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M’lady?
    It was just one more thing Lee didn’t quite get about his mom’s peculiar world of fandom. She had read science fiction and comic books for as long as he could remember, but until
now, her participation in subculture had been limited to monthly gatherings at a used bookstore specializing in dime novels and pulp magazines. The place was as dank as a workman’s boot, and
the other members of the club, mostly men in their twenties, were each a different shade of awkwardness incarnate. It was clear they adored his mom, and Lee was nothing but grateful, even touched
by their respect for her. Still, he found it easy to joke. When his mom said they were trying to brainstorm a name for their group, Lee suggested “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
“Don’t be mean!”
she’d said with a half-smile and a playful punch. They called themselves “geeks”—a term Lee always thought was slang for circus
freaks. He didn’t get that, either.
    To each his own,
he resolved. He liked to dress up in a colorful uniform and swing a bat; they liked to dress up in women’s clothes and pretend to shoot aliens.
    They entered the lobby and saw a sign:
    WORLD SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION
    CARAVAN HALL
    THIRD FLOOR
    Lee searched the lobby for an elevator, but the men started up a large wrought-iron stairway. He held out his arm for Clara, but she pushed it away. “I’ll manage, thank you.
I’m feeling good today, honey.” She never called him “honey.” Their comic-strip friends waited for them on the landing. Clara gave Lee’s arm a reassuring squeeze and
started up without apparent effort. He stayed close by her, just the same.
    On the second landing, Lee saw a group of well-dressed young men. They were the sophisticated smoking types, old before their pimply time. They were handing out yellow pamphlets with the words READ THIS IMMEDIATELY! A WARNING! One spectacled boy leaning against the ironwork stepped toward Buck. “Do you believe in democratic fandom?” he asked.
    “I don’t know,” said Buck, edgy with sarcasm. “Do you believe in a democratic country?’
    The bespectacled boy snorted. “Escapist.”
    Buck kept walking. “Elitest!”
    “What was
that
all about?” Lee whispered to his mom.
    “Just silly subculture politics,” she replied. “It’s complicated. I’ll explain later.”
    At the third floor, they came into a foyer with a registration table. A pretty young woman whose name tag read BETH! greeted them with a forced smile. “Hello!
Welcome to the WorldCon!” Lee thought the truncation of the name sounded awkward, at least coming from her, and he got the sense that BETH! felt the same way.
    Clara nudged Lee and said, much too loud, “See? I told you there would be girls here!” Lee closed his eyes and tried to disappear. No luck. The young woman smiled through Lee’s
pain as Clara bent to sign them in. “Aren’t the costumes incredible? I think Buck here is just dead-on,” she said. “I haven’t seen any women dressed up yet,
though.”
    “I saw one, I think,” BETH! replied.
    “I thought about going as Princess Aura, but I think that time has passed,” Clara joked. “I think Beth here would make a good one. Wouldn’t she, Lee?”
    Sometimes, Lee wondered if the brain cancer had turned his mom into a total nitwit.
    “Do you know if Alex Raymond is here?” asked Flash Gordon.
    “Who?”
    “Alex Raymond? The cartoonist? He created…” He pointed at himself. “Well, me.”
    “And you are?”
    “He’s Flash Gordon,” said Clara, her voice dropping to the octave she reserved for disappointment. “Surely you must know Flash Gordon.”
    “I don’t actually know anything,” the young woman apologized. “My brother’s organizing this thing and he’s paying me to help out. All this stuff’s Greek
to me.”
    “What did you just call me?” Clara’s voice was now an octave even lower: the register she reserved for righteous indignation. Lee had only