How to Repair a Mechanical Heart

“That’s why I’m here.”

A whisper runs through the audience. Then a red question paddle goes up, slowly, to the left of the stage.

“What’s your favorite color?” some girl says.

Bree LaRue stares at the base of the mike stand. She screws up her mouth and hocks a wad of spit at it.

“Blue,” she says. “That’s as good a color as any, right?”

“Yeah. Definitely‌…‌” The girl’s wearing an electric blue jacket like Leandra Nigh’s. She looks like she wants to disappear. I want to hug her, even though Nigh is like my eighth favorite character on Castaway Planet and the person onstage bears zero resemblance to her. I glance at Bec and we shake our heads.

Question paddles pop up faster.

Fiftyish guy in Xaarg hat: “If they killed you off, how would you want your character to die?”

Bree LaRue swigs from her steel sport bottle. “Spontaneous combustion sounds good.”

Pink-haired girl in black halter top: “How are you different from Nigh?”

“Uh, I guess because she’s always an optimist. Even when it’s incredibly, unbelievably stupid to be.”

“Who does Nigh belong with: Cadmus or Dutch Jones?”

“Whoever doesn’t dick her over.”

“What’s your favorite episode?”

“Eh. What’s the one where Xaarg sends that swamp monster after us and I almost die?”

Someone yells out, “3-16!”

“Yeah, that one. I got to scream a lot.” She throws back her head and releases an unholy screech, loud enough to chill the collective blood of the Social Media conference two ballrooms over.

Everyone freezes. The guy chatting up Bec breathes holy shit.

Abel leans close. “Omigod,” he hisses.

“I know.”

“We were there, Bran. We were there when Bree LaRue melted down in Cleveland. Historic.” He puts his hot hand on my back and my body goes stiff, like metal bolts are tightening all my joints.

Onstage, Worried Guy’s talking to Bree in the low soothing tone that cops use when someone’s about to jump off a ledge. His hand reaches out for her mike. She snatches it back, squints into the crowd: “More questions! Cough ‘em up, come on! How much did you guys shell out for this?”

“Should I ask?” Abel mutters.

“Just wait.”

“Come on, pry me open, people!” Bree LaRue crows. “I know stuff, okay? Tom Shandley has a third nipple! David Darras fucking hates Le

Someone behind us whispers career suicide. I just stare. I can’t close my mouth.

Abel grabs the question paddle.

“Not yet!” I tug his sleeve.

“They might shut her down, Bran.”

Worried Guy points. “Guy in the vest. Go!”

Abel touches his chest. “Me?”

“Yes. Come on.”

“He’s cu-ute.” Bree LaRue stumbles sideways, shielding her eyes with one hand. “Aww, look at his hair. And the chin! He’s like Laurence Olivier, and a cockatoo. Like if they had a baby?”

“Hurry it up,” Worried Guy tells Abel.

Abel clears his throat a million times. Bec leans closer with the camera. His hands quiver, just a little. Stage fright? Unexpected.

Sort of cute.

“Hi Miss LaRue I’m Abel and this is Brandon and we’re here representing the Screw Your Sensors fan vlog at screwyoursensors.blognow.com?”

“Super, honey. Ask the question.”

“Okay, so we’re having this debate with some other fans‌—‌”

“Oh. Perfect.”

“‌—‌and we wanted to ask you.” He takes a deep breath. “That scene in the season finale where they’re trapped in the crystal spider cave and Cadmus is like ‘it’s so quiet in here it could swallow up all your secrets’ and Sim is like ‘yes Captain‌…‌quite’ and then Cadmus puts his hand on his arm and they look at each other and it fades out, do you think they did anything in the cave for real or is it all just fanwank?”

I have this sudden sick vision of losing the bet with the Cadsim girls; Abel’s lips coming at me with a camera pointed at us. I cross my fingers tight.

Bree LaRue cocks her head. “Cadmus and Sim.”

“Yes.”

“Were they‌…‌” She claps her hand to her heart and bats her eyes. “‌…‌together.”

A female voice in the crowd goes, “So cute it hurts!”

“I said that once, didn’t I?” Bree LaRue shoots the girl a rueful smile.

“Yeah.”

I scan the crowd. The girl’s wearing a fake sunflower in her hair and a homemade Cadsim shirt, a manip of them holding hands above the words YES, CAPTAIN‌…‌QUITE. Bree LaRue rolls her eyes and makes a jacking-off motion. Abel jabs my ribs.

“You think it would work? Like for real?” Bree scratches the back of her head like she’s trying to make it bleed. “’Cause here’s what I’m thinking would happen, like, it looks good on paper ‘cause they’re both beautiful and everyone loves to see pretty with pretty, but then Sim wouldn’t know what to do like, mechanically or anything, and Cadmus would get bored in five seconds because that’s who he is and guys like that never ever change and one day Sim would be at some stupid convention at some stupid hotel and Cadmus would call him up at six a.m. and say hey, you know that girl I said was just a friend? Yeah, well, we’re in Barbados right now drinking rum-frickin’-swizzles in a hammock, and when we get back can I come by and pick up my things? Sorry baby. You knew this would happen.”

I see this is all about Cash Howard dumping Bree LaRue and I should be sad for her, but I picture him shirtless in a hammock and oh God. Once I was watching his Husband Hunt season with Mom, tuning out his dumb words and staring at his abs. They were almost obscenely gorgeous in a soft and classical kind of way, like he’d just touched fingers with God and waltzed off the Sistine ceiling. Mom was knitting pink and blue blankets for the Genesis Pregnancy Center. Her needles stopped clacking and I caught her watching me watch him, and then her ears turned pink and she said Sweetie, why don’t we watch Cooking with Carlene instead?

“I’m really sorry,” Abel says.

“Aren’t you sweet,” Bree says.

“It sucks. Happened to me once, too.”

She leaps off the stage when he says that. Like literally leaps, the way a jungle cat would, and lands hard on her feet right in front of us. The crowd hushes. She steps closer and brushes her hand across Abel’s cheek. Cameras flash and I start to absorb it: Bree LaRue is twelve inches away from me. She’s a real person, with farm-girl freckles peeping through her face powder and a Band-Aid on one finger.

“Why can’t I just be with a guy like you?” she whispers.

“I’m gay,” says Abel.

“Exactly.”

She smiles sadly. More camera flashes. Then Worried Guy steps down, helps her back onstage. She wobbles when she stands. The spindly heel of her left boot has snapped right off. We glance around and Abel spots the heel on the floor, a few feet in front of us. I grab it and hold it up, but she just gives a shrug and a vague wave: What’s the point? Hopelessly broken.

“Miss LaRue?” Abel calls.

“Yeah.”

“That was a no‌…‌right? To the Cadsim question?”

“Step back,” Worried Guy says. “She has to go to her room.”

“Yes it was a no, honey. God. Sim is completely asexual.” She’s being escorted out now, limping with dignity like crazy Blanche DuBois in that Streetcar play our school did last spring.

Over her shoulder, she adds: “And he’s frickin’ lucky!”

Chapter Six

We settle the Sunseeker at tonight’s free campsite, the parking lot of a 24-hour SavMart a couple miles outside Cleveland. I crank the old generator and Abel whips up Mac-in-a-Minit and ca