Ship It

by Britta Lundin

  “I don’t know how you can be so confident,” I say.

  “I’m confident?” she asks incredulously.

  “Yeah.”

  “Claire, you’re the most confident person I’ve ever met.”

  I stare at her. Literally, what.

  “Look at you!” she continues. “No one I know is as comfortable in their fandom as you. It’s like you don’t even care if the whole world knows Demon Heart is your favorite show and you ship SmokeHeart and you write fanfic and you think about their dicks all the time….”

  “I don’t care. Why would I care?”

  “Because it’s embarrassing! Fanfic is embarrassing! Demon Heart is embarrassing! All of it. Everything about this is embarrassing.”

  My heart is thudding in my chest as I pull away from the table. “You’re embarrassed by Demon Heart?”

  “Well, yeah, Claire. I mean, obviously.”

  I just stare back because of course I know what she means, but I need to hear her say it. “So you’re embarrassed of the show, you’re embarrassed by all this.” I wave around us. “Does that mean you’re embarrassed by me, too?” I already know the answer is yes.

  “Claire,” she says softly.

  “No, be honest, Tess. Are you embarrassed by me?” I get a little louder. There’s adrenaline pumping through me, now.

  “No! Of course not. I like you.”

  “But you think the things I like, the things we both like, are… what? Too childish? Too uncool? Or is it that liking anything is embarrassing? The only cool thing is to keep yourself safely detached and protected by actively disliking literally everything? Is that it?”

  Tess gestures emptily, but she doesn’t have anything to say. “I don’t know what to tell you, Claire. It’s not fair, it’s just… how I feel.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be that way,” I say. “Why should liking Demon Heart or fanfic be more embarrassing than liking the Buffalo Bills or Bruce Springsteen or like, America’s Test Kitchen?” Or Jasper Graves, I think, remembering Forest.

  “See? That’s what I mean,” Tess says. “That’s the kind of confidence that you have that I wish I could figure out how to get. If my friends knew I liked this stuff, I would never stop getting shit for it. I have no idea how you keep friends when you talk about this. They must be amazing.”

  And there it is. That’s the difference. Because Tess knows what I wish wasn’t true—that sometimes you have to make trade-offs. And maybe there are high schools where proudly loving gay fanfic of a cheesy science fiction show won’t get you branded a social outcast, but Pine Bluff High isn’t one of them. And apparently neither is Tess’s high school. So Tess chooses to lie low in order to maintain some kind of social status, and I’ve chosen to stand proud, but as a result, my friend group consists of Joanie Engstrom, my parents, and the internet. But at least my life isn’t a lie.

  “Tess…” I say hesitantly. But you know what? Screw it. This is honesty hour, right? “I don’t really have any friends.”

  She searches my face, and I can’t really take it. Why doesn’t Claire have any friends? she’s wondering. Because she’s a weirdo disaster who can’t relate to people, she’ll determine. And she’ll walk away.

  “Any friends at all?” Tess asks.

  I shake my head. “There’s a girl I sit next to on the bus. And I’m on okay terms with my middle school librarian, but…”

  Tess laughs a little, because yeah, it’s funny. But she catches herself, because it’s also not.

  “I used to have friends. I used to not worry all the time. I used to go outside and play with kids. I used to talk to people at the bus stop. But then I moved to a new town in sixth grade, and I didn’t do so well making new friends because I was awkward, and liked books too much, and I wasn’t pretty or rich, and my parents were liberal, and then before I knew it, the transition period was over and it felt like my window of opportunity had passed and I just… I never made any. And then it was settled. That was it. My new reality.” I shrug. “Now, my whole life is basically inside my own mind.”

  “Well”—Tess gives me the softest, smallest smile—“you have a friend now.” She looks a little nervous. “If you’ll have me.”

  I let out a long, slow breath. I mean goddamn, who can resist something like that?

  WHO IS THIS CHICK?

  AND WHY DOES SHE LIKE ME?

  I lower my voice. “If you think I’m weird, or awkward… I mean, I am those things, but also?” I say it before I can convince myself not to: “You make me nervous because I really want you to like me.”

  She whispers back, “Me too.”

  My heart is crashing in my chest from the way she’s looking at me. I decide to do a thing that terrifies me, but first I need to make sure of something.

  “Don’t tell anyone what I’m about to do, okay? Not Forest, not my mom. Anyone.”

  She nods okay.

  I reach across the table and lace my fingers through hers as a smile spreads across her face. Her hands are warm, and she gives me a little squeeze and she can’t stop smiling and I can’t stop smiling and we both must look like toothy, hand-holding idiots, but I don’t care. Or I’m trying not to, at least.

  Tess hadn’t heard about the secret project yet, so I told her to check her dash before she went into the panel so she’d know the deal. We made plans to meet up after at the revolving sushi place across the street. I’ve never been to one, and she said they’re ridiculous but fun, and it’s the only good place to get dinner in this part of town, unless I wanted to go to the Cheesecake Factory. (I’ve also never been to a Cheesecake Factory, but she scoffed like that was out of the question, so I suppose they’re uncool, although a factory that churns out cheesecake sounds kind of like a fantasy land to me.)

  I walk her to the door of the room where the panel is taking place and watch her go in. I think she wants to maybe kiss me good-bye, but she doesn’t try, and I’m grateful for that. Holding hands is a lot already.

  Today, there’s no one else in the wings with me. I haven’t seen Caty around, so she must be in the audience somewhere, taking photos or doing whatever it is she does. The Tumblr post about our plan is up to 3,000 notes, and word has spread across Twitter and the Facebook fandom groups, too. I wonder what Caty thinks of it. Is it enough of a scene? Will it work?

  Onstage, the moderator kicks off the panel by reminding everyone that they’ll be screening the finale of Demon Heart live tomorrow night at nine p.m. in Teatree Park, followed by a marathon of the best episodes from season one that will last well into the night. It sounds amazing. With everything that’s happened I almost forgot that the finale is tomorrow night!

  It’s kind of unreal. Before this trip, I would never have spaced about the finale; I would have been counting down the days, then the hours until it aired. But now I have all these other things to worry about, like whether it will get good ratings, what the media reaction will be, whether the show will be picked up for a second season, and whether my plan will be enough to force Jamie to do SmokeHeart next year. I almost miss the days when I could just relax and watch the show. When I could just be a fan.

  My phone buzzes with a text from Tess: Wanna watch the finale together? I smile to myself and text: Definitely. Bring a blanket. Her text back comes almost immediately: Why, are we going to snuggle under it? The thought makes my heart skip a beat. I just type her the winking emoji. She writes back with the hearts emoji, and I bite my lip smiling.

  As the panel goes on, Rico is charming, Jamie stammers through his answers with as few actual details as possible, and Forest is… well, Forest is being weird. For instance, when the moderator asks him how he feels about shooting the show so far from his home in LA—a question I’ve heard him answer two times already—his response today is very different. Usually he says, “North Carolina has leeches, but Los Angeles just has agents,” a joke that I’m sure is funny to a very specific group of people in California but never quite plays with the convention crowd
. This time, he says, “You know, North Carolina is a beautiful and welcoming place, and I love being able to travel for a role. It helps me get into the head of my character.” I mean, whaaaat. Why is he being professional and diplomatic all of a sudden? Who’s he trying to impress?

  We’ll see how professional he’ll be once the Q&A starts.

  Finally, the moderator asks his last question: “Forest, you recently joined Twitter. So what’s next for you, Snapchat?” A groaner—we all know he hates social media, and he barely even uses the account he’s on. There’s no way this guy is learning Snapchat. But instead of shrugging it off, Forest says, “If the right reason came along.”

  What does that mean?

  The moderator turns to the audience. “At this time, we’d like to take some questions from the audience. Please line up behind the microphones in the aisles.”

  And here’s where I hold my breath.

  Normally, there’s a mad scramble to the microphones as fans try to be one of the first in line. Today, there’s a lot of murmuring and chair rustling and craning of necks, but no movement except one woman toward the back of the crowd and another toward the middle who stand up. The other fans around them whisper urgently until they sit back down. Both fans look older—possibly Star Command fans who aren’t on social media.

  I can’t believe it, but I think it’s actually working.

  Onstage, Forest is frowning into the audience, confused. He looks at Rico, who shrugs.

  Again, the moderator announces, “We’ll take questions now, just go ahead and go to the mics.” And this time, when he stops talking, there is silence in the hall.

  Eerie, perfect silence.

  I can feel the smile growing across my face, broad and uncontrollable. This is legitimately incredible. The things we can do when we work together. I’ve never felt more connected to this community.

  There are like twenty phones in the air capturing this moment.

  Forest looks completely bewildered and a little frustrated, and I wonder again why he’s so uptight today. He looks around for an explanation, and he catches my eye in the wings. I see the moment he realizes that this was an orchestrated event, and he looks at me with pure venom. If he had looked at me like that back in Boise, I would have crumbled, but not today.

  Jamie figures out what’s going on and shakes his head, like he’s just so over this whole bullshit. His microphone is in his lap. All I want is for him to pick it up and start filling the silence with promises. I know he’s uncomfortable, I know he’s itching to make the silence end.

  Meanwhile, one of Paula’s assistants, registering a disturbance in the force, wanders over. She leans toward me and whispers, “What’s going on?”

  “Fans feel silenced. So we’re literally being silent.”

  Her eyes widen. “Did you do this?”

  “We all did.” I might have started it, but everyone came together to make it a reality.

  “Wow,” she says, looking back at the audience. “I’ve been to a lot of conventions. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  Jamie is shifting uncomfortably. The silence has gone on too long, the lights are too bright, and he’s in the hot seat. He gives a little scoff. “This is absurd,” he says and looks at the moderator like he’s asking permission from his parents to leave the dinner table. But still his mic remains in his lap.

  C’mon, Jamie. C’mon. Start talking.

  The moderator seems to suddenly remember he’s ostensibly supposed to be steering this ship, and says, “I suppose if there are no questions, I’ll ask another. Were there any fun on-set pranks you remember—”

  Before he even finishes the question, someone from the audience boos. The moderator looks up, confused and insulted. I guess this kind of stuff doesn’t happen in Justice League panels or whatever he’s used to.

  Someone else in the audience hollers, “You know what we want to know!”

  The moderator lowers his microphone into his lap and looks at his panelists. “What are they talking about?” he asks them, off mic.

  Rico butts in, “You know, there was one funny moment—”

  “Rico,” Forest interrupts him. Rico stops talking. It was a valiant effort to save this, but the audience is roiling, now. There’s an energy under the surface, everyone’s adrenaline pumping. I feel like anything could happen.

  C’mon, Jamie. Now. Now.

  Jamie reaches for his mic. Finally.

  But he’s interrupted—

  “Yeah, I know what you want to hear,” Forest spits into his mic. He’s pissed and I don’t know why. I thought he was starting to come around after our talk.

  “You want to ‘ship’ our characters? You want to pretend Smokey and Heart are grinding against a pool table in a roadhouse after every episode?”

  My stomach lurches. Wait, how does he know about the pool table? Was that a coincidence or…

  Forest continues, “Go nuts. Seriously. I’m not gonna stop you.” He looks at the audience pointedly, waiting for them to quiet down. Waiting for their full attention. When he speaks again, it’s slowly and clearly. “But don’t ask me to pretend it’s real. Because it’s not. And it never will be.”

  He looks at me. As though I didn’t know who that message was for.

  Asshole.

  Jamie keeps his mouth closed. His microphone doesn’t leave his lap.

  Forest just ruined everything.

  As I turn and walk away, the audience roars at Forest, biting mad. Chairs scrape, the silence broken. A rush to the mics. But I don’t look back. I can’t watch this anymore.

  I’M HELPLESS AS I watch Jon Reynolds duck out a back door, shaking his head in dismay. There goes Red Zone. There goes my career. There goes Forest Reed, up-and-coming star. My Wikipedia entry ends here.

  If Claire were really a fan of mine, would she sabotage my career like this? No. Because despite what I thought, she doesn’t care about me. All she cares about is her goddamned ship. It has nothing to do with me, or Rico, or anything else. She just wants these two fictional characters to be gay for each other, and she doesn’t care who gets hurt along the way.

  Well, fuck Claire Strupke and fuck these “fans.”

  I PUSH DOWN the corridor, out the doors, into the bright Seattle sunshine and across the street, fighting through crowds of hungry con-goers, until I find myself inside the sushi restaurant.

  I need to find Tess.

  She’s not here yet, so I sit at a booth and jiggle my leg with anticipation until she arrives. This place is strange, with a conveyor belt running through the entire restaurant, sending plates of fish around like a lazy river. When Tess finally walks in, I wave her over. I still have so much adrenaline from everything that’s just happened that I accidentally kick the table as I stand up, causing our waters to splash.

  Tess wraps me in a big hug before sitting down. “Oh my god, that was wild. Did you feel the energy in the room? I had goose bumps!”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t enough.”

  “It was like we were all one, you know? Like we were a team… or in a movie. I mean, that was huge!” I haven’t seen her like this before, all flushed and wild-eyed. I wish I could share her excitement.

  “I have to keep going. Forest’s obviously a no-go, but I can still get to Jamie. I can make this happen. He just saw how many people want this. He’s got to be ready now.” I pound my fist on the table and the waters splash again.

  Tess frowns, starting to register my anger, finally. “You can’t still be trying to—”

  “After that BS out there? How can I not?”

  “Claire, it’s over. You heard Forest. It’s never gonna happen.” The sushi plates stream past and neither one of us even glances at them.

  “Forest doesn’t matter. Jamie does. I can make him see.”

  “Claire, stop. Just stop,” she says. “You have your fanfic, that’s enough. I mean, god, poor Forest. He’s clearly uncomfortable with it.”

  “Poor Forest?” I can�
��t believe what I’m hearing. “You’re taking pity on that homophobic asshole? I don’t understand how you’re so willing to just give up on this,” I say.

  “Maybe because I’m used to it,” she cuts back. “Maybe it’s because I grew up only seeing white people on my television, and it’s not like a showrunner can decide one day that a character’s not white anymore, so I got used to the world being unfair, okay? I stopped caring what the showrunner thinks because a character can be anything in fic. They can be black or queer or fat or whatever the fuck I want, and I don’t need anyone’s permission. So just ship what you want to ship and stop caring so much about what Jamie and Forest think!”

  “But they’re wrong,” I kind of yell. “And someone has to tell them that. Why don’t you see that? The world would be a better place if there were more queer characters, more black characters, more of everything that’s not the same old same old.”

  “But you’re not pushing for more black characters, are you? You only care about one thing.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Of course it is! You know how many black characters have been on Demon Heart? Like two, and they were both demons. Now they’re dead. You’ve never mentioned it. You only care about the thing that affects you.”

  “I do care about that. But look, we can still make SmokeHeart queer, but we can’t turn them black. That’s not how it works.” She shakes her head, but I carry on. I know I can convince her. “Let’s focus on the things we can change. Just imagine if there weren’t so much hand-wringing every time people are confronted with the idea that a character they thought was straight actually wasn’t. I mean, I thought of all people you would understand that!”

  I stare at her, and she stares back, and the sushi rolls by.

  When she speaks, it’s low and steady and cutting. “How can you be so sure that Smokey and Heart are gay when you won’t even acknowledge that you are?”

  “What?” I can’t believe she would drag that into this, when the two things have nothing to do with each other. My blood is pounding in my ears, and my hands are gripping the top of the table. I’m searching for a way to put my thoughts into words when—