What Happens Now(70)

Max and Camden exchanged a glance. I couldn’t decipher its meaning.

“What does she need to keep together?” I asked.

Camden and Max answered simultaneously, speaking over each other.

“Stuff,” said Max. “We all have stuff.”

“Maybe she’ll tell you another time,” said Camden.

They wanted me to try and understand her. For them, maybe I would.

As we wandered through the floor, at least a dozen other people recognized us from the “Ferris Wheel” shoot, asking for a photo. Camden and I would lean in close to each other while Eliza crouched in front and Max stood behind. Smiling blindly, as if friendship and fun and fandom were all bound up in one simple story we had to tell.

At Merlin’s Sci-Fi and Fantasy Bookstore booth, Camden tugged me toward the bins of vintage books. “Are there any you’re missing?” he asked.

“A few.”

“Let’s see if we can find them.”

We sifted through two boxes labeled “Sci-Fi TV” and there, under the layers of tattered paperbacks, was a book called When the Stars Spun that I’d been looking for online for at least two years. It was a gap in my bookshelf that always bothered me, the numbers on the spines jumping from eleven to thirteen. This was number twelve. I fanned through the pages to make sure the book was in good shape.

“You know what that is, don’t you?” asked Camden.

“The universe wanting me to have something?”

“Bingo.”

Then Camden went to pay for the book.

I bought a stuffed animal for Danielle that I knew was some kind of character from some kind of anime series, but I just thought it was cute.

At a booth that sold replications, I found an Original Silver Arrow flight pin. I showed it to Camden.

“This is nicer than the ones Eliza found online,” I said, holding it up to the pin on my tunic. The metal was heavier, more expensive.

“Why don’t you get it for your mom?” he suggested.

I shook my head, but didn’t put the pin back. “It would seem like I was trying to buy her forgiveness. If she even wanted it. I don’t think she’d even want it.”

“It doesn’t matter if she’d want it. What matters is whether or not you want to give it to her.”

I looked him in the eye and he looked right back at me. God, how I loved him.

I bought the pin and tucked it into my Satina satchel. As we were walking away from the booth, Camden said, “Your mom must have started watching Arrow in 1988, when it first aired.”

“I guess,” I said, not wanting to admit I had no idea when she first started watching it. To me, she had always been watching it. “She would have been in college then,” I added, mostly to myself as I did the math.

“How terrific it must have been to watch when it was new.” He paused. “And how horrible to have to wait a week in between each episode!”

Huh. I’d never thought about my mom’s Silver Arrow life before me; but she’d had one, of course. And despite everything that had happened between her and me, I was still so grateful for all those afternoons in front of the TV together. We’d both gotten something we’d needed at the time.

Now I had my own life with Silver Arrow. Maybe I could live it for both of us.

An hour later, Kendall and James found us on our way into the “Cosplay Tips and Tricks” panel.

“Hey,” I said. “Having fun?”

Kendall had a light in her eyes. She bit back a smile and nodded. Then she saw Eliza, who was settling into a front-row seat by herself, and leaned in to whisper, “Wait, are you sure I’m allowed to be in here? Isn’t this just for cosplayers?”

I laughed. It felt good to do it at Eliza’s expense.

A girl stepped around us but stopped when she saw my costume. I looked up at her.

Reboot Satina. She was with a Reboot Marr and a Reboot Azor. Their costumes were good, but not great. Not as good as Eliza’s had been at Camden’s party, for sure. This must have been the group Eliza was on the alert for.

“Hi,” I said. “Nice Satina.”

The girl laughed and smiled warmly. “Thanks! You, too. I loved your ‘Ferris Wheel’ photos. I never got into the Original Arrow but I’m told they were very accurate.”

“Thank you. That means a lot.”

We stood there staring each other down, not sure what to do with this strange familiarity the costumes gave us. Then the flow of people entering the conference room pushed her forward, and the three of them moved on.

We found Camden and Max, who were saving some spots on the floor because all the seats were taken. Over the next hour, we learned about cosplay supply websites and catalogs, how to get coupons for craft and fabric stores, and why planning one’s cosplay up to a year in advance can really save you money in the long run.

After the sci-fi/fantasy panel called “New Trends in Other Worlds” and a session previewing the biggest upcoming movie releases, we headed outside to a landscaped courtyard to kill the hour before the costume contest started. Grass, a scattering of flowers, a single tree—all tokens to remind us of the boring and normal earthbound world we knew, so easy to forget about in the windowless hotel conference rooms. Nobody was what they wanted to be, anymore. They were back to being people trying to eat their sandwiches without spilling on their costumes, drink their lattes without ruining their makeup.