Free Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

icing her ankle, which was now bandaged in a compression wrap and elevated on a pillow. With her perfect posture and impeccable black satin pajamas, she projected a heightened version of her trademark air of queenliness. She might be injured, but she was prepared to make up for it by reigning over us with twice the usual amount of gusto.
    â€œI don’t like this,” Nate interjected, pacing the room like an oversize tiger trapped in a cage. “The half-baked plan you two have hatched is reckless.”
    â€œYour faith in me is way too encouraging,” I retorted.
    â€œThat is not what I meant,” he snapped. “I was merely suggesting—”
    â€œAnd no one asked for your suggestions. This isn’t a science-y thing. This is an
operations
thing,” I said, resisting the urge to punctuate my sentence with “so, nyah.”
    Aveda and Nate still couldn’t seem to agree on how long she’d be incapacitated. She insisted she’d be readyto go after a good night’s rest. Nate was sticking with his four to six weeks mantra.
    I was tuning both of them out and trying to come up with a plan wherein I sneaked a call to Mercedes and Aveda was somehow okay with it.
    I tried to keep myself focused and breathing as Lucy finished lacing me up, as I used Scott’s glamour token to morph me into Aveda, as I was finally hustled out the door and over to Whistles.
    Despite the restaurant’s name, there didn’t seem to be an actual whistle theme to speak of. No collection dotting the walls, no wacky whistle-themed food items, no “Mr. Whistle” managing the place.
    Instead every available surface of Whistles was covered with pictures of cats. Cats batting at yarn, cats in costumes, cats reenacting key scenes from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. No space was allowed between these artistic masterpieces. They were pasted edge to edge, wallpapering the place in adorableness. The one non-feline decoration was a life-size statue of Aveda situated in the middle of the restaurant, a garish hunk of plastic—bright red costume, jet-black hair, painted-on grin. I knew she had campaigned extra hard for that statue—the newest in a line of high-end collectibles—to make an appearance at this event.
    I shuddered. I had managed to all but stamp out my claustrophobia over the past three years, but this cave of yowling kitty mouths was testing me, particularly when combined with the buzz of the crowd and the cheese-sweat smell. I tried to think about yoga and other calming things, but all I could see were the walls of cats, ready to close in on me while the corset rearranged my internal organs.
    â€œAt least I got her number,” Lucy said, snapping me out of my thoughts. She nodded at Letta’s retreating back. “But the girl blows hot and cold. Which would be fine if the blowing weren’t so metaphorical.” She winkedat me, gunning for a laugh. I was focused on calming my nerves and didn’t have the strength to give it to her.
    â€œDoes that . . . can you use that saying?” I sputtered. “How would it work?”
    â€œI’m not here to give you Gay Lady 101,” Lucy sniffed. “Anyway. You have to help me choose a crowd-pleaser for my next big karaoke jam at The Gutter. Once Letta witnesses me doing my thing, she’ll be putty in my hands.”
    That was probably true. Lucy was a superstar down at The Gutter. She had an impressive voice and an even more impressive sense of showmanship, sprinkling her performances with seductive nods to the crowd, soulful hands to the heart, and a thing I called “the stare-fuck.” When deploying the stare-fuck, she singled out an attractive lady in the crowd, locked eyes with her, and sang like there was no tomorrow. She usually ended up going home with that person.
    â€œWhat should I sing?” she pressed.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said, tugging at the fluttery cuffs of