"Yeah, I love your work!" she said. "I didn't know you were going to be here. Well, I didn't know we were going to be here. But it's cool to be in New York and I get to do all of this for free."

Oh, the alarm bells were going off in my head. I was younger than Mary, but I was getting a bad feeling. I knew they wanted to come to this con, but were waitlisted. They got here, but what was going on with Mary?

"The costume is not bad," Michelle said. "I've seen a few better wander by, but it's not bad. Were you designing that...