Be Dazzled Read online

  “That’s right,” I say.

  “Interesting, because I heard from another competitor that Raffy started these builds by himself, and you only teamed up a short while ago. Is that right?”

  I feel that familiar choke in my throat. Did Luca tell the judges about us? Or Inaya? I’m about to try lying again when the judge says, “Raffy, we’ve heard a lot from you. Why don’t you give May a chance to explain some of her work?”

  May goes still under her huge costume. She’s a confident person, but all the confidence in the world wouldn’t prepare a person for this scenario. The silence stretches on, and the crowd, seeing us pause, begins to titter.

  “It was my greenhouse,” she finally says. “We used my greenhouse for all the plants.”

  “How about the construction? Did you guys split the work?” asks Marcus the Master.

  “Yeah, we helped each other get dressed.”

  “No, not getting dressed. I mean building the suit. The props. Can you point out a portion of this build that you’re responsible for?”

  I help May remove her mask, expecting her to be dumbfounded. But she’s got on her own natural mask. And I’m glad she let me glue that moss on her cheeks and jaw. She looks threatening.

  She says, “We split the work. I’m a visual artist—I helped produce the concepts for this—but Raffy is the one who put it all together.”

  Even this is stretching the truth, but it’s the right answer, and I can tell the judges are trying to create some sort of narrative for the cameras. I’m glad May lied, but as we walk back up the stage, all the goofiness is gone from our performance. May is nervous and knotted up.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers to me.

  “Don’t be,” I say.

  At the back of the stage, the people in headsets indicate that we should step up onto the top tier of some risers, then indicate we’ll be there for a while. And they’re not wrong. For the next hour, we stand and watch as the other couples enter from backstage, walk the runway to the judges, and get torn apart. Then they’re led back to the risers to wait with us and agonize over their performance. Some are crying by that time.

  Waldorf Waldorf appears to be the expert on concepts and design. He’s the nicest. The lady in glasses is a master sewer. She is extremely harsh, but I am amazed by how much she can tell about a look just from inspecting the seams. I decide she is psychic. Yvonne is basically who I aspire to be with my own Ion channel. And then, of course, there’s Marcus the Master. I am thinking about him shirtless when May catches my attention.

  “Finally,” she says, relieved. The coordinators are back, collecting all the couples who have been judged and arranging us in a single-file line as we exit the stage. The crowd is silent as they watch. Tired. A man is standing onstage with a clipboard, talking to the judges, who have been given sandwiches.

  “Not a word to the other competitors,” says the coordinator as we’re led into the dark corridor. The final crop of cosplayers huddles backstage, silent, drinking in our defeated parade as we’re pushed past. They have no idea what’s coming. I remember Luca trying to warn me despite Inaya’s hushing.

  Anyone would feel grateful for that warning. Faced with a person like Luca, anyone would feel grateful in general. But I don’t. This is my world. My competition. For him to think I need his help—it fills me with a cold blue fire, pulsing beneath the silicon gripping my skin.

  I am not doing this for Luca. I am not doing this to spite Luca. I am doing this for me. This is my only opportunity to secure my future. This is my big chance to propel myself into my destiny.

  And if I succeed, it will be because I am good enough alone.

  Six

  Then

  Thirteen months ago

  It takes me nearly an entire week to decide that my conversation with Luca in Craft Club must’ve been a hallucination. A very vivid hallucination, likely induced by the glue fumes I’m inhaling while I bedazzle Plasma Siren’s fins. And even while awake, the hallucination continues. Luca and I have two classes together, which I’ve always known. But now that I’ve spoken to him, it’s like his presence is all I know. I feel so dumb, so easily absorbed into this infatuation with a guy I barely would have acknowledged a week ago. And he makes it hard. So hard. When he stands at the front of the room presenting, or when he answers a question, his eyes always find mine, and his lips always pull together in a triumphant smile. It’s like he’s been waiting for me to watch him, because every time I do, he’s already watching me. But we don’t talk, which is good. We only talk online, when Striker9 asks me kinda flirty questions during my stream and I pretend not to know who my new admirer is.

  How do you keep your hands from getting sticky? When you create a sewing pattern, do you leave a seam allowance in case you get a raging boner?

  It is, admittedly, very strange to flirt with an apparently-not-as-straight-as-I-thought jock through the time/space chasm that is the internet, then to pine for him every day in real life like I’m the one doing the chasing. It’s like in person, we reverse roles, and maybe that’s why it feels like a hallucination. Outside of Craft Club and the internet, I don’t feel all that remarkable, yet Luca watches me anyway. It’s how I know I’m dreaming, and it’s why I’ll never make the next move. I don’t want to snap out of whatever this is. In fact, if glue fumes caused this hallucination in the first place, I might as well inhale all the fumes. Every fume. Not a fume in this town is safe from me, in fact.

  Ironically, I am in the school’s art studio, spray painting beneath the spray booth, the next time I encounter Luca.

  It’s late after school, the art wing totally free of students and teachers. Before me on a slab of cardboard, I’ve laid out a series of rough bangles. Or they will be bangles as soon as I finish painting them. Right now they’re just foam rings, carved and pocked to look like rough metal. All that’s left to do is Midas the whole affair with gilded spray paint, then apply some rust.

  Suddenly, the spray booth jolts. Never a good sign; usually it means something’s about to explode. I scream and flail backward, colliding with something right behind me—a person who catches me just before I fall over. Together we hit a table, and then it’s their turn to flail backward.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  I look at Luca, who has a fresh gold stripe sprayed up the armpit of his shirt, over his chin, and onto the corner of his mouth. He must have knocked on the spray booth to get my attention, and my hand tensed on the nozzle right before I fell. I throw the spray can down, my own hands coated from where it caught me, too.

  I don’t know what you’re supposed to say when you accidentally spray paint a hot person gold, so I say, “I was working. You shouldn’t surprise someone when they’re working.”

  Luca starts to speak, but paint drips into his mouth. His eyes go wide, and I spring into action, dragging him to the sink where we wash brushes. I expect him to wash out his mouth, or maybe just run the water over his lips. But like a puppy, he shoves his whole face into the stream, and he shouts, “BLEEEGHHHHH.”

  I am about to react when he squints open an eye to make sure I am watching, then resumes his fake vomiting noises.

  “Look, can you be quiet? I’m not even supposed to be working in here by myself.”

  “BLEEEGHHH!”

  “I know you’re not vomiting. I can see you.”

  “BLAAAAGHHHH!”

  “Luca, come on.”

  He stands up abruptly, his head soaking. Water cascades off his nose as he smiles down at me.

  “You remember my name?”

  I thrust paper towels into his damp chest. “I knew you were faking.”

  Luca takes the clump and dries his face. There is still a lot of gold smeared on his neck and chin. He gives me a very sad, very tortured look, and it’s a beat before I realize he wants me to help him wash off the rest.

 
“C’mon. I know you want to.” He grins, as though he is doing me an incredible favor by allowing me to bathe him.

  “Why is it that all straight boys think they are undeniably attractive to gays? Do they think we’re all just waiting around, desperate for their attention? Do straight guys think they’re the only people with access to porn?”

  Luca’s grin widens. I am, admittedly, baiting him with this line.

  And then he says, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re the one who shot into my mouth just a second ago.”

  I nearly black out.

  Luca’s laugh fills the studio again, and I shut him up with a hand. His eyes continue to laugh at me, his breath hot on my palm. I snatch the towels and drag them roughly over his chin, the underlit hollow of his neck.

  “So you’re Striker9?” I ask.

  The curiosity I saw earlier vanishes, replaced by a well-practiced nonchalance. “Yeah.”

  “You’ve been watching?”

  “On and off.”

  “Why?”

  Luca rubs at his neck like he’s not sure I got all the paint off (I didn’t—this is spray paint—but I did my best).

  “Wake is like one of my favorite games. Plasma Siren is a bad bitch.”

  “Do you cosplay, too?”

  Luca scoffs. “Nah.”

  “You think it’s dumb, but you watch my streams?”

  “I don’t think it’s dumb. I could just never do it. My parents already think I’m into freaky shit with the games I play. They’d kiiiiiiiiiillll meeeeeee if I came home with a wig.”

  This doesn’t surprise me at all.

  “Why do you do it?” he asks me. “Just because you love making stuff?”

  I drift toward the spray booth, turning it off. I scoop up the can of spray paint and turn it over in my palm, the nozzle leaking pure gold onto my skin. His breath was so warm. I held his smile.

  “I do it for attention,” I say. Luca scoffs again, then sees I’m being serious.

  “I’ve always been good at making stuff, yeah, but if I just wanted to make stuff, I wouldn’t set up streams. I wouldn’t enter cosplay competitions. I want people to see my work and recognize it as work. I want…”

  “Respect?”

  “Yes! Yes. Exactly.”

  We both go still, like my naked ambition deserves a moment of silence.

  “Okay, you know Craft Club, right?”

  Luca nods.

  “So, they run competitions in the area, and if you do really well, sometimes they’ll offer to sponsor you. And recently, with cosplayers becoming such a big community, those sponsorships have really started to mean something. Art schools have started sending recruiters to the competitions, too. Last year, RISD gave a girl a full ride based on some textiles she did.”

  “Tiles? Like in a bathroom?”

  I grimace.

  “Yeah, the Rhode Island School of Design has a world-renowned program in bathroom remodeling.”

  Luca nods, accepting this. “Cool, cool.”

  “I’m kidding.”

  “Oh.”

  Luca is looking at me with that slow curiosity again, like he’s on the verge of understanding the alphabet that makes me up. “Isn’t your mom, like, a famous artist, though?”

  “Artist turned gallery director, yeah. She discovers other artists.”

  “Why doesn’t she discover you?”

  I look at the bangles in the spray booth. They are half painted, and they still look terrible. I look at the cheap spray paint on my palms and the school studio’s cheerful clutter. I don’t know how to answer Luca’s question.

  “I’m sorry about your shirt,” I say.

  Luca plucks at the shirt, dripping wet like when I first met him in Craft Club. The water has blurred the paint into swollen stains. The shirt is ruined.

  “Shit,” he mutters.

  “Is your family going to kiiiiiillll youuuuu if you come home covered in spray paint?”

  A smile breaks through Luca’s contemplative expression, but his lips never part. It’s a performance of restraint. Boyish coyness. He knows what he’s doing.

  “They might,” he says.

  “Do you need another shirt? I feel bad.”

  “I might,” he says, and now he is smiling with those teeth. “Why, do you know how to make shirts, too?”

  “With a sewing machine, yeah.”

  “You have a sewing machine?”

  “Not here.”

  “Where? Your studio?”

  I nod.

  Luca scratches at the gold on his neck. He makes me watch him as he considers what I’ve offered. What am I offering? I don’t even know. But I am hoping with every stitch that makes me up that he’ll say yes.

  “You could show me,” he finally says, rubbing at the paint on his hands. “I could learn. How to make stuff, I mean.”

  I nod.

  “Should we go now?” he asks.

  And, smiling, we do.

  Seven

  Now

  The stage vanishes behind the doors, and then we are through the concrete hallways and back on the con floor.

  The brightness and noise of the con makes it feel like we’ve waltzed through a portal and into another world. I should feel relieved, but I’m not. I should feel accomplished, but I don’t. Between Luca and the promise of even more surprises, my rigorous preparation now feels subpar, and my glorious daydreams of winning Trip-C are coming undone. Reality right now feels a little ruined.

  We head to coat check first so that May can extract herself from the Pinehorn costume. As I pack it into the suitcase, I remember how the judges looked at other people’s costumes: with derision, doubt, and dismissal. I find that focusing on that brings me a dark joy and settles my nerves. I’m not proud that I’m resorting to the dark magic of gloating to make myself feel better, but part of me knows I’m also being logical. Not everyone got the applause we got. Not everyone should have. We worked hard.

  I worked hard. I always work hard.

  So how come I never feel like I’m working hard enough?

  “You’re brooding. Why?” May asks as she stretches, newly freed from her stilts and helmet. Moss still covers her face, but it’s not the weirdest look on the con floor, and she for sure doesn’t care.

  “I’m just confused. I don’t know what that was.”

  “That,” May says as she hands some cash to a vendor selling popcorn, “was high production value. Did you see the cameras they were using? They looked like rocket launchers.”

  “I guess Craft Club’s going big this year,” I say.

  “Here,” she says, handing me the popcorn. “I’m gonna go pee, but then can we swing through the Art Mart?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are we free for the rest of the day?”

  I shrug. “I think so? Those coordinators told us they’d be emailing the finalists tonight.”

  May scratches at the fake moss on her face with reckless indulgence, and I wince as my work is ruined.

  “Fucking finally. Oh my god.” She hisses with relief. “Are you keeping Pinehorn intact, or will it also be cosplay composted?”

  May knows I have to be very careful about holding on to cosplay, because each piece has to be kept hidden from Evie. I have a few bins of costumes I store at May’s place, but I deconstruct most of the larger builds and keep the reusable parts, then trash the rest. I try to think of a scenario in which I’ll need Pinehorn or Spring Keeper again. I’ve already done my making-of videos. We did our couple photo shoot during our makeup test last weekend. I did detail shots this morning before we left May’s house. I should be good to deconstruct both, yet I feel like I’m missing something big. Then it hits me.

  In my mind, there is a memory I have yet to color in. A plan I have yet to realize. It’s
a picture I’ve looked at a million times in my head, a picture of two boys dressed in moss and flowers, sitting beneath the brushing fingers of the willows in the Boston Public Garden. Luca and me, in full cosplay, together.

  A picture like that would absolutely rock on Insta. But it’s not even worth thinking about anymore. It’s never going to happen.

  “We’re all done with these builds,” I tell May. “You can take off the rest of your makeup if you want. I’ll meet you at the Art Mart. But let me take the coat check ticket so I can grab everything later.”

  May whoops in relief, slapping her ticket into my hand before skipping toward the bathrooms.

  I stand still, pure sadness crashing over me. My green-stained fingers clutch the ticket. May left her popcorn with me, too. Gross. It’s one of those immense plastic tubs that people only eat a few handfuls from before their bones begin to disintegrate from the salt. May will absolutely be able to finish it, and she will absolutely vomit some of this up tonight at my place.

  I am suddenly very annoyed to be holding May’s future upchuck. I shove it under my arm and start pacing through the crowd. It’s midday, and the crowds are clogging up the aisles, looking at books stacked in teetering towers and figurines in lit-up glass cases and taking photos in front of the large, bright displays. Instead of going directly to the Art Mart, I swing through Controverse’s core, where all the food vendors have set up shop, and then out into the open area where photographers buzz around cosplayers. Here, the crowds crush and swirl, backing up to clear space around the cosplayers so people can take turns snapping pictures. It’s hard to focus on where you’re going when there are so many wonderful costumes.

  Many people recognize Spring Keeper, and as I wave back at the ones shouting for my attention, I begin to forget my anger and anxiety. Eventually, I have to put down the popcorn because a few people want pictures, and soon I’ve gathered my own crowd. I’m not huge on performance usually, but right now I play along. I pose for the photos; I give the cry. I throw myself into it, and I’m rewarded by a few photographers asking me if they can take some portfolio shots.

  They mean for their own portfolios—a lot of photographers come here to build their socials. They offer me cards in return for my poses, and I throw them in my bag. I will try to remember to follow up online, introduce myself and so on.