Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(91)

I knew all this because I followed him to Hercules.

The parole board had decided that he was rehabilitated.

They felt he deserved a second chance at life.

I wasn’t so sure.

I rented a room in a shared house in Berkeley. Living with five or six undergrads who were barely younger than me. They partied and studied and cooked and forgot to wash their dishes. Bought plenty of cheap vodka and boxed wine but always seemed to forget toilet paper and dish soap. All the usual undergrad stuff. Fine with me, as long as they left me alone. Berkeley was convenient. Only ten miles south of Hercules. Close, but not too close.

After a few weeks I knew his schedule probably as well as he did. The painting, the arcade, the comic book shop. I’d never followed anyone before. I had to teach myself as I went along. But I had an advantage. Not only did Jordan Stone not know what I looked like, he didn’t expect to be followed. So I watched. And learned.

Soon I knew what I had to do.

I set out to give myself a crash course in comic books.

I’d thought it would be easy. Brush up on some Spider-Man and Superman and be ready to go. I’d never much liked comic books. Growing up they were probably the only books I didn’t read. Superheroes, superpowers, supervillains. Everything super-something. People were enough for me. I didn’t need super.

To my surprise, it turned out that the world of comic books was overwhelmingly vast and intricate. Thousands of characters, hundreds of beloved writers and illustrators, intersecting plots, rival companies like DC and Marvel with different ecosystems, some characters and worlds mixing, merging, a whole interlocking universe. I was shocked to learn that some of these little paper books sold for insane amounts of money. The big conventions each year drew tens of thousands of people. A huge amount to learn.

Fortunately, I’d always been a good student.

I spent a month studying comic books every day. By the time I was through, I didn’t know everything. Not an expert degree of knowledge by any means.

But enough to begin.

The first time I walked into the comic book shop I didn’t say a word to anyone. Just browsed for two hours. I was the only girl. I got plenty of looks. Some curious, some checking me out, most a combination of the two.

I ignored it all. Just read. And watched.

I went into the comic book shop a week later. The second time. This time I went in a half hour before Jordan Stone was due to get off work. Gambling that he’d show up. Based on his habits, it was even money that he would.

Sure enough, he came in about an hour after I did.

There was a stereotype of the convicted felon. Covered in crude ink, bulky with jailhouse muscles. Jordan Stone was living disproof of that. He wore wire glasses and his wheat-colored hair was shoulder length. His build was lean to the point of skinny. He had the kind of boyish handsomeness that would fade by the time he hit middle age, but for the time being it was there.

After he walked in I continued to read my comics for a while, ignoring the looks as usual. Then I walked over to the counter and asked if they had a Marvel Feature #1, from 1971, with a first appearance by the Defenders. The guy behind the counter was impressed. He wore glasses and smelled of pot and Old Spice. “You know your shit,” he said. “But sorry, we don’t. That’s a rare one.”

“I know. That’s why I wanted it.” Again, I was the only girl in the store. I’d dyed my hair black, with purple highlights. I had black glasses and wore dark plum lipstick and heavy eye shadow. A tight-fitting black Batman T-shirt and black jeans and black Vans sneakers gave me a look that was not quite Goth but somewhere in the vicinity. I could feel Jordan Stone glance over at me. Furtive. My skin prickled.

I felt his eyes like an iron pressed into my cheek.

A few days later I was back. They knew me a little, now. Just enough. Old Spice nodded hello. Someone else said hi, too. An older man. I gave him an uncomfortable look and crossed my arms protectively over my chest as I walked past him. I took a few comics from different shelves. Went over to a corner and sat cross-legged on the floor. I could feel glances now and again but I said nothing. Never looked up. Just turned pages with a frown of concentration.

Finally, I got up to leave. Happening to walk across the store at the same time Jordan Stone was standing there. I paused. Nodded toward the comic he held. New X-Men.

“That’s by Grant Morrison, right?”

He looked at me. Nodded. “Yeah.”

The first words we’d ever spoken to each other. I felt so dizzy I wanted to sit. Blood pounding against my temples. All I said was, “He’s good.”

Jordan Stone nodded. “Yeah. Really good.”

That was enough. I left.

All those hours in the store taught me plenty about comic books. They taught me something else, too. Something more fundamental. I began to understand that people wanted fantasies. That they wanted things so badly, often they didn’t stop to think too much about the whys. Jordan Stone, the clerk, the men browsing—they wanted an introverted, not-trying-to-be-sexy girl in a tight Batman T-shirt to be sitting in the store with them. A girl who knew and loved comic books. A fantasy.

The same way other people thought about and wanted other things. The way lonely men drinking alone at bars fantasized about the woman who would walk in alone, sit next to them, talk to them. Choose them. Understand them. Maybe go home with them. The way some of the military guys wanted the tanned chick in cutoff jean shorts who could tell you the difference between rimfire and center-fire and liked to hit the range before splitting a six-pack. Or the recovering alcoholics or health nuts, searching for the woman who did triathlons and Ironman competitions and spent her Friday nights at CrossFit. Others looking for someone who had a strong preference between Swift or C++ or Python. The men who dreamed about falling in love with a woman who could tell a Rembrandt from a Rubens.