“Okay,” I say. “I don’t think it’s going to work, but fine.”
“Great. I’ll see you at five.”
“Let’s go,” Rico says under his breath. We start across the parking lot toward the convention center.
“Oh, and, Forest?” Paula says sweetly. I turn, wondering what the hell else she could possibly want, but it’s Caty who speaks.
“We need you to tweet again,” Caty says. “Something real. Something personal. Rico, will you give him a hand?”
“You got it,” Rico says, and pulls me away before I can respond.
The bustle of the convention floor seems to not affect Rico at all as he glides along, cutting a path through clumps of people. The Oregon convention center appears to be about twice the size of Boise’s, with a larger attendance, too. More costumes, more vendors, more people getting in the way of where I’m trying to go.
“The thing about a crowd like this,” Rico says over his shoulder as we navigate, “is that there are so many people, but they’re all here for their own specific thing, and the Demon Heart fans are just a drop in the bucket. So, weirdly, you get recognized less than at a smaller convention.” Still, Rico has swept up his distinctive thick black hair into a beanie and he’s wearing sunglasses indoors, which gives him kind of a rock-and-roll-Unabomber look, but it works for him. I slip my sunglasses and Sooners hat on and try not to let him get too far ahead of me.
When we reach Gina’s Poster Emporium, the woman behind the counter throws her arms around Rico.
“Rico!” She almost sings his name. “My love, my main squeeze!”
“I told you she was a looker,” Rico says to me.
“Oh, stop it,” she says. Gina is probably around seventy-five years old, Asian, and tiny but lean, like she works out every day. She’s wearing a faded U2 tee from some tour in the ’80s and loose-fitting jeans. There’s a youthfulness about her that is compelling. I have to admit that, yeah, actually, Rico’s not wrong. Gina’s hot.
Rico introduces me, and Gina gives me a kiss on the cheek that I’m pretty sure leaves behind an imprint of red lipstick. She doesn’t have an Alien poster for Rico, so we start flipping through her collection, looking for anything else that sparks our interest.
“You know, it’s weird,” I say to Rico as I browse the ’90s section. “There are so many vendors here I don’t really, well, get. But this one…”
“Pretty cool, right?”
“Actually, yeah.”
“I’m just happy people like Gina exist in the world,” he says. “She loves Japanese movie posters more than anything, and she’s been able to carve out a life going to cons and buying and selling them. It’s so weirdly specific, and yet everyone here has their own weirdly specific thing. It’s the one place in the world where being weirdly specific is totally the norm.”
“Whoa.” I pull out a poster from the stacks. Rico takes one look and busts up laughing.
“See what I mean, man? Everyone’s a fan of something.”
It’s a mint-condition, gorgeous Red Zone poster from the 1999 original film. Jasper Graves’s face fills the frame, giant and dotted with sweat and grease. The title is scrawled in black lettering across his nose: レッド ゾーン.
“I’m gonna hang it in my living room,” I say. That room needs something on the walls. Anything at all.
We poke around a bit longer until Rico finds a vintage Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? one-sheet, which I have to ask what it is, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Elizabeth Taylor movie in my life, but apparently she’s one of his favorite actresses. We try to give Gina money for them, but she won’t take it, insisting that we more than paid for our purchases by signing the Japanese Demon Heart posters she had on hand. Apparently Jamie is right when he’s always saying Demon Heart is big in Japan.
It’s while Gina is wrapping up our posters that Rico suddenly lights up and smacks me on the arm. “You know what you have to do, right?”
“What?” I furrow my brow, suddenly suspicious.
“You have to tweet about this,” he says, eyes dancing.
“Aw, dude, c’mon.”
“You have to tweet something, Reed,” Rico says, reaching over and wriggling my phone out of my sweatshirt pocket. “Seven-four-two-six, right?” He watched me punch in my phone passcode on set once, and he’s been using it against me ever since. He opens Twitter and hands it to me. “Might as well tweet now, about this.”
I know he’s right, so I take the phone from his outstretched hand and stare at the blinking cursor on the white tweet box. Don’t think about how many people will read this. I don’t know what my follower count is up to and I don’t want to know.
“Be sure to mention I’m booth two forty-four!” Gina calls from behind Rico, and I laugh.
“Okay, okay, I’m doing this one for you, Gina,” I say, and I type out a message about how much I love Gina’s Poster Emporium and I found something amazing for my walls back home. Then I mention Booth 244, and before I can overthink it, I hit TWEET. It has 114 likes and 12 retweets by the time I even click over to my notifications tab. Intense.
When I look triumphantly up at Rico to tell him that wasn’t so bad, his eyes are locked somewhere over my shoulder.
“What is it?” I say.
Rico murmurs, “We’ve been spotted. Two girls, two booths down.”
“What? Already? I just tweeted, like… fifteen seconds ago.” I don’t dare look around lest I accidentally make eye contact.
“They must have been nearby. Never underestimate fans,” Rico says. “Looks like they’re too scared to come over.”
“Can we get away, do you think?”
Gina hands us our posters as Rico gives me a funny look. “Why would we want to do that?” He smiles, kisses Gina on the cheek, and takes off toward the girls.
“Wait, Rico, jeez.” I basically have no choice but to scurry after him. Rico walks right up to the two fans, who at this point are kind of hyperventilating.
“Hi, I’m Rico.” He sticks his hand straight out. They gape for half a second before quickly shaking it one by one, a little too enthusiastically.
“Betty,” says one.
“Riley,” says the other.
“Forest,” I say.
Riley blushes. “We know.”
I’m not sure what to say next. What do I possibly have in common with these girls? And that’s when I notice. “Oh my god, are you me?” Riley is wearing Smokey’s trademark leather jacket, holding a replica battle-ax, her hair pulled back in a bun.
“Yes!” She strikes a pose. “I love you! I mean, I love Smokey. I don’t know you.” In that outfit, in that stance, she almost looks like me. I’m weirdly impressed.
“I love you, too,” I find myself saying, because I’m that overwhelmed, and she looks like she’s just about to faint.
Betty is dressed like Rico’s character from Star Command, and she and Rico are taking a selfie next to us.
I turn back to Riley. “Wow, you even have the broken strap.” I reach out and touch the shoulder strap of Riley’s leather jacket that’s busted in just the same way as my real costume is. The attention to detail is incredible. I notice her tense under my touch, and I pull my hand back. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine,” she says, and laughs breathily, but she’s wound tight like a coil. It’s weird to interact with someone who has so many feelings about me. She knows me, but I don’t know her at all. What does she expect from me?
“That strap”—I indicate her jacket—“I actually broke it myself my first day on set by accident. I was afraid I’d get in trouble, but it turned out they liked it so much they did it to all the jackets.” I realize she might not know how the costume department works. “They have a lot of jackets that are all the same, just in case we need backups.” I rub my hand around the back of my neck. “Anyway, I didn’t think anyone watching would notice.”
She smiles at me. She noticed. Then she looks down at my chest, like she
can’t make eye contact for too long.
“Forest, I want to tell you that Demon Heart is…” She fiddles with the bracelets around her wrist as she searches for the words. I give her a second to find what she wants to say. “It’s important to me.”
I think of Demon Heart as some little Monday-night show on a minor network that no one really watches. Obviously I try to do my best at work, but I never thought what we were doing was a big deal or anything.
I didn’t think it was important to anyone.
“This last year,” she continues, “I was in AP classes? And Advanced Calc. And my best friend went to Switzerland to study abroad…” She glances over her shoulder at Betty, who is chatting excitedly to Rico. “It was a hard year.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say.
“No, you don’t get it.” She looks at me very seriously, gripping the battle-ax in front of her with white knuckles. “I didn’t think I was gonna make it through. Like I was really close to just…” She shakes her head and looks away, biting down on her lip. “But then I found Demon Heart.”
She starts to well up, and I have no idea what to do.
“Demon Heart…” she says, wiping tears off her cheek with her sleeve, “it saved my life.”
“I’m…” I say, unsure how to respond to that. I don’t know how that could possibly be true, but she’s looking at me so genuinely that I know it is. “I’m glad we could help you.”
She nods, trying to keep the tears back.
“Do you… uh… want a hug?” She nods, her lip quivering. I step forward and wrap my arms around her. She tucks her head into my sweatshirt, and I can feel the tears spilling out of her.
“Thank you,” she murmurs into my chest.
I look up and Rico is smiling at me. Betty covers her mouth with her hands, and has this expression on her face like I’ve just given a home to a shelter dog. I have no idea what’s happening.
“Can we get a picture with all four of us?” Betty asks.
“Of course,” I say. Riley pulls away from me and swipes at her eyes and tries to look like she hasn’t just been sobbing into my hoodie. We all get together, and Rico takes the photo because he has the longest arms.
After, Riley asks me, “So, um, where’s heart-of-lightness?”
“Where’s what?”
“Not what. Who,” Rico says. “They mean Claire.”
“Oh, she’s… I’m not sure,” I reply. “She’s around. What did you call her?”
“Heart-of-lightness,” Riley says. “Oh my god, she’s one of my favorite fic writers. I can’t believe she won this trip with you guys. She’s incredible.”
“I’ll, uh, I’ll have to tell her you said so,” I say. So Paula was right about Claire. People know her.
Rico and I head off with a wave, leaving Betty and Riley to grip each other and giggle and look at the photos we took. As Rico and I slip our sunglasses on and maneuver our way back through the crowd toward the exits, he smiles at me.
“I don’t always have the time or the energy to do that,” he says. “But when I do…”
“Yeah,” I say. I feel this fullness inside me that I didn’t feel before. It’s weird, having that kind of effect on people, but to be able to make them happy like that? With just my presence? It’s kind of an undeniably great power. It makes me feel like I have something to offer.
THERE IS SO much more at Portland Comic-Con than at Boise. Like, so, so much more. I already went through the over-the-top booths for Marvel, Warner Brothers, Netflix—all the big companies spending lots of money to build out these ridiculous displays with screens and sound effects and areas to take selfies, just to try to wow fans like me. I know it’s a blatant cry for my attention, but I’ll be honest, I kind of like it. It’s nice to feel catered to, even if it’s in this flashy, impersonal spectacle.
My mom walked around with me for fifteen minutes before it was too much for her, and she went off to find some froyo and read a book. She gave me $40, half of which I promptly spent on a T-shirt that reads, SHOW ME YOUR FICS. I don’t have anywhere to be until five p.m., so I’m determined to soak in as much of this convention as I can, but it’s a lot, and I’m getting tired of fighting the crowds.
I check out another room off the main floor that seems quieter, and I find an area with a bunch of tables set up where people are playing tabletop games. The bustle of the con is a little more muted here, and I’m considering finding a chair and checking out what they have to offer, when I hear a voice call out, “Hey, show me your fics!”
I turn to look, and it’s Tess, smiling at me from the ground where she’s sitting against the wall, charging her phone at an outlet.
“Hi,” I say, approaching her. “Whatcha doing?”
“Just passing time while my phone charges.”
I feel a little thrill that I happened to run into her. We hadn’t made plans to get together, and after the sort of turbulent way we left things in the parking lot in Boise, I wasn’t sure if I’d see her again, but she’s smiling, which is a good sign. Her sketchbook is open on her lap, the pages covered with tiny drawings of hands.
“Can I see?” I ask.
She shrugs, her smile fading a bit. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she says, handing the sketchbook to me. The hands are gorgeous. Tiny, detailed line drawings done with a very sharp pencil. Hands touching, holding. They make my neck prickle, just looking at them.
“These are awesome,” I say.
“You think so?”
“Definitely. You’re really good! I thought from how nervous you were about it that you’d be, like, a beginner or something, but, dang, girl.”
Tess smiles. It’s the first time I’ve seen her look shy since I met her and it’s adorable. I turn back to the notebook and flip the page.
“Oh—” Tess reaches out to stop me, but it’s too late. I see that the hands are part of a much larger study. Smokey and Heart, emotionally ragged, holding hands, staring deep into each other’s eyes. In love. It’s completely G-rated, and yet there’s something so deeply intimate about them that I feel like I shouldn’t be looking at them in public. Still, I can’t look away.
“Wow,” I say. “These are good.”
“Yeah, uh, I don’t show a lot of people.”
“You should,” I say.
“No, you know, I want to be a real artist, not just, like, this stuff.”
I look up at her. “This isn’t real art?”
“You know what I mean.”
I look at the drawings one more time.
Of course I know what she means. To make art in fandom is to follow your passion at the risk of never being taken seriously. I’ve written dozens of fics—put them together and you’d have several novels—but who knows what a college admissions officer will think of that as a pastime. Where does 12,000 Tumblr followers rate in relation to a spot in the National Honor Society in their minds? Every week I get anonymous messages in my inbox telling me I should write a real book. Well, haven’t I already? What makes what I do different from “real writing”? Is it that I don’t use original characters? I guess that makes every Hardy Boys edition, every Star Wars book, every spinoff, sequel, fairy-tale retelling, historical romance, comic-book reboot, and the musical Hamilton “not real writing.” Or is it that a real book is something printed, that you hold in your hand, not something you write on the internet? Or is “real writing” something you sell in a store, not give away for free?
No, I know it’s none of these things. It’s merely this: “real writing” is done by serious people, whereas fanfiction is written by weirdos, teenagers, degenerates, and women.
I want to say all of this to Tess, my “fanart is real art” speech, but it’s almost five p.m., and I have to get going. Plus, I have a tendency to come on a little strong with people, and I’m not ready to run her off quite yet.
“Hey, you wanna go get something to eat?” Tess asks, packing up her things.
“I can’t, I have to go to this
dumb livestream thing.”
“Tomorrow, then. Dinner? After the panel?”
Something in me twitches. She wants to make plans like we’re real people, like we’re friends.
“I mean,” she says, “it doesn’t have to be a date thing….”
“What?” My stomach drops.
“Just ’cause, like, I’m queer. Pansexual, actually. Which I didn’t know if you knew, and I don’t know if you are….”
“Oh, no…” I feel my palms begin to sweat.
Dang it, Claire, pull yourself together.
“No?” She looks disappointed.
“I mean, yeah, let’s do it,” I say.
“Only if you want to….”
“Yeah, no…”
“It doesn’t have to be…”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
A beat passes. Where was I?
“I better go,” I say, and spin to leave, then realize I’m still holding her sketchbook and I turn back around and hand it to her, then I practically run away.
“See you tomorrow!” she calls after me, and I’m certain I hear her laughing, because who wouldn’t laugh at me? I’m acting like a three-year-old.
What just happened? Did I just agree to a date? Does she think I’m gay? Everyone else seems to, so why not her, too? And maybe I am. Or maybe I’m not. How does anyone know?
But if I’m not, why can’t I stop thinking about the way she smiled when she saw me?
“When I say five p.m., it’s not a gentle suggestion.” Ms. Greenhill is reaming out Forest as I approach. It’s 5:05. I wince, knowing I’m next, but she just gives me a smile and a “Hi, Claire, good to see you.” Which, to be honest, is almost worse. Forest looks miserable.
We’re at the Demon Heart booth, and there’s a throng of fans wrapping around the outside of it, trying to get a glimpse of Forest. They all have their phones up, taking photos. I stare at them a moment, amazed that I’m on this side of the ropes, inside the booth instead of crowded on the other side. How did this happen to me?
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