Kelly Link - Get in Trouble - Stories

When she goes down to ask about Internet cafés, Aliss is still on the front desk. “Guests can use their room keys to access the business center,” Aliss tells her.

Billie has another question. “Who’s that guy Conrad?” she says. “What’s his deal?”

Aliss’s eyes narrow. “His deal is he’s the biggest slut in the world. Like it’s any of your business,” she says. “But don’t think that he’s got any pull with his dad, Little Miss Wannabe Sidekick. No matter what he says. Hook up with him and I’ll stomp your ass. It’s not like I want this job anyway.”

“I’ve got a boyfriend,” Billie says. “Besides, he’s too old for me.”

Which is an interesting thing for her to say, when I think about it now.

Here’s the thing, Paul Zell. You’re thirty-four and I’m fifteen. That’s nineteen years’ difference. That’s a substantial gap, right? Besides the legal issue, which I am not trying to minimize, I could be twice as old as I am now and you’d still be older. I’ve thought about this a lot. And you know what? There’s a teacher at school, Mrs. Christie. Melinda was talking, a few months ago, about how Mrs. Christie just turned thirty and her husband is sixty-three. And they still fell in love, and, yeah, Melinda says everyone thinks it’s kind of repulsive, but that’s love, and nobody really understands how it works. It just happens. And then there’s Melinda, who married a guy exactly the same age that she was , who then got addicted to heroin, and was, besides that, just all-around bad news. My point? Compared to those thirty-three years between Mr. and Mrs. Christie, nineteen years is practically nothing.

The real problem here is timing. And, also, of course, the fact that I lied. But, except for the lying, why couldn’t it have worked out between us in a few years? Why do we really have to wait at all? It’s not like I’m ever going to fall in love with anyone again.

Billie uses Paul Zell’s room key to get into the business center. There’s a superhero at one of the PCs. The superhero is at least eight feet tall, and she’s got frizzy red hair. You can tell she’s a superhero and not just a tall dentist because a little electric sizzle runs along her outline every once in a while as if maybe she’s being projected into her too-small seat from some other dimension. She glances over at Billie, who nods hello. The superhero sighs and looks at her fingernails. Which is fine with Billie. She doesn’t need rescuing, and she isn’t auditioning for anything, either. No matter what anybody thinks.

For some reason, Billie chooses to be Constant Bliss when she signs into FarAway. She’s double incognito. Paul Zell isn’t online and there’s no one in King Nermal’s Chamber, except for the living chess pieces who are always there, and who aren’t really alive, either. Not the ones who are still standing or sitting, patiently, upon their squares, waiting to be deployed, knitting or picking their noses or flirting or whatever their particular programs have been programmed to do when they aren’t in combat. Billie’s favorite is the King’s Rook, because he always laughs when he moves into battle, even when he must know he’s going to be defeated.

Do you ever feel as if they’re watching you, Paul Zell? Sometimes I wonder if they know that they’re just a game inside a game. When I first found King Nermal’s Chamber, I walked all around the board and checked out what everyone was doing. The White Queen and her pawn were playing chess, like they always do. I sat and watched them play. After a while the White Queen asked me if I wanted a match, and when I said yes, her little board got bigger and bigger until I was standing on a single square of it, inside another chamber exactly the same as the chamber I’d just been standing in, and there was another White Queen playing chess with her pawn, and I guess I could have kept on going down and down and down, but instead I got freaked out and quit FarAway without saving.

Bearhand isn’t in FarAway right now. No Enchantress Magic EightBall, either, of course.

Constant Bliss is low on healing herbs, and she’s quite near the Bloody Meadows, so I put on her cloak of invisibility and go out onto the battlefield. Rare and strange plants have sprung up where the blood of men and beasts is still soaking into the ground. I’m wearing a Shielding Hand, too, because some of the plants don’t like being yanked out of the ground. When my collecting box is full, Constant Bliss leaves the Bloody Meadows. I leave the Bloody Meadows. Billie leaves the Bloody Meadows. Billie hasn’t quite decided what she should do next, or where she should go, and besides it’s nearly six o’clock. So she saves and quits.

The superhero is watching something on YouTube, two Korean guys break-dancing to Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Billie stands up to leave.

“Girl,” the superhero says.

“Who, me?” Billie says.

“You, girl,” the superhero says. “Are you here with Miracle?”

Billie realizes a mistake has been made. “I’m not a sidekick,” she says.

“Then who are you?” the superhero says.

“Nobody,” Billie says. And then, because she remembers that there’s a superhero named Nobody, she says, “I mean, I’m not anybody.” She escapes before the superhero can say anything else.

Billie checks her hair in the women’s bathroom in the lobby. Melinda is always trying to get Billie to wear something besides T-shirts and jeans, and, sure, she looks different right now but Billie, looking in the bathroom mirror, suddenly wishes she looked more like herself, forgetting that what she needs is to look less like herself. To look less like a fifteen-year-old crazy liar.

Although apparently what she looks like is a sidekick.

The maître d’ at the Golden Lotus asks if she has a reservation. It’s now five minutes to six. “For six o’clock,” Billie says. “For two. Paul Zell?”

“Here we are,” the maître d’ says. “The other member of your party isn’t here, but we can go ahead and seat you.”

Billie is seated. The maître d’ pushes her chair in and Billietries not to feel trapped. There are other people eating dinner all around her, dentists and superheroes and maybe ordinary people, too. Costumes are definitely superheroes, but just because some of the hotel guests aren’t wearing costumes doesn’t mean they’re dentists. Although some of them are definitely dentists.

Billie hasn’t eaten since this morning, when she got a bagel at Port Authority. Her first New York bagel. Cinnamon raisin with blueberry cream cheese. Her stomach growls.

People who aren’t Paul Zell are seated at tables, or go to the bar and sit on bar stools. Billie studies the menu. She’s never had sushi before. A waiter pours her a glass of water. Asks if she’d like to order an appetizer while she’s waiting. Billie declines. The people at the table next to her pay their bill and leave. When she looks at her watch, she sees it’s 6:18.

You’re late, Paul Zell.

Billie thinks: maybe she should go back to the room and see if there are any messages. “I’ll be right back,” she tells the maître d’. The maître d’ could care less. There are superheroes in the hotel lobby and there are dentists in the elevator and there’s a light on the phone in room 1584 that would flash if there were any messages. It isn’t flashing. Billie dials the number for messages just in case. No message.

Back in the Golden Lotus no one is sitting at the table reserved for Paul Zell, six o’clock, party of two. Billie sits back down anyway. She waits until 7:30, and then she leaves while the maître d’ is escorting a party of superheroes to a table. So far none of the superheroes are ones that Billie recognizes, which doesn’t mean that their superpowers are lame. It’s just, there are a lot of superheroes and knowing a lot about superheroes has never been Billie’s thing.