“It’s your escort, Mr. Waterston,” a voice said through the door. “We’ve come to take you down for your spotlight.”
“I’ll get it,” I said. “You go into the bathroom, in case it’s only a group of enterprising fans.”
I slipped the camera into my pocket, opened the door, and peered out at a tall, thin teenaged boy and a tiny, plump woman.
The boy caught my attention first. From the corner of my eye, he looked like Michael—but only for a moment, and partly due to the bad light in the hallway. He wore a homemade reproduction of Michael’s Porfiria costume. In his costume, Michael really looked the part of Mephisto, the Machiavellian sorcerer. The boy looked as if he’d stolen his mother’s velvet dressing gown and decorated it hastily with clumps of glitter and too much glue. From what I’d heard, fans waited eagerly for the moments when Michael threw off his sorcerer’s robe to leap into action, revealing the black leather pants, hip boots, and red sash beneath. I hoped the hotel’s overactive air conditioning would prevent this ersatz Michael from flinging off anything—what little I could see of his chest, when the robe shifted, was as acne-covered as his face.
The woman was dressed as one of Porfiria’s Amazon guard, which meant she wore a chain mail bra, a matching miniskirt, and a pair of black spike-heeled boots. Had she failed to notice that you had to be about six feet tall and rail-thin to carry off that look? I certainly wouldn’t try. And she probably weighed about what I did, which wouldn’t be bad if she were also five ten, like me, but she was closer to five feet even. Still, I had to envy her nerve.
To my right, I could see a similarly clad though larger delegation waiting at the door of the QB’s room. Obviously they had made the mistake of waking her to ask if she wanted to attend Michael’s talk. I could hear her shrieking through the door at them. Did it never occur to the woman that these people were responsible for the show’s success? I smiled at my visitors and invited them in. Some people, at least, knew how to be gracious.
Luckily, despite their strange appearance, our visitors both wore convention volunteer badges, along with the slightly harried and anxious look we’d learned to associate with the volunteers. And for some reason, they stood under a large blue-and-white golf umbrella.
“Aren’t you worried about bad luck, opening that thing indoors?” I asked.
“Yes, but we wanted to protect Michael,” the woman said.
I could tell by the breathy way she said his name that the woman was a Michael fan. Possibly a slightly barmy one. Or was that redundant?
“Protect him from what?” I asked.
“The parrots,” the boy said, gesturing toward the ceiling.
“Parrots?” I echoed. But following his gesture, I could already see that the entire hallway was filled with fluttering, chattering parrots.
Chapter 3
“This is fabulous!” Michael exclaimed.
Not the word I’d have chosen. I’d have gone for interesting. Mother taught us that when we couldn’t say anything nice, we could always call something interesting. The hotel lobby certainly qualified.
Yesterday afternoon, when we arrived, it had looked like what it was—the lobby of a slightly run-down hotel, not a credit to the budget chain that owned it, but not an eyesore, either.
Overnight, someone had transformed it. Probably a small army of someones. Clumps of tropical plants filled every available space—a few of them real, but most fake; everything from authentic-looking silk shrubs to cheap construction paper trees. Plastic and crepe paper vines crawled across the ceiling from one light fixture to another, and the occasional papier mâché snake hung down fetchingly. At least I hoped the snakes were papier mâché.
Through this riotous jungle strolled several hundred people in costume. We saw the occasional Klingon, Vulcan, hobbit, or Imperial Storm Trooper, but most of the milling, babbling crowd wore costumes loosely inspired by the wardrobe they saw each week on Porfiria, Queen of the Jungle. Of course, since the show’s costume budget was as limited as the imagination of its designers, most of the cast wore hand-me-downs from other films or TV shows. If nothing else, the display had the charm of variety. I pulled my digital camera out and began snapping atmosphere shots for the website.
“It’s Amblyopia!” Michael exclaimed, flinging his arms out and accidentally knocking aside the blue-and-white golf umbrella held by his minder. Since at six feet four inches he towered over her, she wasn’t having much luck holding it over his head.
“Whose idea was it to turn all these parrots loose?” I asked.
“It wasn’t anyone’s idea,” the gawky young wizard said. “When we went to bed, they were all in cages.”
Yes, I could see cages, dotted among the fake foliage overhead. Cages whose doors now hung wide open.
“Well, I suppose you could say it was the monkeys’ idea,” the diminutive Amazon said, trying to disentangle the umbrella, which had gotten caught in a philodendron.
“Monkeys?” I echoed.
“We also have monkeys,” she said, as if this were an additional feature rather than another problem. I’d heard much the same thing said about bugs in software—perhaps she had a day job at a computer company.
Just then, a ball of fur fell from a chandelier onto a baby stroller, snatched something from the hand of the child within, and scurried back up a trailing vine.
After a moment of shocked surprise, the child burst into wails, and his mother began complaining loudly to everyone within earshot. The monkey, hanging upside down by one foot and eating a stolen tangerine, watched impassively. I wondered if it was entirely an accident that the monkey dripped juice directly onto the child’s head.
“That’s a spider monkey,” the Amazon said helpfully.
“We also have a few capuchins and marmosets,” the ersatz Michael added, pointing to another corner of the lobby, where Amazon guards of assorted sizes and shapes were poking brooms and floor mops up into the overhanging vines. Nearby, a bellhop perched on a ladder, holding a half-peeled banana, in a vain attempt to lure one of the monkeys closer.
“Fascinating,” Michael said, sounding less enthusiastic this time. Or maybe he was just holding his breath. You could tell by the smell that the monkeys and parrots had been around for a while.
“Apparently the monkey-proof cages weren’t,” the young man said.
“We need to get Michael on stage,” the Amazon said.
They scurried along, clearing a path before Michael. I followed along, snapping photos and trying to be reasonably unobtrusive, since I was the last person the female fans wanted to see. I usually tried to find something else to do while Michael played Mephisto.
This weekend, when I wasn’t wielding the digital camera, I planned to sell my swords and other ironwork in the dealers’ room. Porfiria fans spent vast sums of money at these shindigs, on anything even vaguely related to the show. Surely, after they’d bought their fill of Porfiria action figures and autographed cast photos, a few would have money left to buy real, live swords. Worth a try, anyway, since the experiment would cost next to nothing. My only expense would be half the rental on the booth I’d share with another swordsmith.
I trailed along, watching the various costumed Amblyopians bow to each other and pose for pictures in front of the jungle foliage. I wondered if I had time to duck into the dealers’ room to see my booth. Maybe now would be a good time to check with Alaric Steele, the other swordsmith. But then I saw a sight I’d hoped to avoid.
A semicircle of about twenty fans were snapping pictures of two people in particularly elaborate costumes. The tall, stately blond woman wore an Amblyopian court headdress, designed to let the home viewer tell immediately how important a female guest star was by the number of purple plumes flopping around on her head. This particular headdress had denuded two average-sized ostriches, and its wearer would need someone to carry the ten foot train of her purple brocade dress. Beside her stood a short, round figure clad in the black velvet robes that marked him as a magi
cian, carrying the snake-trimmed staff of one who specializes in the healing arts, and wearing a purple feathered turban that didn’t resemble anything I could recall seeing on the show, but did look rather striking while disguising his bald head.
I tried to disappear into the shrubbery, but the healing magician spotted me and bounded nimbly through the crowd to my hiding place.
“Meg! What do you think!” he said, twirling in front of me.
“Very nice, Dad,” I said. “I see you and Mother were serious about coming to the convention.”
Chapter 4
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Dad said, obligingly striking a pose for a passing camera. Of course not; when had any member of my family ever passed up an opportunity to wear a silly costume in public?
Mother, whose train prevented her from skipping through the crowd, turned and waved from across the room. I noticed that she’d gotten quite good at the sort of genteel wave favored by the British royal family, a barely perceptible twist of the wrist that one could keep up for the entire duration of a parade with minimal risk of repetitive motion injury. And she’d already acquired parrot protection in the form of a purple umbrella.
My ten-year-old nephew, Eric, appeared in front of us, dressed as an Amblyopian knight, though most of his oversized armor looked as if he’d borrowed it from one of his older brothers. At first glance, I thought he was dragging a bundle of spare ostrich plumes behind him, but on closer examination I recognized a small dog, his blackand-white fur almost totally obscured by a headpiece of purple feathers.
“I see you brought Spike,” I remarked, without enthusiasm.
“Grandma says for you to keep him, Grandpa,” Eric said, handing Dad the leash. “I’m going to go carry her dress.”
Eric trotted back to resume his post, and he and Mother swept off toward the ballroom. Eric obviously considered it a point of pride to hold the train as high as possible, and I was relieved to see that Mother, perhaps anticipating this, had accessorized her outfit with only the most elegant frilly purple lingerie.
“Come on, Meg,” Dad said, seizing the leash. “You’ve got to see what I found.”
Spike didn’t seem to mind his change of handlers. He appeared totally absorbed in staring cross-eyed at the plumes over his head and intermittently growling at them. I couldn’t tell if he was moving his feet, or Dad was simply towing him gently across the polished lobby floor.
I followed Dad, trying to keep him from actually thwacking anyone with his magician’s staff, until we arrived at a small side room whose entrance had been decorated to simulate the opening of a small jungle cave. Dad darted inside, ducking low to clear the overhanging foliage, and I followed more slowly.
“Look what I found!” he exclaimed, waving his staff. “This is Salome!”
“That’s nice, Dad,” I said, following his gesture. “But I don’t think Mother will let you keep her.”
Salome was a full grown tiger.
“Fascinating,” Dad murmured, staring into the cat’s eyes.
“Don’t put your hands near the cage,” said a man nearby. Presumably Salome’s keeper.
“No intention of it,” I said, and I got a grip on the back of Dad’s robe, in case Salome’s unwavering stare was having an hypnotic effect.
Salome blinked, and shifted her gaze up to the ceiling, where several monkeys and a parrot perched on the light fixtures, watching her. The monkeys chattered, nervously. I don’t suppose it occurred to the silly things that if they didn’t like sharing the room with a tiger, they could leave—she couldn’t. Salome’s mouth curled back as if she were snarling, but no sound emerged.
I pulled out my camera with the hand that wasn’t holding Dad back and snapped a few quick shots of Salome’s snarl.
Spike suddenly stopped snapping at his plumes and noticed Salome. He burst into growls and barks.
Salome dropped her gaze to Spike. Was I only imagining the mild annoyance in her previously inscrutable amber eyes?
“Don’t let him go,” Salome’s keeper warned. “Salome could kill him with one swipe of her paw, and gobble him up before I could get the cage open.”
“Promises, promises,” I said. I shushed Spike, and he subsided into muted growls.
“Stand back!” the keeper snapped.
“We are,” I said, tugging Dad a little farther away.
“Wasn’t me,” the keeper said, and pointed at a gray parrot perching overhead.
“Stand back!” the parrot repeated, in an uncannily accurate imitation of the keeper’s voice.
“Amazing!” Dad said, shifting his admiration to the parrot. “I would never have guessed that wasn’t you.”
“African Grey,” the keeper said. “They’re the most talented mimics. A cockatoo or an Amazon usually sounds more like your stereotyped ‘Polly want a cracker.’ An African Grey could fool your own mother into thinking it was you.”
I suddenly realized what my own mother would think if Dad brought home a parrot, however talented.
“We should go,” I said, plucking Dad’s sleeve.
Just then the parrot trilled a scrap of Vivaldi in the chirping tones of a cell phone.
“It doesn’t just do voices,” Dad exclaimed, with delight.
“An African Grey can do just about any noise,” the keeper said. “Electronic noises are easy—a lot like the shrieks they use in the wild to communicate with the rest of the flock. I just hope this one’s never heard a car alarm. And I’d appreciate it if you could take the dog away before it learns to do him.”
“Surely it couldn’t learn anything that quickly,” Dad said.
“A talented African Grey can repeat something after one hearing,” the keeper said. “Doesn’t become a permanent part of its repertoire without some kind of reinforcement. Usually repetition…”
He frowned down at Spike, who was still growling repetitively.
“Come on, Dad,” I said. “We’ll miss Michael’s spotlight,”
“Oh, right,” Dad said. “I’ll come back later,” he told the keeper.
Yes and for that matter I planned to come back later myself, and find out why the convention organizers had arranged to have a live tiger as part of the proceedings, and why the tiger’s keeper had agreed to this demented idea.
But for now, we left, with Dad dragging Spike, who continued to growl until we succeeded in pulling him out the door. Then he finally shut up and began prancing along behind us with a jaunty air, as if his barking and not our change of location had caused the tiger to disappear.
The organizers had scheduled Michael’s spotlight in the convention’s main event room—the hotel ballroom, which contained a small stage and several hundred chairs, set up auditorium-style. Mother, of course, had snagged a chair on the aisle, to accommodate her train. Dad and Spike joined her, but I turned down the seat she had saved for me. I preferred standing in the back, where I could escape quickly at the end of the hour.
And where I could survey the crowd, about ninety percent of them in costume. Of course, I was looking at the backs of their heads but, still, I could see a great many purple ostrich plumes and pointed wizard’s hats, along with an astonishing variety of headgear—hennins, wimples, plumed knight’s helms, musketeer’s hats, space suit helmets, and even the odd set of antlers or insect antennae. This meant that as the crowd settled in, debates raged up and down the rows over whether or not people should take off their hats for the benefit of the fans behind them. The fans toward the back of the room also protested the umbrellas and parasols that some people wanted to use as protection from the monkeys and parrots—large numbers of whom, sensing something important afoot, had followed the human crowds into the ballroom and were squabbling noisily overhead for the available space on the crystal chandeliers.
By 8:57, the ballroom was packed. I was close enough to hear the convention security staff—all of them female, and dressed as Amazon guards—turning away latecomers.
“I’m sorry. Due to the fire m
arshal’s regulations, we can’t allow any more people in,” they kept repeating. “You can watch the closed circuit broadcast in the Rivendell Room.”
Closed circuit broadcast? I glanced up and saw that the ballroom boasted a small balcony that doubled as a lighting booth. At the moment, it held not only the lighting techs but also a camera crew, composed of a Klingon in full battle dress and a flying monkey from The Wizard of Oz. The cameras panned across the audience, setting the scene for the fans exiled to the Rivendell Room.
The cameras reminded me to pull out my own little camera and put in a fresh memory card so I could get plenty of photos when Michael took the stage.
I spotted familiar faces, but refrained from waving, since I couldn’t figure out why most of them looked familiar. Were they people I’d met, however briefly? Or after half a dozen of these fan gatherings, had I started to recognize the die-hards?
I was almost relieved to spot one face I definitely knew. Francis, Michael’s agent, stood off to one side, wearing the anxious look that no longer worried me, now that I knew it was his habitual expression. A pity because, as I’d told Michael, on those rare occasions when Francis relaxed enough to smile, he was reasonably attractive in a lanky, aristocratic fashion.
“Is it the long horsy face or the threadbare tweeds?” Michael had countered.
Obviously this wasn’t one of Francis’s relaxed days. I saw him reach into his right jacket pocket and then glance around to see if anyone was watching before slipping something into his mouth.
I sighed and shook my head. Francis had relapsed. Not that it was any of my business, but still. If it was humanly possible to OD on TUMS, one of these days Francis would do it. Should I sic Dad on him?
The crowd began shushing each other when a six-woman contingent of the Amazon security guards marched in and arrayed themselves in front of the stage.
“What the hell is this?” muttered someone to my right.
Chapter 5
I glanced over and saw a small, round-faced man in a business suit standing, like me, against the wall. He stared at the crowd with—no, fascination wasn’t the word. Horror. In college, I’d briefly dated a man who kept a snake. Briefly, because he’d made the mistake of letting me watch him feed his pet. The expression on the small man’s face mirrored what I’d seen when the mouse spotted the snake at the other end of the glass enclosure.
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