Page 23 of Business or Pleasure

And this, I realize when we go back inside and start playing, and my mom laughs with a hand over her mouth and my dad tries his hardest to be as crass as possible, isn’t going to be easy to leave. Wyatt heads home early and Noemie’s moms stop by with yet another bag of elote chips, and I realize all the people I love most are in this house right now. This is what’s kept me here all these years, this little community I’ve had. I don’t know how I’m going to live without it until December.

Noemie slings an arm around my back, rests her head against my shoulder. My cousin, who seems to have cemented herself in adulthood while I can’t seem to keep my balance. I try to imagine it, her coming home after her endless workdays to a quiet house, and I’m hit with a stab of loneliness.

But maybe this trip will be good for both of us.

If I think it enough times, hopefully I’ll start to believe it.

UNKNOWN NUMBER

11:07 AM

Hi Chandler. I trust you arrived safely?

UNKNOWN NUMBER

11:09 AM

This is Finn Walsh, in case you haven’t put my number in your phone yet. Not that there’s any pressure to, or any assumption that you’re going to. I just wanted to let you know. That this is my number. So you’re not sitting there wondering who it is.

UNKNOWN NUMBER

11:12 AM

[message deleted]

UNKNOWN NUMBER

11:14 AM

Welcome to Portland?

chapter

seven

PORTLAND, OR

I stare down at Finn’s texts as the airplane taxis, saving his number to my phone. The flight from Seattle to Portland was so short, I barely had a chance to finish episode one of The Nocturnals, which introduces the small New England college town where spooky things start happening on the first day of classes—because, little do most of the students know, at least one freshman is a werewolf, and a centuries-old battle between good and evil is brewing in their backyard. Finn’s character has only a few lines; we see him in the library, because what surer way to establish that he’s a nerd, falling asleep in the middle of a book. When he wakes up after the library’s closed, he’s hit with a sudden chill. A sense of unease. Nothing around him appears to be wrong, though... until he heads out into the night and the audience sees paw prints tracking him down the library’s dusty hallway. Roll credits.

The Finn on my phone seems to be going out of his way to be professional. Which, in theory, I shouldn’t mind—it’s just so clearly a concerted effort. I decided last night, in the middle of not being able to sleep because of airplane anxiety and not being able to sleep because of new-job anxiety, that this trip doesn’t need to be uncomfortable. This is a rare, frankly incredible opportunity I’ve been given. And I’m going to do everything I can to enjoy it in all the ways I couldn’t with Maddy’s book.

That mood lasts about until I check into my hotel and open the door to my room. It’s not that I was expecting lush digs or anything, but there’s barely any space to walk around the bed, there’s no shower curtain in the bathroom, and the room’s single electrical outlet is, inexplicably, located inside the closet.

Stay positive, I urge myself, unplugging a lamp so I can charge my phone.

I’ll be here only a couple nights, so I unpack my carry-on but leave my larger suitcase untouched. Then I put on a vintage Harley Quinn T-shirt I found in a thrift shop years ago and have only ever worn to sleep in because it’s a little big, but today it seems perfect. I tuck it into high-waisted jeans and add a cotton blazer, which I swap for an oversize flannel, which I swap for the blazer again before lying down on the bed and forcing myself to breathe.

At these cons, I’m meant to essentially become Finn’s shadow, tailing him from panel to signing and back again. Watching how he interacts with fans. Getting to know him—not just his personality, but his voice, his mannerisms and quirks and favorite turns of phrase, all of which will help me embody him when I start writing. He had a fan meet and greet earlier today, so I won’t see him until his panel this afternoon. In theory, today is supposed to be low stress.

While I have a few pages full of research and links I compiled over the week, I’m not starting an outline of the book until we get a chance to discuss what he has in mind. Some of my authors have had clear ideas of format and narrative structure, or they’ll have already worked with an editor on an outline, which Finn has not. This book is important to him, he assured me. I have to believe he’ll have some sense of direction.

Even though I have enough per diem for an Uber and I’ve been urged to use it, I can’t justify it for the twelve-minute walk to the convention center. Rose City Comic Con is smaller than ECCC, but that fact doesn’t prepare me for the sheer chaos once I get inside—or the stormtrooper who nearly runs me over. After some profuse apologies from both of us, I pause for a few moments, gazing around and taking it all in. It’s a swirl of color and noise, extreme sensory overload. Capes swish as attendees huddle over maps and swarm booths, waiting in line to buy merch and comics. And everywhere, everywhere, people are posing for photos. The celeb signings are in a different spot, but out here in the atrium, a drag queen Black Widow has amassed a huge crowd, along with a trio of cotton candy–colored Chewbaccas and at least two dogs dressed in Star Trek costumes, one of them complete with Spock ears. There are anime characters and video game characters and even a man whose entire body is painted silver wearing a very tiny Speedo.

There’s a unique kind of energy here, one that I can sense right away. Everyone here has such a clear passion for their fandom, whether it’s Marvel or Doctor Who or The Nocturnals. And it makes me wish, for much longer than I’d like to admit, that I loved anything this much. It used to be writing, and then more specifically journalism, and now that space in my heart I carved out years ago is as blank as a fresh Word document.

I head to the press area and collect my credentials, draping the lanyard around my neck and feeling very much like a Seasoned Professional—until I realize I have no idea where I’m going.

“Excuse me, do you know where Hall E is?” I ask a Dalek.

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