PRAISE FOR ANDREW KAUFMAN AND
All My Friends Are Superheroes
“This book is like a kiss in the afternoon sun. Somebody should write Mr. Kaufman a letter and thank him for his tender heart.”
Sheila Heti
“One of the saddest, funniest, strangest and most romantic books.… Brilliant!”
The Bookseller
“[All My Friends Are Superheroes] triggers complicated chuckles that can morph unexpectedly into the prick of tears.”
The Globe and Mail
“This story will steal up quietly and seduce with its originality and wit.”
Terry Griggs
“Here’s a world so absurdly perfect in its realization that any tangent down a literary rabbit hole pulls up yet another oddball, mind-striking truth.”
Lee Henderson
“An adorable book: Neat, sweet, petite. Your loved one will love you even more for buying it for them.”
Toby Litt
“A tender examination of love and transformation that manages to sustain its fantastical premise right through to its thoroughly logical conclusion.”
Canadian Literature
“Andrew Kaufman rigorously punctures modern psychoses of the ‘have it all’ society.… Extraordinary … with surprisingly emotional and even profound results.”
National Post
For Marlo
1
The woman who couldn’t
keep her feelings to herself
The limousine taking Rebecca Reynolds and Lewis Taylor to the funeral had stalled in the middle of an intersection. The long black car faced west on Queen, straddling Broadview Avenue in the east end of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Rebecca and Lewis sat on opposite ends of the bench seat, and no one sat between them.
Although they were both grieving the loss of Lisa Taylor—Rebecca’s little sister and Lewis’s wife—the two were similar in few other ways. Lewis was relatively short. Both his suit and his haircut were fashionable. Rebecca was quite tall, her naturally brown hair cut in a shoulder-length bob, and she wore a simple black dress. But as the driver repeatedly turned the key in the ignition, they each stared out their own window, mirroring each other.
Rebecca idly wondered if it was a problem with the engine or whether they’d simply run out of gas. She ran her hands over her skirt until the fabric was without wrinkles. She realized that this corner was close to E.Z. Self Storage, where she rented unit #207. She played with her clutch, snapping the clasp open and closed. Then she looked down at the carpeted floor and remembered that she was in a limousine, travelling to her sister’s funeral. Her grief, sadness and guilt returned.
As Rebecca felt these emotions, Lewis became overwhelmed with them as well. The grief, sadness and guilt were heavy and painful. It had been three days and eleven hours since he’d discovered his wife’s body, but until now Lewis had felt nothing. A sense of relief flooded through him. Then he remembered that he was sitting beside Rebecca and that these feelings weren’t his own, but hers.
“Oh,” Lewis said.
“Yeah,” Rebecca replied.
“Yeah,” Lewis repeated. The grief radiating from his sister-in-law only made Lewis more aware of his failure and Rebecca’s overwhelming ability to push her emotions into the world as surely as her lungs pushed out her breath.
Rebecca had been able to project her emotions since the day she was born, when everything was dark and then suddenly it was bright and there were colours. Rebecca didn’t know where she was going. She hadn’t known there was somewhere to go. It hurt and there was no way to resist. She couldn’t focus her eyes, didn’t know she had eyes, and didn’t know that the light and the colours were coming through them.
When hands first touched her, Rebecca didn’t know what hands were, what skin was, what touch was. Only that the thub-thub was missing. There had been darkness and the thub-thub, and they’d been consistent and soothing, but now both were missing. The newborn Rebecca became quite distressed. Feelings of great anxiety and fear went through her and they did not stop there. They went into the room. They went inside everyone. The doctor stopped and stared at the baby in his hands. The nurses turned from the stainless steel tray and stared helplessly at each other. The hum of the machines became audible.
“What’s wrong with her? What’s wrong?” Rebecca’s mother asked.
The doctor didn’t know what was wrong, so he did what he normally did. Cutting the cord, he laid the baby across her mother’s chest. Rebecca heard the thub-thub. She closed her eyes and the darkness was back. She began to feel calm and safe, and she broadcast these feelings to everyone in the room. The doctor and nurses sighed. The mother put her hands on top of the baby. The delivery room became still and quiet, and Rebecca fell asleep.
Not every one of Rebecca’s feelings travelled the same distance—the more intense her emotion, the farther it went. To feel her happiness at finding her favourite show on TV you’d have to be very close to her head, almost touching it. But when she fell in love, people a full city block away knew. This caused many problems, since the things Rebecca wanted most to keep to herself were the ones she broadcast the farthest.
The limousine was still stalled in the middle of the intersection when Rebecca looked out her window and noticed a white Honda Civic rapidly approaching. It did not slow down.
“That car is going to hit us,” she said, quietly.
Having felt Rebecca’s anxiety, Lewis had already turned his head. When the white Honda Civic was less than half a block away and still showed no signs of stopping, Lewis and Rebecca noticed something extraordinarily peculiar.
“Do you see that?” Lewis asked.
“Yes,” Rebecca replied.
The driver of the Honda Civic seemed to have green skin. Just as they noticed this, the creature finally hit the brakes. The back wheels locked, the tires squealed, the smell of burnt rubber was pungent, but the white Honda Civic kept skidding towards the limousine. With only inches remaining between its front bumper and the back door of the limousine on Rebecca’s side, the car finally stopped. For ten seconds the occupants of both vehicles sat motionless, staring at each other through the two planes of glass separating them. Lewis and Rebecca were so focused on the green-skinned woman that neither heard the driver restart the engine. The limo lurched forward, pushing them back against their seats. Another sudden stop a moment later threw them to the floor.
Rebecca’s face was pressed against the carpet, which smelled of both bleach and champagne. Scrambling, she got out of the limousine. She was so intent on catching another glimpse of the white Honda Civic’s driver that she didn’t stoop to pick up the contents of her purse, which had spilled onto the road. Rebecca exited the limo and Lewis soon joined her, as did the limo driver. The three of them stood in the middle of the intersection. Rebecca noticed that the car had Nova Scotia plates as it travelled south on Broadview, picked up speed and took the first left without signalling.
“That was close,” the driver said. Rebecca nodded in agreement. Lewis raised his hands and began backing away. He’d been confident that the grief he so desperately wanted to feel would soon arrive. But now, having nearly been killed by a woman with green skin, it was easy to believe that stranger things could happen and that his grieving might never begin. Keeping his hands raised and ignoring the honking of the cars whose path he blocked, Lewis continued to back away from the limousine.
“Lewis? Where are you going?” Rebecca asked, projecting her confusion across two lanes of traffic.
“I can’t go to the funeral.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’ll be there. She’ll see me. She’ll know.”
“Know what?”
“I’m so sorry.?
??
Gesturing with his right hand, Lewis hailed a taxi, which stopped in front of him. “You’ll regret this,” Rebecca shouted. Her anger reached pedestrians on the far side of the street, causing some to stop and stare while others scurried away. Lewis climbed inside the cab and shut the door. He looked straight ahead but continued to feel Rebecca’s anger as clearly as if it were his own.
2
The many reasons why Rebecca Reynolds
hates Lewis Taylor
As the limousine finally cleared the intersection of Queen and Broadview, Rebecca kicked off her shoes, lay on her back, pressed the bottoms of her feet against the cold glass of the passenger window and began making a list of the reasons she hated Lewis Taylor. These came easily to her. One: he’s arrogant. Two: he’s an asshole. Three: he’ll never, ever, understand how irreplaceable she is. She was at number twelve before the limo reached Parliament Street, and the list kept growing as they continued driving west on Queen.
Keeping her feet against the glass, Rebecca closed her eyes. She took deep breaths, knowing that her anger would upset the driver. She kept still but could not calm down. Raising her arm, Rebecca checked her watch, seeing that she had thirty minutes to get to the church. She sat up and lowered the tinted window between her and the driver. “Please don’t get there until just before 1:30,” she said. She raised the partition and lay back down on the bench seat of the limousine. As she felt the car make a sharp right, Rebecca tried to pinpoint the exact moment she had begun hating Lewis Taylor and realized it was the first time she’d met him.
Rebecca had come home from university for an unannounced visit. It was mid-afternoon and, as she’d expected, the house was empty. Lisa was still in high school and her parents were both at work. She made a sandwich and went to her former bedroom to study. Several hours later, she was still trying to memorize the atomic weights of the elements when she heard loud music. Shutting her textbook, Rebecca went downstairs. The music got louder, but she was in the living room before she understood that it was being performed live, in the basement. Midway down the basement stairs, Rebecca saw that Lisa was playing a keyboard, while a drum machine ticked and a boy Rebecca did not recognize sang into a microphone. Lisa was in a rock band, or, more accurately, a synth-pop duo. The boy’s voice was terrible—thin and whiny. His haircut was trendy and his posture calculatedly slouchy. By the time she reached the bottom step, Rebecca had already projected her dislike of him into the room.
Lisa and Lewis were startled not so much by Rebecca’s unannounced appearance as by the dislike that radiated from her. Lewis turned off his microphone, setting it on the floor. Lisa kept her fingers on the keys, her synthesizer producing a long, sustained E chord.
As she stood there, Rebecca found one more reason to dislike Lewis: he was oblivious to the fact that Lisa was in love with him, a reality Rebecca recognized by the way her sister’s hips were angled towards him and how she kept looking at him, using only her eyes to smile.
“Um, this is my sister,” Lisa finally said, taking her hands off the keys. The drum machine continued to tick. “Rebecca, this is Lewis.”
“Good to meet you, Rebecca.”
Rebecca did not reply with words.
“Maybe we should call it a day?” Lisa asked.
Lewis had already grabbed his bag. “Later,” he said, watching his feet.
The driver opened her door before Rebecca noticed that the limo had stopped. She looked at her watch: 1:35. She put her shoes back on, ending her list with the most powerful reason to hate Lewis Taylor: he had failed to keep her sister safe.
Inside the church, Rebecca saw her mother in the foyer, surrounded by two uncles and an aunt. Rebecca hovered at the edge of this group, with her hands clasped firmly behind her back. Desperately wanting to smoke, she opened her purse to find her nicotine gum—a temporary measure she’d been using for two years. She looked inside, easily found the package and began pushing a piece out of the plastic wrapping. The crinkling seemed out of place, echoing through the church foyer, but she didn’t stop. Not even when both of her uncles turned their bald heads in her direction.
Rebecca noticed that her mother’s slip was showing, pushed past the crowd and took her mother’s hand. She wanted to offer support, not receive it, but when her mother felt Rebecca’s worry, she tightened her grip, making her daughter feel safe.
Shortly after her seventh birthday, Rebecca stood on her neighbour’s lawn and held Lisa’s hand as they watched an attendant push their mother up the front walk. It was the first time they had seen her in seven months. Her mother bounced when the wheelchair hit a crack in the sidewalk. Her arms rested on top of an orange blanket, and her skin was very pale. Rebecca wanted to wave, but she was afraid her mother wouldn’t wave back. The attendants carried her mother up the steps and through the door that her father held open.
“There she is,” Rebecca told Lisa.
She led Lisa to the backyard and the two girls sat facing the house, looking up to the second-floor window where they knew their mother was now sleeping. Lisa pulled up a fist full of grass. She threw it back on the ground. She looked up at Rebecca.
“I’m scared, too,” Lisa said.
“They wouldn’t let her come home if she wasn’t better,” Rebecca said. She tried to think about anything else, but couldn’t.
“Why won’t they let us see her?”
“She’s tired. We can see her tomorrow,” Rebecca said.
At six o’clock Rebecca and Lisa were allowed back into the house. Dinner was in the microwave. Her father was making phone calls. Rebecca turned on the TV and found her sister’s favourite show. She raised the volume louder than it had ever been before. When her father did not ask her to turn it down, Rebecca took off her shoes and snuck through the kitchen. She climbed the stairs on her tiptoes. She was a little out of breath when she reached the top and stood in front of the door to the guest room. The door was old and didn’t shut tight. Rebecca looked through the gap. She saw her mother lying on her side, facing away. Rebecca pushed the door with her index finger until it was halfway open, and then she went into the room, moving as quietly as she could.
The blinds were down, so the room was dark, but some late-afternoon sunlight snuck through the gap between the shade and the windowsill. Her mother continued to sleep. Her blankets had slid down. She was wearing a hospital gown that tied at the back. Her skin was very white and her hair was too long. Rebecca walked to the side of the bed but did not reach out to touch her.
“It’s okay, baby,” Rebecca’s mother said. Although her eyes remained closed, she’d heard her daughter’s distress. “I’m not too far. No? Right here.”
Rebecca touched her mom’s arm. Her skin was damp and cool. Her mother rolled onto her back, and Rebecca knew she couldn’t stay. Nothing in the room felt like it was supposed to: the light coming from the edge of the blinds; the colour of her mother’s clothes; the smell of medications coming from the bedside table—all of it was wrong. Rebecca had to leave the room, but she needed something to take with her. An object she could hold, something that would continually confirm that her mother had come home. She knew she couldn’t take the pill bottles, because their absence would be noticed. She looked around, but there were very few things in the room that hadn’t been there before her mother’s return. Then she saw the identification bracelet that her mother had been wearing when they’d carried her into the house.
The bracelet had been cut and lay on the night-stand, but her mother’s full name was clearly visible in purple type. Rebecca reached for it, and when her fist was tight, she felt something very strange. The sensation was almost electric and pushed out from her chest into her arm, through her fingertips and into the broken plastic bracelet. It made her feel like she needed to pee, and then it disappeared completely. Rebecca opened her fist and looked at the bracelet, but nothing on the outside had changed. Keeping the bracelet tightly in her hand, Rebecca left the room, closing the door as much as she cou
ld.
Putting most of her weight on the banister so that she could move as soundlessly as possible, Rebecca was attempting to sneak down the stairs when she met her father on the second landing. She closed her fist tightly to make sure the plastic bracelet could not be seen. Her father looked over her head to the door of the guest room, then back at Rebecca.
“Did you see her?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said. This was a lie. Everything about seeing her mother weak, tired and vulnerable had disturbed Rebecca. As these feelings went through her, she waited for her father to hear them, but he didn’t. Her father simply smiled.
“That’s great. We should have let you see her earlier. I’m sorry.” He hugged her, then turned and walked down the stairs. Once her father was completely out of sight, she opened her hand and stared at the bracelet, knowing it was the only thing that was different.
For the next six weeks, while Rebecca’s mother remained in bed, Rebecca carried the plastic bracelet with her at all times. She held it in her hand while she slept. She kept it in the front right pocket of whichever pair of pants she was wearing. She never forgot to bring it with her, not even once. When someone asked her how her she was doing, Rebecca could just say fine and they would believe her. Rebecca Reynolds finally had the power to lie.
Seven weeks later, Rebecca came home from school and found her mother watching television in the living room. She wore her housecoat, and her skin was still pale, but this was the first time Rebecca had seen her outside of the guest room.
“Come here, baby,” her mother said.
Rebecca climbed onto the couch, curling up beside her. Together they watched The Edge of Night. Things felt normal and Rebecca knew that this moment would have been impossible if the bracelet hadn’t been in her pocket. Otherwise, she would have been too afraid to let her mother feel how frightened she really was.