Be Dazzled Read online

  “And the cues?”

  “Yup.”

  “And you can walk okay?”

  “For a girl in a forty-pound costume, balancing atop four stilts? Sure. But Raff, next time can I be the one in the pretty mushroom dress?”

  I barely acknowledge her sarcasm as I unfasten and refasten one of her straps for the eighth time. I’m afraid that the moment I decide we’re ready, everything will fall apart.

  “Relax, Raff. Listen, this is going to go well,” she tells me. “We’re going to win, and we’re going to get you that sponsorship, okay? And then it’s only a matter of time before those fancy-shmancy art schools will be begging to review your portfolio, okay?”

  I force a smile (a small one—I don’t want to risk dislodging my prosthetic cheekbones). I hope she’s right. Everything—every dream of mine, every winking whim—rides on proving I can do this without Evie. In spite of her, in fact.

  “And listen.” May’s voice turns solemn. “I know you miss him, and I know it was supposed to be him in this costume and not me, but—”

  “Stop.”

  “Raff—”

  “You know I don’t want to hear about him.”

  “Yes, but Raff—”

  I give her a warning glare, and she stops talking. There’s one last reason why I’m here, but I won’t let it be the main reason. I won’t even let May say the reason’s name. I only want to hear his name when the announcers award him silver right before awarding me gold.

  “I’m just saying that you can do this without him,” May says.

  “We can do this.” I give her a small nudge, and the Pinehorn armor shakes as we start our walk out onto the con floor.

  “I’m doing this for you, but remember our deal? I get Sunday to set up at the Art Mart. There are some top online artists here, and I’m aiming to make some friends.”

  The Art Mart is where all the artist booths are set up, a huge room that bustles with shoppers looking for custom prints, gifts, shirts, phone cases, comics, and anything else you can imagine. It’s a small nuclear power plant of creativity and bootlegged shit. It’s May’s Mount Olympus, and this year she’s got a chance to drop in at one of the amateur booths on Sunday, where she’ll be selling merch for her recently kinda-famous webcomic, Cherry Cherry. As a fellow art-trepreneur, I couldn’t be prouder.

  “Of course.”

  As soon as we hit the con floor, I know we’ve nailed our look. Within two seconds, people are calling out famous lines from Deep Autumn. Kids rush over, asking if they can take pictures with us. A circle forms around us, but at a distinct distance, like the moss on our skin is contagious, like its spores might float through the hot air of the con and lodge in skin, throats, and eyes, burrowing into bones and turning them soft with rot.

  Perfect. May and I are ready. We get into our practiced stances, but before anyone can snap a picture, May turns on her stilts and lumbers off.

  People are confused. I’m confused. I run after her.

  “May, what’s wrong?”

  “We need to go.”

  “What? We just got here.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s urgent.”

  I grab May’s arm through the joint of the costume. We need to build up excitement now if we’re going to have a reputation by the time we’re onstage in front of the actual judges. I want people in the audience to know us, to cheer for us. I want to be recognized.

  “Shit, I wanted to warn you,” she says, stopping short as a commotion begins in the crowd behind us. Whatever she wanted to warn me about, it’s too late. I track the shouts. Is it Evie, here to take me home? How did she get here so quickly?

  But it’s so much worse.

  A new couple has entered the room. The screams that go up are hysterical with excitement, people practically crawling over one another to see the latest looks. I hear a bellowing laugh over the racket; I see sunlight on the curve of a muscled back and the shock of white teeth in a broad smile.

  No.

  I see a girl slinking across the floor, stalking her prey. Not a girl—a deer. Arrows protrude from her back and throat, and blood streams down her lithe body in glistening ribbons that look fresh enough to paint with. It’s an expert job.

  She is dressed as Bambi’s mother, shot dead and now risen with undead vengeance. I know this without even seeing her partner, because it’s my idea. Down to the bloody ribbons, it’s all my work. My drawings come to life, splayed out before me on the Controverse floor.

  How could this happen? Who took this from me?

  But I know who. I follow the eyes of the crowd to where her partner lies on the ground. His body has been completely airbrushed to resemble that of a deer, every muscle painted in soft browns and beiges. A bite mark on his upper thigh seeps blood, and the flesh around it is already zombified, the infection curdling his young flesh and turning his veins black.

  He drags himself up and pretends to limp on the bad leg, desperate to flee the zombie his mother has become. But he’s laughing. His smile is what slaps me. A smile that wins everything and everyone over. A smile that won me over for a long time, too, until it vanished from my life.

  He’s here.

  Luca Vitale is here.

  My biggest competition. My worst nightmare.

  My ex-boyfriend.

  Given how much TV I watch, I know tropes. Broken love is, of course, the perfect origin story for mortal enemies, so I guess that’s ours, but I’m still not sure who the hero is. We hurt each other. The hard kind of hurt that doesn’t heal up quickly.

  I’ve clung to that hurt for a long time. It’s what has kept me going; it’s what got me here. But when I see him, the hurt abandons me, leaving behind an overwhelming, disorienting nostalgia. When I see him, I see us. How we came together, what we created together, what we ruined together. I see our every moment, and at the same time, I see us unraveling all at once. It’s gutting. And the only way to understand how we fell apart is to understand what made us us in the first place.

  Two

  Then

  Thirteen months earlier

  My filming setup is in the studio.

  The studio is a converted garage behind our house that Evie sometimes traps artists inside when they’re on deadline for a show. It’s not in use right now, which means I’m living here. Yes, I have an actual room in the house, but the studio has everything I need: a loft space with a mattress on the bare wooden floor, a collapsing sofa, a kitchenette, and a bathroom. And of course, a fully equipped, climate-controlled, spectacularly lit artist space with more leftover supplies than a kindergarten class could use in a year.

  Evie doesn’t care that I live out here for months at a time. I don’t think she really notices. She probably likes the quiet for the few nights a month that she’s actually home. I think she knows, vaguely, that I’m making cosplays out here, but so long as I keep my dirty little hobby a secret from her, she keeps her temper in check. So I’m careful to clean up and to never mention this stuff around her or her art friends.

  But, because I guess I love danger and irony, I also set up a camera and record myself crafting for the entire internet to see, twice a week. What can I say? Some kids do drugs. Some kids start fires. I embroider in the dead of night, for the attention of strangers.

  I use Ion for streaming. Everyone uses Ion for streaming. It’s sort of like this massive digital forum full of people talking into their cameras as they do their weird hobbies. But are they still weird if thousands of people watch and comment and subscribe? Not so much.

  Some people eat and review takeout. Some people give personal updates while they polish silverware. Some people stream their latest virtual conquests in whatever games they’re playing. Some people watch scary movies with their jumpiest aunts.

  On my channel, I create stuff.

  Or rather, I create cosplays and narrate w
hat I’m doing. And then I open up the stream to Q&As at the end. I’m not a huge deal, but I’ve got a few thousand subscribers and tons of return views from other cosplayers looking for tutorials. Mostly people lurk on my channel, keeping their comments to themselves. It’s hard to tell if people care, since users come and go and screen names change. Still, it’s comforting to spend time with these random strangers. It makes the long hours of crafting feel not so lonely. And on the plus side, if my mother ever discovers what I’m up to, my most loyal watchers will have a live viewing of me being incinerated by her laser eyes. What could be more special than sharing that?

  I adjust my camera, then turn it on. I give myself a moment before starting the stream.

  “Hello! And welcome back to my channel, Crafty Rafty, the home of all things arts, crafts, and creation. I’m Raffy, and as per usual, I’ll be talking through my latest costume creation, answering questions, and reviewing supplies.”

  I spin through my usual intro. I have rehearsed it many times in front of the tiles in my shower, which give limited feedback. Porcelain, as a material, is very hard to impress.

  “Today, we’re picking up where we left off with my latest build: Plasma Siren. I’m planning on wearing her to Controverse this year, and if all goes well, I might even be competing next year. So, what do you think? Is all going well?”

  I hold up the garment so far. One day, it will be an incredible cosplay of my favorite, favorite mini boss from last year’s indie breakout game, Wake, which is about haunted islands in the Bermuda Triangle. Right now, it’s just a mottled mess of fabric, but today I’m applying scales and rhinestone fin detailing. This is actually something I should do after I’ve sewn the rest of the bodysuit together, but I’m too excited to wait.

  “So, a huge shout-out to one of you. I have no idea who, but one of you must have really been listening during my last stream, because today I arrived home to a package from an unknown sender. And what did I find in it? The exact rhinestones I needed to bedazzle Plasma Siren’s fins.”

  I pause, more to keep myself from laughing than anything else. Someone—a total stranger—bought me craft supplies off my wish list. It’s a looooong list I keep updated on Amazon with the supplies I’m working with, and theoretically people can buy me stuff from it and ship the packages to my house without them having to know where I live. It’s like a wedding registry, but for a single person, and that single person is single because of their ridiculously demanding preoccupation with arts and crafts. And I say theoretically because until now, no one has ever thrown money down for my cause. But, with these rhinestones as my witnesses, someone believes in me! Which means it’s finally happening. My star! It’s rising! I’m practically already the executive producer of my own Netflix show.

  “So whoever sent these, thank you.”

  There is much more I want to say, but I need to act cooler than I feel.

  “Anyway, there are many ways to stone things. Plasma Siren’s fins aren’t your typical surface. They’re plastic, and even though they are opaque, you can see that the surface is super smooth. That’s not great for glue. So before we get to gluing, we’re going to need to give the glue something to grip.”

  As I talk, I pick a patch of sandpaper.

  “I’m sanding the plastic in small circles, carving out tiny scratches that the glue is going to fill. This gives it some tooth. That said, make sure you wash off the plastic after doing this to get rid of the dust. I also suggest swabbing the plastic with alcohol to clean off any residuals.”

  I pick up the fins I’ve already sanded. I hold them up to the camera, letting the light show the newly textured surface.

  “Now that our plastic is treated, we can get to gluing. For gluing to hard surfaces, I recommend an industrial-strength adhesive, like this E6000. But because I need to mask the seam between the stiff material of the fin and the fabric it protrudes from, I’m also going to use some foam clay to smooth out the gap, and then this liquid cement, which comes in a fabric formula.” I hold up both. “Whatever you use, always make sure that it’s going to dry clear. You don’t want a bunch of dry white stuff all over your beautiful jewels.”

  I hear myself and cringe.

  “Sorry, Mom,” I say to the camera, playing it off. Evie is, of course, not watching. She is backpacking in São Paulo with one of her artists, a man who only produces one painting per year, applying the paint directly over his last painting. She’s got him booked at a gallery in SoHo in a few months, where he’ll complete his next layer.

  “I’ll be handling the gems with a picker tool so I don’t get glue all over my hands. I can tell that the glue is going to get everywhere if I don’t use something very fine to administer it. So what am I using, you might ask?”

  I fan a fistful of syringes at my audience.

  “These are glue syringes. They’re perfect for getting glue into very small spaces without making a mess.”

  I adjust the camera to look down at my hands, and I begin. As I work, I sometimes forget to talk. I’m most chatty when I’m nervous, but I calm down when I work and just go dead quiet with focus. It’s like I’ve only got enough electricity to run my hands or my mouth. Never both. But I have to make the effort to narrate or else it’ll be quite a boring show.

  “Not all rhinestones are created equal. Did you know that? There are tons to pick from, and for almost all your cosplay needs, you’re going to want ones that are flat-back, which means the backs of them are flat, which is perhaps obvious… I don’t know, maybe it’s not obvious, but whatever. They have flat—Oh, shit.”

  I’ve pricked myself with this stupid glue syringe, and a stray stone has drifted out of its spot. I shut up and correct it. Then I show the camera my work so far, hiding my bloodied finger.

  “See how pretty that row is?”

  I do another row in silence.

  “This is a gorgeous color,” I say. “What would you guys call this color?”

  I check the chat. Someone has responded with: blue lol?

  “Well, yes. They’re…blue. But can anyone guess the specific color?”

  I make myself do another row before checking again. When I look up, I see that someone by the name of Striker9 has said: Sea Foam Dream #6.

  “Well, someone’s been on the Craft Club site!” I grin. “Yeah, the exact color of these is called Sea Foam Dream, and number six is the size. It’s super hard to find enough of them, since they’re a specific size and color.”

  Truth is, I’ve gone to Craft Club twice in the last week to buy every bag they had.

  “And you’d think one pack would be enough, but trust me, once you get going, you can burn through five or six of them in just one build. I’ve only done half of this fin, and I can already tell I’ll need to pick up a few more packs. But thanks to my generous benefactor, I’ve got enough to get a ton done tonight.”

  As I bedazzle, I manage to keep talking. I try to keep it funny. Upbeat. A facade, because behind my act, there’s my typical uncertainty.

  I wonder if what I’m creating will be enough to make me into what I want to be. I wonder if my mother is right, if I’d be better off putting my skills to use in the back rooms of fashion houses, handing off garments to assistants who smell like cappuccino and have massive iPhones. Working in fashion is glamorous if you have Evie’s high-society sensibilities, but for me it would be failure.

  That fate feels far away from here and now, though, as I bedazzle a costume using gems donated by the internet. I’ve earned this, I tell myself. I am worth my best effort and a bag full of plastic gems at least.

  “I’m out of gems! But I got both the arm fins done and half of the dorsal.”

  I get ready to sign off. Usually I’d take a few questions, but it’s late, and my eyes are tired from staring into the glinting depths of five hundred little sea foam dreams.

  “Thanks to everyone for tuning
in! If you’re curious about previous steps in Plasma Siren, check out my other videos below! If you enjoyed this and want to see more, subscribe! And lastly, if you’d like to support me, a link to my wish list is posted below. You can either buy me some supplies or just throw down cash. Whatever works for you. Every patron’s money goes toward helping me make new cool stuff and record videos for you guys.”

  A bubble pops up in the chat.

  Striker9 is typing.

  …

  “And for those of you who tuned in at the end, my name is Raffy, and I’m getting this cosplay of Plasma Siren ready for—”

  The bubble vanishes. Striker9 has stopped typing.

  “Ready for—”

  It shows up again.

  Striker9 is typing.

  …

  It vanishes again, then shows up again. What are they trying to say that’s so hard? I’ve zoned out wondering about this, so I zone back in.

  “I’m getting this costume ready for this year’s Controverse, held right here in Boston at the Boston Convention Center in the Seaport. For those wondering, no, I won’t be competing, but I will be on the con floor both Saturday and Sunday, so come say hi! And—”

  Striker9 is typing.

  …

  “—and don’t be afraid to reach out with questions! Till next time, happy crafting!”

  I power down the stream, leaving Striker9 to hammer out whatever novel they’ve been working on in the chat. It’s only then that I realize they’re the same person who knew the exact name of the stones I’ve been using for the last hour.

  “Striker9, then?” I murmur, looking at myself in the dark mirror of the windows. “My bejeweled benefactor. Thank you.”

  Three

  Now

  Luca is here.

  We’ve been broken up for like five months, since Blitz Con in Providence in May. Long enough that the devastation isn’t constant. Now it just comes at me sideways sometimes, knocking me down into my thoughts. I knew he’d be here, and I told myself I wouldn’t freak out, but when I’m down, I’m down. I can’t stop thinking about him. Even in this moment, when I should be at my best, I feel my smallest. I am obsessing over how he took my idea that I wanted to do with him and executed it with Inaya instead. My former friend.