Ship It

by Britta Lundin

  After two and a half hours, my phone is nearly dead from me incessantly checking Tumblr to watch my text posts spread at ridiculous speed like demon blood through the veins of the infected. Fans in other fandoms are piling on in support, recognizing the battle call of a fandom in need, and reaching out to help however they can. Until now, my Tumblr had been mostly fic, fic recs, reblogs of gifsets and fanart, and the occasional meta. But now, my angry text posts fill the first several pages of my blog. I’m sure I’ve lost followers over this, but I’ve also gained several more thousand. The mentions are pouring in faster than I can read them, which is fine, because I don’t need to read them to know that some people agree with me, some people hate me, and some people can’t decide.

  But it’s time to take this conversation offline. It’s time to talk to the guy who can do something about all this. I’m sitting in front of Jamie’s hotel room door, and I know he has to show up sometime. The elevator dings again, and this time it’s him. He doesn’t notice me at first, but as I scramble to my feet, he flinches, then turns on his heel and heads back toward the elevators.

  “Jamie!”

  He hits the elevator button over and over again. “Oh, hey, yeah, sorry, I just realized I left something downstairs.”

  “I was hoping we could talk,” I say, walking down the hall toward him.

  The elevator doors open. “Yeah, me too!” he says. “I gotta—sorry, I’ll be right back!” And the doors close behind him and he’s gone.

  I sigh against the wall and slide back down. I guess I’ll wait some more. He has to come back eventually. I pull out my laptop and open a blank document while I wait.

  HAMMER CURLS, PULL-UPS, tricep dips, upright rows, reverse flies, skull crushers. Arm Day. It’s the good kind of pain. The kind that I can handle, that reminds me that I am stronger than I was yesterday, and I’ll be even stronger tomorrow. Weight lifting is a contained pain that I can control, and I can decide whether to end it. It’s small and comprehensible and mine.

  This hotel gym isn’t the most extensive, but it’s got weights and it’s empty aside from me, which makes it perfect. I’m putting new plates on the bar when Rico comes in. He’s not dressed for a workout, so I’m guessing he wants to talk.

  “Hey,” he says as I start my bicep curls. “We have to talk.” I knew it.

  Four…five… six…

  “Forest.” He’s waiting for me to stop. But he doesn’t understand Arm Day.

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Ric. I’m doing what I have to do.”

  Rico comes over and sits on the bench across from me, but the nice thing about bicep curls is you do them bent over, your elbow on your knee, lifting the weight from the ground to your chin. It’s real easy to do them with your eyes locked on the ground.

  “You put moderators out there,” Rico says to the top of my head. “That audience was pissed at us today. Did you see Paula’s face?”

  Ten…eleven… twelve.

  I switch arms. “I did that for both of us. We’re going to be looking for new jobs soon, we both know it. And this is the worst time for either of us to be seen as anything less than masculine.”

  Rico watches me do reps.

  Five…six…

  “Did you know,” he asks slowly, “that they were thinking of going with another guy for Smokey?”

  “What?” I look at him, but don’t stop curling.

  “When we were auditioning. Some guy—Mark somebody. He was good, I could tell they liked him.”

  I finish my reps and put the weight down. A line of sweat slides down my cheek, and I swipe it away. “What, did he have a schedule problem or something?”

  “No, man, you happened,” Rico says, knocking his knee against mine playfully. “When you and I read together… fireworks. No one could look away.” He levels me with his gaze. “Do you remember that?”

  “Yeah.” Of course I do. I’d never had an audition like my read with Rico, so full of energy, the connection between us immediately crackling to life, consuming the room. It scared me a bit, that day. And it scares me a bit even now, even here.

  “So why do you keep denying our characters have chemistry?” Rico asks.

  “Of course they have chemistry, but not the way those girls think,” I shoot back.

  “They can only see on the screen what we put there,” he says, and I’m suddenly aware of how close we’re sitting. I can feel the warmth of his body coming off him, his leg a hairbreadth from mine. I wonder how many reps he does to get his quads to pop like that. I wonder how much he lifts. I raise my eyes to find him looking at me.

  “You never played it that way?” he asks. “Even a little?”

  Did I? No. I couldn’t have. Could I?

  “What do you mean, that way?” I fake ignorance. I’m stalling for time. I’m not sure what’s happening anymore. This conversation is slipping out of my control, I’m grasping for a handhold, finding none.

  “You know,” Rico says, like we have some secret together. “We always do the first take straight up. Then, take two, maybe it’s a little looser. And take three…” He pauses, reading my face. “Stripped down.”

  I don’t move. My blood is pumping, but it’s probably from the weights. It must be from the weights. Right?

  Rico shrugs. “Is it our fault they like to use take three?”

  “No,” I whisper, my mouth dry and rough. I wet my lips, and Rico’s eyes flick to my mouth.

  “No,” he agrees. “It’s not our fault.”

  His gaze continues down my body, and my mind empties.

  I uncross my arms.

  Don’t think, don’t question. I open up.

  Rico slides his hand across my cheek and behind my head and pulls me toward him and his lips are on—

  I STOP TYPING and tip my head back against the wall.

  I mean, it’s not that I haven’t written real-person fic before, I have. But it feels different writing it about Rico and Forest now that I’ve met them. It’s not a fantasy anymore, it’s more of a wish. Let me re-create Forest as I’d like to see him. Let me make him vulnerable, let me make him uncertain, let me make him love Rico. Let me make him understand.

  There might be some people who find this gross or mean, but right now it’s just super cathartic. I turn back to the document and keep typing. It just got to the good part.

  THE THUNDER ARE losing again. I had to charm the bartender of this faux-froufrou hotel bar to get him to change the channel away from—I swear to god—the Portland Timbers soccer game, just to watch my team fall apart in the fourth quarter. My only consolation is the fact that I can now afford to drink top shelf on my TV salary. But even killer bourbon won’t salvage this inane trip.

  Tucked away in this far, darkened corner of the bar, I’m praying Paula doesn’t find me. I managed to escape without running into her after the panel, but I’m certain she’s gunning for me now. I could have run the idea of question moderators past her before I went ahead and set them up, but I was pretty sure she’d tell me to fuck off. So I didn’t ask permission, and I figure I don’t have to ask forgiveness until the next time I see her, which I’m delaying as long as possible.

  After these godforsaken conventions are over, I’m going to go home to LA, pray the guy subleasing my place didn’t leave it a disaster, and play Red Zone 4, which will be out by then, and eat Korean food for like three weeks straight. I’ve been away from home so long I don’t know if I still even remember which exit is mine.

  I’m still thinking about the 101 freeway when someone slides a glowing phone in front of me, a blank text message open on its screen. I look up to see Jamie straddle the stool next to mine. I breathe a sigh of relief it’s him and not Paula.

  “Just tell me what you want me to say and I’ll text him right now,” he says.

  “Who?”

  “Jon Reynolds,” he says, like it’s no big deal. My heart skips a beat.

  “You know Jon Reynolds?” I ask incredulously. How did I not know
this? How did this not come up? Hollywood is small, sure, but Jon Reynolds is…Jon Reynolds.

  “USC Snowboarding Club,” Jamie says with a shrug. “We were tight for a while after school, but then he made one little indie movie while the rest of us were still assistants and, like, three months later, he was getting hired to direct these huge action blockbusters. Don’t see him much anymore. You know, I don’t get out to Calabasas much.” He says it with more than a touch of bitterness. This town is full of friendships that fizzled because one person became a megamillionaire success story and the other, say, created a minor genre TV show with shit ratings that might get canceled after one season.

  This is huge. A personal introduction to Reynolds from an old friend? This will go a long way. I can see the road to Red Zone unfurling in front of me.

  “I would love it if you would do that,” I say.

  “Great, happy to. I appreciate everything you’ve done so far on this trip. You’ve been awesome.” He takes his phone back and looks me dead-on. “There’s just one thing I need.”

  He pushes away from the bar and waves to someone by the door. Paula.

  “No, Jamie, c’mon…” I start, but he cuts me off.

  “You gotta do this, Forest. For the show. For me. I just want to be able to get to my bed without being harassed, you know?” I frown at him, not sure what he means. He barrels on, “If nothing else, then to get this witch off our fucking backs.” I look over at Paula striding toward us and breathe a long sigh of resignation.

  “It better be a damn good text,” I say.

  “You got it,” he says, slapping my back. He moves off and stands to the side as Paula sits down on Jamie’s stool with a fierceness I haven’t seen in her before.

  “Get me a vodka tonic and put it on his tab,” she says to the bartender, jerking her thumb at me. She shrugs out of her blazer, and I can see her arms for the first time—she has fucking muscles.

  “That was pretty stupid what you did today,” she says. “Here’s what you’re gonna do next.”

  “Peace offering,” I say, holding out the box of Voodoo doughnuts I had delivered to the hotel for this purpose. Claire is right where Jamie said she’d be—camped out in front of his hotel room door. This girl is nothing if not determined. She actually reminds me a bit of myself, only way more unhinged. If she can get a slightly better grasp on reality, she might be able to use that grit to do some great things in life.

  Big if.

  Claire looks at the doughnut box, then up at me. I crack the lid and waft the incredible scent over to her. She just continues to stare flatly. Yeah, she really doesn’t want to talk to me. Even for doughnuts.

  Paula told me in no uncertain terms that I was supposed to meet her on her level, not try to convince her to come to mine. Jamie said just to get her to move away from his door so he could get to his room in peace.

  I was hoping this would be easier than it’s turning out to be. I take a deep breath and try apologizing.

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry. I know you’re pissed about the moderators. Honestly, I was hoping to avoid drama, not make more of it.”

  “Ever notice how drama is the word people use when women start standing up for what they want?” she asks.

  My god, can I get anything right in this girl’s eyes?

  “I feel like I only understand about half of what you say,” I tell her honestly, and watch her roll her eyes and return to her laptop, ignoring me and the doughnuts. “These are Voodoo doughnuts,” I say, wiggling the box around. “They are very good doughnuts. I didn’t know what kind you liked, so I got a dozen.” I peer inside the box. “Maple bacon bar your speed? Peach fritter?” She looks up at me over her glasses. “Froot Loop cruller?” She scowls. She would be cute if she wasn’t so surly all the time. She peers around me down the empty hall.

  “Where’s Caty?” she demands.

  “I’m alone.”

  “This isn’t a PR thing? You’re not gonna try to take my picture?” She looks skeptical.

  “I promise. I’m here solo.” I choose not to mention that Paula practically strung me up by my balls to get me to come, and Jamie offered me one free text to Jon Reynolds.

  She studies me for a minute. “What do you want?”

  This is it, my opening. I chew on my lip for effect, then say, a little haltingly, “Look, I… I know I haven’t been the best. With this stuff. But I want to learn.” I rub the back of my neck with my free hand. “I want to understand where you’re coming from. Show me what y’all are up to on Tumblr. Show me what I’m not getting.”

  She narrows her eyes. How long am I gonna have to hold this damn box?

  “No,” she says.

  “No?” I thought for sure she would leap at this offer.

  “Tumblr is”—she waves her hands—“it’s full of fanart and fanfic and gifsets…. It’s not there for you.”

  “But it’s about me.” I start to falter…. Did I misjudge this? “Isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s about a fictional demon hunter who happens to look just like you,” she says.

  I sigh. There’s never a right answer with her. “Claire, I keep pissing people off doing what I’m doing and I don’t even know why.” This started out as an act, but this part is true. She makes me feel like an idiot all the time. “I’ve never felt as helpless as when I’m talking to you. And here you are sitting on a throne of answers and you won’t show them to me. You’re the only person I know I can ask. You’re like this small girl Yoda and I’m big, dumb Luke Skywalker, and I’m asking you to train me. Help me be better,” I say, and I actually mean it.

  She bites her lip and thinks about it. “You like Star Wars, huh?”

  “Yeah, who doesn’t?”

  She sighs. “Okay,” she says, taking the doughnuts from me. “Teach you I will. But when you get uncomfortable, just remember, it was your choice.”

  I let out a breath. “Awesome.”

  “Have a seat,” she says, patting the floor beside her.

  “Oh, nuh-uh. I have worked very hard to get where I am in life, and part of what that means is I don’t sit in hotel hallways. I like chairs. And rooms.”

  She squints at me. “You want me to leave Jamie’s room alone so he can get in, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  She sighs. “Fine. But tell him this isn’t over.”

  “I’m sure he knows,” I say with a smirk. “Trust me, no one around here is underestimating you anymore.”

  Five minutes later, we’ve found an empty hotel conference room to hang out in, and we’ve already polished off a doughnut apiece. I had a maple bar, and it was so delicious I want to cry. I can’t remember the last time I had refined sugar, but I can’t eat another one or I’ll have to double my cardio tomorrow morning.

  Claire flips open her laptop, and I see again the fanart of Heart and me, in a very intimate embrace, gracing her desktop wallpaper. All her documents are neatly arranged around the edges of the screen so as not to cover the image. What the hell am I getting myself into? I raise an eyebrow at her.

  “Ignore that,” she says, quickly opening an internet browser. “That’s too advanced for you right now.”

  She navigates to Tumblr. “Okay,” she says. “Here’s my dash.” The first post at the top of the page is a moving gif of, well, me. It looks like cell-phone footage, shot over the tops of people’s heads. I’m onstage and I’m wearing a Wonder Woman shirt. It’s Boise, I realize. The gif shows me covering my mic with my hand, leaning over to Rico and whispering. The caption below makes explicit what my lips are mouthing: “This is crazy. She’s crazy.”

  It repeats over and over.

  “Not that,” I say, feeling a pang of regret about that moment, and wishing it didn’t have to be giffed, destined to repeat over and over forever. “I don’t want to see that.”

  “Okay, moving on.” She scrolls down and stops at the next post. It’s a series of gifs of Rico and me—Heart and Smokey—from the show. This one does
n’t have dialogue, just us staring at each other. Whoever made the gifs slowed it down so the eye contact lingers fooorever. When it reaches the end it loops back to the beginning automatically. So it’s just us. Staring. Until eternity.

  Claire watches me watch the gif. “Do you know what shipping is?” she asks, taking a bite of a Bavarian cream-filled.

  “That much I picked up,” I say. “SmokeHeart.”

  “Right,” she continues. “You can ship anyone. When characters actually get together on the real show, the ship is considered ‘canon.’”

  “Like Mulder and Scully,” I say.

  “Exactly. Do you ship anyone?”

  I think about it. Do I? I mean, I guess I root for couples to get together in a romcom or something…. Not that I watch that many romcoms, unless I’m dating some girl and trying to get her to think I’m sensitive. I can’t remember ever thinking about a fictional couple after the film or TV show ended. “No… I don’t think so,” I say.

  “That’s okay. Not everyone does.” She polishes off her doughnut, licking the glaze off her fingers. My stomach rumbles. God, I’m hungry. I haven’t had dinner yet, and the doughnut is mixing with the bourbon in my system and giving me serious munchies. “Here’s the thing to understand, though: a lot of ships will never go canon, and that’s okay. Chewbacca and Princess Leia are never going to hook up in Star Wars, but that doesn’t stop some fans from writing fanfic or drawing fanart of it.”

  “Ew. Chewie and Leia?” Please.

  But Claire just shrugs. “Something for everyone. Some people have a kink about height differences.”

  I try to picture Leia standing on her tiptoes, reaching up to kiss Chewie’s furry lips. Then I imagine Han watching them from the doorway, pushing away in anger when he sees his best friend moving in on the girl he likes. I bristle. “It would never happen. Leia and Han belong together. And even if she were into Chewie, he would never do that to Han.” I shake my head in disgust. “It’s obvious.”

  She turns to look at me excitedly. “That’s it! That’s shipping!”