by Nancy Werlin
“Um, so Zoe?” Meldel said after a couple of minutes. Her voice was uncharacteristically diffident. “I have this theory that whoever made that video possibly, just possibly, believed that, because of artistic freedom—”
I made a chopping gesture with my hand. I didn’t want to talk about the video and I certainly didn’t want to hear Meldel’s theory of artistic freedom. Luckily, Maggie was heading our way. “Meldel, this is my pal, Bloodygit Maggie Kwan. Maggie, this is Bloodygit Meldel Delacroix.”
“Maggie!” Meldel grabbed Maggie’s right hand and shook it enthusiastically. “I’ve heard so much about you!”
“Likewise,” said Maggie.
Meldel took Maggie’s left hand and my right one. She tucked them into the crooks of her arms, pulling us close to her. “You can be the first to know. I’m considering writing a novella based on my relationship with Todd. We recently had, um, a tiny little disagreement, and I won, and that means that I am currently enjoying the upper hand in our relationship.”
She was talking fast. Even for Meldel.
I frowned thoughtfully.
“I thought you always had the upper hand,” I observed. Meanwhile, I could feel Maggie attempting to make eye contact with me. I did not look at her, however. In the back of my mind, a suspicion was forming.
Or maybe it had been lurking there for a while.
Meldel said, still rapidly, “Yes, true, but not like now. Our relationship is evolving! Do you think it’s sick? If so, it’s sick in an empowering, feminist way! One that also connects to the historical power of sex.” Meldel began walking, taking us with her. “I wonder if AMT might be willing to connect me with her contacts? If I include Bleeders and the larger context?”
I dared a glance at Maggie. She was listening to Meldel, and her brows were probably never going to return to their normal facial placement.
“You can always ask AMT yourself,” Maggie murmured. She mouthed at me behind Meldel’s head: You were not kidding about her!
I said calmly, “Oh, one tiny little favor, Meldel. Don’t put me in this novella of yours.”
Guilt flickered over her face. “I certainly won’t. If you say not to! Of course not!”
Ah.
I did some yogic breathing.
“So anyway!” I said brightly. “Meldel, where are you taking us?”
“To the Con Suite. Everybody’s there.”
I stopped walking, which forced them to stop too. I fiddled with the strings of my bonnet, which I had put back on my head. “If I’m with the group, everybody will recognize me.”
“Don’t you think that cat’s out of the bag already?” said Meldel.
I winced.
We went.
Sebastian screamed my name as we entered the room. I screamed his right back. Then Liv and Cam—and Naomi! Cam grabbed me off my feet and twirled me. I hadn’t realized he was so strong. Then, as we revolved, I saw Todd.
Todd.
Ah, Todd.
He shouted, “God’s blood! Zoe has returned!” But he hung back behind the others, keeping his distance. Behind Cam’s back, I clenched my hands into fists.
Meldel was introducing everybody to Maggie.
“Looking like crap, Zoe.” Cam put me down and tried to grab my crumpled bonnet off my head. (At this time I will admit that I had constructed the bonnet using copier paper and Scotch tape. It was holding up about as well as you’d expect. Any self-respecting cosplayer would be appalled.) “Liv was just about to text you. We knew you had to be here somewhere. And there was no way we were going to listen to AMT’s speech without you there. Luckily, you were working your own side of the equation.”
I beamed at him.
“Happy accident,” I said. “I ran into Meldel in the AMT photo line. Events unfolded.”
“There are no accidents. The Force controls all.”
“I beg to differ!”
“Well, but see, I got into NYU!”
“Cam! That’s fantastic!”
“I know!” Cam twirled me again. “What about you?”
“You’ll know soon,” I said evasively. “Now, if you’ll excuse me a moment.”
I turned. “Todd!”
My voice wasn’t loud, but it resonated.
We faced each other, Todd and I. I looked at him and he looked at me. There was no need for me to accuse or for him to deny. We understood each other perfectly. Wordlessly.
“Oh no,” muttered Meldel. “Listen, Zoe, I tried to tell him—”
Liv elbowed her. Meldel stopped talking. A little vortex of silence formed around Todd and me. I let it settle around us for a few moments. Then I spoke.
“I don’t get mad,” I told Todd. “I get even.”
“Oh, come on, Zoe. Look at it this way. I made you a star.”
I shook my head. “You are now my mortal enemy. And this I vow: you will rue the day that you crossed swords with me.”
After a moment, Todd bowed deeply from the waist, sweeping aside an imaginary cape. “Bring it.”
“I will, and it will,” I said seriously, “be awful.”
Todd’s gaze faltered.
“En garde,” I said, and smiled evilly.
Maggie made bug eyes at me.
Meldel—looking relieved—announced that we should now join hands in a moment of appreciative silence for our renewed group unity, and in thanks for Maggie joining us. Maggie made more bug eyes at me. Womanfully, however, she joined in.
As we stood together, I suddenly thought sadly of Josie, home alone, punished. I hoped that Ms. Murawski would at least let her watch the livestream. Although that was doubtful, if Simon had anything to say about it.
When Meldel allowed us to speak again, I looked at Liv questioningly.
Liv said, “Bloodygits! Listen up! Now it can be told! Zoe and I have decided to be college roommates! We are going to Smith!”
This started a mini riot.
In the end, it was Sebastian who said the one thing I both most wanted to hear and was most scared to hear. “Zoe, do you really have to stay in that scary, depressing cosplay?”
“Like the Bleeder viral apocalypse isn’t equally scary and depressing?” I asked. But I didn’t mean it. I took in a quick breath—and yelled, at the top of my lungs:
“Costume malfunction!”
Throughout the Con Suite, heads turned to me. Dramatically, I ripped off my cap and my red Handmaid’s robe. I twirled them in the air and threw them away.
Underneath, I was Lorelei. With the wrong hair, of course. I reached into my satchel and shoved my Lorelei wig haphazardly onto my head.
“Fangirl!”
The room burst into cheers, meows, fart noises, and of course reggae. If some of it was mockery, I no longer cared.
I yelled, “Meet my mortal enemy, the videographer and musician!” and pointed at Todd. I mimed punching him in the face. He mimed falling over. The crowd roared. I bowed to the left. I curtsied to the right. I waved: elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist. I touched my stethoscope-garrote. I blew a kiss.
I was home.
We waited and waited until finally our line was allowed to file into the Chowder Ballroom for AMT’s speech. We got the third row: Cam, Liv, me, Maggie (alas, still in her Handmaid cosplay and a little miffed at me over it), Meldel, and Todd. Todd made a stab at saving seats for Naomi and Sebastian, but no. They might end up standing at the back, I thought. But that was the risk they took when they left the line.
It was sweet that Sebastian and Naomi had gone off to get some alone time. Just because love hadn’t worked out for me didn’t mean it was a lost cause for everybody. Not that I was going to think about love right now. Life was ahead, full of friends and possibility. The unknown might be scary, but it was also exciting.
“ You don’t have to be anxious about going off alone to college,” my mom had said last night. (She and my dad were happy—not to say smug—about my Smith plans.) “ You’ll be close to home. Plus you’ll have your friend Liv!”
Indeed, I would.
I touched Liv and Maggie and pointed. “Look.” It was the mom and two daughters that I had originally seen in the hotel lobby, cosplaying together as Captain. The three had seats in the second row, just ahead of us. They had their hair braided just like Captain, in a straightforward middle part with cornrows down both sides and the ends twisted into a perfect circle behind. When the mom excused herself, her two daughters stood up to let her out and turned, letting us check out how their cosplay was wittily different from each other’s.
Maggie said, “The younger one has a Slytherin badge on her lab coat.”
“And the older girl has Hufflepuff,” said Liv. “Oh, and the younger one’s got bloodstains, too! Isn’t that the exact spatter pattern from Season 1, Episode 4?”
The younger girl turned around fully, a huge grin on her face. “Yes! From when Monica and Captain threw knives at the rats!” She held out her sleeve so we could admire the spatter. “I painted it myself.”
“Serena loves all the gory scenes,” said the older sister with all the world-weariness of her eleven-ish years.
“That one scene’s great artistically, though,” Liv said. “The way that all AMT actually shot was the rat shadows and then the spatters? So that we imagine rather than see anything happen?”
“And the shadow of the knives!” said the younger sister with zest. “As Monica threw them and they stabbed the rats!”
“I hid my eyes,” I said.
“She did not,” said Liv.
“The first time, I did.”
The older girl said, “I felt sorry for the rats. I like it better when there are human enemies for the crew to fight. Or humanoid. Or the robots.”
“That’s because you’re a wimp,” said her sister. She said to us, “My sister Gwen hates Monica, so there.” The two started to glare at each other, stopped, turned, and very politely complimented our row on our cosplay. Only then did they face front and argue.
I whispered, “I’m glad those kids are right where AMT will see them when she comes in.”
“And their mom,” said Maggie. “Who has got to be just about the coolest mom in the world. Listen, Zoe, did you think she looks familiar? The mom?”
I shrugged. “With the mask, who can tell? You could ask her. She’s coming back now.”
“Yeah, no, too shy.”
Liv held up both hands. Their fingers were crossed. “I’m sooo nervous. There’s got to be approval for the third season.”
“How about a fourth season, too?” I said. “While we’re at it.”
“Don’t be greedy,” Meldel put in.
“Shh,” said Cam, craning backward. “It’s her now. Be still my heart!”
AMT walked up the center aisle alongside one of the volunteers. She was in the same book-and-kittens dress that she’d worn for the photos, and she smiled left and right and even shook a few hands. The room quieted as she reached the front where there was a simple microphone stand.
“Hello, all of you!” Her mic squealed. “Hm.” A volunteer raced up to make an adjustment. “Good. We’re in business. Thanks for coming, Bloodygits all!”
We cheered again.
“In a few minutes, I’m going to have Jocelyn and Hugh join me for the panel discussion. I hope there’ll be chairs—okay, good, they’ll bring them in. But first, I won’t beat around the bush. I have a feeling that you all want to know about Season 3.”
“Yes!” We roared.
“And I’m going to tell you. But first, I need to quickly explain that what I’m about to say is not what I originally had planned. Since we booked with Bean Con a couple of months ago, there’s been a shift in—”
At the back of the Chowder Ballroom, someone screamed. People turned to look. Maggie gasped. Liv and Cam and Meldel laughed. I nearly bit my tongue, and Todd made the loudest and most authoritative two-handed wolf whistle I’ve ever heard . . .
As Sebastian and Naomi came staggering down the side aisles, arms outstretched, their bodies seeping blood through the white of their clothing.
The entire audience leapt to its feet, applauding and hooting and screaming.
Bleeders, bleeders, bleeders!
“Awesome!” yelled the two little Captains in front of us. The shoulders of their Captain mother shook with laughter.
Sebastian and Naomi reached the front and wobbled theatrically before collapsing at AMT’s feet. AMT looked down, bemused, grinning. Her lips moved. You didn’t need to be an advanced lip-reader to understand.
Wow.
“They did it!” Liv exclaimed in my ear. “The formula worked!”
Cam was smiling from ear to ear. We all were.
“I should have known that was what they were up to!” I yelled, my voice only just audible above the continuing din.
“You didn’t guess?” said Meldel.
“No! I thought they slipped away to, you know. Canoodle.”
“Oh, you sweet summer child.”
“I know. I’m so embarrassed.”
Things settled down as AMT made a “lower the volume” motion with her hands. “Fantastic,” she said into the mic. Her eyes alight with laughter, she reached down to Naomi and Sebastian—who had not fainted!—and pulled them up. “Take a bow, bleeders!” They did. Then they grabbed AMT’s hands and the three of them bowed low, together, with red hands. The room erupted again. People took pictures. I wiped tears from the corner of my eyes and reached out blindly for my friends. The six of us were jumping up and down together when I felt a hand on my back.
It was Josie, squirming into our row. “I’m here, I’m here!” she shouted. I let go of Cam long enough to grab my friend, Simon’s little sister, and pull her into my arms, and then into the group hug.
Josie had sneaked out! I didn’t feel any guilt whatsoever about it.
Then AMT pointed at us and shouted into the mic: “Do you Bloodygits out there recognize these Bloodygits? Especially that one—in the Lorelei cosplay?”
There was more applause, as well as stamping of feet, the inevitable fart noises, and shouting:
“Fangirl! Fangirl and the Lilithcon panel!” Someone even yelled, “Organic kitty soap! You’re fired! Fired!”
“Come on, take a bow, Fangirl! All of you,” AMT urged our group.
My face burned. Someone pushed me toward the end of the row. I turned with my friends to face the crowd. I flushed even hotter when someone started a reggae drumbeat, and people started to sing and dance. ( White people, mostly! Who were fans of a socially conscious show! Did no one think about the cultural appropriation of mocking me with reggae?) And then—
I realized something. These were my people, all of them. I was having a good time with my friends, and Naomi and Sebastian had made the bleeding work, and Josie was with us too, and Maggie. And Liv and I were going to college together, not Simon and me, and—it was the right outcome for me after all.
I am Fangirl. That video is out there, and the entire world will forever be able to see me at a Very Vulnerable Yet Also Very Ridiculous Moment. So what?
I made mistakes, but oh well. I did some things right, too. I have terrific friends, and my very own mortal enemy, too, and I’m not wrong to adore them. I’m a Bloodygit and I’m proud! Also, AMT herself told me thank you! How cool was that?
“Bleeders forever!” I yelled, and started to dance to the reggae beat. “Season 3!”
The crowd roared back. “SEASON 3!”
“Season 3!” I grabbed my stethoscope-garrote from around my neck. I spun it in the air as if I were going to rope a steer—
And there was Simon.
He stood near the entrance to the ballroom. He was wearing his favorite blue-and-white striped button-down shirt with jeans. Across the distance, his gaze locked with mine.
He was holding hands with a girl. She was rounded, with short dark hair and deep red lipstick.
My stethoscope-garrote banged into my forearm.
Simon nodded at me coolly, his expression as grave as
I’d ever seen it.
Simon is six foot one and gangly. He has shoulders to die for, and dark blond hair that is thick and long enough to tuck behind his ears. From behind his glasses, his blue eyes pierce your soul.
His glasses. I’d helped him pick out those glasses a year ago, at Warby Parker in Harvard Square. He’d tried on two dozen pairs and the store clerk kept offering opinions. He’d listened politely, but it was obvious that the only opinion he really cared about then was mine.
Then.
I could feel the chasm between us, now, wider than the ballroom.
Only, if he was here, that meant—he’d brought Josie. She hadn’t sneaked out after all.
I nodded back at him. Then—maybe a little blindly—I directed a kind smile at his new girlfriend, too. Because even if that’s not entirely who I am—kind, I mean—it’s still who I want to be.
There’d been faults on both sides.
And some good, too.
My friends had noticed nothing. The crowd’s shouts and singing were quieting. As everybody sat down, our group cramming together on our chairs to make room for Josie, I was relieved to face front again. I didn’t want to think about Simon. I wanted to think about AMT.
She smiled at us—at everyone, but also at our group specifically, and also at Sebastian and Naomi, who were now standing near the wall to one side, holding bloody hands.
“Your brother brought you?” I whispered to Josie, who had squeezed in and was sharing half of my chair.
Josie whispered back excitedly. “Yes! He’s still incredibly annoying, but he’s also been trying to be nice to me lately. Like, he even asked me to explain to him what I liked about Bleeders and he only rolled his eyes once. And then an hour ago, he suddenly said we should hop in the car and come. I didn’t argue! He even paid for my ticket.”
“I can hardly believe—”
“Shh!” Josie gripped my arm. “AMT!”
“As I was saying, before I was so delightfully interrupted.” AMT waved at Naomi and Sebastian. “When I originally got in touch with Bean Con, I was planning to tell you that SlamDunk had lost faith in Bleeders, but we weren’t giving up. That we were going to raise money to fund the next season independently. I was going to ask for your support, to spread the word and to contribute whatever you could.
