Life is work, though. Isn’t it? And friends and good boba and being a Cool American Teen. But Nadia did work with her friends while drinking boba which made her a Cool American Teen.
Right?
Nadia heard a key in the front door a second before it swung open.
“Helllooooo?”
It was Janet. Nadia didn’t move. “In here, Machekha!”
Three pairs of feet came into view: red-soled nude heels; gold-striped blue-and-red runners; and no-nonsense brown oxfords. Janet, Bobbi, and Jarvis.
“Hey there,” said Bobbi, crouching down. “Whatcha doin’ on the floor?”
Nadia placed a hand dramatically across her own forehead, like a fainting lady in a Victorian painting. “I can’t find my quantum oscillator and it has driven me to hysteric exhaustion.” She closed her eyes and turned her head away. “There is no chance for me. You must go on. Live a good life. Think of me often.”
“Okay, there, Dazzler.” Janet reached out a hand. Nadia struck another dramatic pose on the floor before Bobbi just hoisted her up on her own. Her feet solidly on the ground again, Nadia launched herself forward and engulfed Bobbi in a hug.
“It is already at the lab,” Jarvis piped up. “I recall transporting it earlier this week, along with the—”
Nadia slapped her forehead in sudden recollection. “The universal remotes. Of course. I can’t believe I forgot about that.”
“Well, you have been working very hard,” said VERA. The three adults looked around for the source of the voice.
“That’s just VERA,” Nadia said congenially, pointing to the gold brick on the floor next to her feet. “She’s helping me with Like Minds.”
“How’s it coming?” Bobbi said, trying to keep her tone cool and unaffected. Nadia saw her tell, though. Behind the nonchalance was suspicion. Caution.
“Good
,” Nadia said, shutting her down right away. It was increasingly clear that Bobbi didn’t understand Nadia’s relationship with Margaret. Nadia suspected that Bobbi might even be jealous of Nadia and Margaret’s friendship. Bobbi was a loving and supportive older-sister figure to Nadia, sure, but she was also human. It was natural for her to feel uncomfortable with Nadia’s success under Margaret’s mentorship.
But Nadia didn’t have time to deal with personal strife until after Thanksgiving. So she was determined to move on from this line of questioning as quickly as possible. “I actually need my quantum oscillator. So, back to the lab—”
“Wait!” interrupted Jarvis. “We have something for you.”
“It’s tickets,” Bobbi blurted out in excitement. “To a hockey game. New York Rangers.”
“We know Maria said ‘football game,’” said Janet. “But soccer season ended in August and hockey season was on and none of us really know anything about sports anyway, so we figured, close enough—”
Janet stopped. Nadia did not look as happy as she had anticipated.
Because Nadia was deeply, deeply upset. So upset she didn’t quite have the ability to process her own emotions in that moment. She just felt hot, everywhere, all at once, and she needed to know if what she was hearing was true.
“You told her?” Nadia asked Bobbi quietly. Nadia waited for Bobbi to say no, she didn’t tell Janet the one thing Nadia told her not to. Because of course she wouldn’t do that. Family wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t.
“I know, I know…” Bobbi ran a hand through her hair sheepishly. “But I didn’t want you to have to worry about Janet not being cool with it, because I knew she would be cool with it, and I wanted to get that stress off your mind—”
So she did.
“But I asked you not to,” Nadia said, still quietly. She tried not to feel sorry for herself, ever. She had a really good life, now, and she knew so many people had it much worse than her. But in that moment, facing down Bobbi, Nadia felt like an overused string snapping across the neck of a violin.
Were two dead parents not enough? Was packing up your dead father’s house not enough? What about trying to get to know your dead mother through her journal—which, it turned out, was mostly an impossibility? What about being an immigrant to a new country you were still trying to fully understand? What about having bipolar disorder and having to work hard to manage it? What about being a Super Hero and a Cool American Teen and what about G.I.R.L. and what about A.I.M. and what about her absentee friends and her unknown future being shot at by a death ray and trying to learn how to drive a car like a normal girl—
Apparently, that was not enough. All of that wasn’t enough. Now Nadia had to add “betrayed by older sister” to the pile, too.
It was too much. It was the one thing Nadia thought she didn’t have to worry about, in a life of worrying about everything, all the time. Bobbi was there for her. Bobbi wouldn’t let her down.
I vse yeshche. And yet.