by J. C. Lillis
I just stand there with my back up against the door, reading and rereading that post and the eight others that “surprisingly, sort of agree” with her. I’ve seen this kind of thing before in fandom. Shippers slowly jumping ship, communities unraveling once their leaders disappear.
I shove it out of my mind. None of this matters. It’s fiction. You have a boyfriend, for real.
My phone shrieks at me. HOME CALLING.
I stuff it in my pocket and bang out of the stall.
***
“I’m so freaking nervous,” Bec says. “I’ll babble like an idiot. I know it.”
The three of us huddle by the stage in the cold Q&A room, ticking off the seconds till Della Wolfe-Williams. Bec’s Zara Lagarde action figure peeps out of her shirt pocket. She’s debating whether to wait in the autograph line after the Q&A, but I’m only half listening. The crowd is almost too calm. I glance back at the closed doors. Pull my sweatshirt tight around me. I feel like I’m waiting for something besides Della: a random gunman, a fire breaking out in the corner.
“She’s just a person,” says Abel. “Honestly? When I saw Ed Ransome in person my crush kinda eased up a tiny bit. Right Bran?”
He elbows me.
“Right. Yeah. Mine too, a little.”
“Yeah, well, you had other stuff going on that night.” She holds Plastic Lagarde up to her cheek and bats her eyes. “Will you all wait in line with me? Please please please?”
“Sure—oh. We can’t, babe.” Abel knocks the heel of his hand against his head. “We’ve got that stupid-ass lunch with Miss Maxima.”
I forgot all about that. “Ugh.”
“Brandon, tell me what possessed us to call a truce with her again? Was it really just postcoital bliss?”
“’Fraid it was.”
“Aw. You guys,” Bec saps, messing up my hair. She still thinks we’re moving too fast, I can tell, but she’s been nice enough to act totally happy for us this week. I relax a little. I swing my arm around her waist and give her a squeeze.
“Oh farts, there she is.” Abel pokes me. “The one and only.”
He points. My eyes connect his finger to a girl on the far side of the room, shouldering her way through the crowd. Miss Maxima looks just like she does in her profile picture on the Cadsim comm. Like one of those women they used to warn sailors about when my great-great uncles were in the war: fake mole, leopard pillbox hat, tight red dress with big black buttons, five-alarm lipstick on a sideways smirk. She’s dragging along a short doughy kid with a paler, plainer version of her face; the girl’s got on a cartoon vampire t-shirt and she looks like she wants to disappear. I would too if Maxima was my big sister.
Hello boys, Miss Maxima mouths, her red lips enlarging each syllable. She sends us a dainty finger-wave.
“Gross,” says Abel.
“Completely,” I say.
“She’s so amazing,” says Bec.
We both whip around.
“Not Miss M,” Bec eyerolls. “Della Wolfe-Williams. Did you know she’s a first-degree black belt in tai chi?” She pets the bio in the CastieCon program. “She has two Siberian huskies and on the weekends she goes mountain biking and makes salsa verde from scratch.” She blushes. “Sorry.”
“Dear fangirl,” Abel says, “have you no idea who you’re talking to?”
“Do you think she’d take a picture with Plastic Lagarde?”
“Dunno. She seems deadly serious. You should grease her up with some sweet talk about the feminist subtexts of the swamp-monster episode. Or tell her you write fic where Lagarde saves the world with her magic vagina.” He winds his arms around me from behind. “What do you think, Bran?”
I hear the words but they breeze right through me. I’m thinking of “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart,” blipped out of existence with the rest of hey_mamacita, the copy I salvaged filed sad and unfinished in a private folder on my laptop.
“Sure,” I mutter, but no one hears.
Della Wolfe-Williams is coming.
You see her legs first, the thigh-high black warrior boots with skull-shaped buckles and impossible heels. Leather pants, studded belt, brown tank top two shades darker than her skin. Her buzzcut’s grown out into short little spikes that look soft and hard at the same time. No makeup except a sharp perfect outline around each eye.
“I want to be her when I grow up,” Bec whispers.
“So do I,” whispers Abel.
Della’s sweeping the lip of the stage, letting her fingers brush fans’ outstretched hands. Her face is this cool haughty mask and I wonder if she’s smiling inside, parodying herself just a little. She used words like obdurate and paradigm in her last Popwatch interview, so probably not.
She grabs the mike like a weapon.
“Greetings, fellow travelers.”
Some cheers and yeahs and a piercing whistle. Bec clutches Plastic Lagarde and looks like she’s about to pee or faint. Della raises her hands, tamps down the praise.
“I certainly hope everyone’s ready for an intelligent discussion, because as we all know…” She leans in, her lush lips brushing the mike. “I don’t suffer fools.”
The cheers amp up. Abel swings an arm around me and I flinch a little. I hope he didn’t notice.
“Well, you all look fairly tolerable, so let’s dig right in. Shall we?” Della frowns at the mike and adjusts it. “Tons to discuss and debate this season, right? Some very rich visual metaphor, a few controversial arcs and plot twists, shifting character dynamics with deep implications that could reverberate next season and beyond. Someone kick us off with a good smart topic!”
“Did Sim and Cadmus hook up in the spider cave?”
Everyone turns like she’s farted in church. Miss Maxima is standing with one ridiculous hand on her ridiculous hip, the fingers of her other hand poised for an imaginary cigarette. Della Wolfe-Williams blinks at her and tilts a little, possibly picturing Maxima’s head stuffed and mounted above her fireplace.
“And who might you be?”
“Melissa Arnott. I go by Miss Maxima?” Her fake-smoky voice is about what you’d expect from a theater major with a DVR full of Castaway Planet and Bette Davis films. “I moderate one of the most highly regarded fanjournal communities for Castaway Planet fans. You might have heard of the Cadsim Connection?”
“I have not.”
“Our fan fiction is very widely respected in the Castaway Planet fandom, and—”
“Oh, good grief.”
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing. Romanticism poisoning the fan experience—trust me, I’m an old-school X-Phile; I know how it goes.” She sighs. “I’m sorry. You were saying. People apparently think Cadmus and Sim—” She makes a face and grinds her index fingers together.
“Yes! Well, we’re hoping…”
“No. Sorry, but no,” says Della Wolfe-Williams. “Why do people think this pairing is a good idea? I find it really baffling, if I’m being honest.”
Someone yells boooo! I sneak a look at Abel. He makes a halfhearted herp derp face.
Miss Maxima’s motormouthing: “…would actually make total sense for their characters, if you think about it, and also I heard the plan is to get them together during sweeps next season.”
“People actually think that?” Della Wolfe-Williams twists her mouth up.
“Many do, yes,” Maxima says. “In fact, two of the biggest believers are right there in front of the stage. In the Blondie shirt? And the baseball cap?”
Abel facepalms.
“These two young men?” says Della.
“Yep. Isn’t that right, boys?”
“Ah,” I say, “no, we—”
“Oh, don’t be modest! They’re relatively new converts but they’ve already written the most incredible fanfic,” Maxima smirks. “It’s just so lyrical and romantic. Emotionally, they build a rock-solid case for the Cadmus-Sim pairing; I mean, you should read it sometime. There’s this flashfic
set in the spider cave that’s almost like a sonnet, and—”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh. Well listen, you two little Shakespeares.” Della Wolfe-Williams clicks closer to us. “I studied queer lit in college so I’m nothing if not an ally, but I’ll eat my boot if an actual relationship happens. It would be the worst storyline disaster since the giant-sandworm episode in Season 2.”
Giggles in the crowd. Some grumbles. Bec’s holding the camera on Della, but her eyes keep straying to me.
“People. Look.” Della holds up a hand. “Clearly I don’t know what’s brewing in Lenny Bray’s cranium; none of us do, but you’re asking me, and I say it’s not possible on any level. It stretches every reasonable test of credibility, character-wise.”
Miss Maxima folds her arms and flicks her dark bangs. “Why is that?”
“Ahh, let’s see. Well, for starters…” She looks right at us. “Cadmus: classic narcissistic personality, obsessed with his hair, obnoxious hero complex, etc. And the sad fact is, even if Cadmus changed tomorrow, Sim couldn’t. He isn’t capable of real love.”
The crowd murmurs. Abel slings me a sidelong glance.
“Well, plenty of people think that’s a cruel assessment of Sim’s character,” says Maxima. “My writers—”
“Oh, is that what they think? That if you don’t believe in character assassination, you’re just a big meanie?” Della shakes her head. “It is a neutral fact. Stop romanticizing him, people! He’s not going to change, because he can’t. Chip or no chip, he’s a machine. It’s crystal-clear from Episode 1: He was built to follow orders, not fall in love.”
“Ouch,” whispers Abel.
Ouch, says my stomach.
“Besides, isn’t that the fun of slash fiction? It plays off subtext,” says Della Wolfe-Williams. “If they really got together, guys—wouldn’t that ruin everything?”
***
“We try to make peace with Maxie, and she publicly humiliates us!” Abel’s pacing in the CastieCon exhibit hall, right next to a display of coffee mugs with the Hell Bells etched in silver. “That’s just—that’s not cool.”
I blink at the rows of mugs: green, orange, stop-sign red. He’s not going to change, because he can’t. I don’t believe that about myself, not anymore. So why can’t I stop replaying it?
“Ugh, here she comes. Look blasé.” Abel hooks his thumbs in his pockets and studies the ceiling, whistling off-key. Miss Maxima zigzags through the crowd. Her pillbox hat bobs in a sea of shaggy hair and baseball caps, and her big round face radiates smug, as if the sun had a secret.
“Hello, young lovers!” she sings.
“Hey.” I stare at her lip. I think the mole is drawn on.
“Sorry it took so long to wend my way over; I was having a fascinating talk with Ty Savarese—you know him? Big name fan, co-moderates the forum?”
“Why’d you tell the whole room we write Cadsim fic?” Abel sticks his hands on his hips.
“Oh! Well, I was just having fun. I didn’t think you’d mind, with your little conversion and all.”
“We still have standards.”
“Pardon me? Two of our Cadsim writers are Iron Quill winners, so you can drop the snobbery anytime.” She takes out a vintage snap-case with some old-timey dominatrix on it and selects a long brown cigarette. “Now, don’t you worry about Della and her nos; she overthinks everything. Lenny Bray’s opinion matters most—make sure you pin him down in Baltimore. Obviously he won’t give spoilers for next season, but I’ll bet he’ll drop some solid Cadsim hints. See how much you can get him to spill.” She passes Abel an antique silver lighter. “I bet you’re charming when you want to be.”
“Excessively.” Abel flips the top of the lighter and holds a steady flame to her cigarette.
“So our lunch. I was thinking the hotel café, just to make it easy?”
I glance at Abel. “I think…we might take a raincheck.”
“Yeah. We’re tired.”
“You do look pale. Especially you, Brandon. But sorry, you can’t back out now.” She beams a sweet, nasty smile at us. “I’ve invited a very special guest.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Miss Maxima marches us to the Illuminations Café & Grill to the right of the hotel lobby, where she makes us buy her a fruit and yogurt parfait, an egg salad sandwich, and a gourmet iced coffee the size of a Big Gulp. The whole time we’re waiting in line she’s edgy: looking around, checking her Betty Boop watch. When we settle at a table, she doesn’t even unwrap the sandwich. She just takes tense little sips from the coffee cup until she spots someone a few tables away, hiding behind a menu.
“Excuse me,” she sighs.
She clacks over in her leopard heels and yoinks the menu. It’s the kid with her face, from the Q&A. Maxima’s a few yards away now, but her theater voice travels.
“Chelle, what do you think you’re doing?”
The kid mutters something to the paper placemat.
“Family drah-maaah,” Abel says. He chomps his Spicy Santa Fe wrap.
“What’s she up to?”
“Lord knows. Should we make a break for it?”
“She’ll get us back if we do.”
“Oh, Brandon—”
I smack his arm and point. Maxima’s hissing at the girl now: “You better, and right now, or I swear I will tell Mom what you and Daphne—”
“You’re such a hosebeast, Missy!”
“Maybe.” She spits out something else; it sounds like But I’m right.
Then she grabs the girl by the wrist and drags her over.
“Abel. Brandon. May I introduce my sister, Michelle.”
“Hey, Michelle.” Abel wipes a glob of salsa off his hand and sticks it out. She just whispers “hey,” her knuckles blanching on the chair back. She’s probably twelve or thirteen, but already she looks like the kind of person who shuffles through life expecting the worst. Her brown hair is cut in a messy bob and her lips are thin and grim and she has cute freckles that look like they landed on the wrong face.
“Let’s get comfortable, shall we?”
Miss Maxima sits and starts daintily loosening her sandwich from the plastic wrap. The girl drops into the chair next to hers and knots her arms. She’s wearing a giant ring with a bug trapped in amber. She shoots Maxima a filthy look, the same one I gave Nat the time she told her hot friend Mark that I wet the bed until I was nine.
“It’s egg salad, Chelle,” says Maxima.
“Uh-huh.”
“Remember the time you put a worm in my egg salad and I couldn’t eat it again for three whole years?”
“No.”
Maxima takes a big deliberate bite. She chews slowly, looking back and forth between Michelle and us. I wonder if this is some kind of twisted summer homework assignment for her college improv class. She’ll assign us characters next: Abel the rowdy drunk, me the rookie cop.
She swigs her coffee monstrosity and folds her hands on the table.
“So the thing about my little sister is, she’s always playing a big joke on me,” Maxima says. “See, she absolutely cannot let me have anything nice without messing it up—been like that since we were kids, right Chelle? Remember my Fairy of the Forest Barbie?” The girl glares at her lap. Her cheeks are on fire. “Anyway, this is how it is. Her stuff was always broken and dirty because she never took care of it, and my stuff was always nice because I did, and she never could handle it, so now she takes every opportunity to mock and undermine everything I stand for. Prime example: When I ran for senior class president, Michelle had to run for freshman rep too, and with this stupid Free Goldfish for All platform.” She narrows her eyes. “I guess it was a short leap from there to here.”
“Shut up, Missy,” Michelle mutters.
“Unfortunately, what she didn’t seem to get,” says Miss Maxima. “was that creating a fake fan shrine to her sister’s arch-rivals just might have larger repercussions than pissing me off.”
“I think you owe them an explanation, Chelle.” Maxima leans back. “Excuse me: hey_mamacita.”
Abels’ hand grips mine harder. I yank it away. This doesn’t make sense. None of it does. It’s a joke, a mean trick. She got this kid to play-act and later she’ll slip her a fifty while they snicker about our ashen faces, and when we get back to the RV the real hey_mamacita will have posted. So so sorry Abandonites, family emergency. I’m BACK! Here’s the next chapter.
“Don’t you have anything to say to them?” Maxima swirls her yogurt around. “I mean, you and your minions pretty much used these two pathetic souls like paper dolls and now look at them. They think they’re in love. See, this is why my FJ hates real-person-shipping; the fourth wall could crumble anytime, and then you’ve got a huge embarrassing mess on your—”
“Sorry,” Michelle whispers.
“That’s all?” says Maxima.
Michelle’s eyes flick up at us, just for a second.
My breath catches in my throat.
Then she shoves her chair back, throws her balled napkin at Maxima, and rushes for the exit.
“Close your mouths, you two. You’ll catch flies.” Miss Maxima licks yogurt off her spoon. “I’ve done you a service. You deserve to know the truth. Especially since you devoted so much of your valuable time to critiquing our fic this year.” She taps the spoon against her lip. “What did you say about mine again?—Oh, right: Hacky and derivative…”
She’s saying more, but I’m not listening. I’m pushing my chair back, stumbling through the maze of tables after Michelle Arnott.
***
She’s good at disappearing.
I check the gift shop, the pool, the corridors—everywhere I might hide if I had to run away. Nothing. Then I start checking stupid places. The men’s room. The slim space between the wall and the vending machine. The more places I check, the longer I can put off the full truth seeping in. hey_mamacita. Not real. Never was.
A joke.
I step up on the little wooden bridge that arches over the huge clear koi pond in the lobby. The blue and gray tiles on the floor of the pond are littered with pennies, dimes, quarters; my father would say That’s a lot of money to throw away on wishes. I’m jittering my fingers on the wooden railing, watching a pure gold koi get jostled by his big spotted pondmates, when a small dark silhouette ripples beside me. I hear the crunch of a plastic snack bag, catch a glimpse of an amber ring.
