AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm straggling along…

CH 7

Until one fateful night at the theatre, my life was as happy and normal as any girl could hope. John came to see my play one more time before finally admitting that though he was far from bored with me, he was growing rather tired of the same old plot. For a few weeks after that, he busied himself with minor press conferences that now centered around our engagement rather than his achievement. He seemed rather pleased at the change.

Aunt May showed up at my door one clear evening, having caught wind of the news and wanting to give me her congraduations personally. As I invited her inside, it was difficult not to notice how tired and thin she appeared, topped off with the disappointment in her eyes as I showed her my ring. Though I knew how much hope she must have held for Peter and I, I pretended not to notice.

The play went on as usual after most of the cast lost interest in ogling the engagement ring. Robby pulled me aside one day before opening and inquired about the possibility of obtaining some additional funding from my "new family", having heard that they were well-off. But as soon as I mentioned James Jameson's name, he sighed dejectedly and never brought it up again.

Mr. Jameson offered to send me a free month's trial of the Bugle, followed by a lifetime subscription at half price. I smiled and declined as politely as possible, using not having time to give it proper attention an excuse.

One of the actors took sick. His understudy went onstage drunk, no one noticed until the third act. Having gone too far into the play, Robby had no choice but to let the show go on. Thankfully, if there were critics in the audience, they didn't notice either. For the next two weeks, the incident was the juiciest piece of gossip backstage.

When I arrived that night, prepared for one of the last shows of the season, Joann had beat me as usual and, as usual, was engaged in an argument with somebody. Still haven't mastered my hair, I had to pull her away for help.

"So?" She asked, expertly arranging my hair into the perfect shape without even looking.

"So what?"

"What we talked about before. So when's the wedding."

I shrugged. "Looking like early April."

She clicked her tongue. "Coming up pretty soon. Feel old yet?"

"Why would I feel old?"

"'Cause," she said matter-of-factly, "getting married makes you old. Especially you."

"What do you mean especially me?"

"You're already old." She twisted my head as I turned to look at her. "Don't move. You're old because you think too much. There's way too much stuff on your mind all the time and it's wearing you out."

I looked into the mirror in front of me. "I don't look that bad."

"Not bad. Old." Joann put the last pin in place. "But I have to admit, you look better these days. Like you're not thinking so much anymore. You even smile more instead of just staring into space. I must say, the astronaut boy must be doing you worlds of good."

A thin blush worked its way onto my cheeks. "He is," I said, feeling a little embarrassed. "He definitely is."

"So what's his technique?"

"Technique?"

"You know, in the bedroom."

Having long learned to expect this, I reached back and swatted blindly at whatever part of her I could reach. She laughed and grabbed my hand.

"I'm kidding," she said. Her fingers tightened around mine. "Are you happy, Mary Jane?"

The question took me by surprise. For a moment our eyes met in the mirror and I saw how serious she was. I smiled at her, as reassuringly as I could.

"Yes, Joann. I'm happy. I've never been happier."

She dropped my hand. "Good," she said and sat down next to me. "So where's the wedding going to be?"

"Hopefully the church on Sixth."

Joann gave a small shriek. "Are you kidding? That place is gorgeous!"

"I thought you're not into weddings and things like that."

"So? I'm still coming to yours for the free food."

"Knowing Mr. Jameson, it's probably going to be crackers and B.Y.O.C."

"What's that?"

"Bring your own cheese."

She slapped my arm. "What did we say about bad jokes?"

"Leave them to you?"

"Exactly." She began to stand. "Come on, we gotta get ready."

I looked up at her. "One more thing."

"Yea?"

"Will you be my maid of honor?"

Joann stared at me for a few seconds, then, while shrieking several different incoherent versions of "yes", squeezed me hard enough to pop my spine.

oOo

"I'm not wicked at all. You mustn't think that I'm wicked, cousin Cecily."

Head still filled with happy memories and joyful hopes, I spoke my lines through the first few scenes as if in a daze. Though I still enjoyed the stage as much as ever, for once I couldn't wait for it to end so I could sink once more into my happy dream.

"If you are not," I said, trying to keep my eyes from glazing over, "then you have certainly been deceiving us all in a very inexcusable manner. I hope you have no been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy."

I blinked. Something out of the corner of my eye was making my heart pound. I glanced briefly toward the audience and immediately missed the next line.

Peter.

It would seem that he has picked up the habit of appearing at the most unexpected of time. Even in the dim light of the theater, I thought I could see the color of his eyes as he smiled at me and mouthed, "hi."

"I am glad..." Someone whispered.

I kept staring at him, wondering whether this was a dream or a nightmare. But here was no denying that I felt myself smiling back at him.

"I am glad..."

Peter gave me a slight nod and I composed myself. Robby was gesturing frantically offstage and feeding me my line. "Algernon" was staring at me.

"Are you glad to hear it?" he asked.

Tearing my attention away from the audience, I answered, "I am glad," then added awkwardly, "to hear it."

Robby threw his hands up into the air, angry but relieved. I was going to hear about this later.

oOo

And hear about it I did. Or rather, theoretically I did, standing there as Robby ranted, spit flying. He was saying something about the dangers of botching the last, most important performance, or slipping up in front of critics, or something about soaking his head in a bucket of turpentine. I couldn't tell which and I didn't care. I was hoping.

All throughout closing and changing out of my costume I hoped and then berated myself for hoping, then hoped again. Thankfully, Joann had slipped out early and did not notice my inattention. But nor was there to knock some sense into my as I went about my vicious cycle of hoping berating. It was silly. I should not hope. Hoping was what had gotten me into trouble so many times.

I told myself I should know better.

By the time I was ready to leave for the night, I had nearly successfully convinced myself that seeing Peter in the audience at all tonight had been a trick of the light. Nothing special, I told myself. There is no room for Peter Parker anymore.

But he was there. I pushed open the backstage exit and walked onto the street, only to be stopped by the all-too-family voice.

"Hey."

I turned around and felt the involuntary smile on my face. It was almost embarrassing. He was leaning against the theater wall, wearing a dark jacket and a warm smile.

"Hey," I returned. He pushed himself off the wall and came to my side.

"Are you surprised?"

I nodded. "A little."

He gazed down the street. "Where are you headed?"

"Taxi," I replied, pointing the opposite direction of where he looked. "I usually grab a taxi over there."

"Oh," he said, sounding a little disappointed. "Can I walk with you?"

"Sure," I said, against common sense and better judgment.

oOo

As usual, the city was alive at night, even the corner streets and hidden allies. Instead of taking my usual route, I let Peter around a block through a slightly more secluded street behind the theater. But even this failed to give us any pretense of peace and privacy. The air was thick with neon light, New York accents, and exhaust fumes from taxi cabs. None of this seemed to bother Peter, however, as he chatted anxiously about the play.

"You were wonderful," he gushed, "that was such a great play."

I felt my cheeks warm slightly. "You could've told me you were coming."

Peter gave me a look that very closely resembled that of an abandoned puppy. "I was afraid you'd say 'don't come'," he admitted.

I started to contradict him, but stopped myself, mainly because I couldn't find any way to prove to myself that he was wrong. I couldn't have imagined myself rejecting his attendance so harshly, but nor would I have welcomed him with open arms.

Still, been around him made me smile.

I snuck a peek at him. "You look different."

He smiled in good humor. "I shined my shoes," he said, "pressed my pants, did my homework. I do my homework now." Studying him, I found myself searching for words. "You wanna get some chow mein?" he asked casually.

I stopped. He did, too. I looked hard into his blue eyes. There wasn't a pair of glasses between us now. He was standing tall, dressed neatly, and hair combed. Everything about him shined, and for the first time in a long while, he looked so vibrant. He looked the way he did when he caught me that day in the high school cafeteria.

"Peter," I said firmly, "I'm getting married."

He must have known what I meant, because he dropped his gaze and kept on walking. I followed.

"I always imagined you getting married on a hilltop," he said.

"And who's the groom?"

The serious gaze he gave me irritated me like an ant crawling up my arm. "You haven't decided yet," he said. I felt myself clench inside at the remark and scoffed.

"You think just because you saw my play you can talk me out of getting married?"

"You once told me you loved me," he said. "I let things get in the way before. There was something I thought I had to do." There was desperation in his voice as he rushed to walk in front of me, trying to look at my face. "I don't have to."

I sighed. "You're too late."

"Will you think about it?" He sounded almost as if he was begging. I couldn't stand it.

"Think about what?" I snapped.

"Picking up where we left off."

"Where was that?" I said, hearing the irritation in my own voice. "We never got on. You can't get off if you don't get on, Peter!" I walked in front of him, either to avoid his eyes or to escape my own feelings, which I was becoming less sure of by the minute.

"I don't think it's that simple."

"Of course you don't," I told him pointedly. "Because you complicate things."

"You don't understand," he said ernestly, stopping in his tracks. "I'm not an empty seat anymore. I'm different. Punch me, I bleed." He spoke in such a way, almost as if pleading with me to hit him, just to prove how human he was.

We looked at each other, something we seemed to do an awful lot whenever too many unspoken words hung in the air. In the end, I sighed. "I have to go."

Without waiting for him to protest or say goodbye, I trotted across the street to the nearest taxi. "I'm getting married in a church," I told him, stopping at its door. He just stared, face unreadable. I opened the car door. "You are different."

On the way home I wept. They were silent tears that fell in a stream. I couldn't decide whether it was because I was happy, or sad, or angry, or because some great injustice had been done to my scarred heart once again. I searched my mind to give the tears a reason and found none.

The taxi driver kept asking if I was OK. I told him I had something in my eye.

oOo

For several days after my encounter with Peter, I contemplated on how exactly the universe works, and whether there was really some great, cruel joke been played on me by whatever divine figure it was that controlled life. It was a childish, self-absorbed thought. But everyone deserved one of those every now and then.

I stayed away from several social events hosted by the Bugle, feeling guilty at having to leave John to attend them alone. But the desire to avoid seeing Peter had won out in the end. I took walks in the mornings and was visited unexpected by Joann once. For the first time since our friendship began, I kept a secret from her. She never found out about Peter's presence at the play.

After a brief interruption, it appeared that my life had once again returned to normality. I settled into my usual routine of planning out the rest of my life, one where there would be more dinners in a safe, quiet home and less excitement. Or so I thought until I bumped into the landlord onto the stairs.

"Excuse me," I mumbled, and tried to push past.

"Watch yourself," the landlord grunted. He was an overweight man with beady eyes that darted this way and that, watching his tenants carefully like an obese rat. "Careful on them stairs. I know you're marrying rich. I'll sue you if you push me off."

I rolled my eyes and squeezed past him on the narrow staircase, only to start when I came face to face with someone else.

"Oh, excuse me, dear," the person said, then regarded me with the same shocked look I was giving me.

"Oh great," the landlord said impatiently. "Get going, girly. I'm showing apartments here. Some people have business to do."

But I couldn't move as the elderly woman laid a comforting hand on my should and smiled at the landlord. "Maybe not today," she said apologetically. "I've got to get aquainted with an old friend."

And with that, Aunt May took my hand and led me away from the landlord before he started fuming.

oOo

"Why are you looking at apartments, Aunt May?"

She was turning her coffee cup from one hand to the next, not touching the liquid inside. It was a guesture of nervousness. I poured myself a cup and joined her at the kitchen table.

"Well," she said at last, "seems the reasonable thing to do, now that they're forclosing the house and all."

I nearly dropped my own cup. "What?"

"I can't make anymore payments, dear," she said with a wane smile, "not on my own, and God knows Peter is strapped enough for money for himself. I'm looking for a cheaper place to live."

"Oh, Aunt May..."

"Don't you feel sorry for me," she said firmly, but in good humor. "Feeling sorry does no one good. That's what I told myself when Ben died, you know. We all have to be strong. These things happen."

I nodded. "Does Peter know?"

"I haven't told him. I don't want him stressing himself over this. You know that boy. He blames himself for everything. Besides"-she sipped the coffee-"I can take care of myself. I'm not senile yet."

Unable to picture Aunt May senile, I smiled. She returned it.

"Besides," she continued, "having life closer to the city will be more exciting. I've had quite a bit of excitement in my recently." She gave me a strange, mischivous wink. "Have I told you I was saved by the resident web-slinger?"

The words had an impact, though I tried not to let it show. "Spiderman?"

"Oh yes," she said. "Peter and I were at the bank and that awful man, that Doctor Octopus or whatever they call him, showed up. It was such a shock and I had to hide under a table. Then Spiderman came, out of nowhere. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!" She made gestures with her hands as she spoke. I watch with amusement as she described her experience of falling from a twenty-story building and triumphantly declare that she had made the "awful man" sorry he ever messed with her.

"That Spiderman," she said in the end, "I never really thought much of him before. I didn't think either way of him really, except that Peter would probably do better to stay away from the dangers that man got himself into. I even thought that maybe he really was a menace, like all those newspapers keep calling him. But now..." she gazed into the streets thoughtfully. "Now I really know what a hero looks like. It's a humbling experience, Mary Jane. I'm sure you know what I mean. Not many people swing around saving the young girls that need it, not to mention the old girls like me."

It was a subject I had not dwelled on in a long time. My mind flashed back to the last time I had a copy of the Bugle in the apartment and found it too long ago.

"He's something," I agreed.

"That's why I hope the rumors are false."

I blinked. "Rumors?"

"You haven't heard? It's everywhere."

"You mean about him been a menace," I guessed. "I never believed in those myself."

Aunt May shook her head. "Not those, dear," she said. "That's old news. There's rumors in the streets that he's disappeared. Have you noticed? There hasn't been a single story about him in days, not even a sighting. More people are getting mugged in the streets and they're starting to talk, saying he's given up, or left, or even dead."

An uneasy weight dropped inside my chest. I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. "That can't be true, can't it? How can he die?"

"A man like that has many enemies."

"But he must also have friends."

Aunt May sipped her coffee again and I could see the same desperate hope in her eyes. I said nothing further on the subject.

"You and Peter haven't seen each other in quite a while," she said after a while, and I knew that Peter hadn't told her about our encounter. "I don't know if he will ever have more chances to see your play. Or has he already? I can't keep these things straight anymore."

I bit my lip. "He came," I said. "He came a couple of days ago."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How did he like it?"

"He loved it," I said with an embarrassed chuckle, "but that's what everyone says isn't it? No one's going to come to a play then tell one of the actors they hated it."

Aunt May shrugged. "You never know. Did you and Peter get a chance to talk?"

"Just a bit," I said, trying to keep the conversation from leading where it shouldn't. "So how much longer before you move?"

"Not long," she said, "not long. Tell you what, dear, you should come by one last time. Come by and see Peter and me in the old place. It's got memories. God knows they're not all wonderful but enough of them are."

I started to say I don't know, but she reached across the table and laid her weathered hand on mine.

"One last time, dear. For old time's sake."

Unable to escape the sincerity in her eyes, I could only nod.

oOo

As soon as Aunt May's bus departed, I broke into a run for the first newspaper stand I saw and picked up a copy of the Bugle. For the first time, the cover did not include the bright red and blue that had almost becomes its trademark. It ran a title article about food poisoning. Something about rancid chicken in a downtown restaurant. I flipped to the next page. Nothing. Another page, still nothing. He really had vanished.

"Hey!"

I looked up. The owner of the stand, a buck-toothed man in a tattered pea-green coat was glaring at me through yellow, washed-down eyes. Were he on the streets, he would easily be mistaken for a hobo. Then again, there was no guarantee that he wasn't.

"This ain't no library!" He said, spitting as he did. "Buy it or lose it."

"Oh, um," I stammered and searched my pockets. Unfortunately, there was nothing of value in them. I began to drop the paper. "I'm sorry."

"It's on me."

I raised my head. The stand's owner hadn't spoken. A hand tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to face the newcomer. He was smiling at me, but without warmth. I knew a stage smile when I saw one.

"Harry."

He dropped a five on the counter and told the man to keep the change. "How are you, M. J.?" he said coolly.

The scene from that unpleasant night in the bar found its way into my head. I told him I was fine. He handed the paper to me, never breaking his steady gaze. The cloth he wore, I noticed, was streeth attire, the kind he had when we were still classmates in high school. But even in a sweatshirt and sneakers, the rigid formality of a business excutive never left him. He stood too straight, and spoke too calmly. Just like his father, I told myself. Just like his father.

"Looking for big news on your hero?" he asked, a silver of bitterness in his tone. "Hate to tell ya but Spiderman seems to have left town. No one's spotted him in a couple of days."

I wrapped the paper tightly in my hand, as if hiding it would get us off the topic. "No," I said, trying to keep my tone light. "Not that. Just checking out the news. There are other stories in this town besides Spiderman."

He scoffed. "Not many." A pause. "So what are you up to nowadays?"

"Just the usual. Mostly the play. Taking a break from photo shoots. What about you?" I regretted the question as soon as it came out of my mouth.

"The same," he said. "Board meetings, trying to win back investor confidence, and trying to convince the entire city as well as myself that Oscorp was never seriously involved in Octavius's experiments. Been a little slow since the incident." He sighed. "Look M. J., about that night, I'm so..."

"Don't," I interrupted him. "I don't need any more sorries. We're still friends. That hasn't changed."

He smiled, a real smile this time. "When did life get so complicated?" he said. "It used to be so easy. Well, maybe not easy, but at some point everything was black and white."

"Nothing's black and white."

"No, I guess not." Harry lifted his head and let his eyes fall on the sun-bathed street. "You know, some things are simple enough though. Sometimes you feel like you have nothing left, except..."

I felt myself twitch as a shadow fell over his face, then lifted quickly.

"Never mind," he said. "You take care of yourself."

Watching him walk away, I felt as if he was heading into a dark cloud, pulling away from me. "Wait!" I called.

He stopped. "Yea?"

"You're coming to my wedding, aren't you?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."