Page 27 of My Cosplay Escape
“You read my mind,” Tony says by way of greeting. “Kate canceled. I need you to work tonight.”
“I can’t work tonight.” I also can’t look Tony in the eye. “I have plans.”
“You never have plans!” Tony falls against the counter of the front desk and starts doing stress push-ups. “Why are you even here?”
“I want to work out before my plans. Is my favorite treadmill open?”
Gwen must have found parking close, because she’s just walked in.
Tony looks dazed, like an hour-long hot yoga session stretched into ninety minutes. “A quick workout is calming. I get it. Can you cover for any part of tonight?”
I end up covering the front desk until Tony can phone in Julian. So much for my comfort run.
I duck into the women’s locker room and breathe silent prayers of thanksgiving that one of the private changing cabanas is open. This is risky, but it would be impossible to do at home. I strip down to my black lacy knickers and begin by whiting out my face. I mean, notwhitewhite. Really, not much changes, because I’m pretty pasty. You’d think with all the running I’ve done, I’d have a tan, but I don’t tan. I burn, and I peel. It gets old fast, so I’m devoted to my sunscreen, visor, and sunglasses. I rummage in my makeup bag and find my contour pad. And while I’d never contour in real life, chiseling my features is nonnegotiable for cosplay. These are costumes. Restraint means you stand that much more of a chance of being recognized. I hastily stain my lips a dark berry red. The false lashes are next before I layer on the mascara. I pause to stare at myself in the changing cabana’s full-length mirror. My winged cat’s eyeliner looks fierce and my blue eyes electric—and worlds apart from their normal dull denim color. My cheeks are chiseled into a high relief that makes my face look heart-shaped.
Shimmying into vinyl isn’t easy. Particularly when you are trying not to smudge the plaster mask of makeup on your face or muss the false eyelashes. The invisible side-zipper that I added in my mom’s bathroom the morning of Comic-Con is the only reason I can get the corset on by myself. I tug on my cowl and fasten it.
There’s a tap on my cabana door. “Coast is clear,” Gwen calls softly.
I step out, and Gwen freezes when she sees me. “Holy hell!”
I put a hand on my vinyl-ensconced waist. “You’ve seen me cosplay before.” I tug on one of my clawed gloves. I’ve had to blunt the tips of wire, but they are still absolutely ridiculous.
“Yeah, but that was Comic-Con. You expect to see lions at the zoo. Seeing one walking around in real life is—”
“Ridiculous?”
“Freaking awesome. Have you seen yourself?”
I turn to face the full-length mirror in the locker room and am stunned when Catstrike blinks back. She mirrors my movements. I stretch, and she does too. She’s taller than me in the black lace-up boots. And skinnier than I’ve ever been. Is that what running away from the damn memories does to a woman? I’ve done my best to avoid mirrors ever since… well, even before I got married. I don’t think I’ve forgotten what I look like, but I certainly don’t look like a supervillain/antihero/sexpot.
“Obsessed.” Gwen tucks in the ties of my corset from the back. “I mean, if he isn’t already.”
Not that it matters, but a satisfied glow starts up somewhere inside. With my corset squeezing my insides, I’m not sure where inside. But somewhere.
I shove my gym bag into my locker, just as LouAnne, one of our senior patrons, shuffles out of the shower, stark naked. Gwen must have forgotten to check the showers. LouAnne has no qualms about modesty in the locker room. She once stopped me to talk for fifteen minutes with not even a towel in her hands.Deeply disturbingdoesn’t even begin to do our little chat justice.
Can I fit in my locker? I’m mortified. But Gwen smiles good-naturedly. She intercepts LouAnne, and catches her with her back to me, before she turns the corner to the lockers and discovers a fully-realized Catstrike. “How’s it going LouAnne?”
“This gym needs a pool,” she says.
Gwen nods seriously. It’s all the encouragement LouAnne needs to launch into her good-old-days stories of competitive swimming. I mouth my thanks to Gwen and dart out.
I double-check to make sure the hall outside the locker room is empty. I think for a moment about giving myself a pep talk. Ayou got this, you’re a professional, everything is hinging on being a huge success. But there is no time. Getting ready took longer than I thought it would. I really need to find a different pair of boots. The laces alone are ridiculous, and the heels are definitely not my sweet spot.
I grabbed my whip before streaking to the yoga patio out of panic, or maybe despair? I’m sure that this qualifies as the most insane thing I’ve ever done.
The yoga patio is not a big space, but it is predictably underutilized. And more important, it butts up against the back alley. A block wall and some jasmine vines are all that separate me from the quiet backstreet, which conveniently joins up with the alley behind Garnet Avenue and thereby the back door of Superhero Escapes. Stacey texted that the emergency exit door would be unlocked for me. I just have to get there. I stand on the teakwood bench and try to heave myself up onto the top of the block wall.
Nope.
“Come on. What’s the point of all those planks if I can’t even get up a block wall?” I mutter.
I try again to scramble up the wall, but this time I fall, landing on my butt. I growl in frustration and lie there, staring up at the thick branches of the eucalyptus tree. They stretch and spread effortlessly over the block wall.
I take my whip and throw it over a branch. It’s not graceful. It takes me more than a couple of attempts, but when it lands, it is the leverage I need to scale the wall. I straddle the top triumphantly, but before I can swing both my legs over and scamper away into the dark alley, I hear a door creak open. Panic freezes me in place.
The back door of Stu’s Donuts, a Pacific Beach institution if ever there was one, is propped open. Stu himself, a stooped-over grandpa with a cigar habit, stands in the alley, holding a bag of trash and staring at me atop the block wall.
