“Now with extra extra superpowers.”

“Whatever happened to him?”

“Didn’t he die of tuberculosis?”

“Not him. I mean that kid.”

“Didn’t he turn out to have a superpower?”

“Yeah. He could hang pictures perfectly straight on any wall. He never needed a level.”

“I thought he tried to destroy the world.”

“Yeah, that’s right. He was calling himself something weird. Fast Kid with Secret Money. Something like that.”

“What about you?”

She said, “Me?”

“Yeah.”

“Keeping an eye on this place. They don’t pay much, but it’s easy money. I had another job, but it didn’t work out. A place down off I-40. They had a stage, put on shows. Nothing too gross. So me and Kath, remember how she could make herself glow, we were making some extra cash two nights a week. They’d turn down the lights and she’d come out onstage with no clothes on and she’d be all lit up from inside. It was real pretty. And when it was my turn, guys could pay extra money to come and lie on the stage. Do you remember that hat, my favorite hat? The oatmeal-colored one with the pom-poms and the knitted ears?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, they kept it cold in there. I think so that we’d have perky tits when we came out onstage. So we’d move around with a bit more rah-rah. But I wore the hat. I got management to let me wear the hat, because I don’t float real well when my ears get cold.”

“I gave you that hat,” he said.

“I loved that hat. So I’d be wearing the hat and this dress—something modest, girl next door—and come out onstage and hover a foot above their faces. So they could see I wasn’t wearing any underwear.”

He was smiling. “Saving the world by taking off your underwear, Bunnatine?”

“Shut up. I’d look down and see them lying there on the stage like I’d frozen them.” Zap. “They weren’t supposed to touch me. Just look. I always felt a million miles above them. Like I was a bird.” A plane. “All I had to do was scissor my legs, kick a little, just lift up my hem a little. Do twirls. Smile. They’d just lie there and breathe hard like they were doing all the work. And when the music stopped, I’d float offstage again. But then Kath left for Atlantic City to go sing in a cabaret show. And then some asshole got frisky. Some college kid. He grabbed my ankle and I kicked him in the head. So now I’m back at the restaurant with Mom.”

He said, “How come you never did that for me, Bunnatine? Float like that?”

She shrugged. “It’s different with you,” she said, as if it were. But of course it wasn’t. Why should it be?