by Nancy Werlin
“Lawful Good, my foot! He’s no better than me!”
“There’s something else I just found out,” said Maggie. “And maybe now it won’t hurt you to hear it?”
I made a “go on” motion.
“He’s seeing someone else. A freshman at Harvard. She works for Senator Pratt, too. That’s how they met.”
“Before or after he officially broke up with me?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“Oh, just wondering precisely where his character alignment lands. Maybe he’s worse than me!”
When Maggie was gone, I gave up the brave front and spent the rest of the day alternately brooding, raging, and crying.
That night, my mom stroked my hair and said, “I think that somewhere deep inside, you and Simon both knew you were not ready to make a long-term commitment. That knowledge drove your actions.”
“But I wanted to be like you and dad,” I said miserably.
“Oh, honeybee,” said my mom. “We made plenty of mistakes in our day, too, on the way to learning that it was best to communicate openly about everything.”
“Yet somehow you didn’t end up starring in a viral video,” I said. “With all your mistakes broadcast around the world, following you everywhere forever—to a catchy reggae beat. Which is totally cultural appropriation! I’m white—I shouldn’t be starring in a reggae video!”
My mom snickered. I raised my head to glare at her.
“Everyone loves you, Fangirl,” she said. “Trust me.”
“No, they don’t.”
“People love to laugh,” said my mom. “Life goes on, in any case. You’ll see.”
“I have been globally and personally humiliated. Don’t tell me it’ll be fine.”
“Okay, I won’t. But it will be.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Actually,” said my mom, “I think I do.”
I hoped she was right. Still, I said, with dignity, “I would actually like to wallow in my misery for a while.”
“I recommend it.”
“I’m wallowing whether you recommend it or not,” I said.
“Sure.”
“Because I don’t need parental approval to wallow.”
“You have it anyway. Enjoy.”
“Wallowing is not enjoyable.”
“Of course it is.”
We made popcorn and settled in to watch the final episode of Bleeders Season 2 together. I filled her in on the backstory.
In my new cosplay, I was incognito. For insurance beyond my robe and bonnet, I’d borrowed my mother’s giant sunglasses. I still felt jumpy, but as Maggie and I entered the hotel lobby, I forgot my nervousness. Because, even though just like at Lilithcon, cosplayers were outnumbered by Muggles, among those who were dressed up . . . well!
Never before had I seen so many Bloodygits!
Never before had I seen any, except us.
Eyes bright, Maggie nodded toward a group. “Oh, so sweet! The little girl Captains!”
“I know!”
They were the most adorable pair of small Captains, one aged about eleven, the other maybe eight—and oh my God, they were with a mom who was also in Captain cosplay, including the battle gear mask!
Also! There were two Tennah/Bellahs. A Torrance arm in arm with Lorelei and Monica. A Celie. In the lobby alone!
None of these cosplayers were my Bloodygits. They were here somewhere, but they wouldn’t recognize me at the moment, not in my all-enveloping Handmaid cosplay-slash-disguise. Also, as far as my Bloodygits knew, I was at home planning to watch the livestream of AMT’s speech.
Wistfully, I checked out the Lorelei. She was tall and athletic, her exposed arms muscular. If I’d been in my own Lorelei cosplay, she’d have seen me. We’d have posed together for a selfie. We’d have talked about the show. In fact, in my Lorelei, I could have walked up to any of the Bleeders cosplayers here, shared gossip, and speculated about what AMT was going to announce.
Except no, I couldn’t have. All the Bleeders fans here would have seen that reggae video. If I walked up to them and talked, or if I rejoined my Bloodygits, I’d be recognized. And publicly mocked!
Curses on my nemesis, the reggae videographer!
So it had to be this way, with all the other fans looking past me in my red robe and face-shading white bonnet, as if I were invisible. It was my decision—the only way I’d felt able to accept Maggie’s offer.
But I was still bitter. I respected Handmaid’s Tale, of course I did, but I was a fan of Bleeders, and—and that anonymous reggae video had ruined my fandom life!
I grabbed Maggie’s red sleeve. “I’ve changed my mind. I have to go home. I’ll watch the livestream.”
“No.” Maggie pried my fingers off one by one. “You are staying here. I signed us up to get pictures. Every penny goes toward the show!”
“But we already paid,” I whined. “No refunds! Bleeders gets the money whether I’m here or not!”
“I paid,” Maggie reminded me. “So I decide. We’re staying. Plus we have to go hear AMT and find out if there’s going to be a Season 3.”
“Livestream,” I muttered.
“You’re in debt to me and you do what I say.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“You’re broke.”
“I’m climbing out of the hole.” I had a new job, scooping ice cream at the creamery. It would be full-time in the summer if I wanted. Tips were surprisingly good, and it was usually so busy there wasn’t even time to think. I didn’t feel up to anything more ambitious. (I had taken to a cowardly exit of my house by the front door, so I didn’t risk seeing Wentworth—focused murderously and futilely on the house finches—at his favorite window.)
Maggie held out the photo ticket she’d bought for me. “Take this and say ‘Thank you, Maggie.’ ”
“Thank you, Maggie. Your heart is golden, your soul incandescent, your generosity bottomless.”
“Plus, I’m adorable.”
“Plus, you’re adorable. And you’re a Bloodygit!”
“Crazy, right?”
“Crazy.” We linked arms. I felt a bit better.
Maggie had (finally!) binge-watched Seasons 1 and 2 of Bleeders. Ironically, it was because of the reggae video, and I tried not to resent the fact that my recommendation alone hadn’t done the job. The video was continuing to attract ongoing witty commentary. Do not ask me how I know.
At least Maggie was now hooked. So I had another Bloodygit friend, who was so good a friend that she’d put on the Handmaid cosplay to be here with me, instead of Celie (her first choice). Not to mention funding the con for us both.
“Bleeders is still your show, Zoe,” Maggie said. “You have every right to be here. It’s going to be all right.” She paused. “Unless there’s no Season 3.”
I shrugged. I made sure my mother’s giant sunglasses were firmly seated on my nose.
“Come on.” Maggie grasped my wrist and pulled me along. “Let’s go get our picture taken with the stars!”
It turned out that the Bloodygit cosplayers and fans in the hotel lobby were only the tip of the iceberg. The others—the many, many others—were in the Samuel Adams Ballroom clutching their photo tickets.
My personal problems aside, looking around at the long line was exciting. Was Bleeders truly catching on? I feigned nonchalance to Maggie. “This isn’t so big a deal, really. You should see the lines at Dragon Con for some fandoms.” Then I couldn’t stand it. I dropped the act. “Maggie! There’s got to be several hundred Bleeders fans right here! And there’s more ahead—in the next area where the photos are being taken. Maybe as many as a thousand fans here? Fans who have actually left their homes! Come out in public!”
“And everyone here is willing to pay fifty dollars a picture,” Maggie said.
I nodded. “Most of the time at cons the stars keep the money they make from photos and signings. A fundraiser like this is unusual. But people showed up and paid. Maybe th
is is what will save the show!”
“Only . . . let’s say a thousand people are here, at fifty dollars a head.” Maggie frowned. “Fifty thousand dollars will cover, what? A day of production? Two? Just guessing.”
“Shut up,” I said, deflated.
“It’s still a positive sign that the fandom is building.”
“But maybe not enough.”
My own Bloodygits were here somewhere in these very photo lines. I suddenly really wanted—longed—to see them, even from afar, even if they wouldn’t recognize me. But the room was too tightly packed. Plus, my bonnet obscured my sight lines.
“Which line?” barked a volunteer in a Bean Con T-shirt. “A for Ms. Turner, B for Mr. Nguyen, C for Ms. Upchurch.”
“C for Captain!” said Maggie, holding out her ticket for scanning. She smiled winningly at the volunteer, but he didn’t crack a smile back.
I would explain to her later that you shouldn’t even try to charm a volunteer occupied with star-line crowd management, no matter how cute they are. They are working to move people along. They are also on the alert for rule breakers, line skippers, cheats, and of course total crazies and stalkers. This tends to make them a little tense. Not to mention the implicit con hierarchy that made volunteers, at least temporarily, our social superiors.
“A for me,” I said politely. “Ms. Turner.”
The heartbreaking decision between AMT, Torrance, and Captain! I’d done some wailing and rending of garments about why the three of them weren’t offering a photo op together. If I hadn’t been out of money, I’d have signed up for all three. But I could hardly ask Maggie for more than the one that, out of the goodness of her heart, she’d offered.
And there was no contest, then, that I’d choose AMT.
Maggie and I parted with promises to meet outside afterward.
The photo lines snaked through grids laid out on the carpet with masking tape. I shuffled obediently along while eavesdropping. One fan was trying to control her hyperventilation and another rehearsed alternate versions of what she might say to AMT. (As for me, I planned a simple and dignified “I love Bleeders. Thank you.”)
I kept an ear and eye out for my Bloodygits, particularly every time I turned a masking-tape corner and got a new view of the line immediately ahead of and behind me. I felt sure Meldel would want a photo with Captain, and Liv with Torrance. But the others could be here in the AMT line right now.
I froze.
I’d been wrong about Meldel. She was lined up a dozen people behind me, moving automatically along with her face half buried in a book. She was in her Captain cosplay. She was alone.
I had made it to the curtain that divided our line from the area in which the photos were actually being taken. I was being waved forward by the volunteer traffic coordinator. I almost went onward.
But I didn’t.
I darted backward in line, muttering excuses. (Fans weren’t upset to suddenly be one person closer to their photo op.) Then I was in front of her. Her book was called In Other Lands.
“Meldel?”
She was so absorbed in her book—chortling wickedly over it—that I had to say it again.
“Meldel? Shhhh. Act normal. It’s me, Zoe.”
I was terrified she’d draw attention to me.
She looked up. I raised my mother’s sunglasses for a second.
Meldel’s eyes widened in unfeigned shock.
I said quickly, “Don’t say anything. Act normal. I’m so afraid people will see me!” I’d meant to speak quietly, but somehow, my voice rose with anxiety. The woman right behind Meldel turned her head to look at me.
Meldel was biting her lip worriedly, staying silent as we moved along in the line, me walking backward. (Because God forbid the line not move along.)
“It’s your turn, Handmaid,” said the volunteer at the curtain. With an edge in her voice, she added, “Again.”
“Zoe,” Meldel whispered at last. Her cheeks had reddened, and I wondered if she was embarrassed to be seen with me. “I think I’d better tell you something—”
Right then, a Tennah/Bellah fan behind Meldel yelled, “Hey! That girl! The Handmaid! It’s the Lorelei from the Fangirl video!”
It was my nightmare come true. Some halfwit yelled, “Fangirl! Who know what she up to?” The line burst into spontaneous applause—and then into song.
Fangirl lie to her boyfriend
Off to the comic con
Destroy the evil robots
Fix up that warp drive good
People were snapping their fingers, rotating their hips, and, inevitably, making the fart noise. ( Which I had realized had to have been my dying phone and not actually Wentworth. Right? Do cats even fart audibly? Was Wentworth some sort of aberrant?)
The volunteer at least was not amused by the crowd. She snarled, “You two! Go, go, go! Now!” She seized Meldel and me and hustled us through the curtain as she yelled to the mob, “Sing all you want, but if anybody gets out of line, believe me, you are not getting back in! And NO PICTURE FOR YOU!”
The cacophony settled down. Slightly.
But it didn’t matter anymore what was happening out there, behind us, because we were behind the curtain in the photography area.
And AMT. The real, actual Anna Maria Turner was six feet away.
Beside me, Meldel breathed, “Oh my God. It’s really her.”
We groped blindly to hold each other’s hands.
Anna Maria Turner’s dark hair was growing gray at her temples. She had combed it back severely and contained it in a bun. She wore glasses with purple rims. She was tall with a large bosom and broad hips and a small waist, which she showed off in a short, tight dress featuring a pattern of books with kittens (aarghh!) sleeping on top. She wore black capri-length leggings and classic white Converse high-tops.
It doesn’t matter that you’ve already seen ten million pictures and videos of your hero. It doesn’t matter that you fully understand that your hero isn’t only a goddess of smart creativity, but also a real person in the real world. Because even if you think you know these things, it just feels different when you meet her.
No wonder that girl who was in line near me had worried about hyperventilating. I hadn’t been cooler than she was after all. She was more experienced than me. She knew.
Like Spock in the original Star Trek, AMT raised a single, quizzical eyebrow. Unlike Spock, a smile curved her lips, and a deep dimple appeared in one brown cheek.
She said, “Hello, you two. Photo?”
I managed not to swoon at the sound of her voice.
Meldel and I replied, unfortunately and inadvertently in chorus. “H-hello, Ms. Turner.”
“I admire you so much, Ms. Turner!” burst out Meldel. “I love the show! Thank you for making it!”
I too had planned something to say. I just couldn’t remember it.
“You’re welcome,” said AMT to Meldel. She tilted her head to one side and paused for a minute, looking at me. Then she spoke over her shoulder. “It might really be her.” She was talking to a skinny man who stood behind the camera. Then to me. “Handmaid?”
I managed to nod.
“Would you please take off your bonnet?”
I figured out how to do that.
AMT laughed softly. “So it is you. Fangirl—uh, Lorelei. And Captain! Are your other friends here, too? From the Lilithcon panel?”
I froze. AMT had seen the reggae video.
I waited for Meldel to answer for me, but she didn’t.
“They’re here somewhere,” I stuttered. “Only I’m not with them.”
She raised that eyebrow again. “Did you have a fight?”
“Oh, no! No! It’s just . . . that video.” I cleared my throat. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to appear in public.” With one hand, I swept out my red robe as if in explanation.
“Ah,” said AMT sympathetically.
I longed to pour out my whole entire sad story to her. I felt she’d understand all the complexity, the
business involving Josie and Simon, the horror of being mocked online, the death of love, the disappointment in myself, the loss of Mrs. Albee and Wentworth and a job that I was good at, and the horror of having it be all my own fault. Even having Simon’s voice in my head, saying—and I knew it was true—that none of these qualified as “real” problems and I should be ashamed of how I felt.
Of course I couldn’t.
Also, I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t be a baby in front of her.
Meldel said, “Everybody’s here, Ms. Turner. Everyone except Josie, I mean, our Monica.”
“Kidnap he little sister,” sang the skinny man behind the camera, sotto voce.
I gave him the hairy eyeball. “It was only a kidnapping in the strictest legal sense.”
AMT bit her lip.
The photographer said, “We’d truly love to hear the full story. But if we don’t move things along, there’ll be hell to pay.” He nodded toward the curtain, where the volunteer had just stuck her head in, one palm raised to ask a wordless, pissed-off question.
“Righto,” said AMT, suddenly all business. She stretched out her arms to either side. “Come here, you two.”
Meldel and I stumbled forward.
“Smile!” said the photographer.
Maggie had paid for me to get an individual picture with AMT, not a group shot. But there was no way I’d have said anything, and Meldel didn’t either.
I felt the imprint of AMT’s warm hug all along my side.
The picture that we got—which I will treasure until my dying day—shows a radiant AMT. Her arms are flung around the shoulders of Meldel and me. On AMT’s right, Meldel smiles straight into the camera. As for me, I’m all deer-in-headlights, clutching my bonnet and sunglasses in front of my red robe, looking up at AMT as she looks down at me, with the worst hat hair of my entire life (with the notable exception of my hair in the reggae video).
What you can’t see is AMT saying, “I’m glad to meet you, Fangirl. Thank you for being you.”
Meldel and I were standing together in a daze, looking in awe at our pictures.
