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Iphigenia lets out a little squeak and bops in her chair. “Excellent! You’re my first yes. Hey, Cameron, you’re so nice. Would you like me to get you on one of the shows? They need players for What’s Your Category? today. Whaddaya say?”
“I don’t think …”
“I could totally hook you up with the producers. You can win a lot of money,” she singsongs.
My brain does a cost analysis: could I win us some cash, find Balder, and get our butts out of here before we’re found out? The Party House crowd doesn’t really watch the news, and the bounty hunters probably aren’t watching YA! TV. It’s a risk, but a risk with a lot of money attached, and we desperately need the money.
“Sign me up.”
“Nuclear!” Iphigenia says. “Okay, we need to figure out what category you go in.”
“Category.”
“Yeah, like are you a techno gadgetronic, a Saturday cinephile, sports authority, sex machine, audio boss, comics crusader, party hopper? You know. Where do you fit in?”
“What’s an audio boss?”
Iphigenia gives herself two big twirls in the rolling chair, first going left, then going right. “Somebody who’s obsessed with music. Is that you? You seem sort of audio savvy to me.”
“Well, there’s this music store I like back home called Eubie’s Hot—”
She brings the chair to a dead stop. “Great. So audio boss.”
“Wait! I don’t know that that’s how I want to be categorized. I mean, maybe I’m a sex machine.”
Iphigenia taps her pen while looking me up and down. “Doubtful.”
“Or a techno gadg-a … gadge …”
“Gadgetronic. It’s somebody who’s way into electronics and wants the latest gears gear.” Iphigenia’s mouth forms an excited O. “Didya hear me say that? ‘Gears Gear.’ Omigod. No one’s ever said that here before. So it’s mine! I made it up. I have to fill out the form to make it officially my trademark phrase. Hold on a sec, ’kay?”
Iphigenia’s fingers fly over the keyboard. She hits Send. “Done. God, that would be so cool, wouldn’t it? I could probably turn that into a clothing line—Gears Gear. Anyway, back to you. So would you say you’re a techno gadgetronic, then?”
“No. I mean, not really.”
Iphigenia’s getting antsy. She taps her fake nails against the tabletop. “Well, you have to be something.”
“What if I’m a lot of different somethings?”
“No can do. It messes with the marketing plan. Just one thing. If we can’t categorize you, then you can’t play.”
“What category are you?”
Iphigenia smiles. “Oh! I’m a trendinator.”
“Trendinator?”
“Yeah. That’s somebody who’s totally ahead of the curve on trends. Like, we sort of predict what’s going to be hot next. Trendinators are sort of the top. God! I wish I had trademarked that phrase, because the merch is out of control. The handbags alone go for two fifty a pop.”
“Just because they say trendinator on them?”
“No! They don’t say anything at all on them! That’s the genius of it. It’s like, you’re so far ahead of the curve that all there is is blankness.”
Iphigenia’s feather sparkle pen with the One Love Kitty hovers over the page. She’s itching to categorize me.
“Audio boss,” I say.
“Cool! Hey, you wanna see the rest of the Party House? We’ve got a pool that shoots Rad XL Soda—‘The Soda for Our Generation’—out of a fountain in the back. It is so nuclear.” She sighs. “I’ve been trying to get ‘nuclear’ to catch on for ages—like, at least three weeks—but so far, all the feedback forms say it’s just not time for it yet. Sometimes I’m so far ahead of the curve that no one gets me.”
