The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love

by Sarvenaz Tash

  To his credit, the guy is not a jerk about it. In fact, he seems to listen pretty sympathetically and when he tells me he’s sorry and he understands, he actually seems to mean it. “I really wish there was something I could do, but I honestly can’t. Even I can’t get into this panel,” he says.

  Time to level up. “May I speak to a supervisor?” I ask. I can almost feel the glare of the dozens of Z-men (and that imposter) on line boring through the back of my head right now. I want to tell them that I’m not normally this guy. I’m not the guy at the restaurant who sends food back to the kitchen, or the person who’s rude to the customer service guy on the phone, or the asswipe who posts spoilers on threads without the appropriate warnings. But today . . . today, I have to be. I have to go against my nice-guy, keep-the-peace, avoid-confrontation grain and be confident and forceful. Like a more manly avatar of myself. For Roxy’s sake.

  The curly-haired guy gets on his walkie-talkie, and a couple of minutes later, another staffer with a shaved head and some gauges in his ear approaches us. He doesn’t really look older or more in charge than the curly-haired guy, but his voice does have somewhat more of an edge of authority about it.

  I explain my situation again, and he lets me finish before shaking his head. “I completely understand your frustration, but there is literally nothing we can do. We’ve already spoken to the film studio sponsoring the panel about the situation. I can tell you that they’re trying to come up with a make-good. But as of now, unless you have one of those wristbands with a bar code on it, you can’t even get down this hallway anymore.” He looks over at the small line of people already there and frowns. “Actually, none of these people are even supposed to be here until two thirty.”

  Yikes. I know some of the people in line have been listening to this whole ordeal, and I can feel them shifting around. If they get kicked out of their primo positions because of me, I’ll be a marked man. Not that I’d personally feel bad if Papa Smurf or any of the other bum rush douches lost out on the privilege, but my fight-or-flight instincts are also reminding me of my less-than-buff physique.

  “Thanks for your help anyway,” I mumble before skedaddling out of the hallway and leaving the two staffers to do what they will.

  I mope all the way to the hot dog stand as capes of all colors swish past me. I almost get my eyes gouged out by a selfie stick being flailed around by a guy running after an almost-seven-foot-tall Darth Vader, shouting “Lord Vader!” He finally gets Vader’s attention and snaps the all-important photo with him. Someone stops me to ask if they can take a photo of my costume too. I’m glad I can keep my face in brood mode as they do. After all, it goes with the costume. (I don’t think hunky eighties action stars were contractually allowed to smile.)

  I make it to the hot dog stand around 1:15 p.m. and spend the next ten minutes still trying to come up with a way to make the panel happen, hoping someone’s costume will inspire me. Unfortunately, death rays and samurai swords are useless for problem-solving in the real world, even at Comic Con.

  When Casey approaches me, his face looks about as thunderous as I feel.

  “Look. At. This,” he says through gritted teeth. He holds up his copy of The Walking Dead #1 and shows me an enormous silver streak that is now spread out across Officer Rick Grimes’s ass.

  “What happened?”

  “I waited in line for an hour and three minutes. One hour and three,” he says. “The guy in front of me had a rolling suitcase and he had forty-seven individual covers signed. I counted. And then, then . . .” He takes in a deep breath. “Robert Kirkman signs mine and an assistant next to him takes it from him and hands it to me. And I step away to look at it and . . .” He’s holding the issue so hard as he thrusts it in front of my face that I’m pretty sure he’s doing his own damage to it, a sure sign that he’s legitimately shaken up. “I mean, if I ever need to ID the moron . . .”

  Upon closer inspection, I can see that the silver streak is actually a perfect thumbprint. “Wow,” I say. “You didn’t say anything?”

  “Oh, I tried to get back on the line. But Kirkman’s time slot was already running over and they couldn’t ‘accommodate’ me. Did I mention rolling suitcase guy? And his forty-seven comics? I bet each and every one of them has a freaking perfect autograph on it.”

  “Oh, man. I’m sorry, Case,” I say, shaking my head.

  “I didn’t even make any of my other signings.” He looks around the convention floor morosely. “That’s an excellent Howard the Duck,” he mutters as he points out a costume.

  I look over. He’s right. The white feathers, bill, and leather jacket were put together with extra care. I give the guy a nod of appreciation. Howard the Duck was one of the movies I inherited from my mom’s extensive collection, which was heavily centered on films of the 1980s, and one of the few that Casey seems to like more than Roxana does. Though we’ve all picked up a few of the original comic books since and appreciated it for its irreverent, oddball humor.

  Casey lets out a final sigh, and then I can actually see him regrouping his emotions to focus on the next task at hand. “Where’s everyone else? I’m pretty hungry,” he asks.

  “They should be coming. I left them to go check out the Zinc panel situation. See if there was any way in.”

  “And?” he asks, but he doesn’t seem terribly surprised when I shake my head. “I think it was pretty obvious this morning that we weren’t getting in,” he says in a slightly obnoxious matter-of-fact tone. “You have to let it go, Graham.” Easy for him to say. Sure, Casey gets upset and angry just like everyone else, but his ability to quickly reassess the situation and then move on is slightly inhuman. And, I should add, a little indecent.

  “Let what go?” I hear Roxy’s voice and turn around to see her, Devin, and Felicia approaching us.

  “Oh, the Zinc panel,” Casey answers. “Graham went to see if he could get in.”

  “Oh, is that where you ran off to?” Roxana looks at me.

  “Yeah,” I mutter, feeling kind of pissy toward Casey. I didn’t exactly want to bring it up to Roxana again unless I had miraculously done the impossible and could be suitably revered for it.

  “Yeah, but no dice.” Casey continues his winning streak. “It’s impossible.”

  Roxana sighs. “Figured as much.”

  Thanks a lot, dude, I think as I glare at my friend. Probably unfairly, but it doesn’t matter too much because he doesn’t notice. Picking up on social cues has never been Casey’s strong suit.

  “Well, look, we shouldn’t mope around while the panel comes and goes, right?” Devin says, and I immediately reposition the direction of my glare. “How about we do something so spectacularly fun that we all forget we’re missing Mr. Elusive Comic Book Writer?”

  He asks Felicia if he can look at the schedule she’s holding, and she hands it over. But I notice that even Roxana is looking at him incredulously, and I can’t help but be a little pleased. Maybe she’ll tire of this jerk soon and we can finally lose him.

  “Aha!” Devin says as he looks up triumphantly from the booklet. “I’ve found the perfect thing.” He looks Roxana, Felicia, and then me up and down and grins.

  “Not more speed dating, is it?” I ask.

  “Nope. It’s a costume contest. Starting at two thirty. And I think you, Felicia, and Roxana should enter.”

  Chapter 10

  Dressed for

  Success

  WE WOLF DOWN SOME HOT dogs and pretzels, and then Casey easily and wisely begs off the costume contest, since he has a stringent schedule to adhere to. I consider going off with him. But then I see that Roxana and Felicia seem game to get whisked off by Devin and I decide not to risk leaving them alone again.

  So I reluctantly acquiesce. I like my costume, but I know full well it’s not creative enough to win anything. Anyway, that wasn’t the point when I came up with it (the point was to impress Roxana . . . obviously). There’s no way Felicia is going to win anything as one of the dozens of Wo
nder Women here. I glance over at Roxana and the perfect bandit’s mask she’s painted over her eyes. Maybe she has a chance, I think. But the truth is, people can get pretty elaborate here.

  Case in point: we get stuck behind someone who’s wearing giant eight-foot-tall wings and is having a pretty hard time maneuvering through the crowds. As we follow him at a snail’s pace, it eventually becomes clear that he’s headed to the same room we are.

  It’s one of the bigger conference rooms, similar in size to the speed dating one. But this one is filled with seemingly every instance of spandex, feather, glitter, cardboard, chrome, and sequin that the con has. It’s hard to know where to look.

  A Dalek and a few Doctors (two twelfths, one tenth, and one fourth) are to my right. I count at least two almost complete sets of X-Men. Stormtroopers and Reys stand guard throughout the room. Dozens of soldiers wearing white pants and tall, strappy boots herald the Attack on Titan congregation. Wildly colored wigs assure that the rest of the manga crowd is appropriately represented. A headless horseman towers at least two feet above everybody in the room. It’s pure madness.

  “Graham! Look who the judges are,” Roxana says, and I turn to where she’s pointing. I see some reality star that I think is a Real Housekeeper or something, and then an obnoxious stand-up comedian I don’t much care for. I’m confused until the Housewife sits down and her voluminous hair reveals the small, bearded guy behind her.

  “Emmett Shah!” I grin. He’s one of my favorite writers, and I hadn’t realized he was going to be here.

  “Oh, excuse me! I need to get my friends on there.” Devin is motioning to a staffer who’s walking around with a clipboard, getting everyone who wants to participate in the contest to sign up.

  “Sure thing.” The staffer smiles at him as she hands the clipboard over. Devin asks both Felicia and Roxana to spell their last names before turning to me. “And your last name?”

  I look down at my clothing. “It’s okay. I really don’t think my costume is good enough for this.”

  “Sure it is,” Devin says at the same time that Roxana chimes in with, “Of course it is.” They look at each other and grin like coconspirators. Great.

  “His last name is Posner. P-o-s-n-e-r,” Roxana supplies to Devin, who fills it in.

  “All of you need to show off your work,” Devin says as he nods.

  “Definitely. And you can meet Emmett Shah, Graham!” Roxana exclaims. The girl does speak the truth.

  Well, the one good thing to come out of this is that we soon get separated from uncostumed Devin as we’re whisked into lines for each of our categories. Felicia gets sent to the Superheroes line, while Roxana and I end up in the Sci-Fi line. There are also lines for Anime/Manga, Fantasy, Video Games, and a catch-all Miscellaneous line, where I see that the winged creature we were originally following has ended up.

  As I get in line next to her, I can’t help but be reminded of the years Roxy and I spent trick-or-treating together. Our costumes ranged from the store-bought and sort of lazy (there were definitely Hogwarts robes for at least a couple of years) to obscure sources of pride. In seventh grade, the last year we took to the streets to score some candy, we dressed as Charlie and Althena—though with less attention to detail than we’ve paid today. It was the year we both discovered Zinc. No one except for Casey really figured out who were supposed to be, but we didn’t care. We were totally smitten with our new obsession, and we spent more time trying to remember lines of dialogue from Charlie and Althena’s Halloween meeting than knocking on doors.

  “Uncanny,” Charlie keeps saying as he stares and stares at Althena’s Pris costume.

  “Does that word mean something different every time you say it?” Althena asks, genuinely curious about how human language works.

  But Charlie assumes she’s just teasing him. “Sorry,” he replies. “It’s just . . . are you sure you’re not actually Daryl Hannah?”

  And now Roxana stands beside me again, dressed specifically as Althena-as-Pris, and I know, in a way that twelve-year-old me could never have imagined, exactly how Charlie felt: a whirlpool of unbidden emotions, of excitement and fear and novelty churning just beneath the surface of my skin. Only, instead of meeting someone new, it’s been like having a switch turned on, shedding light on something—and someone—that’s actually been there the whole time but is just now being revealed for all that it is.

  At the front of our line, a short girl with a cloud of curly hair, wearing an NYCC staff T-shirt, explains the rules of the costume contest in a mumbled monotone. “You will go up in groups of ten and you will each stand in front of the judges for ten seconds. At this point, feel free to strike whatever poses you feel show your costumes to best advantage,” she says . . . I think. It’s not super easy to hear her above the din of six other staffers giving the same speech. Especially since her hair seems to catch most of her consonants.

  Then I hear something about being rated, something about adding up scores . . . mumble, mumble, mumble . . . “and that’s how we announce the winner!” She says this last part in the loudest and most enthusiastic tone I’ve heard from her yet. Probably because her speech is over.

  “What?” I ask Roxana.

  “I seriously have no idea,” Roxana replies. “I think I caught four words of that.”

  A guy in front of us who’s dressed in a lovingly made Predator costume helpfully chimes in. “She said we go up in groups of ten, then get rated from one to ten in each group by each judge. The numbers get added up, and the top three from each group make it to the next round. It goes on like that until there’s only one winner from each group, and then those group winners go into the finals. But there are prizes for winning your group as well as the final.”

  “Wow,” I say as I stare up at his imposing figure, unable to tell if he’s on stilts or really just that tall. “You heard all that through your mask?”

  He lightly taps his steel-gray face covering, which actually does sound like it’s made of metal, and shrugs. “I’ve worn this thing so much, I think it’s heightened my senses.”

  “Apropos,” I say, thinking of the technologically evolved alien he’s portraying.

  “Indeed,” he agrees. “Ah, I thought you were Mad Max for a second,” he adds. “But now I see the ear. Oh, both of you. Good ones.” He indicates Roxy.

  I nod and smile. It’s usually good to meet fellow Althenians. You know, when they’re not cutting in front of you in a highly important line and destroying your life in the process.

  We’re getting herded onstage now, and Predator turns back around to see where he’s walking.

  “Let’s do this!” Roxana says before putting up her hand for a high five. I give her one.

  Our group of ten gets evenly dispersed onstage and told again that we can do whatever poses we like. Predator lifts his claws and roars. He definitely has practiced that before. I kind of just stand there. Althena doesn’t really have any poses, per se. But then I see what Roxana is doing and I laugh.

  She’s aerobicizing—what Althena’s subpar Homo Sapiens Studies class assured her all humans do for both recreation and exercise. She’s alternating between performing high knee kicks and throwing her hands out rhythmically.

  “Come on, Graham!” she yells.

  God help me, I cannot resist anything this girl asks of me. And so I fall into rhythm beside her, following her moves like she’s Richard Simmons and I’m the Prancercise lady trapped in a gangly teenager’s body.

  “Thank you! Please step off the stage and we’ll notify the three of you who made it to the next round,” a staffer on a microphone says.

  “I can’t believe you made me aerobicize in front of Emmett Shah!” I try to chide Roxy, but I know she can hear the laughter in my voice.

  “You cannot half-ass a Comic Con costume contest,” she responds.

  “One, two . . .” An NYCC staffer pulls us out of the line and then goes down a few people to get someone in a very elaborate half-HAL, half-Dav
e costume (astronaut helmet and a wide-eyed stare from the front, and a sinister-looking large red dot attached to the back of his head). “Three,” the staffer said. “You guys have made it to the next round. Please go line up on that side of the room.”

  Predator congratulates us before sauntering off with the rest of our line.

  “Wow, really?” I’m kind of stunned as I walk over with our 2001 companion.

  “Why are you surprised?” Roxana asks. “We look pretty amazing.” She winks at me.

  I look over and see that Felicia is also miraculously standing over by the wall of winners from her group. I can’t help but shake my head. Even a Comic Con costume contest can become a beauty pageant in the end.

  We go through the whole process again, and I actually make it to round three before I’m eliminated. Roxana goes on to the next round. I find Felicia on the reject side and she tells me she only made it to round two.

  We cheer as Roxana continues to Flashdance-jog her way into the judges’ hearts. She gets eliminated in the fifth round, one to go before the final.

  “You were robbed!” I yell when she walks over to us.

  She shrugs good-naturedly. “I can’t beat that guy’s HAL impression. I’m not entirely sure that’s not the actual guy who plays him in there!”

  I consider the costume again. The kid’s face behind the astronaut helmet doesn’t look any older than twenty. “If HAL has found the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

  “A robot with the power of eternal youth?” Roxana asks. “Seems kind of redundant.”

  I shake my head. “A robot with the power to dangle eternal youth in front of the lowly humans he seeks to control.”

  “Ah!” she says, and nods. “Got it. Terrifying.”

  As it turns out, HAL/Dave is not the final winner from our group either. That honor goes to someone dressed as Serenity, the ship from Firefly, complete with a working gangway.