The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love

by Sarvenaz Tash

  “I’ll come with you to that,” I say firmly. “And I think Roxana wants to get a sketch from her. I’ll be out quickly.”

  I duck into a thankfully empty stall and make quick work of putting on my costume. I’m going to be one of the versions of Althena, Zinc’s shape-shifting alien, who was inspired by Althena’s eighties sci-fi movie marathon. I’m Mad Max, and yes, I am wearing black pleather pants. I bought them from Hot Topic, and though they are a little tough to tug on, I don’t think they actually look too bad on me. I may have even tried a tongue-out, devil’s-horns-up full rocker pose in the store’s fitting room mirror when I first tried them on. I’m sure I gave some bored security guard a laugh.

  After the pants, I put on a belt, a black leather jacket with one sleeve, and a cheap leg brace I bought off the Internet. Then I head out of the stall to take a look at myself in the mirror.

  Not bad. The only thing I need to differentiate me from Mel Gibson’s character—besides about fifty pounds of muscle—is a sea-green left earlobe. It’s the only part of Althena she’s unable to change, where she keeps her selfness, no matter whom she looks like. I dab some makeup on my ear, give myself a final once-over in the mirror, and head out.

  The girls still aren’t out, of course, and Casey is frowning at his watch. I’m about to tell him not to worry about the time, that Roxana is just as anxious as he is to see as much as possible, when she reappears and makes it a moot point.

  I grin as soon as I see Roxy, the first time I’ve felt compelled to do so since we lost out on the wristbands. I don’t know how she managed to do it in so short a time, but Roxana is dressed as one of the most famous iterations of Althena, the one she takes on when Charlie Noth meets her in the very first issue. Roxy has on a shaggy blond wig, a short black dress with mesh sleeves, sheer black holey leggings, and a beaded choker. She’s painted a thick black rectangle across her eyes, like a bandit’s mask, and her left earlobe is, of course, green. Althena came to Earth having seen snippets of Blade Runner growing up and being told that Daryl Hannah’s replicant character was what humans dressed like. Luckily, she arrived on Halloween and was merely congratulated on her pitch-perfect costume by most people, including the instantly smitten Charlie Noth. And the rest was twenty-four issues of perfection. Just like the perfect girl standing in front of me now.

  “ ‘Uh, h-hello. Hi. Greetings. H-hi,’ ” I stammer.

  Roxy grins as she recognizes the first line of dialogue Charlie ever says to Althena, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t using Charlie’s slack-jawed admiration to mask my own. Roxana looks phenomenal.

  “ ‘Salutations. Good evening. Nice to meetcha.’ ” She provides Althena’s next line. “Great costume.” That one is her own as she looks me over.

  “You too.”

  “Ready?” Felicia says as she comes bounding out of the bathroom; she’s dressed like Wonder Woman. I should have expected that.

  “To Lacey?” Roxana asks.

  “Let’s do it,” I respond as we head toward Artist Alley.

  “Just don’t forget. At eleven, we all have to follow me,” Felicia chirps, jauntily striding across the floor in her small, patriotic shorts and knee-high red boots.

  “What?” I ask. I have no idea what she could possibly be talking about.

  “I signed us all up for something. It’s a surprise,” she says. “So we can go stand in line for whosy-whatsit to sign whatever right now, but at eleven, you’re all mine for an hour.”

  Casey gawks at her back, and I already know exactly what he’s thinking: that Felicia, for all her smarts and her charm, is completely out of her mind if she thinks she has any pull over his deeply thought-out schedule.

  Regardless, we all get in line for Lacey Grotowski’s signing, and it takes about forty minutes before we reach the front. Casey purchases the first issue of Lacey’s new series and gets it signed. “Is it any good?” he asks Lacey cluelessly as he gives it to her.

  She looks at him archly, but smiles. “Hope so,” she replies gamely as she signs her name on the cover with a gold pen. Casey just nods.

  When it’s Roxana’s turn, she also buys the first issue and then whips out a big red sketchbook from her backpack. “Would I be able to purchase a sketch from you?”

  “Of course,” Lacey responds, taking the book. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Althena,” Roxana responds.

  Lacey starts flipping through the book and sees the dozen or so other sketches that Roxana has already collected, all from different artists, all different iterations of Althena.

  “Niiice!” Lacey says. She points to a section of her right arm, which has a full sleeve tattoo proudly on display, and taps at a stylized E immersed in what looks like a fishbowl. It’s the emblem for Althena’s planet, Ezula. “You picked the right girl for the job.”

  Roxana smiles. “Oh, I know,” she says before secretly glancing over at me. I know she’s dying to get an Althena tattoo herself the minute she turns eighteen and doesn’t need parental permission.

  “Are you guys going to see Zinc later?” Lacey asks, and my heart sinks, the catastrophe in the forefront of my mind again. Without even realizing it, I glance over to a far corner of Artist Alley, where my map of the Javits holds a red heart in lieu of an X. That was supposed to mark the spot where I professed everything to Roxy. I swallow hard.

  “We were supposed to,” Casey answers for us darkly. “But then a bunch of jerks had no respect for the line we staked out all night.”

  “Ugh, that sucks!” Lacey responds. “I hate when shit like that happens.”

  Casey nods.

  “I won’t be able to go either, unfortunately. I have another signing scheduled just at that time.” She turns to Roxana and taps on the sketchbook. “Any particular version of Althena?” Lacey asks as she takes a Post-it and writes Althena’s name on it.

  “Artist’s choice,” Roxana says.

  “Awesome,” Lacey says. “I’ll make it a good one, I promise. Pencil, ink, or color?” She points to the side, where there’s a price list for her sketches: $30 for pencil, $50 for inked, and $80 for full color.

  Roxana hesitates for a moment but then responds firmly. “Let’s go with inked.”

  Lacey jots it down. “Is it okay for you to pick the book back up at four?”

  “Definitely. Thanks!” Roxana says as we all leave Lacey’s table.

  “Perfect timing,” Felicia says as she glances at her watch. “Follow me, guys.”

  “Felicia, where—” Roxana starts, but Felicia doesn’t give her a chance to continue. She forges ahead and gets swallowed by a large mass of people. Roxana immediately hurries to catch up to her, and I have no choice but to follow them. Casey mumbles something about heading in that direction anyway as he falls into step beside me.

  We weave our way through superheroes, wizards, and mustachioed plumbers as we go to the escalators and head down one level. Then Felicia swooshes down a long hallway, at the end of which I know some panels are taking place. What kind of Comic Con panel could Felicia possibly be interested in—Advanced Techniques in Hair Braiding? How to Match Your Eye Shadow to Your Cape?

  I admit I’m curious as we advance toward the rooms in the back, but then we suddenly stop short in the middle of the hallway.

  “Here we are,” Felicia announces, pointing to a sign next to a set of double doors.

  It reads: SPEED DATING.

  “I read about it online, and I signed us all up,” Felicia says brightly as she leads us to the back of the long line of people waiting outside the doors.

  I laugh and turn to look at Roxana, waiting for her to guffaw with me. But instead, I see her looking carefully at the people in the line. As if she’s checking them all out.

  “Um, Felicia,” I say, panic starting to set in, “you can’t be serious.”

  “Won’t it be fun?” Felicia responds, either not getting my tone or choosing to ignore it.

  “Definitely a fun idea,” Rox
ana says. “Nice job, Felicia.” Roxana grins at her.

  I stare at Roxana agape, and then I turn to Casey, my ally. Obviously, we are not doing this, and maybe he can help me find an excuse in his schedule for Roxana to not do this either.

  But I see Casey looking rather intently at the line and a short redheaded girl dressed like Princess Zelda. Jesus, what is it with him and redheads?

  As he’s about to get on the end of the line without protest, I finally turn to Felicia. “Felicia, there is no way you want to date any of these people,” I say, indicating the costumed crowd surrounding us, “is there?”

  Felicia takes a good, hard look, and for a second, I think she might actually be reconsidering. But then she just smiles. “Why not? Maybe it’s time I broaden my horizons. Roxana is always telling me to go for a nerd,” she says playfully. “She says they’re nice and they’ll treat me well.”

  Really? Roxana said that?

  But that couldn’t have been in relation to me, right? Otherwise, Felicia wouldn’t be bringing her here to meet other nerds.

  Maybe spending the past few weeks chickening out from discussing this further with Felicia was not in my best interest after all.

  But as the line starts to move with all of us on it, I realize that it’s too late to do anything about that now.

  Chapter 7

  Speed

  Hating

  A GIRL WITH A CLIPBOARD has come over and checked off our names. We are now all headed inside the giant conference room and being herded to one side, where a white piece of copy paper with the word Teens on it is stuck on the wall. There are rows and rows of large cafeteria tables with their attached benches set up in the room.

  This is really happening.

  I glance nervously over at Roxy and she grins nervously back at me.

  “Looks kinda like the Great Hall at Hogwarts,” she says, indicating the tables.

  I nod. And, for a mad second, I wonder if this will somehow let me speed date her. Can I take those three minutes to tell her how I feel? Is this how it was meant to happen? And did Felicia, like, mastermind it that way?

  Within a moment, my hopes are dashed. The girl who checked our names off is splitting us up into color-coordinated groups. I’m orange, Roxana is purple, Casey and Felicia are both blue. There are about six teen groups in all, two of them for same-sex couples and the rest for boy-girl pairings. We get escorted to our respective tables, and I begrudgingly sit down on the boys’ side. Roxana is clear across the room. She’s facing me, and all I can see are the backs of the guys who are about to get a chance to talk to her on a date. Because that’s what this is. It’s right there in the title.

  I stare at the orange cutout heart that’s decorating the middle of my table, and I almost wish I could take it and replace my own with it. Being in love is so complicated, I don’t think I ever fully realized how insane and intense it can make everything feel—and not necessarily in a good way. “Like punching a brick wall with your heart in your fist. Bloody. Messy. Painful” is how Charlie Noth once described it.

  A minute later, a serious-looking girl with magenta-rimmed glasses and a purple streak in her hair sits down in front of me. She’s clutching a small packet of papers to her chest and studying it intently.

  “Okay, folks. This is how this is going to work.” The girl with the clipboard is standing in front of a microphone and what looks like a large ceremonial gong. “There are twenty people for everyone to meet today within each group. You get three minutes with each person. When you hear the gong, everyone on the left side of the table is going to slide down one place to their right. Three minutes. And then gong. Rinse and repeat for the full hour. Everyone got it?”

  Her question is met with a nervous silence, which seems to satisfy her. “There are paper and pencils in the middle in case anyone wants to exchange information at the end of your dates. And now, let’s make some love matches!” She takes a mallet and hits the center of the gong, which reverberates with its unmistakable sound.

  Immediately, the room is filled with an uproar of chatter.

  “Okay, first of all, My Little Pony,” the girl in front of me says brusquely. “Thoughts?”

  “Um . . .”

  “Do you watch it?” she asks quickly.

  “Uh . . . I’ve seen a few episodes,” I reply. Which is true. I was curious about the cult aspect of it.

  “How many is a few?” she asks, her eyes narrowing.

  “Like . . . three. Maybe?”

  She bristles, looks at the top sheet of her papers, flips it over, studies the second sheet, and then looks back up at me.

  “So do you even know the characters?”

  “You mean by name?”

  “Name, appearance, function in Ponyville, et cetera.”

  “Um . . . isn’t one of them Sparkle . . . something?” I attempt.

  She shakes her head. “Right. So, not a brony.” She looks up at me. “Sorry, this isn’t going to work.”

  Then she looks back down at her packet, takes out a pen, and starts to make notes on what I’m beginning to suspect is a My Little Pony questionnaire. She looks really into it, like it would be rude to interrupt her, and before I know it, there’s a BONG.

  Without taking her eyes off the paper, the girl slides down to her right, and a very petite blonde takes her place. She at least starts out by smiling at me.

  “Hi,” I say.

  Her mouth opens and it looks like she’s saying the word hi back, but I can’t hear her for the life of me.

  “Sorry, it’s so loud in here.” I raise my voice a little to be heard over the din. “I’m Graham.”

  Her mouth opens again and this time it looks like lots of words come out, but once again, I hear nothing.

  “Sorry, could you repeat that?” I ask, leaning forward.

  But I swear she must be on mute. Not a single syllable of her conversation gets over to me. I begin feeling self-conscious about the number of times I say “sorry,” so at some point, I just start nodding. She beams at me. And when the sound of the gong comes, she slips something across the table to me before moving over. I look down. It’s a piece of paper that says Penny, followed by her phone number.

  “Sorry, I don’t do gingers,” a loud voice booms, and I look up to see a pretty but intimidating girl sporting a lip ring and staring at my hair.

  “Um, okay . . . ,” I start.

  She stares at me. “But you do have really nice eyes. Could you take your glasses off?”

  She is commanding, and I don’t even think twice about doing exactly what she says. She leans over and blinks in my face.

  “Really nice. What color would you say they are?”

  “Um . . . blue?”

  She tilts her head at me thoughtfully. “Sort of a stormy blue. Really unusual.” She indicates for me to put the glasses back on. “I like those, too. Very Clark Kent/Superman.”

  I almost blush. The black-framed glasses are new and they sort of cost a fortune. But I replaced my wire-rimmed glasses for specifically that reason: because Roxana has a comic book crush on Clark Kent.

  “Sorry, though. The ginger thing is still a deal breaker.”

  BONG.

  A girl dressed like SpongeBob SquarePants sits across from me and proceeds to talk for the entire three minutes without asking me a single question.

  BONG.

  A tough-looking girl tells me she’s a wrestler and won’t date guys who are shorter than six-three or weigh less than 250.

  BONG.

  A pretty brunette with a nice smile introduces herself as Louisa and actually reaches over to shake my hand. But then she immediately looks apologetic.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  “Let me guess, you don’t do gingers either,” I say, flicking at my hair.

  She laughs. “No, that’s not it. It’s just . . . I’m in love with someone else.”

  Well, finally. Someone I have something in common with.

  “He’s over there
at the purple table,” she says, turning slightly in her chair to look. “I thought maybe this would make him jealous.”

  My own eyes flick over to the purple table, and I immediately pick out Roxana. A guy with dark hair sits across from her and she laughs at something he says. I scowl.

  “Sorry. I know it’s stupid!” Louisa says, thinking the scowl is for her.

  I shake my head. “No, not stupid. In fact, I know exactly how you feel.”

  “Really?” She brightens. “Isn’t it awful?”

  “Kinda,” I agree.

  “And I guess kinda exhilarating,” she says. “I mean, I’ve never been in love before.”

  “Me neither. But now I sorta understand pop songs. It’s definitely weird.”

  “Yes!” Louisa declares. “Why is Z100 suddenly playing the soundtrack to my mind?”

  “Whoa. Doubly cruel.”

  She smiles.

  BONG.

  She sighs. “Guess I made my bed with this one,” she says as she slides down a seat and wishes me good luck before she turns unenthusiastically to her new partner.

  “You too.”

  I notice something immediately about the girl who sits in front of me now. It’s on her wrist, it’s paper, it’s silver, and it says ZINC on it.

  I stare wide-eyed at her.

  “Hi,” she says. She’s black, with a smattering of freckles on her nose, and her dark hair is in a thick braid over her shoulder. There’s a bright red streak in it.

  “Um . . . ,” I start, before I realize I really have nothing left to lose. “Hi, I’m Graham. Is there anything I can do to get that wristband from you?” I point to it.

  She bursts out laughing. “Sense of humor—check.”

  “I’m serious,” I mutter.

  “Okay, then never mind,” she says. “Deranged—check.” She stares at me. “I’ll have you know I waited all night for this wristband.”

  “Me too,” I say darkly.

  “Ohhhh.” Understanding dawns in her eyes. “Were you one of the ones who got screwed ’cause of the bum rush?”