We pull into the Denny’s half a mile from school, across the street from the Walgreens that used to be a car wash. It usually isn’t very busy, so the waitstaff don’t care if we only buy one soda to share and spend hours here.
“Pull up next to her,” I tell Raj.
I frantically try and roll down the window to yell at her, but I’m fumbling around so much, I look like a jackass.
Raj smirks and says, “Oh yeah, window still don’t work.” She’s already halfway inside.
I get out and Raj gets out too. I give him two quick manly taps on his shoulder and brush past him. Raj leans against the ice cream truck with no intention of leaving.
“O-okay bro,” I say.
“Okay then,” he says.
“I can take it from here. I got the situation under control,” I add, trying to sound like I actually believe this to be true.
“No doubt,” he says. And then follows me inside the Denny’s.
I grit my teeth. This place tends to get packed in the wee hours of the morning or in between parties while people fill up before figuring out where else to go. It’s fairly empty right now. I see Mindii sitting down at a table. Instead of looking embarrassed or terrified at the wrath I’m about to unleash, she waves me and Raj over.
“There she is,” Raj says. “She’s sitting at the—”
“I. F-f-friggin’.” I take a deep breath. “Know,” I say as we move toward her table.
Mindii is living it up, sitting at the table with fat cushion-y benches, booth style. Her bright yellow motorcycle helmet is placed on the floor. As we get closer, the other three people already sitting at the booth come into focus. The rest of our sorcery metal band minus Ngozi. The two Georges are stuffing themselves with snacks. They rarely participate in conversations unless it’s about music or nuanced plot points of Snollygoster-related things. Shirin is blowing on her nails.
So weird to think this is our final performance. Right now, with this tux and this face I’m feeling the same way I felt the first time I publicly went out in cosplay: like a pakhandi. A phony.
The two Georges are in an incomplete hydraulics-based cosplay. They’re both cosplaying different components of the Agan-Panchi-Muj, a class of terrifying fire-breathing Avian-Bovine enchanted beasts who protect Malmesbury Academy. Cambodian George looks up at me. She is wearing a crop-top for now because who wants to be wearing hydraulics while chilling out at Denny’s? Japanese George is also in relax mode. He is wearing shorts and a short-sleeve button down. Their mechanical wings are probably in the Bramble Van outside, along with all our musical gear: amps, guitars, drums, harp. Did anyone bring my seven-string electric guitar?
For as long as I’ve known the Georges, they’ve always cosplayed together. They started calling themselves the Georges when Mrs. Ward refused to even try and pronounce their names in ninth grade because of reasons all of us in the band know too well: the caucacity. She started with the usual pause, half-hearted attempt at pronunciation of their actual names, then said, “We’ll have to give you nicknames so I don’t butcher your names.” Like she was doing them a favor. In response, they started a parody TikTok account (@thetwoGeorges), which they only planned to mess around with once. Cambodian George wore a wig and pretended to be Mrs. Ward, who pronounced all the white-sounding names perfectly, then gave the brown kids, all played by Japanese George, ridiculous nicknames like Toast, Mayonnaise, and Unseasoned Meat. At the end the catchphrase was: “I’m just gonna go ahead and call you George. All of you.” The thing went viral, so they kept going, and now they’ve got a pretty huge following.
Shirin isn’t in her full cosplay either. “Well, this land sure is strange!” she says overly dramatically at me. I already know she’s crossplaying Jamie. I helped her pick out the chain mail material for her dress. Her commitment to the Jamie accent mingled with her natural Farsi-tinged English just makes all the irritating things Jamie says sound more fun.
I’ve rehearsed the things I’m going to tell Mindii and don’t want to give up my position of power by sitting down, so I remain standing. Like the churlish fucker he is, Raj takes a seat.
“You don’t look too comfy in those clothes. And what’s with the pouch. Can’t just wear that without Dafydd,” Shirin says.
“H-heyyy, Jamie,” I singsong and wave, attempting to still look stoic and intimidating.
I control my breathing and look right at Mindii. “The p-p-pouch you have, you better return it or legal things will be taking place!”
Not exactly what I had in mind, but it makes sense—more or less.
My jaw is tense as I wait for Mindii to respond. I’m expecting her to be defensive, to say no, to claim it’s hers, or worst of all—to return the pouch without Goldy’s notebook. My notebook.
Instead, she reaches into her purse and tosses it onto the table.
Raj looks at it all judgy. He gets up. “So anticlimactic. I’m out.”
“Drop me back at prom,” I say.
“You wanna go back there? To do what? Wash the dishes?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I say, like I’m trying to explain the intricacies of Mughal architecture to a gerbil.
“By the time you get there your homies are gonna be gone. You think they’re just waiting for you?”
This thought had not occurred to me. Who else do I know there? Am I gonna be at the table by myself? Still, I’m committed.
“Can I get a ride or not?”
“Your boring night. What do I care. I’m going back regardless to sell those fools ice cream.”
I unzip the pouch to make sure the notebook is there. “This all seems to be in order, Safia,” I say, like we’re making a deal for diamonds. I turn and start walking away.
“I’m not Safia,” Mindii says.
“What?” I say, pausing mid-step.
Mindii laughs.
“Did you miss the braids?” She showcases them.
I smack my forehead. Katara from Last Airbender. Of course. I used to watch that show all the time with Goldy.
“That’s such a Sokka thing to do!” she says excitedly. “You should totally tie your hair up in a Sokka bun.”
Goldy loved that show, spent almost a hundred bucks on a fat hardcover book on the extended backstory of the Kyoshi Warriors, who didn’t even get a cameo in the M. Night Shyamalan movie adaptation. Oh yeah, he ranted about that for days, weeks, months, years. I glare at her as I start walking toward the exit with Raj. I casually flip through the pages of my rash decision notebook and see writing in purple pen.
“You wrote,” I say, aghast, “in purple pen?”
“Red is very unlucky,” she says.
Purple pen is bad enough, but it gets worse: The words Not really rash decisions are scribbled above my list.
My eyes widen in horror. Has she a) actually made notes on MY rash decisions? And b) dismissed them as NOT rash decisions?
“How f-friggin dare!” I say, my voice cracking. I close the notebook and tuck it carefully back into the pouch, fuming.
“Yo!” Raj says impatiently. I turn away and take a few more steps toward the door.
“I was just offering you some honest feedback,” Mindii says. “You know people pay a lot of money for good editors.”
I turn back.
“This is not a writing workshop! This is MY journal. And y-you just . . . you . . . know nothing.”
I raise my hands up. I have no words for this girl.
I look back and see Raj has left. Fuck, I’m stuck.
Mindii just stares at me blankly, half smiling.
And of course, right on time, I hear the dreaded sound of a Cockney accent. “Well, well, well,” she bellows from behind me. “After all that donkey bollocks, the Head Plonker of Plonkertown wants to come to the Snollygoster Soiree after all.”
As much as I’m not feeling Ngozi or any of these people right now, her Chur cosplay looks fantastic. Thanks to me. I helped her with some of the needlework and provided valuable feedback when she asked whether she should go full West African traditional and wear a round colorful gele head wrap, or her usual large Afro. I told her, “You gotta do what you gotta do.” Words she clearly took to heart. Her Afro looks great, bright red lipstick to match her gray fur-trimmed maroon gradient dress with bright-colored ankara fabric, eyes winged out in gold with turquoise eyeshadow, and huge golden hoop earrings.
“W-w-were you waiting in the back just so you could make th-this dramatic entrance?”
“Yes, I was. Glad you noticed.” She turns to Mindii, smiling. “All right?” This is how she asks someone how they are. It’s another weird British thing.
“I’m cool,” Mindii says.
I look at Mindii. Then I look at Ngozi. Realization dawns. “Were you and f-f-fake Safia here conspiring this whole t-time?” I say, my voice lilting upward.
“Umm. I’m not fake anything. I’m Katara. From the greatest TV show ever made. Don’t make me bloodbend you.”
I’m much too befuddled to respond.
“If by conspiring you mean did I mention that you’d be sulking around at Pedestrian Prom in this idiotic getup that looks even dodgier than I thought it would, instead of coming to the spectacularly decorated Snollygoster Soiree, performing with the most amazing Bramble-core sorcerer metal band to ever exist . . .” Ngozi takes a deep breath. “Then yes. That’s exactly what happened.”
“Why are you even here? Aren’t you supposed to be chaperoning your sisters??”
She pauses.
“Oh, okay. Did I just make that up in my head?”
“Kind of. I said I was at prom to chaperone my sisters. Which was true. Last year.”
I piece things together.
“S-s-so the whole time you were sitting there, you had planned to kidnap me?” I look accusingly at Mindii.
“Kidnap? I rescued you from the most boring night of your life.”
“What if I hadn’t come to the snack table? Then what was y-your plan?”
“Would have figured it out,” she says matter-of-factly.
Mindii is . . . bananas. Who goes to prom to steal a boy without a plan? That’s so incredibly . . . rash?
And yet . . . an interesting development. Mindii Vang wants me to come to the Snollygoster Soiree? Why? What’s in it for her? Anyway, my cosplay is at home. Even my beard. I blow a strand of blond hair out of my eyes.
Ngozi catches me looking at Mindii and she knows she’s got me. “You bloody well better not show up wearing this drab prom attire. People will think you’re cosplaying a beardless pencil.”
“Well, I can’t just get Dafydd,” I say. Cosplayers have a tendency to name our cosplays, like how bakers name their sourdough starters or normal people refer to their friends and family members. We do not, under any circumstances, call it an outfit or costume, like we’re casual dresser-uppers on Halloween. “Dafydd is at the house.” Along with my entire family and a giant memorial for my dead brother. It’s going to be Mission: Impossible to get it, even if I did have a ride.
I look at Ngozi. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the roller rink?” I say.
Ngozi sighs loudly. “Yeh.” She looks at Mindii. “Engagement party for my cousin, innit. She’s twenty-seven and is acting like she’s having a sweet sixteen party. Such inconvenient timing. I barely managed to sneak out long enough to come here for a nibble.”
It’s kinda sweet she took the time to coerce me into leaving Normal Prom in the middle of all her hectic-ness. Also pretty damn shady. At least her Chur cosplay looks Nigerian-ish, so she can wear that to this engagement party without it turning heads.
Ngozi’s face straightens up. “Might as well tell me. You have that face.”
“I do not,” I say.
“You bloody well do.”
“N-no. I d-don’t.”
Ngozi stops. “Not even going to use your totally pants British accent? Now I know something is off.”
“It is not pants,” I say irritably. “I am great with accents. When I do Dafydd, people think I sound like I’m really from Petrichor.”
“Leave it out, Sunny,” Ngozi scoffs. “Nobody thinks that. They just think you’re talking with a gob full of food. Like a hamster.”
“Better than your American accent.”
“Whelllll,” she says drawing out every single grating syllable of what she thinks is a Southern accent. “Aaaaaa beg to difffferrrr.”
I look over at Mindii, who is enjoying this a little too much.
“Don’t be a plonker, Sunny,” Ngozi continues. “I’ll be at the soiree by eleven, right after the jollof rice competition. You just worry about yourself and be there. Or you’re a fucking dead man.”
“I’ll have to figure some things out. I don’t have a ride anymore.”
“As luck would have it, I just happen to be free,” Mindii says.
Ngozi smirks.
“Sorted,” she says.
I roll my eyes.
“Go get Dafydd. You can leave that poxy accent at home and just use your garish American one if you like.”
“It is not poxy. It’s lit.”
With that, I follow Mindii outside, a giant cloud over my head.
She pulls on her little yellow helmet and hands me a bigger black one, then throws one leg over her motorcycle, a Yamaha. Hmm. I always thought they only made keyboards. Nice to see they’ve branched out to non-musical machines that can potentially kill people.
I strap on my helmet warily and then take a seat behind her, a man without options.