Page 29 of OctoBEARfest

The real answer was that in his heart, Bill was certain if he had a fall, he would instinctively shift into a bear, which wasbetter at rolling through snow than he was. That didn't seem like an answer he could offer right now, so he said, "Two hundred and forty pounds of me hurtling downhill at high speed has always seemed like a bad idea," which was also true.

"I've never been either. We can go try the, what do they call it? Bunny hills? Do they really call them that? Sometime."

"I don't know if they really call them that, but what if I counter-proposed just going up to the resorts and watching the skiers from the nice safe warmth of the ski lodges while drinking hot chocolate?"

"Hmph. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I'm not sure I have one," Bill admitted. "Turn right here, and we're there."

"Oh, that was fast. I bet they're not ready yet." Gwen swung out of the car and looked the little strip mall up and down. "This is totally Anywhere, USA, isn't it? I like it, though. And all the storefronts are full. It seems like Renaissance is kind of thriving."

"It's a—" Bill broke off, abruptly at a loss. Renaissance was a shifter town, which meant shifters from all walks of life had settled there, knowing they had a relatively safe community, a lot of wilderness next door, and a good reason to keep the town bustling and alive. But he couldn't say that without explaining shifters, and while therewasa scruffy patch of trees over to the left of the strip mall, he didn't think it was quite private enough to change into a 1200 pound grizzly bear in. He ended up saying, "—a good little town," awkwardly, although Gwen didn't seem to notice the awkwardness.

"I've never lived anywhere this small. Not for long, anyway. We lived in Seattle when I was little, and then it was Los Angeles until everything went to hell. It took me a while to settle in Denver but I didn't reallyliveanywhere between then." At Bill's questioning look, Gwen shrugged. "I did do the van lifefor a while. I didn't want to stay anywhere that people might recognize me, so I basically avoided them entirely for a couple of years and just drove all over the place. Did some street busking to make money, or picked up odd jobs in towns I was going through. I was terrible at everything except, like, raking leaves. Eventually I'd, you know, gotten enough older, lost enough baby face, that I didn't look as much like myself, and I got a secret weapon to disguise myself."

"A secret weapon…?"

She whipped out a pair of glasses from a pocket and put them on with great flair. They were thick-framed cat-eyes with sparkles, and did something to the color of her eyes. "Wow," Bill said after a moment of studying her. "Those really don't suit you at all."

Gwen laughed, clearly delighted. "They really don't, do they? But they're incredibly distracting."

"Are the lenses tinted? Your eyes look almost green."

"Yup. Just a little yellow in them. No rose-colored glasses for me. Also they get darker outside—" They did as she was talking, a polarizing effect taking place. "—so it's extra-disguisey, or something. It's less of an issue now," she added, taking the glasses off. "But it helped a lot when I was in my early twenties. Psychologically, at least."

"I imagine so. That must have been difficult." It felt like a completely inadequate thing to say, but Gwen's smile turned soft and grateful.

"It was bad the first few years. I like being Gwen Booker, though, once I got used to it. She's got a lot more freedom than Emma Hart ever would have had. She also has a gig to sell out, so why don't we go see if those flyers are ready, and tell everybody there's a party tonight?"

"Yes, ma'am." Bill saluted. They went in to collect the flyers, and came out again trying desperately not to laugh at how Ripleyhad played ittotallycool, like, yeah, they knew Gwen Booker, hey Gwen, nice to see you, in front of their coworkers, only for bone-piercing shrieks and giggles to break just before the door closed behind Bill and Gwen again. "Are you sure you're not top of the charts?" Bill demanded as they got back in the car. "You seem awfully popular!"

"If I had a major label behind me for the next album I'd go stratospheric," Gwen said with charming frankness. "That might sound arrogant, but the band's put the work in over the past decade. The thing—athing—is that labels don't want workhorses. They want you to be a hit with the first album these days, instead of building an audience over two or three albums and breaking out. We've built the audience. If things were a little different, we'd break out."

"Do you want to? If we go over a couple blocks we'll be downtown and can put flyers up there. This area doesn't get as much foot traffic."

"Okay." Gwen drove them over, her expression thoughtful, but she didn't answer the question until they were out of the car in the cool autumn morning and hanging up posters. "If I personally get any more famous than I am, everybody's going to remember Emma Hart, and that's not my fave, no. I mean, a lot of my fans already know, but they've, like, let it go? But it'd becomethestory about the band. On the other hand…" She shrugged as they walked around, sticking posters to light poles and going into businesses to ask if they could put them up there. "The bandhasput in the work. I'd love to see them get the recognition they deserve. Even though they'd also get overshadowed by who I used to be."

"I take it they all know?"

"Yeah. But knowing, and being in the middle of a media shitstorm about it, are not the same things. Trust me," she said wryly. "Iknow."

"I bet you do. Is this what you do?" He nodded toward the flyers they'd just posted. "I mean, is it how you built your audience?"

"Some of it. Penny, she's my drummer, she's amazing at social media. I stay away from it, obviously, but Penny's out there with the videos and the clips and the quips, and because I'm only like a background character in them in a lot of ways, the rest of them have gotten a chance to shine. I've lost most of the band to bigger names over the years, because of her promo, but we've found great new people the same way. And she's stuck with me. She says she wants to be the one who was there all along when Sixty Pix breaks big."

"What's with the name? 'Sixty Pix?'"

Gwen grinned, a big bright flash of teeth. "That's actually Penny, too. Well, it's us, but she was looking for a good hashtag to promote her stage photography and landed on this idea of posting sixty pictures a week, ten a day except on Mondays. Her tag was 'Sixty Pics,' P-I-C-S instead of P-I-X, but when the band started to actually take shape we thought we could use that, so for a while it was Sixty Pics of Sixty Pix, and at some point she dropped the P-I-C-S spelling and here we are. My drummer, the marketing whiz kid."

"She sounds great. It'll be nice to meet her."

"Speaking of which." Gwen took her phone out to check the time, then waggled it at him. "We should grab a snack and go back to the pub. The band will be there soon."

CHAPTER 19

Bill Torben was the only guy Gwen had met in years—maybe ever—who'd learned she used to be Emma Hart, absorbed that information, and then just didn't seem to care very much. He asked questions like he was interested in her, but not like he was desperate to find out all the dirt on being a child star, or like it changed what he thought of her.

It was weird, Gwen thought, and it waswonderful.She hadn't told anybody but Penny, over years, as much about herself as she'd told Bill in a few hours. She could hardly believe how easy and comfortable it was. Or how much fun she'd had, just wandering around downtown Renaissance putting up posters with him.

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