Erica #3
“And the jaw on that one. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Just existing there being built like that, completely unprovoked.”
“We need to go. My bed is calling.”
“I feel like I’m reading a hockey romance but it’s real life and I’m right here and I didn’t even have to open an app.”
“I have never, not once, seen you read a book.”
“I read.”
“Romance books?”
“I read the text overlay on reels. You know when it says, ‘POV she’s fake dating the hockey player and he loses his mind when he sees her wearing another man’s jersey.’ That sort of thing.”
“Why would she be wearing another man’s jersey?”
“Not another-man’s-jersey exactly, a jersey with another player’s name on the back. Like one you can buy in the gift shop.”
I blink at her. “So she’s fake dating a guy.”
She nods enthusiastically. “And he gets jealous.”
I stare at her for several seconds then burst out laughing. “That would never happen in real life.”
She waves me off like I’m some annoying housefly, and scans the rest of the group for more eye candy, I guess. Then she goes very still.
“Erica.”
Something in her voice makes me look.
“That’s him,” she says.
I don’t ask who. I already know who.
“Go,” she says. “Right now. Just walk past him. Drop something. Sustain eye contact. Use your body language.”
“No.”
“Erica. He is right there. Go do your thang. Strut by like you’re Jessica freaking Rabbit.”
I’m tired and covered in travel grime. I probably look like a raccoon.
“No.”
“The gala, Erica.”
“I’m aware of the gala.”
“We discussed this.”
“I know.”
“It’s not like it’ll be a hardship. Just look at the man.”
“I have eyes.”
“Okay so,” Zoe says, and I can hear her recalibrating. “First of all, the shoulders. Are you seeing the shoulders?”
I’m seeing the shoulders. I’ve been seeing the shoulders in my head since Cinco de Mayo.
“And the way he’s just there looking like that with his hair being all… hairy.”
He does have good hair. Dark, a little disheveled. I want to run my fingers through it and… no. No, I’m not going there.
“And he’s tall,” she goes on. “Like, genuinely tall. Not ‘tall for this room’ tall. Tall tall. You’d have to stand on your tippy toes to kiss him.”
Tippy toes. I look at him for one involuntary second. One. The man is absurdly, unfairly, almost offensively good-looking. Like someone put in a very specific request and the universe just said, “Request approved.”
I look away. Tippy toes. Fine. Whatever. It means nothing.
“Nobody said anything about kissing.”
“I’m just describing what’s in front of us.”
“If you like him so much,” I say. “You ask him out.”
She looks at me. Looks at him. Back at me.
“I would,” she says in all seriousness. “But I’ll be the girl in the van.”
I start walking. “Come on, I’m tired. And I still need to find a smithy.”
“I know.” She falls into step beside me. “But I need you to get us into that gala.”
“I’ll flirt with the jock,” I say.
Zoe opens her mouth.
“Tomorrow,” I say. “I’ll flirt with the jock tomorrow.”
She decides to take the win. We get to the loft but the first lock is already open.
I know with one hundred percent certainty that I engaged all the locks and alarms before our recruitment trip. I check the second lock. The third.
All disengaged.
I push the door open, slowly. Zoe steps in behind me already holding a mop she must have left by the front door because I certainly have never mopped in here.
The loft is exactly as we left it: folding table in the center, Zoe’s equipment against the left wall. The security panel blinks its steady green. Nothing moved. Nothing missing.
There is, however, a girl sitting on a crate eating a Cinnabon.
She is fully, comprehensively orange.
Deep, saturated face paint… orange, with white markings in careful lines across her forehead and the bridge of her nose.
From a headpiece rise two long white-and-blue fleshy head-tails draped over her shoulders, where a dark blue hooded cloak rests.
The rest of the costume is fitted to her body, clearly made by hand with a lot of love and care.
There are two lightsabers on the crate beside her.
She looks up.
Zoe has the mop raised. I put my hand on it and gently push it down.
“Who are you?” I say. “And how did you get in here?”
“I’m Suri. Sal sent me,” she says. She looks at the mop. “Why are you holding a mop?”
“It was close by,” Zoe says.
“And…” I gesture at all of it. The face paint. The leather. The bicep cuffs. The fingerless gauntlets. “What’s with the costume?”
“I was at a convention,” she says.
“What kind of convention?”
“Science fiction.” She says this like the answer is obvious, because to her it is.
Zoe makes a noise. “She’s Ahsoka Tano,” she says.
I give her a hard side stare which she takes as meaning I need further explanation because she clarifies, “Star Wars. The Clone Wars.”
“Yes, I’ve seen Star Wars, thank you.” Then back to the cosplayer, “So… you came here straight from a science fiction convention.”
“A really good one,” she says. “I would have changed after but why cut the fun short?”
Zoe lowers the mop.
“Are you twelve?” she says.
“Nineteen.” Suri looks at the security panel.
“That’s a Sentry 9200 you’ve got there,” she says.
“Twelve-point algorithm, but there’s a calibration lag in the fingerprint reader between four and six seconds if you know the firmware version.
Which I do.” She takes a bite of Cinnabon.
“You should really update it.” She chews.
“Can I get a napkin? They never give you enough napkins.”
Zoe and I look at each other.
I find a paper towel. Hand it to her.
“Thank you.” She wipes her fingers. Sets it down.
“Your primary lock is a Medeco triple-cylinder M3. Good choice. Most people don’t bother with the triple.
” She glances at the locks, still sitting open.
“Now, what I’m sure you really want to know is what they use on the display cases at the B-Mah.
” She looks at me to see if that lands, and it does.
The Bellenden Museum of American History, or to shorten it, the BMAH, is the current home of an important piece my family is particularly interested in.
But this girl doesn’t have the full picture. Yet.
“They run a Digilock-7. Biometric override,” she plows on as if my silence is encouragement enough.
“There’s also a secondary electromagnetic seal on the cases themselves that trips if the case opens faster than point-six seconds.
So you need the override codes and you need the timing right.
And before you ask…” She licks her orange lips.
“I have an idea for that but I’m no hacker. ”
The room is very quiet.
She wipes her fingers on the napkin again.
“I understand you need me for something more hands-on. Something in the vicinity of sapphires and diamonds. Edwardian, hand-wrought platinum settings. The simulant has to match the oxidation pattern in the prongs or any appraiser with UV catches it in thirty seconds.” Another bite.
“Most forgers rush the aging. I don’t rush the aging.
” She pauses to chew. “I built one three years ago for a jewelry insurance case. It passed appraisal for eleven months. They only caught it because the owner had a personal vendetta against the insurance company and hired a second appraiser out of spite.” She considers this. “The first one was fine.”
Zoe says, mostly to herself, “She’s not twelve.”
I look at Suri. She looks at me. She has Cinnabon icing at the corner of her mouth.
“One condition,” she says. “And this is non-negotiable.”
“Name it.”
"I need to be in San Diego by July 23." She meets my eyes. “The job has to be done before then.”
I blink at her.
“San Diego Comic Con?” She gives me a look like I should know these things.
Zoe smacks me with the broom handle. “Duh, Erica. San Diego Comic Con.”
Right. How could I forget? I look at the security panel she bypassed.
“Deal,” I say.
Zoe stares at Suri for a long moment, taking in the whole Ahsoka cosplay and says, “Do you have other clothes?”