“You think…?”
I look at her hard from my spot beside the fryer and she holds her hands up in surrender. Frank woofs, wagging his tail.
“See? Frank agrees.” I give him a scratch behind the ears and look back at my phone. “Hey, um, can I ask you a favor?”
“I’m already babysitting your dog until you can find it a permanent home,” Sage intones dryly. “What more could you want from me, oh Queen?”
I grin innocently. “My lovely servant, may we perchance swing by my abode before our drudgery in your basement tonight? The twins won’t be home but I’m expecting something in the mail…”
Sage heaves a harder-than-needed sigh, fanning through her magazine. “I guess we could…” Then she looks up and asks, eyebrow quirked, “What’s coming?”
“Tickets,” I say. “To ExcelsiCon.”
“Tickets? Plural?”
A blush creeps across my cheeks. “I mean, yeah. I thought you’d want to come—and it’d be my treat. Because, you know, you’re working on the cosplay and…”
“But it’s for my portfolio. I’m already getting something out of it.”
“I know. I just—if you don’t want to come, that’s okay too.” I fumble with my words, wringing my plastic-gloved hands together. “It was silly not to ask you first—”
“Are you kidding?” When I look up, Sage is beaming. “I would love to.”
Surprised, I meet her gaze. “Really?”
“Yeah! It sounds ballin’!”
Franco barks again.
She thumbs back to him. “See, Frank thinks so too! Thanks. It’ll be awesome. I mean, we’re going to have to figure out how to get there ’cuz Mom won’t let me take the Pumpkin outta city limits—”
“Bus. 6:30 a.m. Then there’s one that comes home at 8.” I’d biked down to the Greyhound station early that morning and bought the tickets—nonrefundable. Between that and the con passes, my stash of cash was nearly wiped out.
Sage laughs. “You got this all planned out, don’t you?”
“I have to. This is like The Italian Job. Except we’re smuggling me.”
“Sounds more like Sam and Frodo sneaking into Mordor to me,” she replies. I give her a blank look. She shrugs. “What? So I bleed Hobbit.”
“Aragorn or Boromir?”
“I’m more of an Arwen fan, if you know what I mean.” Sage winks.
I smile, but then I remember what the twins said—about me and Sage. And then I remember the awful, indelible sight of Cal in my mom’s cosplay. I look down to the frying fritters.
“Something wrong?” Sage says. “Oh god, please don’t tell me you can’t be friends with a lesbian.”
“What? No!” I say quickly. “It’s just…they’re entering too. The twins.”
Her eyebrows jerk up. “I didn’t know the hell-twins were Starfield fans.”
“They aren’t.”
“Then how are they entering?”
“They, um, found a costume. A dress.” I want to be as vague as possible. I don’t want her to know it’s Mom’s cosplay. I don’t want to admit that yet. Like a bad haircut you keep trapped under a beanie: if you don’t think about it, then it never happened. “And if we don’t get this cosplay done they might actually win, and I can’t let that happen. But I can’t let the twins know I’m entering the contest either. They’ll tell my stepmom and it’ll be over.”
But Sage isn’t letting it go. “How did they just find a costume? Do you have them lying around the house or something?”
“No,” I reply quietly. “It…was in the attic. With my parents’ stuff.”
Slowly, as the words sink in, her eyes widen. She sets down her magazine, shaking her head. “Oh my god. It’s your mom’s, isn’t it?”
“I mean, I…” My throat begins to close. I don’t want to talk about Mom’s dress, the yards of night sky sewn into the hems. It hurts in a place I haven’t felt in eight years, like a sore muscle I’d forgotten existed.
“Seriously?” she says when I don’t debunk her question. “They’re using your mom’s cosplay? That’s messed up. Why don’t you do anything?”
“What can I do, Sage?” I argue. “If I go to Catherine then they’ll destroy it. And they can’t know that I’m entering the contest too, or they’ll tell Catherine and I won’t be able to go. I can’t win with them. I can never win.”
“But you can’t just let them—”
“I’m not. We’re entering. That’s how I’ll stop them.”
She purses her lips. “All right, fine. We’ll swing by and then head over to my house—Dog! Stop panting so loudly! Ugh. It’s slobbering everywhere.”
The edges of my lips quirk up at the scowl on her face. “It just means he loves you.”
“Mm-hm.” She gives Frank the evil eye and goes back to her magazine.
—
TO ANYONE WHO’S NEVER BEEN IN my house, it can be a little…jarring. Most houses in historic Charleston are beautiful, elegant. They think of the ones on Rainbow Row that are painted in the pastels of the season, lining the Battery like marching petit-fours. But my house is on the edge of the historical district, and though it’s old, it’s too young to qualify as “historical” and too old to be torn down. So it sort of exists in this limbo, with a leaky roof and a creaky front door.
I push open the door and hurry up the stairs. Sage marvels at the foyer, the immaculate wood finish, the chandelier, and the spotless living room. At least that’s what the twins’ friends look at when they first invite them over. They’re all astonished that everything is so tidy, so white, so…
“It’s all so soulless,” comes Sage’s voice as she follows me up the stairs.
I try to think of the best place to hide the con passes. Underwear drawer? No, I’ve already stashed the bus tickets and cash in there. “Catherine likes things clean.”
She wanders down the hallway, with Frank tucked under her arm like a furry football. If Catherine knew that a dog was in her tidy little home, she’d flip. That gives me a mote of satisfaction—she doesn’t know everything. She can’t control everything.
Sage studies the family portraits of Catherine and the twins, lingering a little longer on the ones showing the twins as kids. She cocks her head. “Where’re you?”
“I wasn’t in those,” I reply, glancing around my room. Under the mattress? No, who knows what’s under that.
“Hey, is this the twins’ room? With the two beds?”
“Yeah.” I twirl around my room, searching, searching—until my eyes settle on the framed blue prints of the Prospero. Bingo. I take the frame off the wall and tuck the con passes against the back of it.
“Hey, um, Frank needs to take a leak, so I think I’m heading out.”
“I’ll be out in a minute!”
“Don’t hurry!”
I shake the frame to make sure the passes won’t fall out and then hang it back on the wall. There’s no way they’ll find them there. I wouldn’t find them there. I close the door to my room and hurry through the hallway and down the stairs. I lock up just as Sage comes out from the back of the truck, wiping her hands on her pants.
“Did Frank do his deed?” I ask, rounding to the passenger side.
“Right on your stepmom’s petunias. As I’d hoped.” She hops into the driver’s seat and cranks it up. The engine rumbles to life. “You know, he’s not so bad.”
“Told ya he’d grow on you.”
She adjusts the rearview mirror. “Hmm? Oh, oh yeah.”
I give her a strange look as she pulls out of the driveway and starts off toward her house in North Charleston. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. I’m fine. But,” she adds after a minute, “I do have a question. Those things on Carmindor’s jacket. Those two things.” She motions to her sleeve and I know exactly what she’s talking about. The Federation badges that say what class and what genetic modification you are. Starwings. “Your jacket doesn’t have them. And you don’t have the crown either.”<
br />
“Yeah, those were missing from the trunk.”
“Can we get them online?”
“The starwings, maybe. But the crown…” I shrug, trying to remember how much one goes for on Etsy. “…is the price of a small child.”
“Well my firstborn’s already taken by the Dark Lord, so how about we just make one instead?”
“Make it?” I think she’s joking until I realize that I’m the only one laughing. I clear my throat. “No, no, I don’t think so.”
She drives around a slow economy car, jostling onto the freeway. “Oh come on, I’m sewing your jacket back together. I can work miracles. Can you ask on one of your forums or whatever? Fandoms have forums, right?”
“Yeah we have forums.”
She raises a dark pierced eyebrow.
“I…can try,” I finally cave.
She punches me good-humoredly in the shoulder, making the truck swerve. “I knew you could do it!”
“Hey, eyes on the road!”
Grinning, she turns back to the wheel. I feel for my phone, even though I know Car is working. He’ll be at the con too, won’t he? He had been trying to cancel something, but maybe he never got through.
Would there be a chance of us meeting? Would he even want to meet me? I chew on my bottom lip, nervous. What if he comes to his senses once he sees me? Takes one look and runs for the closest Amara for support?
What if—if we meet—he doesn’t like the real me? It’s easier to be who you want to be when aren’t trying to be who everyone else thinks you are. But why do I care? I hate that I care. I hate that I think about Car when I should be focused on nothing but winning the contest.
I hate that I’m falling for someone I don’t even know.
“WITH THE SOLAR FLUX CAPACITOR BREACHING critical mass, I don’t—I mean, I do—shit.” Calvin/Euci shoves away from me, shark teeth glinting. “What’s my line again?”
I beat his PA to it and intone, “With the solar flux capacitor breaching critical mass, I don’t see any other way, Your Highness.”
Calvin glares at me. “I didn’t ask you. What do you want, extra credit for knowing my lines too?”
I shrug and adjust my collar as he composes himself. The ADR shakes her head, muttering something to the director. Amon nods, checking his watch, before he signals to her again.
“All right, we’ll take an hour. Dinner break!” the ADR shouts at the crew. “And we got barbecue catering tonight! Cal, can you run your lines while you’re at dinner?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters and hops off the stage.
It’s unreal how fast the techs and assistants drop their work and make a beeline for the exit. I sigh, sinking down to the edge of the fake bridge, unbuttoning my jacket collar. The set empties out faster than bleachers during halftime at a high school football game.
A PA comes to take my jacket, but I tell her I can do it myself. She’s older, college age, probably interning for cheap—or no—pay. She thumbs back to the door. “Are you coming to eat at least?”
I give her a thankful smile. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a few.”
When she’s gone, I reach into my jacket and fish out my phone. I’m getting better at hiding it. Not texting as often, doing it on breaks when no one’s watching. It sucks, and I feel like a jerk for not answering Elle quickly. But at least I answer eventually.
Elle 3:02 PM
—Day 2 of Frank the Tank at work is amazing
—He’s such a ham
—[1 attachment]
Elle 4:21 PM
—I think tonight I’ll introduce my friend to the Amara eps.
—Let her cry it out
—Although I’m not sure if she cries
—I mean, I’m going to cry
—Maybe she’s the crying-because-other-people-cry type
Elle 6:32 PM
—Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if she had never saved his ass?
I smirk, because I know the exact answer to that.
7:43 PM
—He probably would’ve died.
—Also hi Sorry for not replying sooner
—Got in trouble for texting at work
“Oh look, it’s the Ice King doing what he does best—being antisocial.”
The sound of Jess’s voice makes me jump. I shove my phone into my jacket and spin around to face her. She’s changed out of her costume, back into yoga pants and a tank top, her dark hair pulled into a ponytail. In her hands are two plates of barbecue.
I lift a brow. “One of those for me?”
She chuckles, sitting down beside me. “I only share with social people.”
“I’m social enough.”
“You totally aren’t, dude.” She hands me a plate anyway. “How’re you supposed to work the crowd if you’re sitting over in a corner texting all day?”
“It’s not my job,” I argue, taking the plate. It smells delicious. Oh and look—she remembered not to put bread or any sort of carbs on my plate. Only protein and greens. I swear, if I can just have one piece of bread, I’ll never lie about my texting habits again. “And genius sells itself, anyway.”
Jess gives me a look. “Watch out, your ego’s showing.”
“It ain’t easy being me.”
“Hm.” She swings her legs back and forth, looking out over the soundstage. “My agent’s in talks with this indie project,” she says after a moment.
“Oh yeah?” I say through a full mouth. “Whassit ’bout?”
“This small-town girl who lives a double life as a deejay. I read the script and it’s good. It’s really good. And I’d be so good in it.”
“You have the talent.” I swallow my food. “I mean, no one can run in heels like you can.”
“Want me to stab you with one?” she threatens. I raise my hands in surrender. “It’s a good project—small but cool, you know? And I’m a perfect fit for the lead.”
But she doesn’t sound happy about it. I study her for a moment.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Starfield,” she says simply.
“I’m…not following.”
She exhales slowly. “Starfield’s the matter. It’s got this huge following—fans are coming out of the woodwork. Those Stargunners. If they rally around this movie, pay attention to it, make it a success…”
Realization dawns. “If there are Starfield sequels, you can’t do that role.”
“It’d conflict with my contract.” She sighs. “I’m already twenty-two, Darien. And a woman. I know you love this, but my expiration date’s coming a little faster than yours. I can’t waste another three years being a space princess. Space princesses don’t win Oscars.” Morosely, she picks at her food, separating the green beans from the barbecue, her lips curved into a frown. “So much for a springboard. Maybe I should just hope it bombs—oh jeez.” She gasps and looks over at me with wide, apologetic eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that. It was word vomit. I know this is your dream role. I’m so sorry. I suck.”
“It’s okay.” I tilt my head up, staring at the dimming orange lights on the set. “When I was younger, I never fit in anywhere. I always felt like that puzzle piece no one knew where to fit it. And then I found Starfield and its fandom”—and Brian—“and I thought for the first time hey, Carmindor’s like me. And now I get to be Carmindor. But what if I’m not cut out to be him after all? What if it does bomb? What if it bombs because of me? You might not have anything to worry about.”
“Seriously? If the screaming banshees outside the lot every day don’t tell you anything—”
“Not them,” I interrupt quickly, frustrated. “The true fans. Like you said, they’re coming out of the woodwork and I don’t think they like me much.”
Jess cocks her head. “You like Batman, right?”
I shrug. “I’m a fan.”
She eats a small bit of barbecue, chewing slowly. That’s how she eats, I’ve realized. She savors little pieces, eating bit by bit, like a bird. “So
who do you like better, Val Kilmer or Christian Bale?”
I scoff. “No one in their right mind likes Val Kil—”
She makes a buzzer sound with her mouth. “Does that mean you aren’t a true fan?”
“What?”
“If you like one Batman over another? Which Batman does a true fan like?”
“I—” I realize what she means. “I guess it depends on the fan.”
Jess nods. “As actors, all we can do is put ourselves in another person for a while and play them the best we can. We’re instruments. We read the notes on the page and interpret them.” She fashions a violin out of thin air and begins to play a slow, moving song, her eyes closed so delicately, I wonder if in another life she once played the instrument.
“I thought you didn’t care,” I tease. “Since it’s not an ‘Oscar movie.’”
She pauses midnote and drops her invisible violin. “I don’t. But like I said, we’re an orchestra, and if you’re out of tune you’ll make me look bad too.” But she can’t meet my gaze.
“Admit it, you like being Amara.”
She mock gasps. “Never!”
“Jessica!” An assistant calls from the exit, her voice echoing in the now-empty warehouse. “Phone call!”
Jess hops off the set so quickly; she must’ve been expecting the call. “For the fans, right?” she says, and hurries out of the lot, grabbing the cell phone from her assistant’s hand as she goes.
I flip out my own phone, remembering blog posts on Rebelgunner. All the scathing comments online. Jess paints a pretty picture of an orchestra, but if we are one, then I’m the first chair violinist…who’s been doused in gasoline and handed a match by the fans to watch me play while going up in flames.
I have a bunch of new messages, all from Elle.
Elle 7:47 PM
—Oh no! Did I get you in trouble??
—I’m sorry!
—I won’t text you as much anymore, promise-sworn!
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