Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,34
I’m deliberately saving it for more photos.
We wait. For Siggy to talk to her boyfriend. Which is some-thing she does all the time every day so maybe it could wait.
Ugh.
“June.” Imani’s voice is gentle.
“I know,” I say. “I’m being patient.”
“She just needs a minute. Relationships take work sometimes,” Imani says.
“Should they though?” I ask. I glance over at Siggy smiling and talking.
“They all do,” Imani says. “Ryan and I fought, remember?”
Her boyfriend from last year, who graduated.
“Yeah, but you guys broke up,” I say.
“Only because he went to college,” Imani says. “Not because we fought.”
Imani’s hand touches my arm. “Besides, did you ever think maybe the reason they fight so much is not because of Mark?” she asks.
“Not really?” I answer, and my tone is defensive for Siggy. Because I know exactly what Imani means. Because I’ve seen Siggy get into it with Mark.
She’s awesome but she goes off. And then she doesn’t back down, even when she should. When she’s completely wrong, or is misinterpreting something he said, she just digs in.
And he’s not perfect, but that’s not Imani’s point.
“I just keep waiting for them to break up for good, I guess,” I say.
“I wouldn’t hold your breath on that,” Imani says.
Finally Siggy comes back to the table.
“Any news?” Imani asks.
Siggy shakes her head. “He just wanted to hear my voice.” She tips her chin and pulls a lock of her white-blonde hair, stroking it with a happy little smirk on her face.
Imani smiles at her, and I successfully avoid making obvious hurking noises, so it’s finally time to climb the stairs back up to the hamster-tube level. We go through the security point again, showing our badges and opening our bags on the table, and then we’re back in the tube, clear to return to ZombieCon!
Imani stretches in the sun.
“I feel like a sunbathing hamster,” she says.
“Me too,” Siggy agrees, doing a deep leg lunge, hands on her hips like she’s going to start doing yoga or is posing for a ridiculous Instagram.
Behind us there’s a commotion at the hotel side of the hamster tube.
I glance back. Two people in white hazmat suits are there, scanning the guards. A guard shouts as they shove him back into the tube.
“Stop! You have to come through security like everyone else!” the guard shouts.
Me and Siggy and Imani quick-time it out of the tube, moving back into the convention center and stopping along the interior wall. We stand next to one of those red emergency stations, a fire alarm and extinguisher hanging next to a firehose cabinet.
We look back at the drama unfolding in the skyway.
One of the figures in the hazmat suits holds big gloved hands up, in an easy there gesture. Another figure is messing with the tables, pulling them back away from the hotel side of the tube entrance.
A third figure is working the mechanism that releases the door hatch to the tube.
“Those guys had better take it down a few notches or they’re gonna get kicked out,” Imani says.
One of the convention guards is barking into his shoulder radio.
“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s get going.”
I don’t want to get caught up in whatever happens next.
10
We go down the escalators and back into the exhibit hall. It’s more crowded now, so we have to weave down the aisles a bit more.
Lots of people have visited the various makeup booths and are sporting wounds and scars, or scleral contacts. It’s weird and disconcerting to share smiles with these walking wounded.
Although it’s also supremely cool.
A drunk, middle-aged man in the center of the aisle lurches from table to table.
“Whoo boy,” Siggy says. “Watch out.”
The man lurches back across the aisle to another table.