#author hat

It ends up hitting a retro-looking image of a guy groping a girl’s ass on the subway.

Her glass shatters. It makes the most satisfying noise.

She goes back to the bar and orders another drink for herself. Just one more, she says. The bartender mixes it quickly; traffic is low tonight, and she’s become a regular over the past few months. The service is great, so she tips well / she tips well, so the service is great. On and on it goes.

She pulls her drink into her personal space and starts sipping. This one’s strong. Plenty of rum. As it should be. And the faster she drinks it, the faster she’ll get to hurl her glass against the Break Wall.

“Nice arm,” says a voice beside her. Male.

“What?” she says, looking over. The guy is late thirties, maybe, with a hairdo that makes her think he’s trying to look younger. He seems to be alone, just like her.

“Nice arm,” he repeats, nodding in the general direction of her elbow. “For throwing. Good aim.”

“I wasn’t aiming,” she says.

“Well, still,” he says, like that even means anything.

“Sure, okay,” she replies, and concentrates on her drink. Even hunches her shoulders a little, doing her best to signal to him, to anyone, that she’s not here to have a fucking conversation.

“You come here often?” he asks.

She sighs. Very loudly. “Yes. I come here all the time. Alone.”

“Heyo, that was my next question,” says the guy. “Can I buy your next drink?”

“No, thank you,” she says.

“Oh, come on,” he says.

“I said no.”

“Hey, man, she said no,” says the bartender, her voice really gentle. She’s the peacekeeping kind of bartender, this one. “Maybe leave it alone.”

“Fucking bitches,” murmurs the guy.

Rum, rum, rum. Rum through a straw, with a little bit of Coke to cut it. That’s all she can care about right now. If she lets herself care about anything else, she’ll leave more than broken glass in her wake.

A few moments pass, and she hears the bartender go, “Here’s your check. We take everything but AmEx. Cash tips are always appreciated.”

The guy balks: “But I wasn’t done—”

“Then you can go somewhere else.”

And there’s a little noise, like a camera, that makes her look up. Yeah, there’s the bartender, holding a camera aloft. Pointing it at the guy.

“What was…?” But the guy seems to decide it’s not worth it. He throws a couple bills down on the bar, and storms out.

The bartender fiddles with the camera. Machinery noises happen, and then there’s the whir of that dusty printer in the corner, by the creamy liqueurs that nobody ever drinks. A page prints, and the bartender brings it over.

It’s the guy’s face. He looks surprised. As she watches, the bartender finds a Sharpie and scrawls across the top:

MEN WHO ______________

The bartender turns the paper around and slides it over to her; a little bit of spilled rum wets the corner. “Fill in the blank,” the bartender says, handing over the Sharpie.

She takes it. Considers. Men who—

Don’t take no for an answer.

Think the world revolves around them.

Assume every woman they meet is even straight to begin with.

Don’t understand that sometimes anger needs space.

So many options. All of them true, none of them true enough.

She takes the Sharpie and completes the caption:

MEN WHO __FILL IN THE BLANK__

“Yeah, fair enough,” the bartender says, and takes the page back. She rips off a few short lengths of Scotch tape, goes over to the Break Wall, and hangs the captioned photo.

Draining her rum, she carries the glass over to the Break Wall, ice and all. This time, she aims.

The glass shatters; shards and ice explode over the face of the “fucking bitches” guy. The noise is tremendous, and for a moment it’s just so, so satisfying.

Then the shards and the ice fall to the floor, leaving the picture unscathed, but for a few wet marks that will dry in just a minute.

She breathes deep. In, out.

“Another round?” the bartender asks.

She’s already drunk. She should go home.

It’s not three different fan conventions, like the title of the article says -- but still! Look! An Entertainment Weekly article about my new co-authored book, including THE COVER and THE FIRST CHAPTER, which was written by my amazing friend Alison Cherry.

Cliff hanger! I see what you did there. :)

MY FOURTH BOOK IS OUT TODAY AND HERE’S WHERE YOU CAN BUY IT.

It’s about three girls at three different cons in the same convention center, each of whom was written by a different author. My character is Vanessa, an introverted fanfic writer who goes to the We Treasure Fandom Convention (or WTFcon) to meet her fanfic co-author and online girlfriend for the first time in person.