Celebromancy (5 page)

Ree faded back, letting Jane deal with the attention.
I don’t really need any of this fame-by-association, not unless the show actually lands and does well.

She leaned over to Danny and asked in a soft voice, “Any last-minute advice for chatting with the boss?”

“Stay away from the bad luck she’s been having and you’ll fine. Don’t worry, she likes you.”

“Thanks, man.” Feeling just a bit less nervous, Ree stepped back to join Jane when the girl returned to her family.

The hostess guided them through the restaurant, around and through until they reached a private room, closed in by rice-paper sliding walls.
What are those called?
Ree wondered.

The room had five tables, all empty. The hostess set them up at a small circular table for two, and Danny crossed several tables over to sit at another two-top by himself.

Ree considered asking Danny to join them, but thought better of it.
If she wanted him to sit with us, she would have asked. And he’s on the clock.
The
Upstairs Downstairs
of it all was more than a little uncomfortable.
Deal with it or ignore it. Focus on the movie star that thinks you’re interesting.

Jane settled in and the hostess presented them with the faux-worn scroll menus. She rattled off some specials, but Ree was busy thinking about the script and questions Jane might have as a way of distracting herself from being nervous that this might turn out being a date.

The hostess was walking over to Danny as Jane said, “So, how about we just get one of these
daimyo
platters and have fun with it?”

Ree looked at her menu, then up at the star. “Sure, sounds good.”

“And some sake. I hate eating sushi without sake. And those bottles are awesome.”

“I’m game. So what did you want to talk about for the show?” Ree asked.

Jane waved her hand through the air, brushing off the question. “That was just an excuse to go out. I want to hear more about you. Are you still bartending?”

Ree nodded. “Yeah, it’s a private club. The owner’s really secretive, but it pays pretty well and it’s a fun scene.”

Ree heard someone approach as Jane continued. “Sounds great. I’d love to go sometime, if it’d be allowed.”

“I’ll check with the boss. He has . . .” Ree paused as she tried to think of a way to explain Grognard and his place that didn’t spoil everything about her whacky magic life, failed, and defaulted to the vague. “. . . odd tastes. Not creepy, just odd.”

A woman appeared to Ree’s left. She was short-ish, with delicate features. She looked more Chinese than Japanese, but then again, one of the other servers they’d passed had been tall and blonde, so it was all good. She wore her hair back and up, held in place by jade chopsticks.

“Welcome to Yoritomo’s, Ms. Konrad. I’m Susan, I’ll be taking care of you, but let any of our staff know if you need anything. Will you be having sushi tonight?”

“The
daimyo
platter, please. And we’d like a bottle of White Crane.”

Susan looked over to Ree, then back to Jane. “Will that be all?”

“Good by me,” Ree said.

“That’ll be great, thanks.”

Susan nodded and then walked over to Danny’s table, repeating her spiel.

Jane picked up the conversation just where they’d left it. “Your boss sounds like an interesting guy. I’m sure he could be convinced to make room for little old me. We could do guerrilla marketing.”

Ree raised her hands placatingly. “I’ll ask. He’s prickly. But I am definitely getting word out to everyone I know. My dad threatened to fly out and watch a day of taping.”

Jane beamed. “That’d be great, he should totally come.”

So where’s the self-destructiveness?

Ree had spent time with Jane on and off camera, and she didn’t sense any of the kind of behavior that had gotten the star spreads on all the tabloids with horribly unflattering photos and DUI and Drunk & Disorderly charges. Maybe the booze would bring it out. But then why did she preempt the drinking by talking about how they had to be good?

It’s almost like she was a complex person who behaves in a variety of ways depending on her decisions in the moment. Madness!

“I’m not sure you know what you’re asking for. I love him to death, but he could medal in parental embarrassment. It’s really impressive.”

They continued on throughout the dinner, Jane poking and prodding (with good humor) at Ree’s life, a gracious and curious interviewer. Ree turned things around a couple of times, hearing stories about Jane’s early acting work and some horror stories from movie sets. They got louder as the sake poured, and Ree lost count of how much sushi she’d put away. Between the two of them, they’d demolished most of a twenty-four-piece platter.

Jane polished off the last of the sake and said, “So, you up for some dancing?”

“What happened to ‘We have to work tomorrow’?” Ree asked.

The star waved off her question. “I’ll be fine. If you can’t keep up, then you’ll miss out on the fun.”

Ree scoffed. “I have a +10 to Save vs. Peer Pressure, I’ll have you know.”

“Save what?” Jane asked.

“Never mind.”

Not that kind of geek. Noted.

“Don’t worry, I’ll have you home before midnight, Cinderella,” Jane said.

Susan returned with the check. Jane slipped the server a black-on-black credit card that looked like the Mega-Elite-Bonus-Person card that George Clooney’s character had in
Up in the Air
.

Once they settled up, Danny shadowed them as they left Yoritomo’s. It was a warm night, the heat of the day lingering far better than it had even two weeks previous.

“So, do I have to twist your arm again?” Jane asked as she walked to the street to grab a cab’s attention. Moments later, a cab pulled up to the sidewalk.

Ree asked, “How do you do that?”

Jane winked. “Magic.”

Danny opened the door and kept an eye on the crowd.

A Police song started playing in Ree’s head, but she cut it off before the earworm could take hold.
Not every little thing . . .
Ree wondered as she piled into the cab.

This trip, Danny joined them in the same cab.

“Infinity Club, please,” Jane said.

The cabbie leaned over his shoulder. He had burned-brown skin, his face showing the results of years of too much sun. “You’re Jane Konrad.”

Danny leaned forward. “That she is. Be discreet, and you’ll have a great tip at the end of the ride.”

The cabbie considered for a second, then turned back to the road. “We’re cool. Nice night for a drive.”

“When we get there, follow my lead,” Danny said to Ree. “This could get interesting.”

Jane said, “A fancy restaurant is one thing. Where I have in mind, there will be a lot more attention.”

Ree said, “I’ve survived the crowds at Comic-Con, I can handle a club full of fans.”

“I’m not worried about the fans,” Danny said, his carefree expression gone. It was game time.

“It’ll be fine,” Jane said with a self-satisfied grin. “Plus, a little transitive fame can’t hurt your career, can it?”

True story
. It could be a huge bonus for her screenwriting. And she was already running the risk of becoming some weird walking talisman, a Geekomancer who could also become a famous writer.

For that matter, that brought up the possibility that if the show hit it big, she might be able to use Geekomancy with her own writing.

That was a scary-awesome thought.
What if Joss Whedon, Felicia Day, or, hell, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, were Geekomancers? What if the iconic films of geekdom were iconic as much for the fact that they were created by practitioners?

And if they were, what did that mean for fans?

Ree filed that away for later consideration.

One thing for sure: Being a magician and a minor celebrity would put her on the radar for various practitioners around town. Ree had no idea what part of the magical underground in Pearson was in control of the clubs, if any of them were.

As far as she could tell, the real world wasn’t like in
World of Darkness
, where supernaturals owned the entire city. But she was certain the big-time practitioners had their fingers in many pies.

Danny may be the bodyguard, but if something comes along from the hinkyverse, it would be up to Ree to intercede.

Chapter Five

They Can Have Their Diamonds

CATFIGHT IN THE TWITTERSPHERE!

In an uncharacteristic display, critical darling Jane Konrad showed her claws on Twitter this morning, laying into superstar Rachel MacKenzie, calling her a “money-grubbing studio slave.” MacKenzie responded, calling the ex–Cosmic Studios’ star a “washed-up former child actress” who was “looking to steal the spotlight.”

The spat was quickly tagged #DivaFight, which trended worldwide throughout the day.

Neither star has released an official statement about the argument.

—Plugged.com, March 3, 2009

Infinity Club was three stories tall and was identified only by the ten-foot-wide infinity-symbol light that flowed and shifted across the colors of the rainbow. Even muted by the doors, the music and feel of bass thumped on Ree’s sternum and called to her. The busy smell of perfumes and colognes wafted through the spring breeze, hitting Ree’s nose all at once as she stepped onto the sidewalk.

Infinity Club wasn’t the biggest, most exclusive, or expensive club in Pearson, but it was at least #2 or #3 in each category. Ree had only been there once, a couple of years back, before it made its reputation. Priya had been showing pieces from her first Steampunk clothing line at a local fashion show, and they’d gone out afterward to celebrate.

Infinity had been cool then, but it had been an outsider cool, the kind that said
I know I’m not cool by your standards, but I don’t give a crap
. Jane ignored the large crowd waiting behind the velvet rope, hip youngsters pleading with the six-foot-twenty bouncer.

“It’s Jane Konrad!” someone shouted, and the jig was up. The crowd whipped itself into a froth faster than Ree could pour a pint, people shouting Jane’s name and waving. Dozens broke out of line to rush her, but Danny stopped them. His wingspan wasn’t even six feet, but he could have kept them all at bay with the force of his stare.

Ree felt the energy of the crowd like a gust of wind in her face. Not just the sound, but the feeling.

Magic senses tingling!
She’d felt magic a few times since picking up the lightsaber and becoming a Geekomancer, experiencing various styles’ different flavors. The magic sense was always synesthetic, reminding her of the smell of purple or the taste of police sirens.

The question was: Was there someone using magic—a lot of it—or was this just raw energy of the fans’ excitement, and just felt like magic?

Ree’s question was answered as she looked over to Jane, who stopped, smiled, and pulled off her sunglasses. Beaming like she was professionally lit, her features became warmer as Ree watched. Ree blinked. It was like someone had taken Jane and turned her up to 11: her energy, her smile, the smoothness of her features, the shape of her curves.

For a second, Ree doubted herself, wondered if she’d been mistaken, that Jane had made herself up already, and she was just beaming with the attention.
Because . . . damn
.

Wait
. Ree paused to look around the crowd, which had locked onto Jane like she was a living oasis. She felt and saw the energy flowing from the fans to Jane, then an energy rolling out, creating a feedback loop. If this wasn’t magic, she’d eat a week-old burger. And if Jane was using magic, then there was likely a lot more going on that no one had bothered telling her.

Ree looked around to people on the edge of the scene.
Did anyone else notice what happened, or does the Doubt cover it up?
The Doubt, Ree had discovered, was a magical force of disbelief that helped keep the magical world under wraps. But once you were in the magical world, the Doubt rolled off you like pop-up ads off a digital native. It shouldn’t be affecting her.
But if it’s not the Doubt, what gives?

Ree crossed her arms and stood by, watching the scene playing out.
How is she doing this?
Ree knew a few styles that made a glamour, but which one?

Ree wished she could just text Eastwood to ask. But that would be crossing a line in their already-too-murky relationship. Instead, she made a note to do some research on the matter.

Jane approached the crowd, produced a pen from somewhere, and started signing whatever she was handed. Danny kept the crowd from trampling her, but just barely. They broke around him in ones and twos, raised voices and strained hands seeking a chance to connect with a living legend.

Farther back in the crowd, Ree heard some jeers, some filthy epithets. Not everyone loved her, especially not lately. But the true fans had beaten them to the punch, at least this time.

After a few moments, the bouncers waded into the insta-mob, making a wedge that funneled people back toward the club. The six-foot-twenty guy wove through the crowd and plucked out the hecklers, pointing them to the back of the line.

One of the bouncers approached Jane, saying, “Ms. Konrad, if you’d like to come with me . . .”

Jane lingered for a few moments, signed another couple of hands, napkins, and even a shoulder then nodded to Danny, who covered her as she walked to the door. Ree saw a dozen smartphones up, some snapping pictures, others doubtlessly tweeting up a storm. She imagined what they would say:

OMG Jane Konrad @InfinityClub!

J-Rad about to get smashed again @InfinityClub

Who’s the hot chick with J-Rad?

Well, maybe not that last one.

And when those tweets hit the gossip circles, Infinity Club was about to get a lot more crowded.

Jane extended her arm to Ree, and she joined the star as they walked inside.

“How often do you get mobbed like that?” Ree asked.

“A couple times a day back in L.A., depending on how incognito I go. Sometimes it’s fun to just soak it all in.”

I bet it is
, Ree thought, looking at the still-charged star. Confidence rolled off of her like radiation. It was all Ree could do to not just stop and stare. Now that she’d pegged Jane’s magnetism as magic, she couldn’t not see it. She held in a knowing smile.

Infinity had one main dance floor, with a sixty-foot-long infinity symbol beneath the reinforced glass. It changed colors through the rainbow like the symbol on the outside, in sync with lights from the side walls, which cast the whole room in a shifting array of color.

The floor was half-full, most of the dancers clustered in a circle above the X-cross of the floor symbol. The air was cool and clean, missing the trademark musk she expected from smaller or less super-over-air-conditioned clubs. Ree couldn’t place the music, but she could feel it, heavy bass reverberating off her sternum. Jane pulled her by the hand as she cut a corner of the dance floor to pick a booth decked out in crushed velvet, with a table that looked like crystal but was probably made from heavy plastic. Infinity wasn’t that ritzy.

A pretty server on three-inch heels intercepted them as Jane set her purse down on the cushion. The woman looked closer to sixteen than twenty-one, but a bar like Infinity wouldn’t be stupid enough to tempt Excise like that. She had clean dreadlocks, several done in the signature style of the club, braided on the back of her head with another infinity symbol and a matching pin. She wore a silver sequined dress that was long enough to be respectable but short enough to be intriguing.

As she approached, Ree noticed that the woman looked nervous, fingers fidgeting by her side. “Welcome, Ms. Konrad. I’m Lacey, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight.”

Jane greeted Lacey with a slight inclination of her head. She purred her response. “Hello, Lacey. This is Ree, and you should treat her the same way you’d treat me. Let’s start with a bottle of Grey Goose and see where that takes us.”

Lacey nodded, then looked to Ree. “Welcome. Please let me know if you need anything tonight.”

After Lacey left, Ree raised an eyebrow. “They work all night in heels like that? My calves would murder me if I tried that.”

Jane shrugged. “If they couldn’t hack it, they’d work somewhere else. You pay a price to get to the top, but once you’re there . . .” Jane extended her arms to the club, indicating her proof.

“What happened to not going overboard tonight?” Ree asked, returning to the star’s earlier warning.

Jane leaned back and spread her arms out on the couch. “If it’s too much, you can always go home.” Jane winked, then leaned over to adjust the strap on one shoe, giving Ree just a bit of a look down the star’s shirt.

Is it hot in here?
a voice in her mind asked mockingly. Jane stood back up and turned, walking to the dance floor. Jane looked over her shoulder, hair catching in the light. The star beckoned Ree to the floor.

Another voice answered, presenting the eternal dilemma of the queer girl:
Is she actually hitting on me?

Jane had been romantically linked to women before, but she was also notoriously friendly with everyone, and flirty enough for the tabloids to speculate endlessly.

It’s just dancing
, she told herself, heading for the floor.
I’ll be fine if I keep ahead of the booze.

Another internal voice, this one contrary, said,
She ordered a bottle. Are you going to drink a forty of water to stay on ahead of the booze?

Ree laughed at the notion, imagining the dozen restroom trips that would require.

On the floor, Ree was reminded of the clubs from the Mass Effect series. This one had a distinct lack of war-like lizard-cricket people and blue-skinned aliens.

However, it did have ample supplies of neon, flashing lights, and crowds of dancers gyrating with planted feet. She hadn’t been clubbing much, unless you counted Vampire LARPs. Bars were one thing: a good night out at Trollope’s Trollops with the Rhyming Ladies, a few pitchers, and some good conversation. But even when you weren’t pretending to be a fangy child of the night, clubs were really only good for three things: Drinking, Dancing, and the Hook-Up.

Jane grinned as Ree joined her on the floor, dropping to a low crouch and standing slowly, her arms stretching to the ceiling as she rose, locking Ree in her gaze the whole time.

Ree rocked back and forth for a few measures, testing out the music and sinking into the feel of the dance. Then she matched Jane, the two circling each other, trading moves, looks, and grins as they went. The crowd parted around them, and Ree heard a rising burble of murmurs as people took note of the star.

For a short while, Ree pushed all of the worry, self-consciousness, and uncertainty to the back of her mind, diving deep into the glorious oblivion of music and motion.

Two songs later, Jane wiped a sheen of sweat from her brow and walked back to the booth, where a bottle of Grey Goose in a silver iced bucket awaited them, along with two highball glasses. Lacey stood off to the side, waiting for them as they returned.

VIP service doesn’t suck
, Ree thought. Lacey was a heavy pour, and handed each of them a glass that must have held four regulation shots apiece. She was calmer this time. Maybe she’d taken a drink of her own, or the bout of starstruck-itude had simply passed.

Jane raised the glass to Ree. “To
Awakenings
.”

Ree toasted, then took a shot from the glass. As Ree lowered her glass, Jane’s was already half-empty, resting on the table. Ree flashed back to the star’s very public DUIs and Drunk & Disorderly charges. It’d be up to her and Danny to keep Jane from going down that rabbit hole again.

Jane leaned back into the couch, resuming her leonine lounge and projecting her voice over the thumping bass. “What’s your favorite novel?”

Ree could smell the star’s perfume, which had settled into a new note: chocolate and chile, poured over something musky and enticing.

“
Dune
,” Ree said, after a beat. Not because she had to decide, mind you. She’d had to defend her literature preferences to boyfriends, customers at Café Xombi, and film agents with oddly specific taste. She just hadn’t been expecting the question, especially given the setting.

“It’s fantastic, isn’t it? I like my art with a punch, something real. I especially loved
Children of Dune
and
God Emperor
. I know they aren’t very popular in the sci-fi crowd, but I just adored Saint Alia of the Knife. And I love how Herbert shows us a religion forming in real time, around a leader with the force of personality to lead an entire people into the future, a leader that uses their fame for all of humanity, not just for themselves.”

The drinks were forgotten as Ree listened, rapt.

“But the power and the story he makes becomes a prison as well. He gets wrapped up in his own myth, trapped by the society he fought for millennia to create. He’s so trapped that in order to push humanity forward, he has to take himself out of the story.” Jane stopped, shaking her head as she looked up and out to the lights window. “It’s amazing.”

Ree nodded, impressed. Woman knew her SF. “I could have done without the whole turning-into-a-worm part, but Alia is awesome. I was pleasantly surprised by the Sci-Fi miniseries they did.”

“Anything to replace the David Lynch film in my brain,” Jane said with a toss of the hand. “I mean, the costumes and sets were amazing, but the editing was a travesty!”

“I hear that,” Ree said. “What’s yours, then?
God Emperor of Dune
?”

Jane raised her glass. “Right in one.” She made the
ooh, ooh
sound, and set the glass down rather than drinking. “But growing up, I was all about
A Wizard of Earthsea
. LeGuin writes like a dream. I got to meet her once, a few years back, when I was trying to get Yancy to remake
The Lathe of Heaven
.”

Jane’s voice was softer, and Ree scooted forward, leaning in. “Really? What was she like?”

“Sassy, kind, and too smart by half. I could barely keep up with her, and I came away with a to-be-read list as long as my arm.”

Ree nodded her head vigorously. “I’d love to meet her. That fable she did about unemployment was such a fantastic kick-to-the-teeth. Nobody else could have written something so on the nose and gotten away with it.”