We'll Always Have Parrots(17)

The barbarian woman glanced at our booth, favored Steele with a smile considerably warmer than the one she’d given Dilley, and undulated on.

“Interesting costume,” I said, into the ensuing silence.

One o’clock came, and shortly afterward, the dealers’ room grew crowded. Very crowded. Not a ringing endorsement of Ichabod Dilley’s motivational speech.

Sure enough, I overheard nearby fans talking about it.

“Good time to come to the dealers’ room and visit my former money,” one said.

“So what’s going on in the ballroom now?” another asked.

“Nothing worth seeing,” said the first.

“Some crackpot yammering on about daring to be yourself,” said a woman dressed as one of Porfiria’s ladies-in-waiting.

“As if we need that kind of advice,” scoffed a pudgy Michael clone.

Poor Icky.

The crowd thinned out toward the end of the hour, so I deduced the fans expected something interesting in the ballroom at two. I was about to suggest to Steele that one of us make a food run when Michael appeared and beckoned to me.

“Sorry,” he said. “Things have been crazy. I thought we could have lunch, but they’ve drafted me to coax the QB out of her room and give her moral support when she does her panel at two.”

“She’s still playing hermit?”

“Apparently. Can you come along and help us with her?”

“Me?”

I wasn’t sure the QB even knew who I was. She’d been known to glare at me when I showed up at cast parties on Michael’s arm, but normally she ignored me.

“We think she’s feeling overwhelmed,” Michael said. “We’re rounding up people she knows.”

Shaking my head, I followed him.

They had already gathered Michael’s costar and buddy, Walker; Nate, the scriptwriter; blademaster Chris; and a perky young blond woman named Typhani who’d been working as the QB’s personal assistant for an impressive six weeks. Previous personal assistants had flounced off in a huff or run off in tears by the end of the first week.

“Okay,” Michael told the diminutive Amazon. “Let’s go get her.”

At first, I didn’t think it would work.

“Go away! Leave me alone!” the QB kept shouting. But Michael kept coaxing, and periodically he’d say something like,

“Everyone’s just waiting to see you!”

And the rest of us would ad lib encouraging comments.

Gradually, the protests grew less vehement. And finally, after one particularly impassioned plea from Michael, success.

She opened the door.





Chapter 10




Even from where I stood, I could smell the blast of peppermint from her breath. Either she’d just knocked back a killer dose of mouthwash or she’d taken up flavored vodka. She gazed slowly around the circle of people outside her door, though it didn’t feel as if she was looking at us. More like scanning us with some instrument other than her eyes. I could imagine a reptile performing the same emotionless survey. It’s not edible; it’s not dangerous; I can’t mate with it; it might as well not exist; I’ll ignore it.

Fine by me. I’d seen what happened to people when the QB stopped ignoring them.

I saw a faint spark of interest in her eyes when she spotted Michael.

“Come in,” she said, beckoning to him. The rest of us followed. She didn’t shriek, so I deduced she was in a good mood.

An artificially induced good mood, though. Her balance was worse than usual, and her smile had a certain wobbly quality.

I was surprised, and I could tell Michael was, too. From his tales of life on the set, her drinking was a menace, but only after the cameras stopped rolling. She might show up for work with a monumental hangover, but she’d be sober. I suppose we’d expected her to maintain the same discipline at the convention. After all, it was work.

“Oh, my God,” the Amazon murmured. “She’s—”

“A real trouper,” Typhani said, in a loud firm voice. “I’m sure even though she’s been feeling a little unwell, she’ll do fine once we get her on stage.”

It was that getting her on stage part that worried me. She chatted brightly with Michael, oblivious to the passing minutes.

Or perhaps less oblivious than determined to sabotage the schedule. Or unwilling to leave the comfort of a familiar environment.

Not my idea of comfort, but it looked a lot like her trailer on the set, from the brief glimpses I’d had of it. She’d made herself at home.

Bits of clothing covered most of the room’s horizontal surfaces. At least a dozen pairs of shoes lay scattered about. An empty box of truffles sat on the bedside table, and from the number of fluted brown-paper candy cups strewn on the floor, it wasn’t the first box. The contents of her purse carpeted the top of the dresser—she had an amazing number of credit cards.