Page 32 of How We Play the Game
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Cassius asks me. He mimes holding a camera in front of his face and clicks his tongue like a shutter. “For Clive.”
“Oh, right.” I told Clive I’d send him some pictures after orientation. “Kavi, can you come in for a selfie?”
“Oh, for sure, for sure.”
I laugh in earnest. I’m not the only one who noticed Chaz has a catchphrase, and Kavi has an uncanny ability to mimic his tone.
“Our first selfie as Team Vision?” Trieu asks, excited.
“Nope, just girls,” I explain. “My, uh … my uncle thinks I’m at an all-girls coding camp right now.”
I hear Ivan snort from his place by the door. “AndI’mthe one who’s full of it?”
Suddenly, for reasons I don’t have to interrogate, I remember the name of that song. It’s “I Am Gonna Claw (Out Your Eyes then Drown You To Death).” A Darren Korb classic.
Kavi comes in for the picture and takes the phone from my hands. I surrender it willingly; she’s known me for two days and has a much stronger eye for my angles than I do. It’sodd seeing Mirror Zora on the screen, but for once my wide-eyed confusion comes across photogenically. After taking a few pictures, Kavi taps straight into my messages and sets up a Team Vision group chat.
“Send it to all of us,” she instructs. “We should take a few more today and cross-post to our WiTch accounts after the meet and greet. Presents a united front.”
Sure, but before I do that, I have to text Clive.
Hey unc, two days in and I already let my roommate talk me into a makeover. Ready for my close-up! Miss u.Attach photo. Nerd face emoji. Hair flip emoji. Send.
“Okay, we’re good.”
“Team Vision on the move, let’s roll.” Ivan holds the door open for all of us, letting Trieu guide us like a mother duck through the narrow back halls of the Wizzard’s less public-facing wing. Each turn takes us closer to the lounge, through better lit halls, across the crowded lobby, and finally through the double doors that lead to the Wizzard Theater’s premiere performance space. And I do not mean the stage.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“HEY, WHAT’S UP, guys, this is MannyPlays here at the Wizzard Theater in New York Cit-ayyy.” A twentysomething-year-old man with a broccoli cut and the rubber-faced enthusiasm of someone with a crippling caffeine addiction and a YouTube channel is sitting next to me on a couch. He’s not talking to me as much as he is saying loud words at the lens of his camera setup while Ivan and I are both in blisteringly close earshot.
The last time I was in the players’ lounge at the Wizzard Theater was at Wizzcon, and for a moment I’m not sure if it’s still the same room. Six months ago every beanbag chair, every table and chair, every packaged snack and soda can set front-facing in the glass refrigerators was themed around Wizzard’s actual games.
Now every item in the room is sponsored by some company or another in a horrendously discordant display. The chairs are printed with the logo of a VPN provider, and the couches are trying to sell me a new pair of headphones. The fridges are stuffed with an unreleased flavor of carbonated cold brew,and there are QR codes printed on banners that promise free tokens for new users of a sports betting app. It’s all so ugly I almost flinch. One look over at Ivan tells me he’s grossed out as well. Is this how Brian wants to use the academy? As a backdrop for cramming as many ads as possible into the retinae of everyone’s combined followers?
“Relax,” Ivan says without moving his lips an inch out of place from a toothy grin. I remind myself to add amateur ventriloquy to the list of skills Makeup Zora needs to pick up.
“I am relaxed,” I mutter back. Thankfully MannyPlays hasn’t given us personal mics, or rather he tried until he realized I was wearing a hilariously expensive jumper (Kavi borrowed it from a friend’s older sister’s job’s sample sale). I had the choice between letting him unzip me to run a cord behind my bra and me taking his arm off like Beowulf; he should think about changing his name to Grendel.
“If you want to see more live-streamed content like this, don’t forget to smash that like button and subscribe with notifications so you get an alert every time I post a new video and to get reminders for my weekly streaming schedule—”
“Okay,” Ivan says again. “Then could you maybe stop squeezing my hand like a stress ball?”
I look down at my lap, where my hand is in fact holding his very tightly. It was Ivan’s idea to hold hands when we sat down. No, wait. It was mine. Or, no, it kind of just happened; I don’t know. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But now the tension in my fingers is turning his knuckles whiter; I try to wrench my hand away.
“Nup-up.” Ivan holds my hand fast in his. “That part we have to do.” He thinks for a moment, while MannyPlayscontinues to get through his intro, somehow. I don’t think this man-ny has even stopped to take a breath since he started. “Unless you’re uncomfortable with the contact. I won’t—we don’t—only if, you know, consent and—”
“It’s fine,” I say, mostly to get him to stop talking. Ventriloquist or not, this is Ivan’s first video appearance since he disappeared after theGuardians League Onlinechampionship last year. His fans, and his not-so-fans, will be observing the heck out of his behavior.And mine, I realize. I wonder how many times I’m going to have to remember to act like I’m being watched before it’s second nature. I look at Ivan again; this time he catches my glance and winks, face cheated at just the right angle so the affectionate gesture plays toward the camera.
“And of course to support the channel even more, there’s a link to my Patreon in the description; paying subscribers get access to all kinds of awesome perks like early access to my streams, discounts on my merch drops …”
Actually, on second thought, no. I deliberately remove my hand from Ivan’s and watch his fingers flex the moment I stop touching him. He must be relieved I’ve stopped squeezing.
“—and you even get to vote on which topics and players I cover every week including this surprise-drop power couple here to take Brian Juno’s summer academy by storm! To start off with the obvious, VANE’s back! That’s right. What’s up, man?” Manny holds his hand out for a high five, which Ivan uses his newly freed hand to slap. I tuck mine under my thigh and remember to keep smiling no matter what.
When I said “no matter what,” I actually meant “until my brain crashes out halfway through lunch.” Nonstop socializing, especially when I know I’m being potentially filmed by everyone in sight, is more hellish than I could have imagined. I am grumpy. I am tired, and Trieu is making the most of it by showing off how good my lips look when I’m pouting.
“I mix some of the highlighter into the lip gloss before I put it on,” Trieu explains. “You can see the effect better on Kavi and Zora than you can on me.” I pop my hip to bring my height down closer to Kavi’s level, smooch my lips out obediently, and hear a chorus of clicks from people who don’t know how to silence the sound effects on their phones.
