“You can throw your backpack over here,” said Dave, showing AJ a small nook behind life-size cardboard cutouts of Navi, Captain Quentin, and Rho.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“Great,” said Dave, and AJ instantly knew that Toni had been shit talking her.
She didn’t have to wait long to confirm her suspicion. When AJ approached the booth, Xiaobo stood to give her a hug, but Toni held her seat.
She gave an artificially apologetic shrug. “Yikes. I don’t think we can all fit.”
AJ gave an equally artificial shrug in return. “Weird.”
Dave glanced outside the booth. “Harumph. I told our row staff that we were expecting you, Age. We’ll remind him when he loops back. In the meantime, why don’t you share with me?”
Toni sniffed at this suggestion. While not in costume, she was in full glam and sporting what Zora would have worn if she had existed in 2012: a blue leather jacket over a black bodysuit.
AJ considered her own T-shirt, jeans, and messy bun; she definitely had missed the memo.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll just stand until the staffer comes back.”
Xiaobo and Dave exchanged looks. “Are you sure?” said Xiaobo.
“Absolutely,” said AJ.
Dave produced a box of headshots AJ didn’t even remember taking: a breathless image of her twenty-four-year-old self in Ana’s white robes. Molly Magnusson of WME must have sent them.
“I guess you can just hold a couple and get more when you need?” said Dave.
“Sounds good,” said AJ, situating herself a few feet from the table.
Toni winced. “You’re kind of blocking us.”
“Oh, sorry,” said AJ, taking a big step back.
For the next hour and a half, she lurked a short distance from the others, clutching three of her own headshots against her chest like flyers for the most unpopular club in high school. Most of the fans who came by were enthused to see the captain, Zora, and Pete, and puzzled by the strange woman skulking behind them.
But this wasn’t high school, and AJ wasn’t here to fix her relationship with Toni or anyone else from the show. This was about ten thousand dollars minimum.
At least Noah wasn’t here to see this. They hadn’t spoken since their April run-in, which AJ took to mean he had reconsidered. She did not blame him. Frankly, she was just grateful thatSNLhadn’t been their last goodbye.
AJ’s right foot had just fallen asleep for a second time when a preteen girl dressed as Navi appeared at the booth. Her cosplay was so precise it made AJ smile, a perfect replica down to the blue body armor, face paint, and candy-apple-red miniskirt. When the girl finished at the table, she glanced nervously at AJ.
“Excuse me,” she said, approaching. “Aren’t you Ana Tar?”
AJ nodded. “I love your outfit.”
“I l-love you,” stammered the girl. “I usually come as Ana, but I’ve been working on this Navi costume for two months…oh my God, in ‘Horses’…my parents have shared custody, and they were doing this thing last year where they had me and my brother on different nights, and watching you stand up for Rho helped me talk to them. They’re not doing that anymore.”
“That’s great,” said AJ, stunned by this intimate deluge from a stranger.
“Do you have a picture?” asked the girl.
“Yes,” said AJ. She glanced down at the photos she’d inadvertently molded to her chest. “Er, let me get you a new one.”
As AJ dug in the box, she asked the girl her name.
“M-E-A-G-A-N.”
“All right, Meagan,” said AJ. She looked down at the image of her own face and uncapped a Sharpie. She deliberated, then wroteTo Meagan, from AJ Graves.
