“Actually, they were, after the meetings,” Dilley said. “They really cut loose and get crazy at conventions. I don’t think I got to bed before midnight the whole weekend.”
If staying up till midnight was his idea of cutting loose and getting crazy, Amblyopia had some surprises in store for him. I’d already received two invitations to con parties that didn’t start till midnight.
Steele frowned, and I worried that he’d make another insulting remark about Dilley’s name, so I glanced up at the wall clock and pretended to be alarmed.
“Look at the time!” I exclaimed. “You’d better get over to the ballroom. It’s almost time for your panel.”
“Oh, right,” Dilley said, staring raptly at a woman walking toward the booth. Her barbarian warrior costume consisted of a few scraps of strategically positioned fur and a lot of leather straps holding her weapons.
She saw Dilley staring at her and smiled at him. He drew back as if she were a snake.
“This is crazy,” he muttered, and scurried away.
The barbarian woman glanced at our booth, favored Steele with a smile considerably warmer than the one she’d given Dilley, and undulated on.
“Interesting costume,” I said, into the ensuing silence.
One o’clock came, and shortly afterward, the dealers’ room grew crowded. Very crowded. Not a ringing endorsement of Ichabod Dilley’s motivational speech.
Sure enough, I overheard nearby fans talking about it.
“Good time to come to the dealers’ room and visit my former money,” one said.
“So what’s going on in the ballroom now?” another asked.
“Nothing worth seeing,” said the first.
“Some crackpot yammering on about daring to be yourself,” said a woman dressed as one of Porfiria’s ladies-in-waiting.
“As if we need that kind of advice,” scoffed a pudgy Michael clone.
Poor Icky.
The crowd thinned out toward the end of the hour, so I deduced the fans expected something interesting in the ballroom at two. I was about to suggest to Steele that one of us make a food run when Michael appeared and beckoned to me.
“Sorry,” he said. “Things have been crazy. I thought we could have lunch, but they’ve drafted me to coax the QB out of her room and give her moral support when she does her panel at two.”
“She’s still playing hermit?”
“Apparently. Can you come along and help us with her?”
“Me?”
I wasn’t sure the QB even knew who I was. She’d been known to glare at me when I showed up at cast parties on Michael’s arm, but normally she ignored me.
“We think she’s feeling overwhelmed,” Michael said. “We’re rounding up people she knows.”
Shaking my head, I followed him.
They had already gathered Michael’s costar and buddy, Walker; Nate, the scriptwriter; blademaster Chris; and a perky young blond woman named Typhani who’d been working as the QB’s personal assistant for an impressive six weeks. Previous personal assistants had flounced off in a huff or run off in tears by the end of the first week.
“Okay,” Michael told the diminutive Amazon. “Let’s go get her.”
At first, I didn’t think it would work.
“Go away! Leave me alone!” the QB kept shouting. But Michael kept coaxing, and periodically he’d say something like,
“Everyone’s just waiting to see you!”
And the rest of us would ad lib encouraging comments.
Gradually, the protests grew less vehement. And finally, after one particularly impassioned plea from Michael, success.
She opened the door.
Chapter 10
Even from where I stood, I could smell the blast of peppermint from her breath. Either she’d just knocked back a killer dose of mouthwash or she’d taken up flavored vodka. She gazed slowly around the circle of people outside her door, though it didn’t feel as if she was looking at us. More like scanning us with some instrument other than her eyes. I could imagine a reptile performing the same emotionless survey. It’s not edible; it’s not dangerous; I can’t mate with it; it might as well not exist; I’ll ignore it.
Fine by me. I’d seen what happened to people when the QB stopped ignoring them.
I saw a faint spark of interest in her eyes when she spotted Michael.
“Come in,” she said, beckoning to him. The rest of us followed. She didn’t shriek, so I deduced she was in a good mood.
An artificially induced good mood, though. Her balance was worse than usual, and her smile had a certain wobbly quality.
I was surprised, and I could tell Michael was, too. From his tales of life on the set, her drinking was a menace, but only after the cameras stopped rolling. She might show up for work with a monumental hangover, but she’d be sober. I suppose we’d expected her to maintain the same discipline at the convention. After all, it was work.
“Oh, my God,” the Amazon murmured. “She’s—”
“A real trouper,” Typhani said, in a loud firm voice. “I’m sure even though she’s been feeling a little unwell, she’ll do fine once we get her on stage.”
It was that getting her on stage part that worried me. She chatted brightly with Michael, oblivious to the passing minutes.
Or perhaps less oblivious than determined to sabotage the schedule. Or unwilling to leave the comfort of a familiar environment.
Not my idea of comfort, but it looked a lot like her trailer on the set, from the brief glimpses I’d had of it. She’d made herself at home.
Bits of clothing covered most of the room’s horizontal surfaces. At least a dozen pairs of shoes lay scattered about. An empty box of truffles sat on the bedside table, and from the number of fluted brown-paper candy cups strewn on the floor, it wasn’t the first box. The contents of her purse carpeted the top of the dresser—she had an amazing number of credit cards.
Hard to believe she’d checked in the night before. I’d need a week to create that much chaos.
“Oh, they won’t want to hear me,” she was saying. “Not after the novelty of listening to Ichabod Dilley. What did he say, anyway?”
Her voice had an edge. Maybe she resented sharing the spotlight with Dilley. Maybe she was afraid he’d denounce the clever deal she’d made, thirty years ago, when she’d bought the film rights to Porfiria for what now seemed a ridiculously small sum.
Or maybe she was just afraid he’d mention how long ago that deal had taken place.
I wondered if someone should tell her that it wasn’t the real Ichabod Dilley after all. At least, not the Ichabod Dilley who’d written the comic books. Would it calm her down to hear this, or further enrage her?
No one else answered, so I spoke up.
“I don’t think any of us know what he said. Hardly anyone went.”
She looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time, and I remembered why I usually held my tongue around her.
“Really?” she said. She smiled, and then, when I didn’t say anything else, her glance flicked away as if I no longer existed.
I realized I’d been holding my breath.
“Look at the time!” Michael exclaimed. “We should be going!”
Michael continued to distract the QB while Typhani stuffed her employer into the glittering jacket of her costume, and combed her suspiciously jet-black hair into some kind of order. Then Michael offered his arm in a gesture whose apparent chivalry disguised its practical purpose. The QB clung to him as he half-supported and half-steered her out the door and propelled her down the corridor. The tiny Amazon trotted beside them, occasionally tugging Michael in the right direction when he made a wrong turn, as all of us did when navigating the hotel corridors. Of course, Michael had an excuse—he was chattering a mile a minute about what a lovely convention it had been so far and how enthusiastic the fans were.