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After I’d made a quick change in our hotel suite into the glamour gown Eric had bought me for the occasion, a sparkly short peach-colored number with cutouts in some interesting places—and of course, towering designer heels that had me walking basically on tiptoes—I dashed back to the elevator to get to the rooftop pool deck. An outdoor pool was a crazy luxury in a town with as much winter as Chicago gets, but it made this top-rated hotel distinctive. I presented my pass and entered the glass-walled rooftop garden, another affectation that wasn’t practical many days out of the year. Chicago’s reputation as the Windy City was justified.
Fantastic Comics had pulled out all the stops, with giant logos, superhero cutouts, and all manner of character-themed food and beverage stations. Lord Raga’s spiritual heir, Chitra, led a yoga class—or maybe it was a chanting class—around one corner. A movie reel showing FC’s hottest movies ran continuously in a different corner. No-name actors hired for the comicon roamed the party in superhero costumes, posing for photos with anyone who asked. The star actors from those movies and television shows were also here, talking business with producers, directors, and showrunners, and also posing with guests. Everybody looked to be playing their A game.
Eric, of course, was talking to the most important person in the room, the man who would be producing and directing FC’s next blockbuster movies, Jason Dellon. When Eric saw me, he frowned. I wore the Dimensional Diamond instead of the necklace he’d bought me to go with this dress. Still, he put his arm around me and drew me into their circle. “Chloe Cole is the artist for Swoonie.”
Jason had built his career as a television showrunner and producer, and now had conquered the movie world directing hit after hit. He wasn’t as tall as Eric, but then Eric towered over other men. Jason had a pleasant smile and rangy body that seemed full to brimming with energy. His mostly shaven head sported very short blond hair. Ex-surfer dude? He wore casual clothes that belied his important position in the Hollywood world. Very California.
The woman with them was actress Ashley Friedlander. A fragile brunette, she would have been perfect for the movie version of Swoonie—if only Swoonie wasn’t about to be killed off in a very final manner. Of course Ashley was dressed to the hilt in a lamé gown with a hint of pink to contrast with her hair. She looked fantastic.
Eric was somewhere in the middle, wearing his usual pristine white dress shirt with the top button undone, and dark pants. Not quite as if he’d just arrived from a board meeting, since he lacked a casually undone tie, but close.
We all made polite noises.
“As I was saying, I’d like to get more women in the theaters,” Jason said. “We’re at risk of ghettoizing our brand. Women make the majority of the weekend movie-viewing decisions. I want them to come see my movies.”
“It would help if you had powerful female characters instead of an endless parade of damsels in distress,” I said. “No offense to the character you play,” I said to Ashley. I’d heard her character was abducted, brutalized, and left for dead in a shipping crate.
“There’s a strong woman in the upcoming release, Star Catcher,” Jason said.
“One?” I lifted an eyebrow. “One woman is enough to represent fifty percent of the population?”
“The actress is Asian, so she’s doing double duty,” Jason said with a droll twinkle.
Eric laughed. Ashley Friedlander dutifully laughed. I didn’t. Restive, I moved out of Eric's embrace.
“Women are not a minority,” I said. “Treating them that way in your movies won’t make more women want to see those movies.”
“Thank you, Susan B. Anthony,” Eric said, frowning. “You’re getting to be very humorless about your feminism.”
“Considering not a half an hour ago I had to use force to make a creepy guy on the street leave me alone, I have a right to my anger,” I replied. “There’s no way of easily dissipating the fear and frustration involved with that kind of encounter.”
“What happened?” Jason asked, seeming to ignore the edge in my voice as I'd replied to Eric.
“Do you really want to know?” I countered.
“I do. I was raised by a single mom. I have a huge amount of respect for women.”
“Okay.” I outlined how the encounter began, including the nasty words Creepy Guy had used.
“Oh, man, I’m ashamed for my gender,” Jason said, shaking his head. “Where do these losers get off?”
“Why didn’t you ignore him and walk on?” Eric asked. He radiated impatience with my emotional outburst.
“Are you mansplaining how I should behave?” My tone of voice was not pleasant and accommodating. “I could hardly ignore him when he walked next to me. This crap happens to women all the time. If we say something, it gets worse, and if we don’t say something, it gets even worse than that. The guy goes from calling me a babe to calling me a stuck-up bitch or some other word I shouldn’t have to hear from a total stranger.”
Eric still looked unconvinced. “You’re a strong woman. You should be able to cope with the occasional annoyance.”
“I did cope.” I told them how I'd tripped the guy.
Ashley giggled. “I like that. Sometimes I ‘accidentally’ step on guys with my stilettos.” She raised her eyebrows.
Jason looked at the two of us, and smiled. “I knew you had something in common. You’re both tigers under your melting good looks.”
I let that one stand.
“We’ve come a far distance from discussing female characters in movies,” Eric said.
Jason said, “I want strong female characters, but I have to follow the storylines of the comic books as published, or risk the wrath of the geeks.”
“Are true fans so tiresome about continuity?” I asked.
“Damn right they are,” Jason replied. “I saved a famous tweet that got me where I lived from the last Zedboys epic.” He pulled out his phone and flipped through some files. “Listen to this:
‘You’ve destroyed thirty years of careful character continuity and world-building. You’re a lazy Hollywood know-nothing sellout.’”
I laughed. “He’s described you perfectly.”
Jason’s grin expressed both his dismay at being accused of selling out, and pride in being called on it. “I have no way of knowing if that super geek has seen any of my more recent movies.”
Eric said, “Continuity changes every time a new writer takes over. It’s no big deal.”
“That’s fine if they have something new to say, but too often it’s the same-old same-old,” I said.
Eric did not look pleased at my interjection.
“Jason, I’m not sure if you know that I also draw a webcomic called ‘Average Chloe,’” I said. “I’ve tried to make it appealing to my generation by dumping classic storylines in favor of whatever's hot today. An example would be my main character not wanting to get married to her boyfriend.”
“I don’t think Jason is here to talk about romance,” Eric said.
His expression might have quelled another woman, but not me, not tonight.
“I’m talking about story tropes. The old clichés don't work anymore for younger audiences. Anyway, this is a party, isn’t it?” I gazed around the room.
Ashley said, “The actors are all here to land new gigs, and the directors and producers want to make deals. That leaves only the children to see the party as fun.”
Eric looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head. Jason’s eyes narrowed as if he was reconsidering who she was. Actresses didn’t usually voice an opinion, let alone one so politically astute. Ashley immediately pasted an idiotic smile on her face. To me, it seemed an obvious ploy to blur the men’s impression of her. Too obvious, but they fell for it. Each relaxed. They resumed talking about the difficulty of trying to attract a female audience. Irony much?
“I think I’ll go find something to eat,” I said, waving a goodbye. I drifted away. Enough making nice. I didn’t do it well. Hell, I didn’t do it at all.
With Swoonie about to die, why pretend anymore that I was happy working for Eric? It placed me in too subservient a position with him. For sharklike Eric, that was an invitation to be bossy and demanding. We’d had a rocky time when we first met because he hadn’t confided in me. Had we ever solved that problem? No. Whether killing Swoonie had been a spur of the moment idea or the result of lengthy consideration, he had not shared his thought process. Instead, he’d sprung the decision on me once he’d set it in concrete. Eric had called the demise of Swoonie and no amount of arguing or remonstrating or appealing to his sense of fairness would change his mind.
Would the idea that Swoonie could be a licensing bonanza make him reconsider? I only had the evidence that one comics store owner, Damien, wanted girl-friendly products to sell. Most comic book stores were the same. They appealed to teenage boys and young men, and catered to their interests. The stores routinely ignored women’s interests. If a girl or woman came into a comics store, I’d heard that the guy behind the counter usually talked only to her male companion. Her questions were ignored, even if she was the geeky one and the boyfriend was merely along for the ride.
I was piling up a lot of resentments this weekend. Or perhaps I’d finally opened my eyes and seen the truth for what it was. Or let myself acknowledge what I’d seen all along. The corporate comic book world was not girl-friendly. My stint on Swoonie, well-intentioned though it had been, had not changed anything at the decision-making level. Eric wasn’t interested in revising his strategy regarding comics for girls.
I wandered out to the pool. No one was swimming, of course. It wasn’t that kind of party.
One of the party rooms had a lighted acrylic pyramid, more like a snow-pyramid, of candies. Candies? Why? Jars of colorful old-fashioned candies sat on each level of the pyramid, and there were little scoops and pouches available for each. Anybody could help themselves. Only the children tried. Another instance of a lavish party design that served no one who was important to the occasion.
The event was a dud for me. It was all about FC Comics schmoozing the TV and movie people. My stint as an FC artist was about to end, so what was I doing here? I should go to the CP Comics party tomorrow night. Maybe I’d find someone at CP who wanted to do more comics starring girls. They already had one female artist doing a successful female character. Why not two?
When I’d started “Average Chloe,” I hadn’t done it as a feminist political strip. I’d wanted to express myself, talk about what life was like for new adults, those of us who were too old to be girls anymore, and too young and unsettled with our adult lives to feel we were fully women. Which had nothing to do with how sexually experienced we were. I knew a virgin or two, but most of us had passed that mark sometime in our teens, either in high school or college.
This last year I’d been living a more adult life than ever before, which had enriched what I put in my “Average Chloe” strip. It still didn’t earn me a living, so somehow I had to balance my personal and artistic needs with my business needs.
I wandered the party, looking for signs of trouble, but people weren’t even getting drunk yet. A white-haired old guy started making a fuss at the door. At first I thought it was Jerry Fine, but then I realized it was a man I didn’t know. He was skinny and tall like Jerry, but there the resemblance ended. I went over to speak to the bouncers. They were Eric’s assistants, and they knew me. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“He says he’s mislaid his invitation,” Mutt Engels said, and rolled his eyes. He’d heard that one a few times tonight already.
“Who are you?” I asked.
The old guy drew himself up and puffed out his chest. He looked like any old comic book fan. Casually dressed in a white shirt and a colorless windbreaker, sort of shabby, he seemed indifferent to how out of place he appeared at this swanky party.
“Young lady, I am Howard Hogarth. You may have heard of me.”
He was one of the possible troublemakers Roland had mentioned. Looked harmless, though. “I have indeed. You can let him in,” I nodded at the door guard.
“Come have a drink.” I took the old guy’s arm and steered him toward the bar. “Are you an FC Comics fan?”
“Young lady, what FC Comics publishes today is a far cry from the brilliant stories of the past. And all these movies, bah.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hands that matched the disgust in his expression. “Junk.”
“Lots of people like superhero movies.”
He glared at me. “They’re fools. FC Comics should bring back the real heroes of their golden age, back when Jerry Fine drew comics instead of being a Hollywood shill.”
“Like who?” I asked, wincing on behalf of Jerry. Good thing he wasn’t here tonight.
“I’m glad you asked.” Howard Hogarth ignored the bartender and reached into a canvas messenger bag so old it looked to be Army surplus from when he’d seen service.
“Look at this.” He shoved a piece of paper at me.
A badly printed—or maybe it was typed?—text at the top of a rather worn piece of paper, and signatures below. “A petition? What for?”
“Read it, young lady.” He turned to the bartender after all. “I’ll have a club soda. Must keep my wits about me. There are enemies everywhere and I recently sensed a disturbance in the force.”
Oh, brother.
In the party light, somewhat dim and not originating overhead, it was hard to make out the typed words. They were badly printed and there were cross-outs. Something about reviving—
I looked up. “You want FC Comics to revive Dauber-Man’s dead wife, Janet? Why?”
“Apparently you don’t know much about the comics, young lady. Well, look at you, of course you wouldn’t.” He eyed my spangled dress disapprovingly.
I put my hands on my hips. “I’m Chloe Cole. I draw ‘Average Chloe’ on the web and Swoonie for FC Comics.”
“Girly modern stuff,” he said, waving a hand to indicate his disdain.
“I draw what I like to read.” I glared at him. “You have a problem with that?”
“I’m here to convince Eric Wood to bring back the glory days when Dauber-Man’s wife was his guide and mentor. She looked terrific in that slave girl outfit, too.”
“Oh-kay.” He wasn’t making a lot of sense. Was he a typical geezer sexist or was he trying to increase the number of female leads in the comics?
He went on. “She was the heart and soul of the Dauber-Man storyline. And why is she missing? Because Hollywood doesn’t want married superheroes.”
Another man came up to us. He wore tinted designer aviator glasses and was dressed fashionably—for an old guy—in an open throated button-down shirt under a blazer jacket. Yes, it was July in Chicago, but a jacket was welcome up here on the roof. I tried to place him but couldn’t. He was very short.
“Oh, it’s you, Norman,” Hogarth said in tones of disgust. “Kissing up as usual, no doubt.”
This must be the other troublemaker Roland had warned me about. Norman Krigstein. The newcomer’s shoes were as shiny as his rigid pompadour—it had to be a hairpiece. He said, “I have something valuable to sell to FC, unlike you. I have talent. You’re wasting your time. Eric Wood has no interest in crazy fans.” He turned to me, “I work in television. We call his kind of fan a ‘shipper.’”
Before I could ask why, Howard Hogarth interjected. “You’re on the wrong side of history. When the Nast lawsuit is settled, you’ll wish you'd joined it. You’ll want your rights back, like the rest of the comics creators. Meanwhile, you’re a sellout.”
“And you’re a crazy old coot.”
“You dare call me that? On guard!” Howard splashed his drink in Norman’s face.
Norman’s face turned an angry red, and he grabbed Howard by the scruff of his windbreaker. “You want a fight? I’ll give you a fight.”
Howard showed plenty of strength for an old guy. He pushed Norman away forcefully. I had to step aside or he’d have crashed into me. Fantastic. A brawl. All because I’d felt sorry for a geezer.
I ran over to Mutt. He rushed back in time to stop Norman from landing a punch on Howard. All the while, Norman called Howard names. “Hack! Trekkie!”
“You dare!”
A woman started shrieking, “Fight! Fight!”
Mutt tried to get between the two old guys, but Howard was spry despite his age and Norman was short enough to duck Mutt’s arms. Norman and Howard danced around Mutt and landed a few punches on each other.
“Hold still, you old windbag, so I can deck you,” Norman said, panting as he lunged at Howard again.
They crashed into the display of candies, sending the plastic jars tumbling. The noise drew more attention. People began to crowd around.
Eric stepped into the circle the other spectators had left open.
As often happened when Eric bothered to look menacing, people around him fell silent. Even Howard and Norman noticed. They stopped trying to get at each other around Mutt and faced Eric instead.
He put his hands on his hips and simply stared at them from his greater height. Norman the bantam motormouth was silent. Howard shifted awkwardly on his feet, as if finally noticing that he was out of place in this glamorous crowd.
“Krigstein, you should know better.” Eric said, “As for your crazy quest, Hogarth—”
“Bring back Dauber-Man’s wife! I have thousands of signatures, thousands!” Howard cried, raising the petition’s ragged pages in the air.
Eric’s expression was impassive. “Get stockholder signatures. Then maybe we’ll talk.”
He turned away and walked through the crowd, which parted for him silently.
How did he do that?
“What a man,” sighed the drunken woman.
“Hey, lady,” Norman said, “he’s not the only man here worth talking to. I happen to be a very well-connected television writer. You looking for a role?”
“I am,” she said.
Norman began schmoozing with the woman, leaning in and invading her personal space as he talked a mile a minute. She seemed to like it.
Howard Hogarth, now ignored by all, stuffed his petition back in his Army surplus bag, muttering about emotionless aliens. Howard scanned the crowd, probably hoping to catch someone’s attention, but no one was looking at him anymore.
I felt sorry for Howard. No one wanted to talk to him. This party was not populated by comic book fans. The people here were all about movies and television. Entertainments made from dead trees were not their thing. Howard and his beloved comic book characters were on the junk heap of yesterday. He must sense he was fighting for a lost cause.
“Mr. Hogarth,” I asked, to divert him, “were you in the exhibition hall this afternoon when the lights went out?”
He turned back to me. “I was. Luckily, I had my lightsaber with me.”
“Who do you think was behind that...uh, that prank?”
Something flashed in his eyes. He took his time answering. Finally, he said, “I don’t know.”
For some reason, I got the idea that Howard knew who it was, and was lying to protect that person. Interesting.
Howard left the party soon after. I tried to get a word with Eric later on, but he was in a corner talking seriously to a woman I didn’t recognize. She was my age or a little older, wearing a beaded top and black crepe pants. She wasn’t overly pretty or heavily made up, not obviously Hollywood. It looked like it was business. Knowing Eric, it was business. I wasn’t needed in that conversation. Probably not in any conversation Eric had.
*
I returned to our suite, did a little unpacking, and got into my sexy nightgown. Eric had given it to me, bought from a very exclusive shop. It was real silk, with real lace. In it, I felt glamorous. After spending time around a bunch of buffed Hollywood types, I needed the ego boost.
Feeling lazy, I turned on the television and checked out footage of the “lights out” incident and of the mystery flier. The reporter played it for laughs, speculating wildly that the perpetrator was a geeky fan out to cause trouble for unknown reasons. Not funny.
I fingered the Dimensional Diamond, which was still at my throat. No way did I want to be unprepared to act like a superheroine at any time in the next few days. I think that’s when I fell asleep.
I dreamed Roland was my boyfriend again, and we were having sex. In my dream, I knew there was something wrong with behaving this way now, but I couldn’t quite remember what it was. Suddenly, Eric was there, and he was angry with me. I shrank away from him, but he plucked me out of his rival’s arms, and masterfully carried me to his bed.
I woke up to find Eric was carrying me.
“Ohhh.” I was groggy.
“Go back to sleep,” he said. He carried me with no effort at all.
I felt very comfortable crushed up against his chest, so I put my arms around his neck and began kissing his throat.
He pulled away from my caresses. “Bed.”
As he deposited me on the mattress, I held onto his neck and tried to pull him down to me. “Kiss me.”
Eric removed my arms from around his neck and stepped back. “You behaved like a whiny brat at the party.”
Suddenly I was wide awake and my sexual urges had vanished. “I’d just suffered an assault on the street. Did you expect me to shake it off in mere minutes?”
“You argued with Jason.” He made it sound like an accusation. He stood over me, looking down from his great height.
“Hearing you talk so smugly about your male-dominated movies steamed me. Anyway, he said he wanted to attract the female audience.”
“You don’t know anything about the movie business.”
He might as well have said, flat out, my opinions were worthless.
I searched his face for any hint that he understood or cared about my feelings. I saw nothing but a man who disapproved of me having interposed myself between him and his business target.
Who was Eric to disapprove of my behavior, anyway?
“Forget that,” I said, leaping up from the bed. “I don’t need your permission to talk to Jason Dellon or any other person in the universe.” I stalked out of the bedroom and went to the suite’s second bedroom. Eric didn’t follow.
I locked the door. I knew for sure now that our relationship was over.