by J. C. Lillis
“Guess so,” I say.
“Sounds clear to me,” says Abel.
“How ‘bout you two guys? What do you think?”
We glance at each other. He set us up perfectly.
“We’re…actually not sure yet,” Abel fibs.
“Yeah. We’re, uh, trying to keep an open mind, right?”
“Absolutely. Cause you know, sometimes you think you feel one way—”
“—and then something changes and you realize you might have been totally and completely wrong.”
We indulge in some moony eye contact. I hope retro robot’s filming; they’ll go nuts for this. I see Bec out of the corner of my eye, shaking her head like a mom watching her kids gorge on blueberries despite warnings of tummyaches and purple fingers.
“That is so true, you guys,” Augie Manners says. “So true. Awesome! Okay, any other questions for me before I hit the Alamo?”
Abel pinches me. “Did you see that?” he hisses.
“What?”
“His eyes, like, lingered on you!”
“They did not.”
“Did too.”
I pinch him back. “Maybe it’s my quiet yet forceful magnetism.”
“Is that from a fic?”
“Yep.”
“Whose?”
“No one’s. Forget it.” It’s weird. I can’t even say her name.
Onstage, Augie Manners shouts “Know what? You all win!” He opens up his hippie sack and flings a huge handful of Castaway Planet trading cards into the crowd, and then another and another till chaos breaks out, everyone squealing and shoving while the silver-backed cards snow down. Abel and I dive right in, trying to get our hands on the good ones: Sim in his charging dock, Cadmus brave and bloody in the Starsetter wreckage.
“Brandon!”
“What?”
He dangles a card from the cave scene.
“Oh God!”
He mimics the Meaningful Look in the photo and makes a wet kissy noise. I flick a card at him sideways. He flicks one back. It nicks my ear. I put up my fists and he yelps and takes off and this is what it feels like to chase a boy, no fear or shame or anything, just the two of us gasping and laughing like kids as we zigzag the ballroom and skid around chairs and run right into the shiny gold badge and foreboding beige shirt of Johnny Law.
Johnny Law is what my dad calls cops, or anyone in a vageuely coplike uniform. He’s probably the only person who uses the term with hushed respect and not irony: Slow around this bend; Johnny Law hides out there. If I ever get a call from Johnny Law saying you’ve been drinking…
“You two,” says the security guard. “Hold up.”
My stomach knots. Johnny Laws make me nervous, even when I haven’t done anything wrong, and even when they’re frog-eyed and freckled with a friendly broom of orange bristles right below the nose.
“He started it,” Abel says. “He’s a terrible influence.”
I smack him. “Sorry, sir,” I say. “We’ll stop running. I guess we got—”
“No no no. That’s not it.”
“Oh.”
“It’s Mr. Manners. He’d like to see you backstage.” Johnny Law lets out a tiny sigh and loosens his stiff brown tie. “It’s, uh. Urgent.”
***
The corridor smells like chlorine and coleslaw. We follow Johnny Law past the glassed-in pool and seven or eight closed doors. The change in his pocket jing-jangs like cowboy spurs.
Abel’s going omigod omigod.
“I know,” I whisper.
“My heart’s going supernova.”
“What do you think he wants?”
“You.”
“Really?”
“Maybe.”
“He’s got a girlfriend.”
“He could be bi.”
“This is crazy.”
“Eh. Maybe he’s just a fan.”
“Of us?”
“We have fans!”
“What, so he sits around in his trailer watching fan vlogs?”
“Maybe he’s bored.”
“Maybe he ships Abandon.”
He shoves my shoulder. I crack up.
“Guys—guys.” Johnny Law makes a simmer motion. “He asked that the room be kept quiet, okay?”
“Yeah. No problem.” Behind his back, Abel gives me an exaggerated shrug, eyes wide and laughing.
The door we go through has a VIP sign taped to it, but the meeting room inside doesn’t look too special. There’s a bunch of long tables and folding chairs with convention equipment scattered around—stacks of crinkled programs, empty boxes with bubblewrap crumpled beside them. Johnny Law marches us up to a partition of flimsy black curtains. One of the curtains has a paper sign pinned to it: ACTORS LOUNGE. QUIET PLEASE!!
I hold my breath as he nudges the curtain aside. Augie Manners is right there, right in front of me, so close I could take three steps and touch his arm. It’s so weird. Usually he’s covered with grease from trying to patch up the Starsetter, or he’s roasting a sand rat over the crew’s campfire, his fingers caked with dirt and blood. Now he’s nibbling from a tray of rolled-up deli meats, wearing noise-canceling headphones and reading some book called Still Life with Woodpecker.
“Heyyyyy, guys,” he says. “Come on into mi casa here.”
The guard’s like, “Should I stay?”
“Naw, they’re cool. Right?”
“Definitely,” says Abel.
Johnny Law looks us up and down like he expects to see us in a lineup later, but he leaves. When he’s out of sight, Abel immediately dorks out:
“Mr. Manners I just want to say we’re such huge fans of the show, like since episode one, and I know we have this vlog and we kind of make fun of things a little but for real, just being able to be here and meet you is amazing and we—”
“Awesome, yeah, that’s sweet, man.” He’s looking at me. He steps closer and rests his hand on my upper arm. Dutch Jones, I tell myself. His hand. My arm.
“Lemme ask you something, okay?”
“Sure.”
“It’s gonna seem…” He shakes his head. “ …totally out of the blue.”
“Okay.”
“Can I have your shirt?”
“My—”
“Yeah, not the blue button-down thing, that’s like J.C. Penney or some shit, right?”
“I don’t know…”
“This t-shirt.” He opens up my button-down and ogles the tee underneath. “Ohhhh, yeah. Oh, baby. Ka. Ching.”
My starstruck-ness starts to fade; he smells like old socks and this is really pretty goofy. The shirt he’s salivating over is a baggy old Bob Dylan concert tee, and it’s not very sexy. The image on front is a foursquare grid—three of the squares hold cartoon outlines of faces, and then the fourth one is filled in with Dylan. There’s a rip near the neckline and it’s been washed about five thousand times, so I can’t imagine what he wants with it.
Manners cracks open a beer. “My mom, right, is this huuuuuge Dylan fan, like she’s got a Scottie dog named Zimmy and she makes these giant replicas of his album covers with bottle caps and everything—Beer?”
“No thanks.”
He takes a big swig. “—and so this one time in college I took one of her t-shirts, like that exact shirt, and I left it at the beach like an effing moron and oh my God you’d think I murdered her dog ‘cause she never let me forget it. This is authentic, right?”
“Yeah.”
“From the ‘88 tour or whatever?”
“I guess.”
“Where’d you get it? It’s super-rare. I’ve looked seriously everywhere!”
“I don’t know. My sister got it for my birthday.”
“Birthday. Exactly. Mom’s birthday’s in two days.” He claps his hands and rubs them together. “So how much you want for the shirt? Two hundred?”
I glance from Abel to Manners. The character I am in “How to Repair
a Mechanical Heart” clicks to life. Brandon realized that the man looming before him was just a person, not a god. He felt a white streak of power surge through him. He could say anything. Do anything he wanted.
“It’s pretty sentimental, sir,” I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Two-fifty. And my shirt, here—” He starts peeling off the surf-shop tee, unveiling his pale freckled chest. “You can sell it to some fan or whatever. My sweat’s all over it.”
I glance at Abel. Vibrating, sucking his lips in.
“Well, that’s a generous offer,” I say. “But—”
“Your sister would freak, Brandon,” Abel tsks. “You know how Natalie gets.”
“Mm. You know she just had another breakdown, right?”
“Did she? No! I’m so sorry.” He shakes his head. “I thought she’d gotten so much better since the staple gun incident.”
Augie Manners gets this shifty, desperate look on his face. “Okay. Okay okay oh-kay.” He peers outside the curtain, and then he goes, “THREE-fifty, plus my shirt, plus my official Series 1 action figure, still in the box, which I will autograph RIGHT NOW, plus this—” He digs deep in his army-green rucksack and pulls out a wrinkled envelope with a coffee ring and a smudged Happy Birthday! on the front. He leans close to me and talks through his teeth. “Keep this on your person and if anyone asks, I didn’t give it to you. Okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.” I peek inside. Six thin homemade cigarettes rolled in blue paper.
“They’re Spaceman Straws. You drink in some serious wisdom with these.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me. I’m not responsible for what happens if you decide to partake.” He claps me on the shoulder like a grandpa, stuffs the envelope in my shorts pocket. My eyes trace the Big Dipper in his chest freckles. “Just make sure you’re someplace safe. Comprende?”
***
I don’t plan to exit the Actors’ Lounge naked from the waist up. It just sort of happens. When we pass Johnny Law he barely lifts an eyebrow, which kind of makes me wonder what kind of deranged stuff a hotel security guard sees on a daily basis. I button my shorts pocket over the joints.
Abel’s dying. He’s absolutely losing his mind, bouncing all over the corridor like a sheepdog on uppers.
“Ohmygodohmygod,” he says. “Augie Manners gave us—”
“Shhhhhh! Don’t broadcast.”
“Brandon. Brandon. Tell me you’re going to do it!”
“Smoke?”
“Walk back through CastieCon shirtless.”
“Well,” I spin the Augie Manners shirt on one finger. “retro robot’s probably still hanging around, right?”
“Undoubtedly, sir.”
“So let’s give her a show.”
He skids to one knee and grabs my hand.
“Brandon Gregory Page,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“Will you have my fictional space-babies?”
“What will the neighbors think?”
“Do we care?”
Brandon planted himself behind the wheel and gunned the engine, says hey_mamacita. He knew the torments of his past might trail them all the way west, but for now they shrunk in the rearview and he surrendered every last care.
I grab his hand and run.
Chapter Fifteen
SAN ANTONIO.
SHIRTLESS. HAND. HOLDING.
*OMG DEAD.*
(photos inside!!)
amity crashful: ABANDON IS REAL OMG OMG I’M STROKING OUT
doomerang: *ovaries exploding*
whispering!sage: baking celebratory snickerdoodles!
sorcha doo: retro robot how are u still alive
retro robot: haha I don’t know! I saw them run right in front of me holding hands and I was like OMG I just wrote porn about you an hour ago…sooo surreal
a_rose_knows: Can we call it official yet??!?!?! obvs something going on
sadparadise: idk idk it seemed like just a joke. or a dare maybe. brandon’s way too neurotic to do that on his own.
doomerang: Still, you guys. SHIRTLESS. HAND. HOLDING.
retro robot: They are legit doing it. That is all.
lone detective: They may be getting closer but I don’t think it’s a done deal yet. And I hate to be Debbie Downer but Disturbing Thought: ***could*** it be fanservice?
thanks4caring: omg. what if Miss queen bitch Maxima spilled about us???
whispering!sage: nope. no way. she’d never ever mention us to them. she’s uber creeped out by real-person shipping.
sorcha doo: if they get together global warming will stop and wars will end and kevin will love me again.
amity crashful: hey_mamacita are you here?? we neeeeeeeed you.
hey_mamacita: OMG SOBBING AND SHAKING AND VOMITING RAINBOWS. LIKE WHAT IS THIS LIFE EVEN.
amity crashful: your last fic made me cry like a bb
hey_mamacita: LISTEN: it’s not fic anymore. okay? It is PROPHECY. i mean SHIT ON A SHINGLE, SON it is SO CLOSE to happening and I don’t give a porcupine’s bumhole what maxie & her minions at Cadsim think. anyone can see how far they’ve come. look at brandon’s body language in Photo 1: looser, more open. examine abel’s eyes in Photo 4: they have that silvery sparkle now when brandon looks at him. THINGS. HAVE. EVOLVED.
amity crashful: omg I worship you. Never stop saying words.
hey_mamacita: I won’t!! EVER. not until they’re together for 10000000% sure. SWEET FANCY MOSES IN A HULA SKIRT, BOYS, just freaking do it already! We are…
“…Dying over here!” Abel rakes his hands across his chest and slowly teasingly trails them downward, his second Spaceman Straw dangling from his lips. I cough out smoke and we laugh laugh laugh and our laughing sounds huge as if there are a hundred of us in the Sunseeker, communing with the Abandon shippers and huffing in some serious wisdom.
“How are u still alive?” I ask Abel and he giggles.
“IDK, IDK.” He flops down on the pinecone rug. “I saw you shirtless and OMG, dead! Vomiting rainbows!”
“Ooh, turn over, turn over.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah…”
“Why?”
I shake my head and whistle. “DAT ASS.”
We explode again and it hurts this time, like the laughing is turning me inside out. Bec is perched up in the loft with her ankles crossed and my Phillies shirt on and she watches us like a wise old owl in a children’s story who hoots about danger to kids who won’t listen. She stopped after a couple puffs. I probably should’ve too but oh well.
“Father Mike would be so disappointed,” she tsks. “Your bodies are temples, guys…”
She says his name and my memory strains; he’s a book I read once in first grade and can only remember part of a picture, a snippet of a sentence. Snippet. Is that a real word? I lean my head back and swivel in the desk chair and feel like I’m falling but gently, like a million dandelion seeds after someone puffs them free.
“Oh babe—look look!” Abel pokes my ankle with the head of Plastic Sim. I’m in his red SEX BOMB shirt and it smells like his soap and sweat. “They’re already making macros from your shirtless picture.”
“Beautiful.”
“Abandon shippers are so much more awesome than Cadsim shippers.”
“We have very smart fans.” The ceiling is the most amazing shade of white.
“They love us, so they must be smart. OH! Oh, we should tell them how smart and awesome they are!”
“Shhhhhhh!” I sit up fast. The room whirs. “No no no no…”
“They wouldn’t know it was us. Bec joined with a sockpuppet—hey Rebecca? What’s our username, doll?”
Bec sighs. “brandonrox.”
“Perfecto.” Abel takes another drag and grins around a channel of smoke. He cracks his knuckles and starts typing and he’s so so fast, like I bet he’s the world’s very fastest hunt and pecker, and he reads out loud while he types.
“Dear Abandon shippers: you are the greatest! I’m friends with Bec and have met Brandon many times and you’re totally right, he is a neurotic mess…”
“Hey!”
“But hopefully soon he will see the error of his ways and let Abel get in his pants…Is that right? Is that even English?”
“So to speak.” I get down on the floor and crawl over to him.
“Are these words supposed to be moving?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ugh. No more Spacemen.”
Bec turns over in the loft and switches my book light on and it glows like the pale third moon of Castaway Planet. Abel stabs out the Spaceman Straw and replaces it with a red lollipop from the bag of junk food we got at the 7-11. I unwrap my second cupcake and take a huge messy bite and oh God, I’ve never tasted anything so good. We bought so much incredible food. In the lobby at CastieCon we sold the signed action figure and the sweaty Augie Manners shirt to some trembling superfan who kissed us both on the lips and gave us a trading card of Cadmus and Sim on the mountaintop, so at this moment we are also five hundred dollars richer in addition to being high as the sun.
Abel refreshes the page.
amity crashful: OMG do you still talk to them??
lone detective: Are you for real?
retro robot: *HEART. ATTACK. IMMINENT.* Do they know about us?
sorcha doo: if they don’t are u going to tell them? pleeeeaaaasssssse don’t!!
hey_mamacita: SHHHHH BACK OFF. LET THE MAN OR LADY SPEAK.
