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You can do this.She released her stranglehold on her bag’s strap, her knuckles so white they practically glowed.
Mark gracefully accepted fan art, not once stifling a laugh at how hideous a few of the portraits were. He was effortlessly charming, engaging…interested in every person without being superficial. Shy little kids dressed like Mark’s TV character hid behind their parents, too bashful to say hello. Mark leaned over the edge of the table with a welcoming “Hi, mate!” while coaxing them out from behind a thigh with high fives and compliments about their costumes. He held hands with girls all aquiver and lost for words. He was so good, so patient. His calm demeanour was contagious, even to Alex—her crazed heartbeat, gulps for air, impromptu sweats, now receding…
You can do this…you CAN do this…
You’re…going to be okay—phew!
Each fan arriving at the table left with much more than an autograph—they left feeling heard, understood, and appreciated. Mark’s ease with the fans, his kindness wasn’t something that could be taught. To him, it was as natural as breathing. To Alex, it was just another of his traits that she loved and made her heart swell with pride.
But witnessing fandom from the other side of the autograph table felt surreal, like she had hopped into a TARDIS and time travelled to a strange, parallel universe. Girls crying over her guy, the actor who wasn’t famous when they met, the one who, like a typical boyfriend, dropped clothes around their flat, ate Nutella with a spoon straight from the jar, and left whiskers all over the bathroom sink.
Alex slipped through the curtain and walked along the ‘backstage’ hallway. She squeezed through a break in the perimeter’s bank of tall white panels where the roving rainbow of cosplayers, comic book aficionados, and pop culture purists on the floor of Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre swallowed her up anonymously. Alex completely relaxed. These folks were her people. Take away the theatre world’s plaudits, the now-celebrity boyfriend, and intrusive paparazzi buzzing around her relationship, and she was still a geek at heart.
She bought some greasy chips in a paper cone and strolled aisle after aisle, window shopping collectibles, superhero sketches, and sartorial offerings for cosplayers. A puckered face drew her in. It was a spooky, over-the-head latex mask of the Silence, one of Doctor Who’s scariest villains. In the Whovian lexicon, the Silence had the ability to make people who looked away from them instantly forget their existence. Alex always thought they resembled the freaky younger brothers of the tortured figure in Edvard Munch’s famous painting, The Scream: a bulbous head, narrow chin, protruding cheekbones, and deep-socket eyes. The only difference between the two beings was the Silence’s pinched mouth, and for the most part, they never uttered a sound, let alone an existential scream.
Alex hadn’t cosplayed for at least a year; her Wonder Woman outfit was balled up in the back of the closet she shared with Mark. Hmm. The mask was tempting, a chance to wade back in without a big commitment. She surveyed the crowd milling past: Spider-Man, or make that Spider-Men—ever so popular, Finnick from The Hunger Games, Catwoman…she’d always wanted to put together a Catwoman costume but had never got around to it. The cosplaying itch flared, but would her oversized sweater and dark jeans look too casual to pull it off? The Silence always wore black suits…
She stuffed several chips into her mouth, the saltiness making her salivate. A finger tapped her shoulder.
“Um, hi?”
Her bulging cheeks turned towards the voice.
“You’re Mark Keegan’s girlfriend, Alex, right?” A freckled-brunette about Alex’s height and barely sixteen years old, dressed in a Hogwarts uniform, stared at her through round eyeglasses that pinched her button nose.
Alex raised a hand to her lips and swallowed the mouthful of chips. “Yes?”
“We thought so!” The girl giggled with her friend, a teen with wide-set eyes and scraggly dark blonde hair, the ends dip-dyed sea foam green. They eyeballed her from head to toe.
“You are SO lucky. You and Mark, I mean…talk about OTP.”
Aw, fangirl slang—one true pairing, a perfect couple. Alex always thought her and Mark were OTP, but then, she would.
“Can we have a selfie?”
This was new. “Ah…sure?”
The pair swooped around her, grinning for the smartphone.
“Thanks, Alex. You’re so cool!” They scampered off, eyes glued to the phone’s screen, reviewing the image just snapped.
Alex knew they didn’t really like her, not for the right reasons, anyway. Her only relevance to their world was the fact that she had bagged their favourite actor, a clear case of celebrity by proxy. She was a curiosity, nothing more.
She turned back to the latex Silence mask, promptly stuffing her credit card into the seller’s hand. Hidden underneath this getup, she could wander around incognito. The Hermione wannabe seemed harmless, but the encounter left Alex exposed and longing for anonymity.
She tossed her half-empty chip cone in a bin and pulled on the mask. Ugh. The thing stunk. A sneeze flirted with her nose but never came, the plastic-y aroma of new shower curtain meets stinky feet flooding her nostrils. She set off into the crowd, invisible.
At half past twelve, Alex turned the corner to autograph alley. The line snaking its way to Mark’s table looked shorter now but was still a few dozen deep and buzzing with excitement. Aw, bless. Still signing his heart out, hunched over glossy publicity photos. He looked stiff, cramped. Mark would definitely need Nurse Sinclair to work her magic with a massage that evening.
Grinning inside the mask, she sidled up to the queue. The Keeganites were still out in full force. Pink-cheeked girls pushed past her, clutching signed mementos and squeeing on a Mark-fueled high. The line inched forward, so Alex did, too.
“The queue ends here.” A stocky guy with bulging pecs, threatening to do a Hulk through his t-shirt, closed off the line behind her. “If you’re holding afternoon tickets, line up at half two.”
Alex bounced on her toes. Yes! When she reached the table, she would whip off the stuffy mask and surprise Mark. He would be hers again, the two of them against this new, strange world, for better or for worse.
A girl, stood in front of Alex, wearing a red wig and cosplaying Black Widow, pointed in Mark’s direction. “Gawd! He’s a total life-ruiner.” She elbowed her blue-haired friend. “Talk about hot.”
Alex chuckled and stepped closer to listen in.
