How to Repair a Mechanical Heart (22 page)

Scene 3:
A kiss in the rain. A good montage has to have one. On a campground picnic table, wearing stick-on mustaches from a truck stop.

Scene 4:
Bill & Ray’s RV Repairs. Dad found these guys online and prearranged a complete checkup, “just to be safe.” While they’re inspecting the brakes and fixing the busted windshield wiper, Abel and I go around back to watch a rose-and-orange sunset sprawl above Pleasant Grove, Utah, the kind of happy train-set town with rodeos and Heritage Festivals every five minutes. I sit on a rusted riding mower with my guitar and strum his favorite Madonna song (”Like A Prayer”), and I swear these two birds soar over poetically at that very second, settling together in the scrubby grass to feast on a discarded Honey Bun.

It’s Friday now, one day from CastieCon #5. The Sunseeker’s whipping down I-15; we’ll be at our campground near Salt Lake within a few hours. Bec drives with her hair in pigtails and the Futureheads on the speakers; Abel and I sit crosslegged on the bed in the tiny back room. We’re wearing matching white baseball caps that say I GOT LUCKY IN VEGAS in glitter, and beside us on two paper plates are remnants of the world’s unhealthiest lunch: leftover truck stop biscuits and gravy, plus a fried-egg-and-cheese scramble with onions and tomatoes from a roadside stand near Victorville. There’s tomato juice on my
Castaway Planet
shirt and Utah dirt under my fingernails. I’ve never been happier in my entire life.

He takes a deep breath. “Should we do it?”

“Now?”

“It’s been so long.”

“Three days.”

“Okay. You first.”

“No, together.”

“On three. One, two‌…‌”

We whip out our phones. The no-media rule Abel thought up was great in terms of first-boyfriend-bonding, but it’s Day 3 already and our fingers have been itching since Vegas. 72 hours without email or Facebook, not to mention the Cadsim fanjournal, the Church of Abandon, or the newsfeed at the main
Castaway
site, is kind of like seeing how long you can go without peeing or using the letter A.

“Susannah’s in Tucson with my mom,” Abel reports. “Just did her twentieth book signing. She tweets ‘i miss u, have fun u should kiss brandon.’”

“Aw. Tell her you are, right now.” I lean over and give him a peck. “Okay, new rumor: Sim might have an evil clone next season?
Whaaat
?”

“Not true. Darras debunked it last night, apparently.”

“When?”

“Twitter party.”

“Thank God‌…‌Oh, damn. Got a college orientation email.”

“Begone. We’re not thinking about that.” Abel waves it away. “Ahhh, retro robot. How I’ve missed you‌…‌”

Great. Four emails from my parents. I click one.

Hi Sweetie,

We haven’t heard from you since Sun. nite – tried calling you twice today but your phone was off. PLEASE make sure you call us tonite!! You know how we worry. Are you and Becky having fun? Hope you’re really getting a chance to enjoy your alone time together, you 2 are so good for each other. Dad says to tell you, you can take her out for a special dinner anywhere you want. It would be our treat.

Be very safe! Remember, we love you.

Mom (and Dad)

P.S. Helped Fr. Mike with the ice cream social yesterday – he says a big hello.

I reply
Sorry! All’s well, having fun!
and delete their email fast. Not going to bother me.

“You’re missing some quality flailing over here,” says Abel.

“Yeah?”

Remember, we love you.
What was that? The sneakiest guilt trip ever.

“What’s wrong?” Abel says.

“Just‌—‌annoying emails.”

“Well, the night after our little afterglow video went up, there was an all-night party post that hit thirty-six pages by morning.”

I grin. “We are legendary.”

“The bards sing of us. whispering!sage wrote a series of haiku about how their community brought us together.”

“Wow!”

“Then a_rose_knows tried to make the #abandonship hashtag happen in our honor.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Several reports of heads exploding, lady parts combusting‌…‌doomerang theorizes that she’s actually dead and this is her heavenly reward‌…‌lone detective pops in her cynical head to say we’re clearly playing them like a fiddle and laughing our asses off.”

“Mm. I don’t care for her.”

“Me neither. You will also be pleased to know that due to our hookup, sorcha doo melted into a pink puddle of happiness and is now typing with her disembodied eyeballs.”

“This pleases me.”

“It’s so great, Bran. Everyone capslocked the whole entire night and they posted gifs of fireworks and Kermit the Frog flailing, and‌—‌Oh.”

Abel’s whole face changes. His eyebrows push together and he cocks his head. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just‌…‌” He hands me the phone, tries to keep it light. “Their fearless leader appears to be M.I.A.”

retro robot: 
 Um, so‌…‌I hate to stop flailing for even a second, but WHERE IS OUR MAMACITA?? Has anyone heard from her?

whispering!sage: 
 omg literally not a thing. like I said, she was supposed to meet up with us at the ball but she never showed.

sorcha doo: 
 u guys. that’s weird. really.

a_rose_knows: 
 I know. BIZARRE. Packs of rabid wolves couldn’t keep her from this place after official Abandon hookup. It is known.

amity crashful: 
 I’m worried, people. I gotta admit.

A little chill flashes down my back. The biscuits and gravy sink in my stomach.

“You don’t think‌…‌” Abel clutches my arm. “‌…‌her head
literally
exploded, do you?”

I tap the second page of comments. I scan it, scrolling fast with my thumb.

“Two hot boys are being sought for manslaughter in connection with the cranial detonation of one hey_mamacita,” Abel says into a salt-shaker microphone. “The boys should be considered armed, dangerous, and extremely‌—‌”

“Oh God. Look at this.”

retro robot: 
 Guys. Guys. Look. HER JOURNAL’S GONE.

amity crashful: 
 no.

sorcha doo: 
 ok I’m seriously freaked now. WTF??? :-(

lone detective: 
 It’s true. She pulled all her Abandon fic down. Every single story. It’s like she never existed.

amity crashful: 
 omg you guys. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK is going on?

lone detective: 
 She abandoned Abandon. Heh.

I find her last post, from right before the Castaway Ball, and try to click through to her personal journal. I get a blue screen with an error message.

This journal has been deleted and purged.

She’s vanished. Every single chapter of “How to Repair a Mechanical Heart”: gone with the rest of her.

“O lamentations,” Abel sighs, hand to forehead. “hey_mamacita doesn’t love us anymore.”

I try to swallow. “Guess not.”

“Maybe Miss Max ordered a hit on her.”

“Heh.”

“Whatever shall we do without her literary genius to write us into being?” he snorts.

I hand his phone back and wipe the sweat off my palms, playing it off like I’m scratching my knees. I can’t let him see I care. Not this much. “Hope she’s okay,” I shrug.

“Are you kidding? She’s probably passed out from happiness somewhere.” Abel flops on his back and hangs his tongue out the side of his mouth. “I mean, what else is she going to do? We’re together now. Mission accomplished.”

Or maybe‌…‌

“What if something bad happened?”

“Pssh. Like what?”

“What if we embarrassed her when we told them we knew about them, and she got in her car all upset, and then‌—‌”

It would be your fault.

“Yeahhh, okay,” Abel smirks. “And what if she stayed in her house five minutes longer to watch our post, and then when she got to Starbucks the guy in front of her took the last scone so she had a bran muffin instead and choked to death on a raisin?”

“I’m serious.”

“I know. That’s your whole problem.” He kisses me on the cheek and yanks my Vegas cap over my eyes. “I’m sure your little fic friend is fine.”

“Why would she stand them up, though?”

“
I
don’t know.” He swings his legs off the bed. “She probably got bored. Maybe she found some repressed
Star Trek
vloggers who are even hotter than us and‌—‌ow!
Dammit
.”

He rubs his heel.

“What?”

He shakes his head, grabs something off the floor.

“Ugh, these things are so cheap. Can’t believe I paid ten bucks for one. Think fast!”

He throws it to me. It’s the mechanical heart from the Castaway Ball, a wide jagged crack exposing its insides.

“Do us both a huge favor, okay?” Abel says.

I flip the switch. The blue heart-light stutters, then winks out.

“Don’t get superstitious.”

Chapter Twenty-One

I’m shut in a bathroom stall at the Royal Court Inn & Conference Center in Salt Lake City, rubbing Plastic Sim’s head for luck.

Q&A with Della Wolfe-Williams. Fifteen minutes away. Since we woke up this morning, I’ve checked the Church of Abandon four times from my phone, trying to do it in secret places like these. I thumb through the few new posts.

Still no sign of hey_mamacita.

And this is on page 1.

thanks4caring: 
 you guys plz don’t flame me but now that b&a are together for real I’m like a little bit over them‌…‌I think I just shipped them cause I thought it would never happen but now that it did I actually think they make kind of a bad couple‌…‌like there’s no way it’s actually going to last w/ them‌…‌probly mamacita thought so too lol

I just stand there with my back up against the door, reading and rereading that post and the eight others that “surprisingly, sort of agree” with her. I’ve seen this kind of thing before in fandom. Shippers slowly jumping ship, communities unraveling once their leaders disappear.

I shove it out of my mind.
None of this matters. It’s fiction. You have a boyfriend, for real.

My phone shrieks at me. HOME CALLING.

I stuff it in my pocket and bang out of the stall.

***

“I’m so freaking nervous,” Bec says. “I’ll babble like an idiot. I know it.”

The three of us huddle by the stage in the cold Q&A room, ticking off the seconds till Della Wolfe-Williams. Bec’s Zara Lagarde action figure peeps out of her shirt pocket. She’s debating whether to wait in the autograph line after the Q&A, but I’m only half listening. The crowd is almost too calm. I glance back at the closed doors. Pull my sweatshirt tight around me. I feel like I’m waiting for something besides Della: a random gunman, a fire breaking out in the corner.

“She’s just a person,” says Abel. “Honestly? When I saw Ed Ransome in person my crush kinda eased up a tiny bit. Right Bran?”

He elbows me.

“Right. Yeah. Mine too, a little.”

“Yeah, well, you had
other
stuff going on that night.” She holds Plastic Lagarde up to her cheek and bats her eyes. “Will you all wait in line with me? Please please please?”

“Sure‌—‌oh. We can’t, babe.” Abel knocks the heel of his hand against his head. “We’ve got that stupid-ass lunch with Miss Maxima.”

I forgot all about that.
“Ugh.”

“Brandon, tell me what possessed us to call a truce with her again? Was it really just postcoital bliss?”

“’Fraid it was.”

“Aw. You
guys
,” Bec saps, messing up my hair. She still thinks we’re moving too fast, I can tell, but she’s been nice enough to act totally happy for us this week. I relax a little. I swing my arm around her waist and give her a squeeze.

“Oh farts, there she is.” Abel pokes me. “The one and only.”

He points. My eyes connect his finger to a girl on the far side of the room, shouldering her way through the crowd. Miss Maxima looks just like she does in her profile picture on the Cadsim comm. Like one of those women they used to warn sailors about when my great-great uncles were in the war: fake mole, leopard pillbox hat, tight red dress with big black buttons, five-alarm lipstick on a sideways smirk. She’s dragging along a short doughy kid with a paler, plainer version of her face; the girl’s got on a cartoon vampire t-shirt and she looks like she wants to disappear. I would too if Maxima was my big sister.

Hello boys,
Miss Maxima mouths, her red lips enlarging each syllable. She sends us a dainty finger-wave.

“Gross,” says Abel.

“Completely,” I say.

“She’s so amazing,” says Bec.

We both whip around.

“Not Miss M,” Bec eyerolls. “Della Wolfe-Williams. Did you know she’s a first-degree black belt in tai chi?” She pets the bio in the CastieCon program. “She has two Siberian huskies and on the weekends she goes mountain biking and makes salsa verde from scratch.” She blushes. “Sorry.”

“Dear fangirl,” Abel says, “have you no idea who you’re talking to?”

“Do you think she’d take a picture with Plastic Lagarde?”

“Dunno. She seems deadly serious. You should grease her up with some sweet talk about the feminist subtexts of the swamp-monster episode. Or tell her you write fic where Lagarde saves the world with her magic vagina.” He winds his arms around me from behind. “What do you think, Bran?”