Ship It(44)

“Yes,” Tess and I say in unison, then look at each other and laugh.

“Well, my goodness, aren’t you two just the cutest?” the server says. “I think you might have just usurped that couple in the back as the most adorable date of the evening.”

My ears get even hotter as I stare so hard into my menu that my vision starts to develop spots around the edges. Tess doesn’t say anything to correct the server, and they leave us alone with a pair of epic menus.

“So,” Tess says, somehow acting normal. “Are you planning to go to any other panels while you’re here?”

“Oh, um, I don’t know.” Does that make me boring?

I take a sip of water, then crunch on an ice cube. I’m not sure what else to say.

Tess tries again. “That was a pretty great panel today, huh?”

“If by great you mean train wreck,” I say, because there was literally nothing great about that panel.

“Oh, well, yeah, I guess so. I was surprised by the question moderators, too.” She glances at me. “I saw your text posts about it. But, I don’t know, it didn’t seem that bad to me?” She chews on the inside of her lip. “I mean, I guess I just feel like, he shouldn’t have to answer any questions he doesn’t feel comfortable with, you know?”

Wow. Yeah, this was a mistake. I start wondering if I should try to make my exit now before we order anything. Tess drove us here in her car, but I could figure out how to take the streetcar back if I needed to.

Tess must register my hesitation because she says, “Sorry. We don’t have to talk about Demon Heart.” But without Demon Heart, what do we talk about? It’s the only thing we have in common, and the only thing I really ever think about. I’ve got nothing else in the conversation bank.

But Tess doesn’t believe in my mission. Why not? No matter how popular I get on Tumblr, I’ll never be able to compete with network TV for views. Not that I want my writing to be über-famous, but I do want to see a queer reading of these characters reach people. Does Jamie even know what kind of power he wields every time he opens his computer and starts typing? Does Tess see the difference between what he does and what I do?

Tess. Tonight her dress is blue and meant to look vintage. It comes in at her waist with a red ribbon that ties at the back. I wonder if I pulled on the ribbon if the dress would flow out or if it’s sewed down and just for show.

I like that Tess wears a lot of dresses, even though she’s queer. The only lesbians at Pine Bluff High (there are two that I know of, and everyone always assumes they’re dating, even though they’re like three years apart) both play sports and wear folded hats and dirty Carhartts like the rest of the farm kids. Tess isn’t like them at all; she isn’t like anyone in Pine Bluff. I want to ask her about her clothes, but now too much time has passed without either of us talking, and it would be weird to ask her about her fashion sense anyway when I clearly don’t have any.

Tess catches me staring at the ribbon and I look away, praying my ears don’t turn red again. She probably thought I was checking out her boobs. I wasn’t checking out her boobs. The ribbon is right under her boobs, but how do you explain that to a person? I know it seemed like I was looking at your boobs, but honestly, I wasn’t. I just think your dress is really nice even though I don’t know anything about dresses, and that ribbon is lovely, and I was fantasizing about tugging on it, but not looking at your boobs, I promise.

My palms are sweating, so I surreptitiously wipe them on my jeans. My mouth is dry. All the water in my body seems to be going to the wrong location at the moment.

Tess reaches for her phone. Shit. Why can’t I be normal? She’s already on her phone and our freaking server hasn’t even come back yet. I should have just left when I had the chance, but now it’s too weird.

Then my phone buzzes.

Oh.

I look at it.

Hey, do you see the guy by the window in the really bad Wolverine cosplay?

Relief. She isn’t bored with me yet. I sneak a peek at the disheveled-looking guy, who must have just come in because I didn’t see him earlier. He grimaces as he drinks a steaming cup of sludge brown coffee, his chest hair sticking out of his white V-neck in big tufts. I text back.

Omg

She sends another text. I’m not one to shame a cosplayer, maybe that’s his best effort, but C’MON, REALLY?????

I write, Tess…

She writes, Where are his claws? GROWING UR NAILS LONG DOESNT COUNT, DUDE!!!

I giggle out loud. I look up from my phone and see that Tess is grinning, but she’s on a roll now, she doesn’t stop typing.

His hair isn’t even spiked, like this is BSAIC SIHT HERE, CLAIRE.

“Tess!” I say out loud.

“What?” She looks up from furiously typing, a gleam in her eyes.

“That’s not a costume,” I hiss.

We both look at him again, and yeah, that’s just some guy in a T-shirt eating a pancake. Our eyes meet, and we crack up laughing.

Not-Wolverine looks over at us and scowls, which only makes us laugh harder.

“Okay, Fun Table, who’s ready to order?” our server says, coming over.

“I am!” I say.


We don’t bring up the panel at all for the rest of dinner. It turns out we have lots of other things to discuss. We trade stories about our high schools: I tell her what it’s like to go to the grocery store while the football team is playing a game—so empty it’s like a zombie apocalypse hit. She can’t conceive of a school where the 4-H program is more popular than the drama program and the county fair is the highlight of the year, not the battle of the bands. She tells me her Seattle public school has a gender and sexuality alliance that’s basically like a club for the queer kids. I take a moment to picture Pine Bluff doing something like that and… yeah, no. Maybe in fifty years. Or a hundred and fifty. She says there are straight kids in the club, too, and also “questioning” kids. She doesn’t press it, but I wonder if she’s trying to tell me something or if I’m just reading too much into it.