I know she didn’t, but it’s hard not to feel self-conscious about being the only one in our group who hasn’t had an actual, committed-and-into-me boyfriend. Someone exclusive.
Especially because I would really, really, really love to be in love. To be in a relationship like that.
And because of what just happened with Scott. And Blair.
Siggy didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. And I shouldn’t have sounded so mad about Mark. She already knows I don’t like him that much.
That’s not entirely my fault because I didn’t realize that they were going to get back together the first time they broke up. Or the second time. Also, you know, the third time.
I’m a slow learner, okay? I think I’ve put that on the record already.
Now when they break up, I just listen to her cry about him and don’t tell her what I actually think. Because they’ll just be getting back together in a few hours or the next day.
“It’s okay,” I say. “We’re here now, and that’s all that matters.”
“Thanks, June,” Siggy says.
“All together or none at all,” I mutter.
“Don’t start that again!” Imani says.
We start laughing as Siggy asks, “Don’t start what?”
5
The music playing from the massive speakers onstage changes. I glance up but the stage is still empty.
The ballroom is a huge multipurpose room that can be easily reconfigured for different uses. There’s even a semicircular balcony above the entryway, accessed from the third floor. For the con, on the main floor of the ballroom there’s a massive, tall stage that’s been erected in the rear center of the room, opposite the main doors.
Next to me Siggy is trying to scoot her chair to the left a bit. She grunts with the effort.
“Help me, June,” she says, tugging on her seat and lunging at the same time.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“We’re sardines. I’m just trying to get a teeny bit more room.”
I try to scooch my chair in the opposite direction.
“It won’t work.” Imani points at the row of chairs in front of us. All the seats are those fancy, cushioned metal kind that stack.
I still don’t see why they won’t move.
“What?” I ask Imani.
“See the clips?”
Then I do see them, on the back legs of the chairs in front of us: locking clips that allow convention center workers to place the chairs in rows that make it impossible to spread out and ruin the carefully laid-out aisles.
“Sorry, Siggy, looks like we’re trapped,” I say.
Siggy huffs in frustration but soon gets over it as the music gets louder. We crane our necks trying to see if anyone is getting ready to walk out.
Onstage there’s a sofa and two easy chairs, talk show style. Behind them the stage is decorated with rubble, and even a rusted-out car chassis.
Zombie apocalypse set dressing.
At the side edges of the stage, long black curtains hang behind freestanding chain-link barriers. The chain link isn’t anchored to the floor, and it doesn’t run all the way from the stage edge to the wall, but the fencing gets the point across: behind the curtains is off-limits.
Behind the car chassis and rubble is another huge black curtain pulled closed along the back of the stage. Hanging in front of it, above the scenery, is the massive video screen. Since we arrived in the hall, it’s simply been playing a repeating slow-motion reel of the stars of Human Wasteland, dressed as their characters, turning to or away from the camera, looking heroic, stoic, and some other word that rhymes with “-oic,” probably.
And sweaty.
There’s no air-conditioning in the ZA.
The lights flicker, then dim, and the screen immediately cuts to the main character, the army ranger Captain Cliff Stead, played by actor James Cooper. He’s handsome in a grown-up way, with a strong jaw, intense eyes, and beautiful brown skin. His hair was in a military buzz cut when the first season started. On the show he’s searching for his family, but he’s managed to cobble together a ragtag group of followers, including my favorite, Clay, who’s been out looking for his own dad.
The audience screams raw-throated approval as Cliff speaks.
It’s the scene from the first episode, the one when the characters first realized what odds they were facing.
“I may not know how this happened,” Cliff says, his voice intense as he looks around at the others in his group. “Hell, I don’t know what those things are or if they’re everywhere. It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s our reality now.”
His jaw tightens and he glances at Clay, who’s looking up at him with luminous green eyes.
Hunter was so cute even then.
He’s gotten taller and cuter in the past two seasons.
Cliff drops his eyes in shame. “I don’t know anything. I don’t even know where my son is.”
He swipes at his mouth, a pulling motion, like he’s trying to pull off worry, trying to wipe away fear.
He looks up, and a new determination is in his eyes.
“But I know one thing. I know what I’m gonna do.” He looks around to the others. “I’m gonna fight.”
In the ballroom, the audience whoops a hell yeah! sounding yell.
Clay steps forward, the first of the group to reply. “Me too.” He looks around at the others. “We have to fight together. Or end alone.”
The audience cheers a damn straight! kind of cheer.
Cliff looks at Clay, and gives him a tight, proud nod, as the others all promise to fight.
Then the scene cuts, and I realize it’s a compilation of greatest hits, Clay’s best scenes over the first three seasons.
I scream louder than anyone.
The new scene is when I went from thinking “He’s cute” to “He’s the most precious cinnamon roll and must be protected.” And, in my opinion, it’s the best episode of the second season, when Clay goes rogue against Cliff’s orders. Clay’s committed to doing his shift as perimeter guard, even though Cliff told him not to, because Clay wasn’t looking so hot. Because he was sick! But he was just too damn stubborn to accept his own helplessness, and he didn’t want to be just a kid, so he went anyway. And while he was out there on patrol he thought he heard a child calling for help, so he started searching the woods, going farther and farther out, sweating and shaking and just a mess, and what he didn’t realize was, his fever was so high he was having auditory hallucinations.