“And you’re a mind reader?” Candice asked, glaring at her.
“No,” Barb said. “I’m just a very good judge of character. Aren’t I?”
“I guess,” Candice said, frowning. “But I’d hate for anyone to begin thinking I was nice. So don’t spread it around. It would ruin my reputation. And Baron is… Baron. He’s always going to be a Sad Sack. He is the consummate momma’s boy. Although, at least he’s gotten a job where he’s not living at home all the time anymore. If you call selling water filters a job. But he’s apparently making money at it; he’s been able to go to more cons anyway. And being on the road gets him out from under Mom.”
“He’s on the road a lot?” Barbara asked, curiously.
“From what I hear,” Candice said, shrugging. “He sells and installs water filters. He’s from Ohio but his territory is in Virginia so he travels all over the state. Who knows, he might even cut the apron strings some day. But he’s got good points. He really wants to be helpful; it’s not just an act. If you need help, Baron is always right there pitching in. And a lot of the writers like him because if there’s nobody else they recognize at the con, they can always talk to Baron. He just… doesn’t have many social skills. Being willing to be social should count for something, I suppose. And I think if he didn’t have fandom he’d probably hole up in a tower somewhere with a rifle.”
“Do you know Sean very well?” Barb asked, filing the whole description away.
“Not much,” Candice said, shrugging. “He’s a former Marine. Lives in Virginia Beach and does something with the Internet. Goes to a lot of cons, especially ones with Duncan or Draxon. He’d had a live-in girlfriend for a while, but I guess they broke up.”
“So do those two always hold court outside?” Barbara asked. “Duncan and Draxon, that is?”
“Pretty much,” Candice replied. “There or in the Wharf Rat suite. But there aren’t any smoking rooms in the hotel so they generally stay out and freeze. I couldn’t hang so I left not long after you did. Especially with the snow. It’s seriously snowing, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Barb said with a sigh. “They’re predicting over twenty inches just today. They say that it will clear by tomorrow and they can get the roads open, but right now we’re stuck. You’re a… Wharf Rat?” Barbara asked, changing the subject.
“That was a good slice of the Wharf Rats at the con,” Candice said. “I suppose I am, but I don’t really think of myself that way.”
“And the gentleman on the ground with the notebook?” Barb asked. “The one with the minder, it looked like. It seemed like the group was… subtly ignoring him while including him I guess I’d say.”
“Oh, that was David Krake,” Candice said, laughing. “He’s a big writer for Pier Books, been writing since the 1960s when, as he puts it, he escaped from the hell of being an attorney. He comes to the cons but he really doesn’t like to be bothered when he’s writing and he can get really… blunt. He writes hard-core military fiction, has for years. Former Marine, in Vietnam, so he knows what he’s writing about. He’s got degrees in history, ethnology and Greek. Recently, he’s been trying to break into the fantasy market but his books are sort of limping along. I don’t know why, they’re really very good. He does a lot of research — he’s known for that — and his fantasies are really based on historical characters and myth, mostly Sumerian. The last one sold well, though. Hit the New York Times list anyway so the big account buyers are going for it. From what I heard they more than trebled their sales on the last book, which is unusual. But it happens.”
“You seem to know a lot about the people here,” Barbara said, smiling.
“I go to plenty of cons. Not just ones that the Rats prefer. I won’t say I know everybody in Southeastern fandom, but it’s close.”
“Selling books,” Barb said, gesturing around.
“It’s what I do,” Candice said, smiling. “I don’t work very well in offices; can’t handle the politics. I’ve found I do better working for myself.”
“There are a lot of Rats who were military,” Barbara said. “Were you?”
“No,” Candice replied, shrugging. “My husband is, though.”
“Husband,” Barb said, looking at her unberinged finger. “And you’re sharing a room… ?”
“Plenty of people do that at cons,” Candice replied. “It saves money. Don’t read anything else into it. Although… there’s other things that happen. But not with me,” she added, smiling. “I’ve got a great husband.”
Barbara nodded and looked at her watch suddenly.
“I’m going to wander,” she said, smiling. “Talk later?”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Candice said. “Enjoy yourself.”
“Hi, Sean,” Barb said as she saw the Wharf Rat coming out of one of the panels.
“Hi,” the young man said, smiling broadly. His gaze flicked down to her chest and then forced itself back upwards. “We met last night, right?”
“Yes,” Barbara replied. “Where are you headed?”
“Nowhere right now,” Sean admitted. “There’s a panel in an hour I want to see on writing for art or market. I’m what I like to call an ‘aspiring author’ and most people call a ‘wannabe.’ “ He said the latter with a deprecating grin and Barb had to admit that he was rather attractive if a bit young for her. Maybe she should sic Janea on him. Then again, maybe not.
“I’m sorry to hear about your break-up,” Barbara said, sadly. She had subtly shifted him over to some padded benches by the door to the atrium and now sat down, waving to the seat beside her.
“I should have seen it coming,” Sean admitted, sitting down and looking at the far wall. “We’d been spending less and less time together and she always wanted to know when I was going to be home. Thursday was my range night; there’s an indoor range I go to and I usually went right from work to the range. But I’d forgotten to pack my guns so I went home to pick them up instead. And… there they were, right in our bed.”
“I’m sorry,” Barb said, honestly.
“I was, I thought, reasonably polite about it,” Sean said, looking over at her, then down to her chest, then back at the wall. “I just nodded at them, went in the closet, got out my gun bag and went back out. So when I got home, the police were waiting for me. I explained the situation, they politely took my guns away and explained that I couldn’t go back in my own apartment! I mean, it was my name on the lease! She moved out the next day and I moved back in.”
“Did they give you the guns back?” Barbara asked, smiling slightly. The story had been told with a sort of blunt-instrument intensity that seemed to be natural rather than a result of the encounter. Sean was one of the most intense people she’d met in a very long time.
“Yep,” Sean admitted. “But I had a hell of a job getting them clean; they’d been sitting uncleaned for a week.”
“So what did you do then?” Barb asked.
“Went back to work,” Sean said, shrugging. “I do remote installation on Internet lines. Mostly hardware work with some software troubleshooting. And the company does satellite uplink support, so I go out on those projects, too. It keeps me out of an office and mostly I’m working by myself. I don’t handle office politics very well. I guess I don’t really get along with most people.”