We'll Always Have Parrots(18)

Hard to believe she’d checked in the night before. I’d need a week to create that much chaos.

“Oh, they won’t want to hear me,” she was saying. “Not after the novelty of listening to Ichabod Dilley. What did he say, anyway?”

Her voice had an edge. Maybe she resented sharing the spotlight with Dilley. Maybe she was afraid he’d denounce the clever deal she’d made, thirty years ago, when she’d bought the film rights to Porfiria for what now seemed a ridiculously small sum.

Or maybe she was just afraid he’d mention how long ago that deal had taken place.

I wondered if someone should tell her that it wasn’t the real Ichabod Dilley after all. At least, not the Ichabod Dilley who’d written the comic books. Would it calm her down to hear this, or further enrage her?

No one else answered, so I spoke up.

“I don’t think any of us know what he said. Hardly anyone went.”

She looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time, and I remembered why I usually held my tongue around her.

“Really?” she said. She smiled, and then, when I didn’t say anything else, her glance flicked away as if I no longer existed.

I realized I’d been holding my breath.

“Look at the time!” Michael exclaimed. “We should be going!”

Michael continued to distract the QB while Typhani stuffed her employer into the glittering jacket of her costume, and combed her suspiciously jet-black hair into some kind of order. Then Michael offered his arm in a gesture whose apparent chivalry disguised its practical purpose. The QB clung to him as he half-supported and half-steered her out the door and propelled her down the corridor. The tiny Amazon trotted beside them, occasionally tugging Michael in the right direction when he made a wrong turn, as all of us did when navigating the hotel corridors. Of course, Michael had an excuse—he was chattering a mile a minute about what a lovely convention it had been so far and how enthusiastic the fans were.

To my surprise, they were enthusiastic. They greeted the QB’s arrival noisily—had they been bribed, perhaps? As I stood in the wings, I could see them listening with rapt attention. Amazing. Perhaps my own dislike blinded me to the fans’ genuine affection for her.

I was silently berating myself when Typhani came up and shoved a legal pad and a pen into my hands.

“Help us think up the trivia questions,” she hissed into my ear.

“Trivia questions?” I stage-whispered back.

“The fan who can answer the most trivia questions about Miss Wynncliffe-Jones’s talk gets a personally autographed picture,” she said. “Of Michael.”

Ah. That explained the rapt attention. I was right; they were bribed. I dutifully began scribbling notes.

“And she’s supposed to be Porfiria?”

I looked up to see Alaric Steele standing at my elbow.

“That’s her,” I said. “Is the booth—?”

“Chris, the blademaster guy, offered to watch it,” Steele said. “What is that getup she’s wearing?”

“It’s what she wears when she performs a sacrifice to the goddess Apnea.

“The goddess of snoring.”

I watched his face as he studied the outfit. The costume shop had intended the gown’s stiff brocade and voluminous folds to disguise the QB’s girth while the high gold lamé collar camouflaged her chins. The headdress was supposed to make her face seem less round, though to my mind it only completed her resemblance to the top ornament on a Christmas tree.

“I understand that in the original comic books, Porfiria performed her sacrifices wearing a loincloth and a couple of tasseled pasties,” I added. “Not that I’ve ever read them.”

“Yeah, that sounds more like something from a comic book,” Steele said, with a fleeting smile. “I might even have read some of them—I’m old enough, remember?”

“Problem is, so is Her Highness.”

“And then some,” he said. “And I don’t think Her Highness is the right form of address.”

“Her Majesty, maybe?”

“More like Her Tipsiness.”

“Is it that obvious?” I said, wincing.

He shrugged.

“Are all the panels like this?” he asked. “Bunch of silly actors talking about the show?”

I decided, in the interest of harmony, not to remind him of my connection with one of the silly actors. I nodded.

“I’d better get back,” he said. “Chris only agreed to watch the booth for a few minutes so I could get a gander at Her Elusiveness.”

“I should go back and help you,” I said.

“I can hold things down if you want to hang around with your boyfriend.”