Maria had absolutely no idea who Jodi Stemmer was.
There was a five-foot-by-one-foot banner off to the side of the table. The banner had a picture of a blonde woman on the verge of middle-aged, presumably Jodi, surrounded on three sides with a surprising number of cartoon characters of every variety imaginable: boys and girls, animals, robots, fairies... and lots and lots of cartoon women.
Maria could see Jodi, sitting at the table in front of that blue curtain that every comic convention put people in front of, possibly for their auditions as meteorologists. For a comic book convention, there was very little attention being paid to comic artists, but loads of attention given to washed up television personalities, internet video creators and ex-Power Rangers.
It wasn't entirely true that Maria knew nothing about Jodi Stemmer. She had learned from her son that she was a voice actress. Every one of the forty or so cartoon and CGI characters on the banner was one of her vocal performances. What Maria didn't know was why so many people wanted to meet her and get an autograph, enough so that the line was nearly an hour-long wait that followed the hour-and-a-half drive to the Anaheim Convention Center. It was the closest convention Jodi Stemmer had ever attended in their neck of the woods.
Maria was surprised her son wanted to go to the comic convention with his mother. Bart, a skinny lad with short hair and an endless supply of cartoon graphic T-shirts, had nestled nicely into his identity as a 'nerd,' despite not wearing glasses and not being especially good at school.
This emergence had not been without consequence, as it had left him with a host of phobias. The line closed in around him and he felt his claustrophobia grow within him. He focused on the end of the line, where he would soon be. When the line turned, he enjoyed the feeling of briefly not being surrounded on all sides.
While not one to collect memorabilia or autographs, Bart held a box set of the show where he felt Jodi gave her best performance. He could even named the episode, the episode number, the production order number and recite the entire speech that Glitternoodle gave to the Mal Feasters...
But he would not do that. Asking her to sign something was meant to STOP him from gushing and making an ass of himself. This was his eighteenth birthday present, to be driven out to this convention. Most California kids ask for a car on their birthday. Bart was not so pampered.
The other part of the present was that his mother would stay with him through the line, in the off-chance being surrounded made him uncomfortable. At his age, he could probably manage this, but he saw it as wearing the life vest on a boat, just in case he should need it.
The only thing he made his mother promise was that she wouldn't tell anyone it was his birthday. First off, his birthday was four days ago, well past the statute of limitation for singing. Second, even a singer as talented as Jodi Stemmer couldn't make Happy Birthday bearable, much less untrained family members or the staff at Red Robin.
They had reached the front of the line, as Jodi dealt with the fan before them, a man Maria approximated to be about five hundred pounds, most of that weight in Cheetos. Jodi's handler took a picture of the two of them. Next to this man, Jodi looked like a Sharpie marker leaned against a pumpkin. Maria was very glad this man was no longer directly in front of them, in case his flatus would knock them over like the output of a jet engine.
"Next!" The handler called.
Bart took in a deep breath.
And slowly stepped towards Jodi Stemmer.
Maria understood why he was apprehensive. Jodi was quite a good looking woman. The photo was obviously lovely, but getting a single photograph to look presentable was no trouble in the modern era. Jodi was a petite woman with wavy hair of a sandy blonde, light brown eyes, high cheekbones and plump lips. For someone who only needed to have a nice voice, she expected her to look... more like the majority of the other convention ticket holders.
"Hi!" Jodi said in her own voice. "What's your name?"
"Bart Dowling." He said, breathing out the words hard. He probably didn't need to say his last name.
"Don't be nervous. I'm house-trained." Jodi immediately launched into a frighteningly accurate imitation of a tiny dog growling and barking. Bart started at the sound, catching himself and clutching his DVDs tightly. His mild fear of dogs, even small ones, was perhaps his most embarrassing phobia.
"I just wanted to say how big of a fan I am of your work." Bart set the DVD set down. "Especially..."
"Magic Kitten Squadron!" Jodi cheered. "I hope you're ready for the final season!"
"I'm ready." Bart said automatically as she watched Jodi uncap a silver marker. "I'm going back through all the seasons again to prepare."
"Awesome." Jodi grinned. "You want to get a picture?"
"Um..."
The nervousness started to crack through Bart's calm facade. Bart was possibly the only man his age that didn't take selfies at every opportunity. If he were kidnapped, the picture of him on the milk carton would probably be from elementary school.
"I'll take it." Maria stepped closer, sensing her son's distress.
"Perfect! And you are..."
"I'm his mother."
"OK, Miss Dowling. I see where he gets his good looks from." She gestured to Bart to come behind the table.
"She's not..." Bart started, then stopped.
Jodi turned to him. "What?"
"I'm adopted." Bart said.
"And my last name is Waller. But no big deal."
"Sorry about that, Miss Waller." Jodi stood up as Bart approached her. Maria held her phone up to snap the picture.
Maria waited. She assumed once the picture was snapped, that was the end of the meeting. "Aren't you going to... show it off?"
Both Jodi and Bart reacted to that with a bit of shock. "What?" Jodi rose an eyebrow.
"Your voices, Bart."
"Oh god." Bart croaked meekly.
Jodi gasped, looking to the taller young man with the same joy of someone finding an uncut diamond. "You want to be a voice actor!"
"I just like doing silly voices. I don't think I have the charisma to be an actor."
"Let me hear one." Jodi stepped back.
Bart suddenly felt like he was on stage in his underwear for a play he didn't know his lines for and wasn't sure had ever been written. He took a few breaths and prepared his voice.
"My best impression is... you know Cars Inexplicably From Another Planet?"
"Yeah. I've never been on it, but I know it."
"You know The Hybridizer?"
"Yeah, that's Scott Temples. I see him on the con circuit all the time. I think he's here!" She peeked around the immediate area like a meerkat, but her short frame didn't allow her to see over the heads of the crowd.
Bart cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and put on what he believed was a perfectly acceptable baritone.
"Convert... or suck exhaust!" He cried heroically, clenching his fist and raising it up.
Jodi's eyebrows bobbed. "That was quite good."
"Thank you." Bart nodded meekly, feeling as though she would say that to anyone.
"You need to work on your elocution." She pointed a painted nail at him.
She probably wouldn't have said THAT to everyone. "I know. I went to speech classes for years. I can't shake this speech impediment."
"Keep trying." Jodi insisted. "I never really had one, and I still see a vocal coach regularly. Anyone can speak correctly if you find the right teacher and technique. Also, you holding your fist like that... you're holding tension there. Try not to tighten any body parts when you perform, because that means you're not relaxed."
"I'm definitely not relaxed right now."
"That's fine. But be aware of it. If you do it when performing, take a moment, release the grip and try again."
"Jodi?" The handler said, evidently hoping to coax the line along.
"OK, photo time!" Jodi pulled Bart closer, standing to his side. His shoulder was about at the top of her head. He smiled with his lips closed, trying not to look like a creeper.
Before Maria could snap the picture, Jodi puckered her lips in an air kiss. Maria momentarily looked over the top of her phone, as if this was caused by a Snapchap filter she wasn't familiar with. All she saw was his son desperately staring forward so there wouldn't be a picture of her looking down into Jodi Stemmer's cleavage.
Maria snapped a few pictures. Once she lowered her phone, Jodi was leaning over the desk, signing the DVD box set, the deep cleft of her cleavage now visible to Maria. She clenched her teeth and tried not to stare herself.
"Thanks for coming!" Jodi beamed. "I really hope you keep at it. Nobody gets there who doesn't try!"
To Maria's maternal ears, that sounded like 'nobody wins the lottery except people who buy lottery tickets!' Technically true, but not necessarily sound career advice.
"Thank you." Bart said as he walked back towards his mother.
"Don't go anywhere, Miss Waller!" Jodi pointed. "Nobody leaves my table empty-handed!"
Jodi pulled a picture of herself from the stack of nine-by-six-inch photos... but for some reason, pulled the picture from the bottom. She signed it really fast and handed it to Maria. "Here you go!"
Maria accepted the picture with some confusion, thanked her and left the line, walking into the crowd with her son.
"Did that go how you'd hoped?" Maria asked.
"Yeah, basically." Bart grinned, looking at his signed DVD set. "I didn't embarrass myself too badly."
