I say "9:30ish", but really I knew it was 9:23 pm, just like it was the last time I pushed back the gauntlet on my glove to check my watch. The TV above the bar said 9:27. God – David was such a flake.
I nursed the ice-water remainders in the tumbler on the bartop before me. It was the last of my third, which was really more than I liked to drink by myself. But I didnt have anything else to do while I waited. Beside, I was agitated, and I really needed to relax. I didnt want to waste the scene around me.
I turned away from the bar to look out over the darkened room. Captain America, Wolverine (claws retracted, thankfully), and someone who I think was supposed to be The Maxx were flirting with a pair of Wonder Women just a few feet away. About a half-dozen X-men, mostly with the new movie costumes, were lining up so Spiderman could get a group picture. There was another Spiderman holding hands with Black Cat (Mary Jane would be pissed!) over by the phones, and the Joker and Aquaman seemed to have struck up a friendly conversation on the other side of the bar.
Since it was the annual Comsplay-get together (Comics ... Cosplay ... Get it? All right, I know, but I didnt make it up), and tickets were expensive enough that a couple hundred of us together closed out the Gracchus room at Caesars Palace, the costumes were really pretty good. I probably knew half of the people there – at least by their alts on the comsplay board – but I didnt recognize anyone. Most of the costumes had masks, and hell if even Jokers facepaint didnt make him impossible for me to recognize.
As much as I liked costumes, there was something about masks that made me uneasy – something about not being able to recognize someone else when they might recognize you. Call it a quirk, but my favorite time of year made me a wallflower. By myself, alone inside my costume, I was shy and bashful. Now if David had been there – just having that one other safe person to make introductions, to shar... Læs hele novellen
