Zoe Rosenthal Is Not Lawful Good Read online

  I almost stamped my foot. “You aren’t listening! I—”

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about your flight or your yummy-yummy boyfriend,” said Meldel. “Auntie Meldel will get you home with nobody the wiser. Trust me, Zoe. I’ve been in trouble on a few occasions in my life. What I have learned is that there’s always a way out. With the Lord,” she appended piously.

  “But Simon just texted me,” I said. “And—”

  “Bless his heart. Give me your phone.” She took it from my flaccid fingers. “Perfect, you told him you had a headache yesterday!” Meldel ran her thumbs rapidly over the phone face. “There. You’ve had a terrible relapse!” Her smile nearly blinded me. “You can thank me later.”

  I tried to take my phone back to see what she’d texted.

  “No, no, I’ll keep your phone for now. Until hottie Simon and I finish talking!” said Meldel. “Because he and I are going to have a nice little chat. Whoops, I mean, you and Simon. Don’t worry. You’re off the hook with him. Or you will be.” She started texting again. “He’ll never know I’m not you! Promise! I’m an excellent writer and a quick study. I’m imitating your texting style very closely. I see you’re a stickler for punctuation and spelling, and so is the hottie. I approve. Todd, take a lesson.”

  I stood there.

  Liv unwound one of the three scarfs from around their neck and draped it gently around mine. It was covered with My Little Ponies and rainbows. “Better?”

  The rainbow ponies were ridiculous, but the scarf felt soft and silky.

  “Yes?” I asked tremulously.

  “A scarf always helps. People don’t coddle their necks enough. You can keep this one as long as you need it, Zoe. Wear it to the parade.”

  “We really have to go now,” said Cam. “Parents.”

  “No problem,” said Meldel. “I can walk and text Simon at the same time. Now, take that worried face off, Zoe. I’ll talk with the airline next. Everything will be fine.”

  “That’s my girl,” said Todd proudly. “The Melster has got awesome powers.”

  I sighed. I wrapped the soft rainbow pony scarf more securely around my neck and decided to hope for the best. What choice did I have?

  On Peachtree Street, the dragons marched by first. They had papier-mâché heads and colorful hides and giant feet, but that was about all they had in common because different people had made them. One enormous black dragon had outstretched wings and snapping jaws and a guy on his back wearing a horned helmet.

  “He’s on stilts that operate the legs,” Liv said analytically. “And he’s using puppetry to work the head and jaws.”

  Puppets again. “You’re sure there aren’t two people in there?” I asked, craning my neck.

  “Yes.”

  I stood on tiptoe to follow the black dragon with my eyes. “It’s so good—do you think that guy’s a master puppeteer? Like Frank Oz?”

  Liv and Cam’s mother answered, “Maybe, but I doubt it. Chances are, he read up and tried things and figured out how to make what he wanted. That’s how cosplay tends to work. Hey, here comes the steampunk group! Check out that woman with the top hat and monocle! I love steampunk!”

  The next hour was full of charm and delight, albeit not enough to make me forget about Simon and that my life was now over, and also that I had no idea how and when I was going to get home and how frustrating it was that I couldn’t even text Maggie. ( Well, I could text, but I wouldn’t get an answer anytime soon because—my memory had unfrozen enough to inform me—Young People’s phones were always confiscated during the annual Kwan family picnic.)

  I had to trust that Meldel was going to figure it out for me.

  There were no better options.

  Ghostbusters went by, with cars and vans and blaring music. Then medieval lords and ladies with high headdresses and knights on horseback. Somebody clomped along behind this group wearing a suit of armor in which they just had to be sweating buckets. Next came stormtroopers, including one in head-to-toe pink.

  There were fandom groups I recognized and some I had to ask about: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Firefly, League of Legends, Walking Dead, Tolkien, Hunger Games, Star Trek—all different kinds—and Handmaid’s Tale.

  The Handmaids included the giant T. rex I’d spotted yesterday. In a white bonnet and red robe, this dinosaur galumphed along at the back of the group with hands clasped and eyes meekly downcast. Enchanted, I pointed it out to Liv. “If I weren’t committed, I’d sort of want to resolve right now to date him. Or her. Or them. I mean, if they were available and interested.”

  “I just do not get that,” Liv said. “Even as a joke. You don’t know that person! But then—” They paused, looked at me, and then nodded as if they’d thought about it and made a deliberate decision to go on. “I can barely understand it when people are romantically attracted to someone they actually do know.”

  “You don’t want someone?” I asked slowly, carefully, not wanting to offend my new friend but needing to know. “Even someday?”

  Then I relaxed, because Liv snickered. “I really don’t think so! I never have even really fantasized about it to this point. Whereas you do, right?”

  I groaned and fanned myself with one hand.

  “Exactly,” said Liv triumphantly. “And I just bop along in my own skin. You know, sex aside, sometimes I wonder if having a twin ruined me even for the idea of partnership. I mean, I never even got to be independent in the womb!”

  Oh, I like you, I thought.

  “Nobody’s independent in the womb,” I pointed out. “You’re tethered to your mother.”

  “Don’t be so literal. You know what I mean. I’ve been sharing and compromising since conception. I love my brother, but it’s enough already! Space, please.”

  I laughed. “I get it.” I paused before confessing the way Liv had: “But I have to tell you, I’m entirely the opposite. I’ve wanted a boyfriend since I can remember. And, oh God, now that I say that aloud, I feel embarrassed. I sound so . . . needy. Or boy-crazy.” I winced.

  “Yeah, well, you’re not alone at least. Look at my brother. He’s been having massive crushes since forever. But he’s way too shy to make a move on anyone. He suffers in silence. At least you don’t have that problem.”

  “I always had an idea that it was easier for gay men. Cam is gay, right?”

  “Oh, yes he is, and no, it’s not easier. Not for Cam, anyway,” said Liv. “Of the two of us, he got all of the sexual longing and none of the confidence to go with it.”

  “But wouldn’t other guys chase him? So all he’d have to do is respond?”

  “He says the ones he likes are always out of his league.”

  “Now that starts to sound like my friend Maggie,” I said. “And with her, what it really means is that she’s terrified. Whenever it gets too real, she bolts.”

  “I’ve wondered about that with Cam, actually.”

  “But that’s not you?”

  “I don’t think so, no. But that’s just me. Lots of enby people are really into sex and romance.”

  I nodded, remembering Jordan O’Halloran, an enby person at my high school, older than me, a music geek who’d had a reputation as definitely being into sex.

  At that point, I realized that I hadn’t had such an easy time talking to someone new since, well, Maggie.

  Then Liv’s mom yelled, “Here he comes! There’s Dad’s group! Gerry! Over here! Gerry! ”

  She pointed as the Disney princesses were replaced by the Borg from Star Trek. Cam and Liv’s dad was covered in black rubber and coiling hoses, with only his right eye exposed. “Gerry!” yelled Ms. Decker again, and Mr. Decker waved at us stiffly, robotically, with both arms. I took a picture for Maggie—one of a very long series.

  Next came elves and hobbits, and then more superheroes than I could shake my frying pan at. (About the frying pan: feeling like a misfit in my regular clothes, even though I had the scarf, I’d again borrowed Cam’s stethoscope-garrote and
grabbed Liv’s discarded cast-iron frying pan, too. To my regret, because it really was too heavy.)

  Star Wars, with many incarnations of Princess Leia. Someone who’d done a mash-up of Han Solo with Elsa from Frozen. The writer Jane Yolen in a tiara waving from a convertible. Pennywise the clown, dancing alongside Beetlejuice, which made Todd hide his head and scream, “Clowns! Minions of evil!”

  The parade grand marshal was greeted with loud cheering. This was a comics guy I’d never heard of, but the crowd certainly had. “He’s got the beauty queen wave,” Cam observed with delight. “Elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist.”

  “What?”

  He demonstrated. “Southern girls learn it. Elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist. Touch your pearls, blow a kiss.” I did it too, with the stethoscope-garrote.

  I found out how the parade works: Any con attendee is welcome to march. You register yourself and your intended costume in advance. When the organizers put the parade together, they assign you to a group. So, let’s say you cosplay Scooby-Doo. When you line up for the parade, you learn that you’ve been put with two Velmas and seven Shaggys and a Fred and a Daphne and two other Scooby-Doos. You all march together. If you’re lucky, their cosplay doesn’t make you feel ashamed of yours. But it might.

  Cam said, “People look down on costumes that you buy. You’re supposed to make your own. It can get a little snobby.”

  “What do you mean, snobby?”

  “If you don’t care enough to put in the time and effort to make your own cosplay, then people might not respect you.”

  These were new definitions of snobby and respect for me.

  “But everybody should at least try,” Cam said, and quirked an eyebrow at me. “Even Liv put in a sort of quarter effort. Like, it can help build the fandom, if people see you’re out there.”

  “Fine. I get it. I’ll work on my Lorelei,” I said rashly. A moment later I remembered it was impossible.

  Sebastian was listening. “I could just be a random bleeder,” he said. “I was thinking about a mechanism for the blood.”

  I turned to him. “Didn’t you say you’re afraid of blood?”

  “I want to get over that. I can’t believe I missed the key scene last night.”

  “You could just keep your eyes open next time. See what happens.”

  “I’d faint. I know it. But if I cosplayed a bleeder, then I’d know the blood was fake because I faked it myself. That’s different. I think that would give my brain the right message and I wouldn’t faint.”

  “What do you have in mind for the mechanism?” asked Todd.

  “I could freeze thin layers of ketchup in plastic bags and then poke pinholes . . .”

  I eased myself over to the other side of our group, where Meldel was using Captain’s headgear to play peekaboo with a toddler in Princess Leia earmuffs. Before I could say a word, Meldel gave me a thumbs-up. “I haven’t forgotten your flight. Don’t worry!”

  I decided to believe her, at least for now.

  Meanwhile, Ms. Decker was talking to the toddler’s mom and dad. “Trends come and go, right? A few years ago, Battlestar Galactica was huge, but I’m not seeing them lately. Game of Thrones is fading a bit now.”

  “Star Wars is always so huge.”

  “Uh-huh. And the Leias are now not really just Leia anymore but a tribute to Carrie Fisher.” Ms. Decker blinked mistily. “You know, Carrie—Princess Leia—she was the very first woman hero I ever saw in science fiction. In Episode IV, when she just grabs the gun and blasts a hole in the wall—oh, dear. Sorry.” She sniffed. “I was only a kid when I first saw that, but it had such an impact.”

  Liv hugged their mother. The toddler’s mom and dad nodded agreement.

  Meldel’s attention was elsewhere. “Oh, Bloodygits! Don’t miss it!” she sang out as bare-chested Spartans complete with oiled six-packs approached.

  “Hm,” said Cam appreciatively. “300.”

  “Not bad,” said Meldel analytically. “Now, if only there were three hundred of them.”

  “Ugh,” said Todd and Sebastian and Liv together.

  I laughed. And that was when I realized that I was actually glad—oh, except for an anxiety level that was worthy of Wentworth in front of a camera—that I’d missed my plane. Glad to be here at the parade. Really! I had expected it to be totally nerdy and dorky and I had also expected—to be honest—that it would embarrass me even to be here, watching it. But I didn’t feel like that at all.

  I thought it was awesome.

  And I loved being with my Bloodygits.

  I clapped and shouted until my hands ached and my throat was sore.

  Liv said, “You know what I’ve been thinking? It’s that Bloodygits have a big problem, and if we don’t do something about it—and I mean us, specifically—we’ll regret it for the rest of our lives.”

  “Dramatic much?” asked Cam.

  “I’m serious!”

  It was Saturday afternoon. The six of us sat against a wall in the long corridor connecting the Hyatt with the Marriott. I was back to feeling like I’d known them all for years. After the parade, we’d wandered the hotel lobbies, talking and looking and talking more. We had just visited the Con Suite for a free lunch, which for me consisted of a golden not-so-delicious apple and a chocolate very-delicious donut. Balanced!

  Liv’s face had a look of concentration and intensity. “We need to do something. The time is now.”

  Now? Like, right now? I eyed her warily. Under no circumstances was I going to miss my new flight at 8:40 a.m. tomorrow. ( With only a fifty-dollar change fee! Meldel had blessed the heart of the agent who’d been under the impression that I should pay for a new ticket, escalated her call to a manager, and fed that manager a breathlessly long and involved story about how it was all her fault that I’d missed the flight because of my being such a good friend in Meldel’s hour of totally desperate need. This desperate need somehow involved lost glasses and a bichon frise named Geranium. Meldel did not once pause for breath. My suspicion was that the manager would have done anything to get her to stop. Maybe I should ask Meldel for advice on how to persuade Mrs. Albee to replace Wentworth with Ellen From Finance.)

  Everything was good with me now, however. I’d made a new checklist and ticked everything off. Texting with my parents, who were having a great time in Montreal. More pictures for Maggie. And an actual phone call with Simon, who had gone safely off to voter registration alone. Simon totally believed in my continued headache and my need for a Me Day involving a bubble bath and sleeping and “female restoration” (this was all Meldel). But also, he was preoccupied with something that he was dying to tell me, only he didn’t have time right then, and actually, on second thought, he was going to save his news for when he saw me in person. (It was good news, though. That much I had learned.)

  In short, I was getting away with it, just as if this longer and friend-filled version of Dragon Con was, after all, the actual treat that a benign universe meant for me to enjoy.

  “What are you thinking? What’s the problem?” I said to Liv, but Todd cut me off.

  “You may have a problem, but I don’t. I am footloose and fancy-free.”

  “You don’t even know what that means,” said Meldel. “You have a girlfriend, me. By definition, you’re not footloose and fancy-free.”

  “So I’m, uh . . .?”

  “Tied down,” I suggested. “Attached. Committed. Fettered.”

  “Okay!” said Todd. “I’m fettered. Yay. Fine. That’s good too.”

  Liv said, “Well, I guess it isn’t Todd’s problem if he doesn’t want it to be. It’s a problem for Bloodygits. What I mean is—”

  Todd cut in again. “I’m totally on board with being a Bloodygit. No conflict. I mean, what Meldel likes, I like. I’m fettered.”

  “That’s great, darling, and let’s hear Liv out, shall we?” said Meldel.

  I mentally (and smugly) compared Todd to Simon. Simon was the winner, and not only because he wouldn’t have interrupt
ed Liv. If Simon were to reveal his bare, oiled abs in Spartan cosplay, he would not disgrace himself. (Not that Simon ever would do such a thing, if he even knew there was such a thing. Never ever.)

  “As you know, we did not have a good turnout at the season premiere,” Liv said. “It should have been packed, right? But there we were in a not-so-big room and there were actual empty seats. And in the parade, did you notice? Not a single Bloodygit. What Bleeders has here”—they contemplated a raisin—“is a visibility problem. Which frightens me.”

  “We should have marched in the parade, Liv,” said Cam. “Even if it was just you and me. We could have carried a Bleeders banner.”

  “We hadn’t even figured out our cosplay by the time we would’ve had to register for the parade. What I’m saying really is, what can we do now? We need to help our show.”

  “If we accept that it’s our responsibility to do something,” I put in. “I mean, shouldn’t SlamDunk be advertising more widely? Maybe they have a whole marketing campaign planned for this season. Maybe the premiere at Dragon Con was just the start.”

  Liv looked skeptical. “Corporations don’t care. Even a little one like SlamDunk. If one thing isn’t a hit, another thing will be. They close the books; they move on. I think we have a responsibility as fans to help Bleeders survive.”

  Sebastian said, “You mean, literally the six of us?”

  “Literally the six of us.”

  “Correct use of literal,” Meldel put in. “Excellent.”

  “Only how do we do that?” asked Sebastian.

  “We discuss it. Fans have power. We just need to deploy it.”

  “I could write fanfic,” said Meldel. “What do you think? Captain/Monica?”

  Cam scrunched up his face. “Ew. No. I don’t care that it’s a common ship! It does nothing for me. Also, Captain still loves her husband. Or at least, she’s obsessed with him.”

  “But he’s a bastard. She should move on. Or she could love him still but have a slow-burn thing happening with Monica.”

  “Please not Monica,” I said. Monica is so desperately in love with Captain, it positively hurts to watch her silent suffering. I’m not a fan of hopeless love in real life and I don’t even like it as a story line.