The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love Page 12

  I give her a heads-up on this around two thirty.

  “Awesome!” is her first reaction, before she gets nervous about the critique. “Wait, what pages did you bring for them to see?”

  Since I was originally planning the whole day as a surprise, I haven’t told her about this part either, but I think I know Roxana well enough to be able to pick out the pages from Misfits of Mage High that show off both her best work and mine.

  She looks at the five pages I chose and flips through her work, stopping a couple of times at a panel that shows Master Vollux transforming into a sloth. “Do you think the shading”—I sense she’s about to look up at me, and I get prepared to tell her how awesome I think it is, but she turns to Devin to finish her question—“on this panel looks right?”

  He tilts his head to examine it, while I simply grit my teeth to keep from popping a vein. It takes him what I think is an insultingly long time to finally say, “Definitely. I think this is pretty perfect work, Roxana.”

  Roxana grins at him and then turns to give me the tail end of the same smile. “Okay! Let’s do this.”

  Needless to say, my mood is nowhere near as buoyant as before, as I realize Devin is, of course, tagging along with us and that he has, somehow, managed to mooch off some of the glory for this plan of mine. It’s only then that I start to wonder if he doesn’t have some sort of actual superpower: like the ability to charm the pants off impressionable girls who have a nerd streak.

  We’re pretty early to the panel and manage to snag good seats near the front. Devin and Roxana chitchat some more while I continue to silently brood, but as soon as the panel starts, we all give our undivided attention to Morgan, the writer, and Brandon, the artist, as they talk about the business end of getting a comic series published. They go over everything from polishing up a spec pilot issue to querying agents or publishers to setting up a website for yourself, and even some marketing tactics. They have a short Q&A session too, but the two of us are hurriedly jotting down notes and don’t get to be among the three fans who ask them anything.

  At the end, Morgan announces that if we are one of the thirty people who signed up for a free critique, we can come up and hand in our work now. The online sign-up was on a first-come, first-served basis, and I can’t help but smile privately to myself as I see the jealous looks in some of the audience members’ eyes while Roxana and I get in line.

  “I’ll wait for you guys by the door,” Devin needlessly promises, though I’m relieved that he’s not going to tag along to the critique, too.

  Roxana and I are somewhere near the middle of the line when she insists on taking one more look at the pages.

  “It’s our best work, Roxy,” I say soothingly. “You know it is.”

  She nods. “I know . . . it’s just . . . maybe I could have done this differently.” She points to an expository panel showing the moonlit silhouette of the school. It’s simple and beautiful. “Is it clichéd?” she asks.

  “I think it’s great, but, you know, the point of the critique is to get an expert’s take on your work. So we can both keep improving,” I say gently.

  She shakes her head and laughs. Before closing the folder, she says, “You’re right. Of course.”

  When we finally get to the front of the line, Morgan and Brandon shake our hands as we gush to them about how much we admire their work.

  “Thanks, guys,” Morgan says. “And could you give me the title of this, whether it’s part of a series, and a two-line synopsis?”

  “Yes,” I say, having rehearsed this part since I read the instructions for the critique. “This is part of our series The Misfits of Mage High, about a group of student mages who seem to each be extra gifted with certain small powers but are remedial in general knowledge. Hilarity and hijinks ensue.”

  Morgan smiles. “Sounds great.” He jots a note down in an appointment book along with our names and asks us if 12:45 tomorrow is still a good time for us to come back for the critique itself. “Brandon and I will spend some time with the work overnight and then we’ll have fifteen minutes tomorrow to discuss. Sound good?”

  “Sounds excellent,” Roxana says, and we leave the table feeling pretty exhilarated at the thought that Donnelly and Park will actually be reading and discussing our work.

  “There’s a panel on Parallel Moon next,” I say hastily before we reach Devin and he can derail the plan I originally had for us. Parallel Moon is a new sci-fi show that Roxy and I have recently gotten into.

  “Cool,” Roxana replies. “Who’s going to be there?”

  I name the three main actors and the showrunner.

  “Let’s do it,” she says, and then makes a beeline for Devin, who’s been waiting for us at the side of the room. She of course immediately divulges our plan.

  “Love that show,” Devin says. Offfff course he does. I’m starting to suspect he’s making at least some of these interests up just to impress Roxy.

  But then he chimes in with “The last episode was really great, wasn’t it? Especially the subplot with Marina and the vortex. I feel like that’s going to come back later.”

  Damn it. Fine, he’s a perfect, beautiful, British nerd. And I am totally screwed.

  The panel is interesting enough, but somewhere in the middle my mind starts to wander. The John Hughes panel is next, and even though I’ve decided to put off my confession to Roxana until tomorrow—when I will hopefully have the Zinc page in hand—I still feel antsy. What if the perfect moment happens to arise today, after we’ve seen the panel and the movie? What if she gives me the perfect opening? I’m going to have to take it, right?

  As applause signals the end of the panel, I pop up out of my chair, take Roxana’s hand, and pull her up too. She laughs, startled. “Whoa! What’s the rush?” she asks.

  “The John Hughes panel is next,” I say, and I’m pretty sure my voice squeaks. I clear my throat.

  She grins. “So excited,” she says, but then turns to Devin to comment on something we just heard about the next few episodes of Parallel Moon.

  I frown. She’s claiming to be excited, but I was expecting more of a reaction from her. Did I somehow overestimate how much she’d be into this, or is she playing it cool because of Devin? Like she wants to appear extra-sophisticated in front of him or something? If so, that’s completely crazy, because she’s about to go see some of her favorite actors talk about one of her favorite movies.

  We exit the conference room and only have to go a few doors down to enter our next one. The John Hughes panel room has a medium-sized line in front of it, but we eventually get in and grab seats somewhere in the middle. Again, I feel nervous. But Roxana is at least now bouncing in her seat a little.

  “Wow. I can’t believe this is really happening,” she whispers to me. I smile, thinking that’s more like my girl. “I kinda feel like your mom is here with us too. Is that weird?”

  I laugh and shake my head. “No. I feel like my mom would definitely be cool enough to haunt NYCC, especially for this.”

  A few seconds later, a moderator gets on the microphone at the front of the room and the crowd hushes. I recognize him, actually. He’s a film critic for Entertainment Weekly and I think my mom knew him. In fact, I think he’s acknowledged in one of her books. He speaks a little bit about John Hughes, explains the basic plot of Pretty in Pink—about a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who falls in love with a rich boy at school and the complications that ensue—and then introduces the panel. Out come the film’s three big stars: Molly Ringwald, who plays the main girl, Andie; Andrew McCarthy, who plays the rich boy, Blane; and Jon Cryer, who plays Andie’s geeky friend Duckie, who is also madly in love with her. They are followed by Anthony Michael Hall, who is not actually in Pretty in Pink but is an actor John Hughes cast a lot—often to play the nerdy character role—and director Howard Deutch, who helmed Pretty in Pink.

  Everyone applauds thunderously and then immediately gets quiet to hear what the panelists have to say.


  The moderator first asks them all to reflect on their work with John Hughes and what they think it is that makes his work endure. Molly Ringwald, who starred in three of his most famous movies, talks about how he really seemed to understand teenagers and treat them like fully formed characters instead of caricatures. Jon Cryer talks about how much heart Hughes’s films have, while Anthony Michael Hall talks about how genuinely funny a lot of them are.

  They get asked about being teen idols in the 1980s, and all of them speak about how different it was back then from the way it is today with the advent of social media and the concept of “being on” 24/7. Andrew McCarthy tells a funny story about posing for Teen Beat in the pre-Internet days when you didn’t realize that something like that could live forever and come back to haunt you.

  “I want to talk about the ending of Pretty in Pink,” the moderator says then. “So the ending we all know and love, with Andie and Blane in the parking lot at prom . . .” He presses a button and a still from the film appears on the screen behind him. Sure enough, it’s Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy standing in a parking lot about to kiss. “That was not the original ending as written. Correct?”

  “That’s right,” Jon Cryer says. “Because originally, I got the girl! Andie was supposed to end up with Duckie.”

  “Right,” the moderator says. “Andie was supposed to end up with Duckie. The best friend who saw her and loved her for who she was right from the beginning. But I believe it was one of you who actually fought to get this ending changed.” He looks piercingly at the panel, and Molly Ringwald raises her hand.

  “Guilty as charged,” she says.

  “So now I want you to explain to this entire crowd of nerds,” the moderator says to a huge burst of laughter, “why you didn’t want Andie to end up with the geeky best friend.”

  Molly laughs too. “Oh, God! Are you turning them all against me?” She twists around and looks up at the still of Blane and Andie. “You know, Andie and Duckie’s relationship was so special. I truly believe they remained best friends for life. But if this had happened”—she indicates the imminent kiss behind her—“I think it would have ruined everything between them. And today, thirty years later, they wouldn’t be friends. They wouldn’t be in each other’s lives. You know?”

  I stiffen in my seat.

  “What a bunch of bullshit,” Jon Cryer says jokingly, and everyone laughs again. “I’m kidding. I’m just bitter because, again, I was supposed to get the girl. And then Andrew comes along with his perfect hair and his kitchen-appliance name . . .”

  “Your hair was pretty spectacular too in this film, buddy,” Andrew butts in.

  The moderator clicks another button and we get a classic picture of Jon Cryer as Duckie with his pompadour, yellow cuffed-up blazer, and white snakeskin shoes. Jon looks up at it. “That’s true. That was great hair.” He turns to Molly. “Why didn’t you want that guy, again?” he teases.

  Molly puts her head in her hands. “I don’t know. Oh, man, should I just admit I was wrong? Andie and Duckie should have ended up together?”

  A cheer goes up from the crowd, and I’m not ashamed to say that my voice is among them.

  Howard Deutch starts talking then. “Really, though, I think Molly’s instincts were spot-on,” he says. “We tested out the original ending where she ends up with Duckie, and it tested horribly. In fact, that scene that you just had up there was a reshoot that was done after the test screenings. And Andrew’s great head of hair is actually a wig.”

  The moderator brings the original photo back up.

  “Yes, which I think you can totally tell,” Andrew says, laughing. “I had already shaved my head for a different movie role. Man, that thing was itchy.”

  “It changed the message of the movie in a positive way, I think,” Howard goes on. “That two people from the opposite side of the tracks can belong together. Also, I think the chemistry was there between Molly and Andrew. Whereas, like Molly said, the chemistry between Molly and Jon was such a great friendship.”

  “All joking aside,” Jon Cryer cuts in, “I do think all that is true.”

  They move on, to the topic of costuming and then to music, but I can’t help lingering behind. They all think that’s true? That a great friendship can’t really turn into something more? That everything would get ruined? Was Duckie really too much of a geek for Andie? And is it really all about a great head of hair? I catch Devin’s artfully styled locks from the corner of my eye, and I stew.

  The panel ends with a Q&A session, and as per usual, most of the people who sprint their way to the mic have inane minutiae to hash out. One insists on pointing out all the continuity errors in the film (the moderator stops him at the third one). One asks how hard it was to pretend that Andie was such a great seamstress when her last outfit, the titular pretty in pink number in fact, was such a disaster. One simply asks if he can get his white snakeskin shoes autographed by the panel.

  When the panel ends, there is more applause and hoots and hollers. I look over and see that Roxana is smiling from ear to ear. She beams that smile over in my direction and I can’t help but return it to her. Honestly, I shouldn’t read too much into what some fictional characters from thirty years ago did, right? This is my life, my story.

  “The Pretty in Pink screening starts in half an hour,” I say, and Roxy nods.

  “Hey.” Devin leans over, his phone clutched in his hand. “Instead of the movie, do you want to do something else?”

  “Like what?” Roxana asks.

  Yeah, like what, I think, gritting my teeth.

  “My cousin who I’m staying with, he owns a karaoke bar around here. He says to come and bring friends tonight. He can get us in,” Devin says, waving his phone around. “Especially if we get there earlier, like around six, before it gets too crowded.”

  Roxy seriously looks like she’s mulling this over, which is absolutely ridiculous. “Well, I have to be on the nine p.m. train home, but . . .” She rubs her hand against the back of her hair. “Sure, why not?”

  “What?” I voice that one objection out loud. “Are you serious? But Pretty in Pink . . . it’s one of your favorite movies.”

  “I know, Graham, but that means I’ve seen it a hundred times. Besides, the panel was the special part, anyway.” She nods toward the empty stage.

  “Come on, man. It’ll be fun!” Devin says as he and Roxana get up to leave the room. “And invite Casey or whomever else you want! We can fit up to ten people in one of the rooms.”

  I follow in their wake, stunned. So now we’re going to do karaoke? What the eff?

  In a daze, I text Casey. Ummm . . . So Devin can apparently get us into a karaoke bar his cousin owns and Roxy wants to do that instead of the movie. You’re invited too, Devin says.

  The bubble on my phone pops up, indicating that Casey got the text and is writing me back. But it stays as ellipses for a long time, which means that Casey is either typing something epic or really trying to piece together what to say about this mindfuck of a new development.

  Finally, I get a shortish response back that indicates the latter. Don’t want to leave the convention. But . . . do you need me there or something?

  Need him? Of course not! I’m not that close to an emotional breakdown, I think stubbornly. But then immediately feel bad. Poor Case. It must have taken all of his social skills to realize I might need backup with this one.

  Nope, it’s fine. Have fun at NYCC. Also pray for some miracle/accident that stops this from happening . . .

  Chapter 18

  What’s

  the

  Opposite

  of a

  Redemption

  Song?

  THERE IS NO MIRACLE/ACCIDENT.

  We’re walking several avenues over, past Penn Station, and are about to enter a building that has the words SING OUT! emblazoned in neon across it. I cannot understand what has happened to my perfectly planned-out day.

  “There he is!” another British v
oice rings out, and a shorter guy with dirty-blond hair and sporting a few tattoos holds the door open for us. He pats Devin on the back as he passes. “Come in, come in,” he says with a smile to me and Roxana. “We’ll do introductions inside, yeah?” He then turns to the large bouncer occupying 125 percent of a stool by the door. “They’re with me.”

  The bouncer looks us over and grunts unhappily. “But you’re not serving them drinks, Ryan. Right?”

  “Of course not! Just the singing. Promise.” He flashes another of what I’m now starting to suspect is a family-inherited prizewinning grin, and then he turns back to us where we’re standing by the corner of the entrance. Even though it’s barely 6 p.m., a girl is in the middle of the front room wailing “Wrecking Ball” with gusto. There are people sitting at the bar, flipping through thick books.

  “We have a private room. This way,” Ryan says, and leads us down a narrow hallway lit with purple lights to a door with the number nine on it.

  We enter a small room with low leather benches set up along the sides. The place is dark, but outfitted with spinning red and green disco lights that are playing across the walls. It kind of looks like a Christmas rave. A couple of microphones and tambourines sit on a table in the center, along with more of the thick books I saw outside. A smiling blond girl is also waiting for us. She gets up as soon as we walk in and says hi.

  “Right, now is a perfect time for introductions, I expect.” Ryan introduces himself and his girlfriend, Elise. Devin takes over, introducing me and Roxana.

  “Your first time at karaoke?” Ryan asks.

  “Um, yes,” I say, and barely manage to stop myself from adding that I am sixteen, so of course, dumbass.

  “It’s pretty simple,” Ryan continues. “These books are divided alphabetically by song, and this one is divided by artist. Some of the newer songs are in the back. You just find your song, punch in its six-digit code on the remote”—he brandishes the small remote control that was sitting on the table—“and press Enter. And you can just enter songs whenever you want. The machine will queue them up in order.”