Spiderman 3 (17 page)

"And"—Harry bounded the ball to Peter once more—"it looks like I'm not hurting for money, right?"

"Harry, you're loaded!" Peter said with a laugh.

Harry considered this and then grinned. "I think I can turn this 'no girlfriend' thing around."

Their impromptu basketball game carried them into the main salon, and Harry froze. Peter followed his gaze to see what Harry was staring at and shouldn't have been surprised.

There, hanging on the wall, was a large, formal portrait painting of Norman Osborn. The eyes appeared to be fixed on Harry. Peter wondered if Norman's gaze followed you around no matter where you stood in the room.

Harry stared back as if expecting the real Norman to peel himself off the painting. "He always appreciated how you got me through high school," he said, his voice subdued, as if they were at a museum… or a wake. "I wish I could remember more about him."

No, you don't
, Peter thought. Flipping the ball from one hand to the other, Peter said uncomfortably, "He loved you. That's the main thing."

He bounced the ball back toward Harry then, hoping to distract him. He failed utterly as the ball bounced past Harry and smacked into a pedestal supporting an antique vase that looked to be from the Ming dynasty. Peter was horrified as he saw the pedestal tilt from the impact and the vase begin to fall. He was too far away to do anything about
it
short of leaping all the way across the room or else firing some weblines to intercept
it
.

Harry, however, moved quickly…
far
more quickly than he should have been able to. Instantly he grabbed the ball to prevent it from bouncing around and hitting other breakables while, at the same time, snagging the falling vase out of midair with the other hand.

Amazed at his prowess, Harry stared at both the ball and the vase, and then at Peter. "Wow! Didya see that?"

Oh, yes, Peter most definitely had and was extremely uneasy over having done so. The last thing he needed was Harry wondering why he could move faster, and with greater strength, than ever before. Quickly Peter did the best he could to hide his growing anxiety as he said cheerfully, "Guess you still got the moves."

"I guess so!" Carefully Harry placed the vase on the pedestal, then flipped the ball back to Peter. "Varsity, here we come!"

"Little late for varsity. How about the NBA?"

"Damn straight! And if I can't get on in tryouts, I'll just buy a team and put myself in the starting rotation."

"If that doesn't get the girls, nothing will," Peter agreed, allowing relief to flood through him. The two friends continued passing the ball back and forth as they headed out of the room.

Curiously, when Peter passed a full-length mirror, he felt a twinge of warning from his spider-sense. He had no idea why. Perhaps it was because he saw the portrait of Norman Osborn reflected in it. That had to be it. The thing would be enough to give anyone the creeps.

Mary Jane Watson had come to think of the Broadhurst Theater as her home away from home. Considering the amount of time MJ spent there, she should have been paying rent. And the cast… the wonderful cast had become her extended family.

That business with Peter earlier today had been difficult. She'd finally forced herself to realize that maybe Peter couldn't understand simply because he wasn't an actor. Acting was a profession like none other, and seeking solace from Peter might well have been the wrong move because it was beyond his ability to comprehend. As she had told him, when he went out into the public eye, at least he had anonymity. For Mary Jane, stepping out on the stage and singing was the equivalent of stripping naked, standing in a store display window, and inviting passersby to take their best shot. She could explain that to Peter, and he could comprehend
it
intellectually. But he couldn't really sympathize the way that her castmates would.

Looking forward to much understanding and empathy from her extended family, Mary Jane walked into the theater foyer in the hopes that the day was going to take a much better turn.

She was understandably confused, then, when she saw another actress standing center stage, singing "Falling in Love."

At first MJ thought it was her understudy getting some rehearsal in, but then the rest of the cast came in on cue, moving to their marks. Both the producer and the director were seated in the center of the theater, and the director was clapping his hands briskly together as a way of bringing everything to a halt. The cast obediently stopped, as did the music. "Stop on the fifth step, Helen! Then hold it for a beat, then hit it!" Next to him the producer nodded in agreement.

Helen nodded and the music—provided for rehearsal by a pianist—started up again. Helen opened her mouth to start singing, but then stopped as she spotted Mary Jane standing in the back of the theater. The director and producer turned to see where Helen was looking, and the director looked visibly startled when he saw Mary Jane there. So did the rest of the cast. "What's she doing here?" he whispered to the producer, his voice carrying despite the low tones. "Didn't anybody call her?"

The cast was huddling together now as if expecting a storm to come rolling in. Mary Jane moved to the top of the aisle and simply gaped, like an orphan watching a Thanksgiving feast through a window while snow fell upon her. There were her "dear friends," Linda Curtis, Solomon Abrams, the rest of them, all staring back as if she had no right to be there.
You can't go home again
.

Clearly feeling he had to take charge of the situation, the director walked toward her, an apologetic look on his face. "We tried to reach you…" he began.

The reality of what Mary Jane was seeing finally began to sink in.
They're cutting me. Cutting me because of one critic
. "One critic?" she said aloud.

The producer had now come up and said, "
All
the papers." Realizing how harsh that sounded, and having no desire to make Mary Jane feel worse than she did, he added sympathetically, "If you'd like, we can say you became ill."

That wasn't going to be simply a cover story—it was everything Mary Jane could do not to vomit right there in the middle of the theater. She wondered if her legs were visibly trembling, because it sure felt as if they were.

"Sit down, Mary Jane," the director urged her. "Let us explain."

She didn't want his explanations. She wanted to get as far away from this place as possible.

Without a word, Mary Jane turned and walked out. No, not walked: ran. She didn't want to exit to house left—that would take her out past the box office, and she had no desire to see people in line to purchase tickets. Instead she headed in the other direction, through the side exit that opened out onto a narrow alleyway. The doors slammed heavily behind her, like a guillotine blade, severing her ties to the group of strangers whom she had briefly considered family.

Clutching her small overnight bag tightly under her arm, she headed down the alley and stepped out onto Forty-fourth Street.

Instantly there was a chorus of cheers, applause, whistling. Was the reception for her? Perhaps the producer had been spooked by the crummy reviews, but at least the fans had…

… their backs to her. They were looking in another direction entirely.

They were looking up.

Mary Jane did the same, although she didn't really have to. She knew what everyone was going nuts over.

Spider-Man.

There he went, webbing his way across the skyline. In the distance she could hear sirens wailing. He was off on another mission of mercy, and everyone adored him for it.

Mary Jane never wanted to hate someone more than she did at that moment… and had never been more incapable of doing so.

Filled with frustration and self-loathing, and determined not to let anyone see her cry, Mary Jane headed back to the place that she called her apartment, but was still not home. "Home is other people," she said aloud.

And some guy passing her—probably a writer, from the aesthetic look of him—promptly corrected her by saying, "Hell. 'Hell is other people.' Jean-Paul Sartre."

"I guess he'd know."

He stared at her a moment. "Do I know you from someplace?"

"No," Mary Jane said quietly. "No one knows me at all." Without another word, she headed away from the Broadhurst as quickly as she could.

GRANDSTANDING

Peter Parker was certain that he had never seen a more gorgeous day than the one facing him this crisp morning. Absolutely no clouds, sky a perfect blue. He had spent time with Harry the day before, and everything seemed okay with him. Granted, he hadn't been able to get in touch with Mary Jane. But when one considered everything that they had been through and had survived—both in their relationship and in their lives—certainly they'd be able to get through this. For God's sake, it was a single review from some loudmouthed critic. She'd get past
it
. With the perspective of distance, she'd realize that she was making too much of it.

Everything was going to be all right.

Because this was his day, baby. His day.

He was down by City Hall, moving past the displays of banners and balloons that had been created to celebrate the greatness that was—let's face it—him. Police lines had been set up for crowd control of the vast number of people assembling for the celebration. It was a heady experience. Peter was completely blown away by the positive energy and outpouring of support. He couldn't believe he'd seriously considered skipping the entire event. Every single person there was wondering the same thing: Was Spider-Man going to show up? Peter Parker was the only one who knew the answer to that, and he was loving every minute of it.

In the old days, he would be frustrated as the public and media trash-talked Spider-Man, and he'd feel so tempted to rip the mask off and shout,
Hey! Look! See? I'm just an ordinary guy under here, not the monster everyone's making me out to be! So cut me a break, would you, please
?! Those were the times that he despised the need to keep his identity a secret.

Now, though, he was getting a kick out of being the only one here who knew what Spider-Man's plans were.

A discordant blatting of musical notes cut through his thoughts—a high school marching band was tuning up. And there had to be something like a thousand people of varying ages and sizes attired in homemade Spider-Man outfits.

Peter brought out his camera and started clicking away. He didn't care whether Jonah bought them or not. If nothing else, he could create a scrapbook so he'd always have a visual record of the greatest day of his life.

A small boy in a Spider-Man costume, noticing that Peter was taking pictures, ran toward him with some sort of large plastic device on his wrist… a lever attached to a canister. The kid pushed the lever and a small gout of what appeared to be Silly String spurted out from it. Peter recognized it for what it was: a homemade web shooter. Peter tried to contemplate what it would be like building a functioning mechanical webshooter if he didn't possess organic spinnerets. He couldn't even begin to imagine how he would make such a thing.