The Darkest Hours

Chapter 3

"Talk about disasters."

I said, as Mary Jane came through the front door of our apartment. "It's like they could smell the high school nerd on my clothes. Mister Science. They called me Mister Science. And shredded wheat. Just did whatever they wanted. And the worst one, this Samuel kid, he challenged me to a round of one-on-one. Told me if I won, they would run the practice my way."

I might have sounded just a bit sulky. My wife got the look she gets when she's trying really hard to keep from laughing at me. "The basketball practice?" she asked.

"Yes." I scowled down at the stack of papers I was grading. "It was like herding manic-obsessive cats. I can't remember the last time I felt so stupid."

"Why didn't you play the kid?" MJ asked. "I mean, you could have beaten him, right?"

"Oh, sure. If I didn't mind the kids finding out that Mister Science has a two-hundred-and-eighty-inch vertical leap." I put my pen down and set the papers aside. "Besides. That isn't what the kid needs. I'm supposed to teach him to be a team player. If the first thing I do is go mano-a-mano with him to prove who's best, it might undermine that."

"Just a bit," Mary Jane conceded. "I thought you were going to go to the faculty meeting early so you wouldn't get saddled with coaching the team."

"I was," I glowered. "Something came up."

"Who could have foreseen that."

she said tartly, and walked into our little kitchen and set down the brown grocery bag she was holding. If you'd asked my opinion when I was Samuel's age, I'd have said she looked like a million bucks. Since then, though, there's been inflation, and now I figure she looks like at least a billion. Back then, if you'd asked me to describe her, I would have handed you a laundry list of girl parts. Luscious red hair, bewitching green eyes, flawless pale skin, long and lovely legs—and I would have blushed before I got to other, ah, salient features.

And to be totally honest, I still saw all of that. Somedays more than others, but hey, I'm a man. I sometimes think primitive and politically incorrect thoughts about my wife. I'm allowed. I think it was in the vows somewhere.

But as we grew closer, I saw other things when I looked at her. I saw the woman who was willing to stand beside me through thick and thin, despite a mountain of reasons not to, despite the fact that just being a part of my life sometimes put her in danger. I saw the woman who was willing to spend many nights—far too many nights—alone while I ran around town doing everything a spider can, and leaving her to wonder when I'd be back.

Or even if I'd be back.

I might have been able to juggle compact cars, but I wasn't strong enough to do what she did, to be who she was. She was the one who had faith in me, the one who believed in me, the one who I knew, absolutely knew, would always listen, always help, always care. The longer I looked at her, the more beautiful she got, and the more thoroughly I understood how insanely lucky I was to have her beside me.

It was enough to disintegrate my frustration, at least for the moment. Honestly, if a man gets to come home to a woman like that at the end of the day, how bad can things be?

"Sorry, MJ." I sighed. "I ambushed you the second you walked in the door."

She arched a brow and teased, "I'll let it go. This time."

I started helping her with the bag. Not because she needed the help, but because it gave me a great excuse to stand behind her and reach both arms around her to handle the groceries. I liked the way her hair smelled.

She leaned back against me for a second, then gave me a playful nudge with one hip. "You really want to make it up to me? Cook."

I lifted both eyebrows. I cook almost as well as Ben Grimm embroiders, and MJ knew it. "Living dangerously tonight, are we?"

"Statistically speaking, you're bound to make something that tastes good eventually," she said. She took a frozen pizza out of the bag and passed it over her shoulder to me. "Back in a minute, master chef."

"Bork, bork, bork," I confirmed. She slipped off to the bedroom. I flipped the pizza box and went over the instructions. Looked simple enough. I followed the directions carefully while Mary Jane ran the shower.

She came back out in time to see me crouched on the ceiling, trying to get the stupid smoke alarm to shut up. She got that I'm-not-laughing face again and went to the oven to see what she could salvage.

I finally pulled the battery out of the smoke alarm and opened a window. "Hey," I said. "Are you all right?"

"Of course," she said. "Why would you ask that?"

"My husband sense is tingling." I frowned at her, then hit the side of my head with the heel of my hand. "The audition. It was this morning, right?"

She hesitated for a second, and then nodded.

Oh, right, I got it. She'd been bothered by something about it, but I'd been quicker on the draw in the gunfight at the co-dependent corral, and she didn't want to lay it on me when I'd been stressed myself.

Like I said. I'm a lucky guy.

"How'd it go?" I asked her. We got dinner (such as it was), a couple of drinks, and sat down on the couch together.

"That's the problem," she said quietly. "I got the part."

I lifted my eyebrows. "What? That's fantastic! Who'd they cast you as?"

"Lady Macbeth."

"Well of course they did!" I burbled at her. 'You've got red hair. Redheads are naturally evil. Did I mention that this was fantastic?"

"It isn't, Pete."

"It isn't?"

"It isn't."

"But I thought you said it was a serious company. That working with them would give you some major street cred for acting."

"Yes."

"Oh," I said. I blew on my slice of pizza. "Why?"

"Because it's showing in Atlantic City."

"Ugh. Jersey."

She rolled her eyes. "The point being that I'm going to have to get over there several times every week."

"No problem," I said. "We can swing the train fare, I'm sure."

"That's just it," Mary Jane said. "I can't trust the train, Peter. Too many things could happen. If it's delayed, if I'm late, if it takes off a couple of minutes early, and I don't show up, that's it: I can kiss my career good-bye. I've got to have a car."

I scratched my head, frowning. "Does it have to be a nice car?"

"It just has to work," she said.

"Well," I said. "It's more expensive, but we might be able to—"

"I bought a car, too."

I looked down at the suddenly too-expensive pizza on my plate. MJ's career as a model had been high-profile, but not necessarily high-paying. I was a part-time science teacher, and the paycheck isn't nearly as glamorous and enormous as everyone thinks. We weren't exactly dirt poor, but it costs a lot of money to own and operate a car in New York City. "Oh."

"It didn't cost very much. It's old, but it goes when you push the pedal."

"That's good," I said. "Um. Maybe you should have talked to me first?"

"There wasn't time," she said apologetically. "I had to get it today because rehearsal starts Monday afternoon, and I still had to take my test and get my license and…" She broke off, swallowing, and I swear, she almost started crying. "And I failed the stupid test."

she said. "I mean, I thought it would be simple, but I failed it. I've got a chance to finally show people that I can really act, that I'm not some stupid magazine bimbo who can't do anything but look good in a bikini in movies about Lobsterman, and I failed the stupid driver's test."

"Hey," I said quietly, setting dinner aside so that I could put my arms around her. "Come here."

She leaned against me and let out a miserable little sigh. "It was humiliating."

I tightened my arms around her. "But you can take the test again tomorrow, right?"

She nodded. "But Pete, I… I got nothing on the test. I mean, nothing. Zero. If there'd been a score lower than zero I would have gotten that, but they stop at zero. It isn't fair. I've lived my whole life in New York. I'm not supposed to know how to drive."

I wanted to laugh, but I didn't. "It isn't a big deal," I told her. "Look, I can help you out, you'll take the test tomorrow, get your license, and then we can plan your outfit for the Academy Awards."

"Really?" she said, looking up at me, those devastating green eyes wide and uncertain. "You can help?"

"Trust me," I told her. "I spent years as a full-time underclassman while spending my nights creeping around rooftops and alleys looking for trouble. If there's one thing I know, it's how to pass a test you haven't had much time to study for."

She laughed a little and laid her head against my chest. "Thank you." She shook her head. "I didn't mean to go all neurotic on you."

"See there? You're becoming more like the great actresses by the minute." I kissed her hair. "Anytime."

I heard a low, faint rumbling sound, and glanced out the window. I didn't see anything, but it took only sixty seconds for the sirens to start howling— police as well as fire department, a dozen of them at least.

"Trouble?" Mary Jane asked quietly.

I grabbed the remote and clicked on the TV. Not a minute later, my regular programming was interrupted by a news broadcast. The news crew camera was still jiggling as the cameraman stumbled out of a van, but I got enough to see what was going on: a panic, hundreds of people running, the bright light and hollow boom of an explosion and clouds of black smoke rising up in the background—Times Square.

"Trouble," Mary Jane said.

"Looks that way," I said. "Sorry."

"Don't be." She looked up and laid a swift kiss against my lips. "All right, tiger. Get a move on." She rose and gave me a wicked little smile. "I'll keep something warm for you."