Trees Do Not Grow To The Sky

THE BIG LEAP

What I really wanted to do was fight crime. You're a ten year old boy in Metropolis, Illinois, you figure out you have a superpower, what else are you gonna do with it? Only when you're ten you can't fight crime, unless your superpower is super-strength, which mine isn't. Plus you gotta run away to the city to even find the crime, and your mother isn't about to let you, and even though you can read her mind she's still got eyes in the back of her head. So you grow up, you get to the city--I picked Washington D.C., all kinds of crime there and no superheroes--and it's like just finding an apartment is gonna kill you, forget about a secret hideout. So fighting crime, it didn't work out. But like Gladys says, it doesn't take a telepath to fight crime; any jerk can do that who's got two brain cells and an assault rifle. The service you provide, she says, is unique, and it's heroic in its own way.

It was Gladys showed me how to make money off this. There's none in fighting crime. I tried everything--the police, the army, the CIA. Left each outfit with, let's say, hard feelings on both sides. The night I met Gladys I was broke, desperate, and so drunk I staggered right into Boots & Slippers without noticing it was a lesbian bar. I thought Gladys was hitting on me, that's how messed up I was. Cause seriously, Gladys is fifty, and she could bench press me. So she comes over to toss me out, but then she lets go of me and says, all right, what am I thinking? And I say, you're thinking this poor bastard's telepathic too and nobody's taught him how to deal with it. And she says, welcome to the dojo, grasshopper.

I get most of my clients through Gladys. She owns Delacoeur Bridal on the first floor, right under my office. All day long she sells wedding dresses to women who are on diets and real uptight. Being telepathic, she knows exactly what to say to make these women pay top dollar and like it. She makes a killing, and brides-to-be are easier to handle than supervillains, unless they bring their mothers.

So, whenever one of Gladys's customers calls up and says, uh, I know you've started the alterations but I kind of don't need the dress any more, Gladys says, aw honey, that's a shame, tell Aunt Gladys all about it. Hours later, Gladys tells her, girl, you can play ‘guess what spooked him’ till the day of judgment, but if you want to know, you need a mindreader. Two out of three wind up sitting in my office crying into my complimentary Kleenex and saying, Mr. Green, I just want to know why.

And I tell them it's forty bucks an hour plus expenses, two hundred up front as a minimum, and if it turns out to be another woman they get a $50 rebate cause that's too easy. And they're mostly sure I'm a fake, but they still open the wallets and lay it down, cause they've already blown that much on tarot readings and psychic hotlines. But I get results. So next time one of these ladies fields a midnight phone call from a distraught girlfriend, she tells her, look, I don't know what that man is thinking, but I know a guy who can find out.

So one day, you know how it goes, she walks in. Mid-thirties, killer legs, green eyes, long blonde hair in sort of loose waves, like it was thinking about curling but decided that would be too obvious so it's just gonna suggest. Dressed like a movie star--a classy movie star, you know, sweater and slacks, no cleavage. And I oughta be thinking uh oh, any woman that fine gets dumped that means somebody's a psycho. But what I'm thinking is, this woman really wants the truth. I'm kind of shook up, cause it's rare to read someone so deep so fast. She says, are you Franklin Green? And I say, yes, please, have a seat.

She crosses one long leg over the other and says, "I'm Sherry Cooper. Steph Billingsley gave me your name."

Yeah. Steph. That was a rough one. It's always rough when it's a bedroom issue. Steph was too aggressive, at least for her fiancé. He wasn't gay, he just didn't like her liking it that much. Sometimes, you know, when you do find out what a guy's thinking, you just want to grab him by the sport coat and tell him you and he are gonna take this outside. But no, instead you go back to his lady friend and say, well, he quit you cause he wanted someone a little more, what's the word, frigid.

I say, "How can I help you, Ms. Cooper?"

She talks and I read. She can't believe she's here. She and this Prentice guy only dated for a few weeks. But she fell for him, and he seemed really into her, and then he just stopped calling. Then one day he did call, and they had a nice chat, but then nothing. He still calls once in a while. It's driving her nuts. If he wants her why won't he see her? If he doesn't, why does he call? Why the games? He had seemed so real, she felt such a connection…

I say, "Can I offer you a Kleenex?"

But she's not gonna cry. She says, I know it's not that big a deal. But she's thinking about what he said on their first few dates and I'm thinking, damn, you don't say that stuff to a woman if next Friday you're gonna get home from work, think about calling her, and just go "enh" and head out to a sports bar. I mean I don't see how you could.

No. Sure he could. Happens all the time. Guy wants to have sex with girl, guy tells girl what she wants to hear, guy dates girl long enough to make it decent and then splits with no exit interview. It's one of the ten most common Real Reasons. If I'm finding it hard to believe, it's cause I'm so wrapped up in her thoughts I'm starting to feel like they're mine.

I'm losing the boundaries. Not good.

I say, "This isn't the first time this has happened."

Her chin quivers. Looking into her eyes I fall down a tunnel of stories exactly like this one, all the way back to the junior prom. Course she feels like crying. If I wasn't doing the psychic equivalent of grabbing a tree trunk so you don't get pulled into the flood, I'd cry too.

"I just need to know," she says. "Whatever I'm doing, I need to stop. I'm not…I have a life, a good job, great friends, all that. I just want to be with someone. I don't want to be alone forever. You understand?"

I don't know if I do. I'm alone. Always have been. I don't know if it's cause I want to be or cause it's the only way I can be. I mean, I got opportunities. All right, it's not like women throw themselves at me every hour on the hour cause I'm just that fine. But my clients, they're all single women, mostly in their thirties, with these high-powered careers. All the high powered men in this town seem to marry twenty year olds who just look up at them adoringly and coo. So it doesn't matter that they're not attracted to me. Soon as they see I'm thirtyish, I'm single, and I can, like, use simple tools, they're thinking about it. Thinking, well, he's funny-looking but he's in good shape, this office is a sty, he can't make much doing this, no fashion sense whatsoever, still, he's probably not gay. Wonder if he's divorced. It kind of puts you off the whole thing.

I say, "Ms. Cooper, I can't believe that's gonna happen to you."

Here's where any other client would be thinking, these guys will say anything to get your money. But she's just thinking exactly what she says. Which floors me, cause that hardly ever happens.

"I hope you're right, Mr. Green. I feel like if I could figure out what happened with Prentice, maybe I could break the curse. I mean…I know it's not really a curse, but sometimes it does feel like one."

I could see how. Say over eighteen years there's a dozen guys you fall for, and each of those same guys woos you hard for a few weeks and then drops you without a word. And you being as warm, and open, and beautiful as you are, it'd almost have to be a curse, wouldn't it?

And now I know I better take myself in hand.

"So what does this Prentice do for fun?"

Golf. That's pretty much it. No good, he does that at a country club that wouldn't let me in even as a towel boy. So, where does he work? Doesn't have to. Where does he live? In a gated community, of course, with 24-hour surveillance and for all I know a drawbridge, a portcullis, and a moat stocked with alligators.

So I say, "Does this Prentice guy do anything that would bring him in contact with, like, the common people?"

She lets out this big bright laugh, and it's like now I know what she'd be like happy, and it kind of hurts how it doesn't last.

"He likes country. Thursdays sometimes he goes to a bar called Rotary Spokes where they have live music."

She thinks that's hilarious, cause Prentice is about as rough-hewn as Ryan Seacrest. I think it's hilarious too.

I say, "That's all I need. I'll be in touch when I know something."

"No matter what you find out, Mr. Green, tell me. I need to know. I can't stand it any more."

"I never lie to my clients, Ms. Cooper."

And I don't. Though it's hard a lot of the time to figure out how not to lie and still make them want to pay you. That's why I ask for the advance.

"Thank you, Mr. Green." And even after she's gone, I'm still holding onto the tree.

So it's Thursday and I'm in Rotary Spokes listening to a cover band so awful it makes you wonder why, instead of all fighting crime, more superheroes don't fight bad music. Prentice and his buddies have a table in the corner and I can't get back there cause the place is packed. In D.C. now there's more wannabe Texans than there are phony honky-tonks, so even a place like this that decorates with barbed wire and then serves $12 jalapeno martinis can fill up. It's a problem, cause to read a guy you need to get close and get him talking. Chances are the thoughts you want aren't floating on the surface. It's like fishing, you drop the hook and haul in the line to see what it drags up. So I'm thinking, well, I could pull a Charlie’s Angels and come back in chaps and spurs and pretend to be one of the waiters. I'm also wondering what a superhero would be like who fought bad country. Maybe like a ninja called The Cash Machine. Any time anyone anywhere started up that alt-rock version of "I Walk The Line" he'd fly to the rescue and sever the guy's guitar strings with his throwing star.

I feel this tingle that turns into a glow. I turn around and sure enough Sherry Cooper's just walked in. She's dressed to kill and that's not makeup she's wearing, it's war paint. She looks beautiful all armored up, like she's Lancelot and the Lady of Shalott at the same time.

She spots me. I wave. She makes a production out of coming over so Prentice can see her ignoring him. When she sits down I can smell her lilac perfume.

I say, "Come here often?"

She laughs. "Not really. I don't know why now, I just--you were so nice, but I hope you don't mind my saying that going to see you was just so--"

"Depressing," I say, cause "humiliating" is the word she's looking for.

"Yeah," she says. "I got mad at myself for minding so much. I mean he's one guy. I figure if I just see him one more time, I'll get closure and stop fretting."

I don't need superpowers to know that's not working.

I call over the nearest urban cowboy and order a glass of Sherry's favorite chardonnay. Sherry's kind of startled cause she's never told me what her favorite chardonnay is, but then she remembers why she hired me. She asks whether I can turn it off, cause she could see how if I were stuck listening to everything that passes through everyone's head all the time that would be hell.

Ten minutes later I don't know how it happened but I'm telling her how I quit being a cop cause when you're in a room where a guy's getting beat up, and every time he gets hit you hear his mind breaking into smaller pieces, even if he is guilty you want it to stop. So that was a shock, cause you're supposed to want to punish evildoers. She says maybe that's why it's guys like Superman and Batman who do that, guys who look good in tights but don't have too much upstairs. She says your superpower's more like Wonder Woman's golden lasso. She says she always wanted red boots like Wonder Woman's but her mother wouldn't let her get them. Now she has these red platform pumps she wears to work on days when she has to kick ass. And then Prentice comes by and says, hey Sherry, how's it going, and I'm pissed off he's interrupting us.

She thinks, all right Princess, keep it together. I push aside the whole thing about how Sherry hates it when her mother calls her Princess so why does she still call herself that, and I ask Prentice to join us.

Reading this guy is like going on that teacup ride at Disneyworld. He does want her, that's spinning me in one direction; he's terrified to be near her, that's spinning me in the other. To steady myself I grab for something consistent. First thing I find is, he's hurt. Wife left him a year ago for one of his golfing buddies. The buddy is not as good a golfer as Prentice. That really bothers him. The ex-wife is very angular, very sharp with the tongue. He's looking at Sherry thinking she would never do him like that. Sherry's so kind, so warm, so caring.

So, I'm learning that he's way too into golf, and that his thoughts about Sherry are glowing with this so-not-my-bitch-ex-wife halo. But he's not thinking about why, that being the case, he dumped her. His body feels it--his foot's tapping ten times faster than the music--but his mind won't go there. Meanwhile, his thoughts keep peeking out at me. Where'd she find this guy? Is she dating him? Why do I care?

I head for the men's room. He follows. Good. I do good work at the urinals. A guy's big brain does strange things when he's got one hand on his little brain, especially when his conscious mind is busy going don't look at the other guy and don't make it look like you're trying not to look cause if he thinks you're trying not to look then he'll think you want to look.

"So," says Prentice, as the don't look choo-choo train chugs along. "How do you know Sherry?"

I say, "We met through a mutual friend."

He says, "So are you two serious?"

I say, "Listen, she told me you broke up with her a while back. She's not wrong, is she? Cause I don't want to get in the middle of anything."

Man. Fireworks.

I don't hear his answer. I'm grabbing the shards, trying to figure out what they were before they blew up. It looks like it was their last date. Sorting out the slivers I can mostly put them in order. They kiss outside her front door, she opens it to invite him in, there he is kissing her again, up the stairs to the bedroom, dog barking, dog shut out of the bedroom. Him unbuttoning her blouse and unhooking her bra. Her going for his pants. Him putting his pants on and grabbing his shoes and leaving.

All right, fine. But what do I do with the frogs?

They're hopping out of that memory like kernels from a busted Jiffy Pop. There's a frog jumping along her bedroom floor, there's a frog sitting on the dog's back, there's a frog croaking outside her front door. The longer he thinks about it the more the frogs multiply. In the rearview mirror, even, as he drives home, his skin looks kind of green. By the time he's pumped the ship, the whole world is busting out in frogs, and he legs it for the mens’ room door like he thinks he can outrun them.

I get back to the table and he's disappeared.

Sherry says, "You pick up anything?" while she wonders why she came here to get hurt again.

I say, "I got something, but it doesn't make a lot of sense."

She says, "So what else is new."

"Does Prentice…is he…scared of frogs, or something?"

She just about snarfs her wine. She's remembering one of their post-hiatus phone calls. She said something about having a frog in her throat, and he got real weird real fast and hung up. I spare her having to say all this.

"Ms. Cooper, he's got frogs on the brain. I don't know why yet."

"Well, what's that got to do with me?"

"I have no idea."

"Is it because my eyes kind of bug out?"

And now she's crying. And I start babbling. No, your eyes don't bug out at all, don't be so hard on yourself, so he's obsessed with frogs, that's his problem, not yours. And she keeps crying and saying but why frogs, and I say who knows, and to distract her I ask her if she likes the band.

"They're horrible. The drummer especially should be flayed alive. Or else he should have to eat that damn cowbell."

I tell her my idea about The Cash Machine and the throwing star.

She says, "Yes! And his arch-nemesis would be Manfred-Man, who is able to turn a great song into crap just by breathing on it!"

I say, I know this place in Adams-Morgan that does really good Afghan food.

She says oh really which one and our minds rhyme on it's just dinner.

I'm driving through Georgetown listening to Sherry's mind and making a list of the things I've done tonight that I shouldn't have.

Top of the list is telling her how I got fired from the CIA. I'm not supposed to talk about that. It was cause I got started trying to explain how even if you don't speak the language, you can still read people, cause thought works on these other levels. It's so cool to find that out and then it so sucks when you go to your contacts with your neat new intel and they just don't want to know.

Course the list's getting longer, cause I'm parked outside her bungalow. It's perched on one of those terraced embankments. She's forgotten to leave the outside light on so I'm seeing her up the steps cause they're narrow and kind of old and it's the gentlemanly thing to do but really, who am I kidding?

Not her. Warnings flit around her like bats in a streetlight beam. This is only the second time she's met me. She knows nothing about me except what I've told her. I'm either a mindreader, in which case I'm dangerous, or a con man, in which case I'm also dangerous. I'm bigger and stronger than she is. Kirby's very loyal but he's only a golden retriever. At least it's her own house, so whatever happens, she won't wake up naked in a strange place.

This is one reason I don't date any more. It gets you down to have to see yourself this way. It gets you down even more to see why they see you this way. But Sherry opens the door full of hope, that's what's choking me up. Even after Prentice and everyone else, she invites me in hoping I'll be different. Kirby gets as mean with me as a golden retriever can, but she shoos him aside. He thinks I'm bad news, though being a dog he's not clear on exactly why. She knows this isn't smart, but she believes she'll be happy tomorrow. That's what she's thinking about, as I sit on her couch nursing my nightcap. She'll wake up tomorrow, and I'll be there, and it'll be a great day.

You'd call it stupid, maybe, but I think it's brave to hope like that. And when I put my arms around her like she wants me to, it's like one soldier kissing another before the battle. It's not pity, it's recognition, it's, like, I know how it is, all these strange wonderful things inside you and nobody wants them.

In rush the waters. And save me Jesus, cause I just let go of the tree.

I've got her in my veins, fire and water, I can't feel my bones. I'm terrified of drowning but I'm going under anyway. What she wants is what I want is this underground river filling my lungs and I don't want to breathe air any more.

My mind's whining at me like a mosquito. What are you doing, she's your client, you don't sleep with clients, you don't sleep with anybody, there are reasons for that, boundaries Franklin, oh Lordy there go your pants.

I feel her touch where I haven't felt a woman's touch in a long damn time.

And then nothing. I'm on her couch with my pants undone and my shoes off and this funny tickling sensation on my bare stomach and she's disappeared. Her clothes are strewn over me. I sit up, wondering if I passed out and missed something important.

I just catch sight of a dark, squat shape leaping off my stomach onto the floor.

I hitch up my pants and scramble off the couch.

Whatever it is fires itself from the Persian rug onto the first step leading to the second floor.

I flip on the overhead light.

Sitting on the step with its butt toward me is a frog. It's about four inches long. Its skin looks like one of those waxed cucumbers you get at the store. My mind has just about begun to connect this with Prentice's memory when Kirby trots up. I'm scared he's gonna eat the frog, but he just nuzzles it. The frog lets him. Kirby isn't happy, but he's not surprised. He seems to know this frog.

I reach out gently for the frog. It lets me pick it up. I cup it in my hands. I bring it up to my nose and sniff.

It's faint, but I can still smell lilacs.

It's Sherry. This frog used to be Sherry.

I'd think I was crazy except for the dog. What a dog thinks is gonna happen next is whatever has happened to him a hundred times before. What Kirby thinks is gonna happen next is that I'll leave, the frog'll hop up the stairs into Sherry's bedroom and kind of mope, and in the morning Sherry'll be back and the frog'll be gone and he'll get his kibble and his walk and it'll be all right.

From inside my hands, two big eyes blink at me. All the frog knows is she's being held high above the ground by an animal much bigger than she is. Her little frog heart is beating fast.

Kirby growls at me.

I set her down. She hops up the stairs, one at a time. Kirby and I follow.

Sherry's bed hasn't been made. In the bathroom there's a lot of makeup out on the counter and used tissues in the wastebasket. The tub's clean, though. The frog hops along the tiled floor, kind of forlornly.

I run a half-inch of lukewarm water into the tub. I lift the frog into it. She hops around, making little V-shaped splashes. Kirby looks over the rim, putting his nose in the water.

When she leaps, it's like her body is all leg. Sherry does have great legs, I noticed that right off. I've always been a leg man.

Oh for Christ's sake.

I lean back against the sink. I try to think, but my mind is on strike for better working conditions. Now I understand why Prentice's memory was so messed up. My mind doesn't want to put it together either. Sherry was human a minute ago. Now she's a frog. And as far as man's best friend is concerned, this is just another day at the office.

Kirby's surprised I'm not gone yet. Cause of course we're now past the point at which all the other guys ran.

I go out to her bedroom. I pull up the bedcovers and lie on top of them, staring at the ceiling and wondering what the hell I'm gonna do.

Then I look at the sun coming through the blinds and realize I've fallen asleep. Takes me another minute to remember I'm in Sherry's bedroom and there's a frog in the bathroom that used to be her.

I sit up. Sherry's standing in the bathroom doorway, leaning on it with one arm, looking at me. Light pools in her hair and paints her curves in white-gold stripes. I've never seen any picture, any statue, that ever looked as beautiful as she does naked. She's smiling, but she's got tears in her eyes.

I say, "Hey, beautiful."

She sits on the bed. I look into her eyes from real close up.

She remembers coming home with me, she remembers the couch. She vaguely understands that we came upstairs together and that I ran her a bath, but she has absolutely no idea that she was a frog at the time. It all seemed normal to her, I guess. Waking up in the tub, her mind just glosses over that. She thinks that after her bath we fooled around out here and fell asleep together. People edit their memories like that, I see it all the time. Something too hard or too weird to deal with just drops out, and they fill the space with whatever's easiest. They don't even realize they've done it. After eighteen years of radical dating weirdness, Sherry's mind automatically airbrushes the morning after.

She says, "Morning, Franklin."

I say, "You understand this doesn't affect our working relationship. I still owe you your answer." Only now she'll never believe it.

She laughs. "Thanks, Franklin. I was really worried about that."

Cause of course she's not. Prentice doesn't matter now. I mean it's not like I'm handsome, but she likes looking at me. She honestly does.

I say, "You hungry?"

She says, "Kind of."

I say, "I'll make us breakfast."

She kisses me, hard. I go under all over again.

I'm flat on my back and her hands are everywhere and my mind has decided to go back to work on its own terms and it's saying all right clearly I'm not gonna stop you but please keep your pants on, Franklin, last time you lost those the lady turned into a frog.

I roll us over and start kissing her everywhere I can think of. I read her whole body, inch by inch. I never knew you could do that. Lot of times when you're with someone like that, her mind shrinks into this untouchable ball. But Sherry's right there, she's in every one of the little golden hairs on her rosy skin. I never knew that you can touch someone's mind, you can taste it.

She does have magnificent legs and now I've got one of her long, strong thighs in the crook of each elbow and my mouth is traveling down the slope to the valley. I've never done this before and she hasn't either but I feel what she feels and it'd take an army to stop either of us.

It's all the stars bursting that never fell. It's waves dark as blood beating against me till we're tossed into a silence outside time, onto a small white island of shared and perfect peace.

"So," says Gladys, pushing away the bottle. "Your girlfriend is some sort of…"

"Were-frog."

It's three o'clock in the afternoon and Delacoeur Bridal is closed for the day. When I turned up Gladys had not one but two brides in there, but she just took one look at me and said, ladies, I hate to do this to you, but it's a family emergency. When they were gone Gladys flipped up the crinoline of this dress we call the Scarlett Special and opened the mini-fridge underneath it where she keeps the emergency secret beer reserves.

"And how often…I mean what triggers the Hideous Transformation?"

It's not hideous. She's there, I blink, she's a frog. I never see it. All I really know after three weeks of, well, investigating is it always happens when we're fooling around. Specifically, it happens as soon as any part of her body touches Little Franklin.

Gladys opens the sole remaining bottle.

She says, "So what if you're wearing a condom?"

"Thought of that. Tried it. Spent the night with a frog."

"What if you're wearing clothes?"

"She can touch it through the pants and briefs and such, but she's always wanting to take them off, and saying 'no, no, ladies first' is only gonna work so often."

"So what happens when you touch Herself?"

By Herself, Gladys means a lady's privates. I turn beet red and my mind lights up like a pinball machine.

"Wow," says Gladys. "The student has become the master."

"Well--"

"I told you on day one, telepaths make good politicians, great salespeople, and fantastic lovers. You weren't interested in any of it."

"Well it was never much good for me."

"You should never have let your friends take you to that whorehouse for your eighteenth birthday. Of course it's horrible when you're dying of ecstasy and she's thinking about how virgins are such a pain because they take forever. You've got to stop expecting it to always be like that."

"I don't want to talk about that."

"Whatever." She sets the bottle down. "So what's the problem?"

"The problem is, we can't have sex cause--"

"Please. Grasshopper. Did I not just read what I thought I just read?"

"No, but--"

"At the mere mention of Herself your mind is thronged with memories of telepathically enabled simultaneous orgasms, and you're telling me you can't have sex?"

"I mean--oh, forget it!"

I'm mad at her for like the first time ever. It's all very well for her. She doesn't have a Little Gladys--well, not one she's attached to. She doesn't know what it's like having it always left out.

"I'm sorry, Franklin," she says. "I can see how that'd bother you. Plus it must be weird knowing she could become an amphibian at any tender moment. I never liked frogs."

"Frogs, you know, I worry about them. They're real sensitive to environmental changes. They breathe through their skin, so…it's real permeable, it's real delicate. Everything has to be just so or they die. A lot of them are dying now, the biologists are upset about it."

The look Gladys gives me reminds me a little of my drill sergeant.

"So, Franklin, what's your theory on why this happens?"

"I don't know, genetic mutation? Or maybe she got bit by a radioactive frog as a kid?"

"You and your comic books."

"Well what's your theory?"

"Obviously, Sherry has been put under a spell by a witch or wizard whose objective is to prevent her from ever having sex with a man."

"You believe in that stuff?"

"I know a lot of witches."

"Yeah, but you secretly think they're all a bunch of New Age posers."

"I'm changing my mind. Sherry told you she felt cursed. She is."

"But who would do that to her?"

"Possessive exes. Women jealous of her beauty. Some old biddy who wasn't invited to the christening. It doesn't matter, Franklin; the point is there's only two things you can do. Break the curse, or live with it."

The third option would be break up with her. I mean not like the other guys. I mean I'd explain it to her. I mean I'd have to come up with a good lie because the truth…

"You're not going to break up with her."

"How do you know that?"

"You're sitting up nights Googling the great frog die-off. Let's stay real here."

"But you can't marry a frog!"

"So we're talking about marriage now?"

I'm so full of butterflies and firecrackers I can't even speak.

"Franklin, Sherry is not a frog. She is a woman who's run afoul of the wrong magic user. You don't need a new girlfriend. What you need is new underwear."

"What?"

"I'll make you a nice codpiece that'll fit like a glove. It'll be clothing, so it won't trigger the curse. It won't be like doing it au naturel, but it'll be no worse than a condom. You might get to like it."

I swallow a big lump in my throat.

"You think it'd work?"

"Can't hurt to try."

"You'd do that for me?"

"Sure," says Gladys. "Just promise me three things."

"Shoot."

"One: Take your own measurements, because I'm not doing it."

"All right."

"Two: Tell her what's going on."

"She'll never believe me."

"Get proof. You can't build a life together if you know this and she doesn't. You know that."

I do know that.

"What's the third thing?"

"Do not under any circumstances pay retail for an engagement ring. Talk to me first. I know people."

"Aw, Gladys." If I say another word I'll start bawling.

"I'll do it in red nylon," she says. "You'll finally be a superhero."

It was rough at first convincing Sherry to start coming over to my apartment. But she feels safe here now, curled up next to me on my ratty sofa. She thinks we're about to watch a movie.

I tell her, I promised I'd get your answer, and I have.

Her heart starts jumping. She's starting to be afraid that our dating and all was just part of the investigation.

I say, I wouldn't be showing you this if I didn't love you.

When she sees us on the screen, she gasps. Her mind is doing this slow boil, he filmed us, the sick bastard, if he's put this on the internet I'll…what?

I rewind. Her jaw drops as once more, on the screen, I pick her froggy self up off this same ratty sofa and carry her to the terrarium. I got it a couple weeks ago. It's got a nice pond and the pet store guy showed me how to keep the water at the right temperature and whatnot. I told Sherry it was a newt tank. Course she wondered why there were no newts.

She cries. I hold onto her. She says, oh my God, how can that even be. I say, Gladys thinks it's a curse, like a spell. I say, I always set the alarm so I can take you out of the tank before you turn back in the morning.

She says, so that's why.

I say, I'm sorry, Sherry, you wanted the truth.

She pulls away, sniffling. She gets up and starts looking for her handbag.

I slide off the couch onto my knees. I grab her hand. I say, hold still a minute, the box is kind of stuck in my pocket.

I get the box out and pop it open and she's laughing and crying. She can't believe I love her, she can't believe she loves me. She can't believe she turns into a frog either, but she's seen it with her own eyes, and here's the diamond, sparkling like anything.

So, I call my mother and say I'm getting married, and she doesn't believe me at first cause she's convinced I'm gay just cause she once caught me designing my own superhero costume. Sherry calls her mom, and they get into this intense discussion about flower arrangements and Sherry bursts into flame and hangs up. She says, I love my mother, but I cannot plan a wedding with her. So we make some more calls, and it turns out there's a church free next Sunday, and Gladys has a dress in stock that looks perfect on Sherry, and we can get the license by Friday, and we're both all right with just going out for dinner at the Afghan place afterward. So we call the mothers back and say we're getting married Sunday, show up if you feel like it.

Come Sunday we're hanging out in the vestibule of the church, me and Sherry and her maid of honor and Gladys, who's my best man. I know it's bad luck to see her before the ceremony, but seriously, we got a frog curse already, what's bad luck gonna do to us? Gladys is flirting with the maid of honor just to keep in practice, and then she clutches my shoulder and whispers, "Who is that?"

She's looking at this woman who just came in. In good shape for a woman in her sixties--frosted hair, flashing eyes, enough jewelry to start her own Tiffany's. Her skirt's just below the knee but you can tell she's got great legs.

Sherry sighs and says, come meet my mother.

I introduce myself. Sherry's mother looks me up and down and thinks, well, it's what's inside that counts. I don't want to hear the rest of that, so I vanish. Gladys moves in, taking her hand and murmuring sweet nothings. I drift through the church while Gladys pours it on and waits for a miracle.

I'm lurking near the altar when Gladys busts through the doors and up the aisle. Her mind's going so nuts I can't even read her.

"It's the mother! It's her curse!"

I can't believe it.

"I swear to Bilitis. She laid the frog whammy on Sherry when she was just a kid."

I don't wait for the rest. I gotta marry Sherry in about ten minutes, so I only got about nine minutes to kick her mother's ass.

Back in the vestibule, Sherry watches me ask her mom if I can speak to her outside. I lead Sherry's mom onto the church steps and close the doors.

So I've never kicked a lady's ass before, and I'm trying to figure out how you start. Sherry's mom says, "I'm so happy, Franklin. I know you'll take good care of my baby."

"I can't believe you did that to your own daughter."

She doesn't even ask me what I'm talking about.

"Sherry's always been exceptionally beautiful," says Sherry's mother. "All the women in my family are. No powers, of course, poor child, that happens sometimes. It left her vulnerable. She's so trusting, and you know what men are like."

And it's all coming out. She put this curse--not a curse, of course, it's a 'protective charm'--on Sherry so no man could ever take advantage of her. And so any man who does find out she's a frog, and he can't have sex with her, and still wants to marry her, well, he must be worthy. And yeah, I like to think I'm worthy, but damn.

I say, "It's been real hard on Sherry."

"It worked, didn't it? She's marrying you, not one of those well-groomed airheads she always falls for."

"But--I mean, she could have got stepped on!"

She says, like everyone oughta know this, "Oh, no. As a frog, Sherry's invulnerable."

I'm thinking, well, that's a kind of a superpower, maybe Sherry could be like the Fighting Invincible Frog and together we could fight crime, and then her mother puts the icing on this cake of craziness.

"And don't worry about the wedding night. Marrying her breaks the spell. I designed it that way."

All of a sudden this white blur explodes from behind us. The bouquet goes flying as Sherry swings for her mother's head. I gotta say, she takes a good cut.

Her mother crashes down the steps. Sherry's leaning over her screaming, you selfish controlling bitch, dad always said you were a witch but who knew he meant it literally. Her mother leaps up and pulls this wand out of nowhere and jabs it at Sherry. Green sparks burst out of it and she's yelling about what a thankless child Sherry is and how she's gonna teach her a lesson.

Sparks jump all over Sherry's gown. She slaps at them, but they won't go out. They're biting her arms and shoulders and neck, and Sherry's screaming.

The dress billows like a parachute and pours down the steps like paint. I run up there cause I know the poor frog will never get out from under all the fabric.

I hear rolling thunder. It's Gladys, charging down the steps and tackling Sherry's mother. The wand is airborne. I catch it, but I don't know which is the business end.

Gladys sits on Sherry's mom and twists one arm behind her back.

"Tell him how to lift it."

Sherry's mom says no, never.

I say, "Come on now. You don't want all your grandchildren to be tadpoles."

I've said the magic word.

Sherry's mom says, "Just point the wand at her and say 'for better or worse, reverse the curse.'"

I do it. The dress poufs out. Sherry thrashes inside it like she's fighting her way out of a big vanilla pudding.

I give Gladys the wand and go to help Sherry with the dress. It's really the maid of honor's job, but she's nowhere in sight.

Sherry's head appears and her arms find the right places. I say, I think it's finally over, and she bursts into tears.

And then I get cold, and I say, "Sherry, do you still want to marry me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Well--I mean--you could have any guy you want now."

She grabs me by both ears.

"You are the best there is, Franklin. I love you, I'm marrying you. I'm just afraid I might kill my mother before we get through the ceremony."

"That's all right," Gladys says. "Every bride worries about that on her wedding day."

Sherry kisses me and floats up the steps. Gladys tucks the wand into her pants for safekeeping and helps Sherry's mom limp into her pew. Sherry's mom smiles graciously at her, and I wonder if maybe there is a miracle brewing somewhere. My mom shows up, late as usual, and nobody says a word about what she's missed. Gladys and I head to the altar, and we're finally ready.

So here she comes. The dress is creased and her hair's a mess and the bouquet's lying all crushed out on the church steps. But she's beautiful, she's Sherry, and she's here. All she's thinking is how lucky she is and how happy we'll be and how she hopes I'll still wear the little red super-briefs sometimes. And Gladys hands me the rings, and together we take the leap.

THE END