to work out."

"Is it me? Have I done something wrong? Talk to me."

"No, it's not you. You're perfect. It's just me. I just can't do this. I can't have you in my life."

"It's been four years! I'm not asking you to forget her, or stop loving her, but you need to move on! You need someone. HE needs someone. I'm here for you."

"I'm sorry Sherrie. I really am. We can't do this anymore. It's for your own good."

"I'm sorry, Joey," the silhouette responded. "But Sherrie is not coming back. Now go to sleep. We have a lot of work to do in the morning."

As his father left, Sophia sat in silence for several minutes, thinking, digesting, and finally understanding. "That was not fair of him to do that to you," she said.

"We had to practice," Joey mumbled from under the covers. "And she could have gotten hurt."

Sophia shook her head. "You needed a family. You needed to be shown how to be a man, not how to be a hero. He took that away from you." She looked up at the doorway. "He locked away his own heart, just when you needed to see him open it, to show you how to love." She rubbed his back through the covers. "That's why you can't approach girls. You have no male role model. You just don't know how to do it, or even which questions to ask."

Joey peered out from under the covers and looked her in the eyes questioningly. She smiled at him, giving him comfort. "But it's not too late. You can still learn. And now that I know what you need, I can help you." She patted him lightly and stood up. "Come on. Let me take you back home."

"Home?" he asked.

She stood up and reached her hand to him. "Your real home."

As he took her hand, the room brightened, and he was taller and older, wearing his normal clothes. They walked out the door and into a wide, sunny field. As they strode through the tall grass and sunshine, Sophia smiled and spoke to him.

"Joseph, I know for a fact that you were placed on this Earth to learn how to love, and then to love others. Just as I was placed on this Earth to learn how to inspire, and then to inspire others. And it's not fair what happened to you, but we can move past it." A light breeze picked up, blowing her hair and robes in waving patterns. Petals and seeds from flowers were caught in the wind, along with the sweet fragrance of daffodils and honeysuckle. "It is not a big secret," she continued, "but every person you meet has a secret desire, a dream, a wish, and a need to be desired and cared for. And if you wish to get close to someone, that is your simplest opening. So many men when approaching women offer the stupidest pick-up lines of bad puns or double entendres, trying to look clever or trying to break past defences with pop psychology, but the simplest statement of 'I like you, and I find you interesting' works best on anyone."

Joey walked beside her, enraptured by the simple advice. She smiled at him. "Do you like her? Do you like Lynne?" she asked. He nodded. "Then tell her, and take interest in her. And keep in mind; She has a secret desire. Find out what that desire is, and do what you can to fulfill it. Take interest in her needs and her dreams, and always remember that every new person is not just a name or a particularly pretty face or a delicious body, but an entire country of her own. Be prepared to explore her for years. There is an entire history, a train load of emotional baggage, family cultures, neurosis', language, and attitudes you will never imagine and never expect to discover. But each woman is a treasure of unimaginable riches."

They emerged from the park outside his building and walked up the streets of Adams Morgan. "Now I am not offering you a magic phrase that will pick up any girl. No, it must be honest. She will see through you if you fake interest just to get in her pants." She gave him a smirk. "But if you genuinely care about her, if you are interested in her life, and her secret desire, then she will open her heart for you." They stopped outside his building.

"That's it?" he asked.

"For now," she answered. "That and wear a condom."

Joey chuckled and looked at the front door to his building. "But what about Tricia?"

"That still applies to her. She has a secret desire. Find out what it is." She considered him. "You know, when I was at your stage of mastery, I started getting this knack for figuring out what people needed. You may have this too. Pay attention to your feelings. They may give you clues."

He shrugged. "Okay. Um ... Are you coming upstairs?"

"No. I've kept you in stage five sleep for too long. I'll be leaving. We'll talk later."

Joey nodded. "Okay. I'll see you later." He headed for the door, stopped, and turned back. "Sophia?" he asked.

"Yes?"

Sophia opened her tearing eyes and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. She glanced over at the I.V. bag, and squeezed her eyes shut for a second, not wanting to see it. Then she carefully started to sit up.

"Sophie?" Renée asked. She was sitting in the room with her, waiting. "How did it go?"

Sophia turned to her assistant, and even though she was still tearing, she smiled with pride.

"Good," she answered. "We made progress. He's starting to learn."

Joey woke up and found himself on Sandy's couch. The television was still on, and he rolled over, looking for the remote. It was on the floor. He picked it up, stood up groggily, turned on a light, and shut off the TV.

"Whoah," he muttered. Images of his dream were still fresh in his mind, but were fading. He sat back down and tried to piece the images together again. There was a woman, and something about tables moving around Lynne, and asking about desire.

"Mreow?" Schrödinger padded into the room and meowed at him questioningly. Joey glanced at the cat and gave her a grin.

"What do you want?"

"Mreeow."

"Now?"

"Mreow."

"Why didn't you think about that before we left?" he joked.

The cat gave him a puzzled look. "Mreow!"

"Okay." Joey scooped up the cat and took her to the kitchen. "That was just something my dad used to say to me when we were at thirty-thousand feet." Schrödinger purred and dangled like a limp dishrag in his grasp as he checked her food and water dishes. "You've got water," he said, picking up her empty food dish. "You hungry? Oh, dumb question. Animals are always hungry, right?"

"Mreeow."

"You said it." He opened the cabinets one after another, looking for the cat food. "What's the deal with your name anyways? Schro-what was it?" He opened a cabinet and found the box of Meow Mix. "Are you one of those cats who can play piano?"

("!")

Joey stopped with his hand on the box of cat food. Something had flashed in his mind. It was an instinct, barely a thought, not even in words, but it came with direction. He stared at the box, and then at the cat for a moment. Schrödinger looked at him expectantly.