Ship It(64)

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—

Someone screams.

“Eeeeeeeeeee!” It’s a high-pitched scream. “Where have you been? Oh my god, it’s been forever!” I look over, and there is a murder of teenage girls in tank tops and shoes with heels and dangly earrings and different-colored eye shadow, and they’re all headed directly for us. The screamer, the leader, has her arms out and is descending on Tess.

“Oh, heyyyyy!” Tess says, clearly caught off guard. She shoots me a nervous look as she stands up and starts hugging all of them one by one. “Hey, guys, what are you doing here?”

“We’re just getting sushi! I thought you were visiting your grandma in Phoenix! Who’s this?” the leader asks, looking me up and down with a huge gleaming smile. Evaluating me.

“Claire, I want you to meet my friends! Harper,” she says, pointing at the leader, then working her way down the line, “Jillian, Augusta, Soraya. Everybody, this is Claire. She’s visiting from out of town.” Why do I feel like Tess’s voice just went up an octave? She motions at me to stand up, so I do, but my hands are just hopelessly by my side, because these look like the kind of girls who air kiss and I’m not going to air kiss any of them.

Tess’s friends don’t look at all like I thought they would. For one, they’re all white. And it’s not that I thought Tess could only have black friends or anything, but she’s from a big city. I kind of pictured a network-TV-supporting-characters rainbow-of-diversity thing. But they’re all of a type—weirdly pretty and too put-together to possibly have anything in common with me. These are not Tumblr people, they are Instagram people. Andrea Garcia people. Popular.

Why did I not see it before? This is why Tess doesn’t understand me. This is why she can’t be honest with her friends. She’s one of them.

They huddle around us like we’re all in a secret clique. One of them smells like perfume. Maybe all of them. Who even wears perfume?