She’s clearing a table at work when she clearly hears her ringtone. Only, her phone is safely tucked away in her purse in the staff room and the crystal toned laugh she has obsessed over for weeks with her online friends comes from the man at the next table over.
His chin is cupped in his hand, as he picks at his coconut curry and jasmine rice, smiling at the man across from him who is in the middle of an animated story, hands gesturing to illustrate the plot. She entertains the idea that maybe maybe this could be the same man whose laugh is her ringtone - the superhero who haunts the city - but his wide smile, hidden behind his hand, and his relaxed posture contrast too much with the serious, controlled body language of the Ghost.
She second guesses herself when she takes the time to study his companion. Though his dark curls are tamed by product and he seems so much smaller and younger than Phalanx, she recognizes a puppy-like energy as she watches him out of the corner of her eye that resembles the Ghost’s partner.
Perhaps she’s seeing things that are not there. She knows she spends too much time in the Phandom, spending her nights drowning in pictures and videos and stories of her favorite heroes. This is not the first time she’s seen hints of the Ghost or Phalanx in the face of a stranger, often embarrassing herself by getting caught staring at men as she tried to picture what they would look like with a mask.
Neither of these two men would pull her attention on their own, she realizes. Only as a pair do they really resemble the superhero duo, and even then, it’s only because she’s looking for the similarities. She starts to dismiss the possibility as wishful thinking when the dark haired man catches her eye and smiles.
It is Phalanx’s smile and the Ghost’s laugh, and the way they look at each other with such love, that convince her that her favorite superheroes are sitting unmasked in her aunt’s restaurant. She attempts not to scream or jump up and down. His smile starts to falter and she rushes to fill their water glasses and act as normally as she can before escaping to the kitchen.
The restaurant isn’t busy, so she gets away with hiding in the back while they finish their dinner and is much more composed as she brings them a bowl of ice cream to share. She tries not to eavesdrop but she hears them call each other by their names, and her mind reels, wondering how many people have seen the unmasked faces and know the real names of New York City’s superheroes.
When it’s time to bring the check, she feels overwhelmed and exhausted in her excitement. She imagines describing the encounter for her friends online, but dismisses it, knowing she could and would never be the one to break the code of secret identities. She can never tell anyone.
Out of impulse, and perhaps a little stupidity, she stops and draws on the check a small hexagon Φ and a small ghost, with a heart in between, symbols she has seen graffitied around the city. She practically flees after bringing it to their table. When she returns, they are gone, cash for dinner and a more than generous tip laid on top of the bill. Under her drawing is written ‘shhhh’.
When she goes online that night, and the many nights that follow, she sees their faces under the masks in every picture, and hears their voices, so relaxed and happy, in a way that fan video had never recorded.
As time passes, it starts to feel like a dream, and doubt begins to creep in again that she had imagined the whole thing. It’s almost a year later when she turns on her computer after a particularly long day of school and a long night of work and is immediately greeted by the mask less faces she had thought she would never see again.
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