Queen Geeks in Love

by Laura Preble

  So we’re watching this flick, and the Gila monster in question (a vision in pink-and-black pin dots, according to the sheriff) has an appetite for model railroads and drunks. Whenever the locals hit the bars and drive home, this monster appears suddenly in their headlights and spooks them into driving off the road. The last shot of every character is when the Gila monster stomps them with one big webbed foot; then everything goes black.

  After yet another town boozer is squished, Amber says, “Maybe he’s just trying to keep the freeways safe.”

  Becca nods as she shovels in another piece of fudge. “Nobody ever understands the monster.”

  “Speaking of,” Elisa says. “What about Fletcher?”

  “What about him?” I answer.

  “Are you guys just dating or getting serious? Or is it all simply falling apart?” She rolls onto her tummy and strikes a terrified B-movie pose. “It all seemed so romantic, but then it all went sour, like a monster had stomped on her heart!”

  “Very poetic,” Amber says, laughing. “Keep your day job.”

  “I don’t have a day job. That’s why I obsess about the lives of others.” Elisa sits up and fixes me with a wide-eyed, manic stare. “Are you and Fletcher going to get really serious?”

  “Serious?” I ask. “As in…”

  Elisa grins and shrugs her shoulders. “As in getting married, having kids, buying a house, going into debt. You know, the American dream.”

  “I’m a little bit young to be getting a mortgage.” I lean into the couch cushions. “What about you, Elisa? Maybe we should work on getting you a guy.”

  “No, no.” She shakes her head vigorously. “There’s enough drama in this group already.”

  Elisa is a funny addition to the group, really; she’s kind of nasty sometimes, without meaning to be. It’s kind of like when you eat those sour candies, the ones that sort of bite your tongue when you suck on them; Elisa is tart, and brutally honest, but there’s something about her sourness that adds the right spice to the group. And without her Palm Pilot skills, we’d be hopelessly disorganized.

  Elisa fixes her heat-seeking gaze on Amber. “So, Amber. What about Jon?”

  “Hmm?” Amber stares innocently into her bowl of popcorn.

  “Are you serious about him?” She waves a hand in front of Amber’s down-turned face. “Hello? Are we going to be seeing a double wedding in the spring?”

  Becca snorts. “Elisa, what is the big deal? Nobody’s getting married. Jon and Amber haven’t even gone out on a date.” She looks to Amber for confirmation of this, and again, Amber studies the kernels as if a magic answer will appear. “Oh.”

  Elisa ignores her and continues. “I’m just concerned about all these hormones. Because here’s my hunch: If you all get boyfriends, this club will sink faster than a concrete turd.”

  “Nice imagery,” Becca answers. “Classy.”

  Euphoria, the resident expert on all things romantic, has to weigh in, of course. “All human beings have the need to mate, you know.” She buzzes with something like excitement. “It’s all part of the need to keep the species going. Mechancials don’t have that problem. We can always make more of our own kind.”

  “Well, so could we, if we hadn’t paid attention in health class,” Elisa says. “It might just take a little more effort and perhaps a nice dinner.”

  Eventually, Elisa drops the whole dating interrogation, Euphoria douses the lights, and we curl up in our respective piles of blankets. As I stare up at the ceiling and listen to Becca snore (she never has trouble falling asleep), I think about Fletcher. Again. It’s so annoying. I don’t want to think about him, really, but his face pops up in front of my eyelids whenever I have two minutes of downtime. We had that romantic date, I burned fudge and got disoriented, so isn’t that what love is all about? I don’t know.

  We get up so early the next morning that it’s still dark out, which is kind of a sin in the summer. But this is Comic-Con day, so we have to get ready, put on our costumes, and go downtown to stand in line with all the other geeks. Dad has agreed to take us, even though he hates getting up early more than I do.

  Euphoria is, of course, perky as ever since she doesn’t need to sleep. I smell buttermilk pancakes and bacon; Elisa waves her hands frantically. “If I eat anything, this spandex is gonna blow,” she says. But I see her sneak a piece of bacon, and I think she probably inhaled a pancake or two. Euphoria is a great cook.

  By about seven, we’re ready. The whole event doesn’t open til ten, but you just have to go early anyway. Somebody once made the point that if you waited til ten-thirty you could just walk right in, but where’s the fun in that?

  Dad grumbles about taking us, of course. “I don’t understand why you have cauliflower on your head,” he says over coffee. “What is it you’re supposed to be again?”

  “Vege-tastic.” I swing the asparagus-dreadlock green wig out of my way. It’s already hot and I’m not even walking around. “We’re all geek superheroes, remember?”

  “So why does Elisa look like the Joker from Batman? Is her superpower doing bad sequels or something?”

  Elisa shoots him a dirty look as she snatches a pancake. “I just hope the graphic novel doesn’t make me look like an idiot. I never did get to see it. Did any of you?”

  Amber waves, embarrassed. “I did.”

  “You did?” Becca says sharply. “When?”

  “Uh,” Amber stutters, then accidentally-on-purpose spills maple syrup. “Oh, let me get a paper towel. Sorry about that.”

  “Was it good? The comic book, I mean,” Elisa continues, oblivious to the fact that Amber is trying to avoid the subject.

  “Yeah,” Amber mumbles as she blots at the brown, sticky blob on the table. “It’s actually a really funny story. I think Jon should do pretty well at the amateur table. Maybe he can make some good connections.”

  “Sounds like he already made at least one,” Elisa says loudly.

  We all get our stuff together, get our badges (Dad picked them up early…what a sweetie!) and we truck down the freeway, four cosmetically perfect superheroes crammed into a Volvo. “Make sure your vegetation doesn’t dent the ceiling,” my dad cautions as my cauliflower headdress pokes into it.

  When we finally get to the convention center, we all tumble out of the car proudly wearing our badges. “I’ll pick you up right here at seven,” Dad says. Knowing Dad, that means more like eight, so I know we have a lot of time. “Right here, by this potted plant,” he says, motioning to a planter.

  “I’ll be sure to wear a carnation or something so you recognize me,” Elisa says, waving as she scampers across the street with Becca and Amber close behind.

  I lean in to give Dad a kiss, leaving a green streak on his face. “That’s actually a good color on you,” I say, dabbing at the makeup with the hem of my tea-towel skirt. He grabs my wrist as I try to leave. “Listen,” he says. “Be careful in there.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to the prison open house.” I try to retrieve my wrist, but he doesn’t want to let go. “What’s up, Dad?”

  He stares up at me, squinting into the sun. “I’m kind of afraid to let you go to someplace like that all by yourself. It’s easy to get lost.”

  “I have my Geektastic sisters. They’ll protect me. We have a circle of power.” I laugh, but he doesn’t. “Oh, c’mon. You aren’t seriously afraid about me going in there, are you?”

  He laughs nervously. “I know it’s silly. You’re just…young. I worry.”

  I kiss him again, and this time I leave the green streak. “I promise I won’t run away and get married or anything.”

  “Deal.” The other girls are waiting for me impatiently, so I run across the street (carefully checking for traffic, of course). Dad stays at the curb, watching us cross at the light with a sea of other people. I look back once we reach the convention center; he’s still sitting there, watching me.

  I don’t want to think about my dad, or his issues, so I just let
myself bask in the glory of weirdness that is Comic-Con. To get a sense of this event, picture every quirky/strange/ bizarre person you ever met. Now picture them all mixed together into a stew of weirdness and shiny plastic. That’s Comic-Con. There’s a great feeling when you’re walking in with a tidal wave of other geeks; it’s like you’re not alone in the world. It’s okay to have a burning need to collect action figures even if you’re an accountant with three kids, or to strap on a lightsaber even if you’re an Eagle Scout, or to have a Magic card slap down with your gym teacher. All geeks are equal here. Geek-qual, if you will.

  We get quite a few looks because of our costumes, which is great. If you can get someone to look at you at Comic-Con, you’ve done something right. We scurry up the stairs and into the center, where the exhibit hall beckons. This is where everybody with geek wares sets up shop and sells everything you can imagine. Clothes, jewelry, art, comic books, toys, everything from the free (what they call “swag”) to the incredibly cheap (six dollar anime posters) to the massively expensive (I see a teeny piece of paper framed that costs $500. No kidding. Some lithograph thing…pretty, but it’s still paper, come on!)

  The greatest compliment comes about ten minutes in, when a total stranger asks us to pose for a picture. That means our costumes are awesome, or at least so weird that someone notices. Becca sort of takes the lead in walking us around the exhibit floor. Walking, by the way, is a great challenge, because there are so many bodies in this place that no one moves very fast, and there’s so much to look at that you can’t watch your feet or where you’re going. This results in quite a few bruised heels and scuffed up Stormtrooper boots.

  We scan the program and map, and locate the amateur graphic novel table, which is planted at the far end of the cavernous hall. It takes us about twenty minutes to walk there, and in that time, I calculate that I stab at least six people with my cauliflower head.

  Jon is sitting behind the table, talking to a scruffy-looking guy in a flannel shirt. “Jon!” Amber yells and waves. He lights up when he sees her, which I know is going to result in a Smart-tastic/Art-tastic showdown at some point. Oh, well.

  “Let’s see the book,” Becca says, all business.

  “Good morning to you too,” Jon says sarcastically as he hands her a copy of The Geektastic Four. It’s printed on thin paper, and the cover is only three colors, but it still looks pretty good. I have to admit that it feels pretty flattering having my face on a comic book, even if I do look like a green salad.

  “I’m gonna hang out here for a while,” Jon says. “Fletcher’s meeting me here in an hour, and then we can all go to the website contest.”

  “Sure,” Becca says coldly. “We’ll see you then.” She stalks off, a giant pissed-off librarian. The rest of us wave to Jon and the scruffy comic guy, and I notice that Amber steals a little peck on the cheek from Jon before joining us.

  After nearly three nonstop hours of listening, preening, gawking, and trying to pee without totally undressing ourselves, we decide to break for lunch, another challenge. The food is expensive, and we don’t want to spend our money on it. We decide to split a soft pretzel four ways. But we do spring for the extra cheese sauce.

  While propped against a wall near the escalator, with my wilty-asparagus dreadlocks dipping annoyingly into my cheese sauce, I notice something odd, even for Comic-Con: a very, very tall somebody in a white rabbit suit. “Check that out,” I say, wiping the fake cheese from my chin.

  “Hmmm.” Becca squints at the bunny, who is trying, without the benefit of opposable thumbs, to open the pages of a comic. “Interesting. Greg the Bunny fan?”

  “I don’t think so.” Elisa fishes for a bottle of water and takes a long chug from it. “I don’t think Greg the Bunny is white, is he?”

  “Are you a racist or something?” Amber chuckles. “Color doesn’t matter. All bunnies are furry on the inside.”

  “Don’t want to know how you know that,” Elisa says, brushing crumbs from her spreadsheet tights. “Want me to go ask him…her…it?”

  Becca throws the sad remainders of her pretzel portion into a trashcan. “Naw, let’s leave it alone. I want to go check out the sci-fi posters.” Like Halloween ducklings, we follow her to a nearby booth.

  “I was hoping I’d find this!” she squeals almost immediately. She holds up a reproduction of a The Day the Earth Stood Still poster, the one with the robot Gort shooting his laser beam eye at the army while holding some blond woman who’s not even in the movie. There’s also a huge, mummified hand over the Earth. I never understood whose hand that was. Maybe the movie studio had it left over from making The Mummy, so they recycled it.

  “If the robot guy and the alien are actually on the Earth, how can there be a hand covering the Earth?” Elisa asks the guy behind the counter. He shrugs.

  Amber sidles up to me and hisses in my ear like a Madagascar cockroach.

  “Geez, stop it!” I wave her away. “You’re getting spit in my makeup!”

  “That bunny guy…he’s following us!” I start to look and she grabs my chin, jerking it back toward the mummy hand poster. “Don’t look!”

  “How can I see if he’s following us, then?” I whisper awkwardly, since I can’t move my chin. She lets go.

  Becca, blithely unaware of the stalking rabbit, pushes her Smart-tastic glasses down onto the edge of her nose so she can look smart reading the prices on the movie posters. “Queen of Outer Space!” she yells. “Bingo!”

  “Shh!” Amber and I both clap hands over her mouth. She freaks and almost knocks us both down. “What are you guys doing?” she yelps, swatting our hands away.

  “Come down here,” Amber says in measured tones as she slowly, slowly sinks down to the not-too-clean floor. “Try to look unconcerned and casual.”

  “How can I look casual when I’m crouching in somebody’s old gum and discarded bubble wrap?” Becca asks as she conks her head on the edge of the poster table. By this time, the poster seller is starting to look at us suspiciously. Wonder why.

  Elisa doesn’t see us on the floor, and as she whips around the corner of the table, she stumbles and falls with a squeal on top of us.

  “You girls are going to have to move on!” the poster man tells us. I can’t blame him. Four squealing superheroes are probably not good for business.

  “What are you guys doing on the floor?” Elisa sputters as we all try to stand up with as much dignity as possible while wearing assorted vegetables, capes, and tights.

  “We were having a meeting.” Amber scans the sea of faces. “Someone was following us.”

  “Who?” Elisa straightens up a pile of plastic-covered posters that she’d toppled as the poster man shoos her away.

  “Some tall guy in a bunny suit.” Becca says, laughing. “You guys are seriously paranoid. If you’re going to be afraid of anybody here, check out some of the guys with the spiked jewelry and masks. They walk all creepy and mysterious, hiding behind their Sith makeup and stuff. They freak me out.”

  As we walk on, Amber mutters, “Rabbits can have a dark side.”

  The day really zips by. We hardly slow down at all, except for a brief rest at the Sci-Fi Channel space, which kind of looks like a giant aluminum toilet set on its side, bathed in cool, blue light. Well, it’s roomy and has seats (not toilet seats), plus, they’re giving away these cheeseball plastic capes there. I get one for Euphoria.

  While we rest with our sore feet propped up, I hear an all-too-familiar voice over my shoulder. “Hey, Vege-tastic. Want to help me make a salad?”

  “Hi, Fletcher.” Becca reaches a long arm toward him. “Come sit down.”

  As he rounds the curve of the fake aluminum toilet, I notice that Jon is with him. Fletcher plops down next to me and puts an arm around my caped shoulders. “You look fantastic!” He plants a kiss on my cheek.

  “Your lips are green,” Elisa remarks.

  “A small price to pay to be near the asparagus I love.” He gives me another kiss, which mak
es me giggle. Jon sits next to Amber, and I notice Becca bristling uncomfortably.

  “So, how’s it been going?” Jon asks, never taking his eyes off Amber. “The table visit went really well. The guy said that the Geektastic Four could really work. He especially thought Art-tastic was hot.”

  Becca says, a little too loudly, “We’ve had our pictures taken a few times, and I found some great sci-fi posters too. Want to see?” She fishes them out of an oversized yellow bag, and she holds up Queen of Outer Space proudly.

  Jon totally ignores her and keeps his attention riveted to Amber. “Are you all going to the panel discussion about websites? It’s where they’re going to announce the winner of the contest.”

  “Why don’t you guys go and then text us if we win.” Becca stands, clutches her bag and scans the hall as if looking for something. “We still have a lot to do. Shall we, ladies?”

  Amber hesitates and says, “I’d kind of like to go. Maybe I can be there to represent the Geektastic Four….” Her voice trails off as Becca glares at her. “I mean, if you don’t want to go.”

  “Sure.” Becca stalks off into the crowd, exuding diva vibes in her wake.

  Fletcher shrugs at me, gives me a squeeze, and says, “Want to meet up later for dinner?”

  “Yeah,” Elisa answers. “All we had for lunch was a soft pretzel.”

  “Is that part of your superhero diet?” Fletcher asks. “Or were you just trying to scam some cheese sauce to dip in Shelby’s hair?”

  “Ha-ha.” I hug him back and follow Becca, who has already waded out into the stream of people. “See you later.” As they walk away, I notice that Jon puts his arm around Amber.

  “We better find Becca or we’ll never catch up to her,” Elisa says, tugging at my sleeve. “How is she, do you think?”

  “Hmmm.” I scan the crowd for the towering blue hair of the most pissed-off librarian in the exhibit hall. “It’s definitely a problem. I’ll have to talk to her.”

  As we elbow our way through various incarnations of Luke Skywalker and try not to get our heels nicked by geeky parents with baby strollers, Elisa bobs up and down at my side as if she’s trying to avoid drowning. “I would think she’d be excited about the website and the comic book. But she doesn’t seem to care.”