Attack of the Rom-Com is the latest novel from Humorist Books, and Martti Nelson’s masterpiece offers a little something for everyone, provided you enjoy romance, comedy, profanity, supernatural tricksters, trope-toppling, patriarchy-skewing, and/or junk food. Buy it now, but also, read the first chapter right now.
I stumbled off the Zipper Shaker Widow Maker ride and reached to steady myself on Jodie. Which did not work whatsoever, so I landed on my butt with the grace of a drunken llama. “Suck it, ride,” I groaned as the world spun around me. “Sophie Sweet makes the widows around here.”
Jodie Edwards, my best friend on this whole godforsaken planet, doubled over with laughter and not vomit. Advantage: Jodie. “You sure about that, Barfy? You literally went green on the last bend. It looked so cute on you, though.” She crouched to pinch my cheeks, which earned her a swat.
“Screw off, Buffy.”
“Barfy and Buffy ride again! At least you didn’t vomit on my socks like when we were 16.”
“It is an honor to be yakked upon by the great Barfy.” I tried to say it with a flourish, but burped instead. Like a lady. “And I had that ride right where I wanted it.”
“You sure? You’re even pastier than usual.”
“Hey, that’s ‘Mayonnaise American,’ thank you very much.”
Clutching my belly, in a super tough and not-at-all pathetic way, I managed to stand. I forced air in, past the vinegar French fries, around the chili dog, straight through the fried pickle—all of which stayed down, ha! My eyeballs almost focused in the same direction, and one of them managed to goggle Jodie, fresh as a daisy after being shaken like a go-go dancer’s ass. How did she do that? “What’s next? If you say the Spinner Winner Chicken Dinner, I will stab you.”
We grinned at one another. Every Halloween, we adventured to the Gator Riviera, Florida, Autumn Carnival, a tiny affair where you risked your life—and lunch—for grubby fun. We grew up in this one-stoplight berg, later moving to Miami, but could not resist returning north to our hometown festival and its many stomach-churning traditions.
“Let’s get you some water,” Jodie said.
She took me by the hand and led me toward salvation. Or death. Either way, I trusted her.
“Huh. I thought you were gonna argue and try to eat something else disgusting.” Jodie leaned me against the concession stand like a pair of skis. “One water, please.”
“And a cheddar corn-dog muffin,” I added.
The concession lady nodded. “Got it.”
“No!” argued Jodie.
“Yes,” I counter-argued her argument. “Cheddar corn-dog muffins are good for a sick stomach, right?” Deep breaths, Sophie. Barfing is for losers.
“Uh-huh,” replied the concession lady. “Better put butter on it. To settle everything.”
I managed to crack a smile. “Scientific. I like that.”
Jodie pulled her own face, which she did often with me. I chose to take it as a compliment. “Fine,” she said. “But at least sit while you eat your gastrointestinal bomb. I don’t understand how you do it.”
“Internal organs made of barbed wire.”
“Scientific. I like that.”
We sat at a picnic table. Jodie made me drink water before eating any of my food-medicine. She looked around and took a huge inhale of air. “This place always smells the same. Gasoline. B.O. Scrub pine. Hey, Barfy—remember the year we snuck out to come here because your dad had grounded you?”
“And I got into a war of words with that horrible man with the seven bratty kids.”
Jodie lit up with a gorgeous grin. She could illuminate the whole town with that wattage. Some poor fella nearby stumbled for staring at her, the stunning Black goddess powering the carnival all by herself. Her deep-brown skin shone like… like a sapphire in the night time? Ugh, I was bad at words and crap, but wow. My poor, abused stomach unwound a bit.
She laughed. “The big one tripped you, then the other ones ground gum into your hair because you wouldn’t let all seven of them cut in line… Wait, what were we in line for?”
“Fried butter!” Oh, yeah. I could giggle about it now. At the time, however, I would have happily committed seven little acts of murder. Also while giggling, let’s be real. The evil queen in Snow White was a woefully misunderstood heroine. “You gave me an awesome pixie cut—mostly even and everything.” She’d performed her act of mercy-barbering in the middle of the night so my dad wouldn’t realize we’d gone out. Heh—I like to tell myself I’d been cool about the whole thing, but when Jodie had cut off my pretty black curls, I nearly cried. Cried. Like some kind of person. It was one of the few times Dad yelled instead of just shaking his head and ignoring me because a daughter of his “shouldn’t look like an ugly boy.”
I shuddered at the memory, my mouth forming a tight line. I cleared my throat. “You did a perfect job on my hair, Buffy.”
“Of course, I’m amazing. The expression on your dad’s face the next morning…” Jodie opened her eyes so wide that they damn near shot across the table. “That man was not equipped to handle you or your perfect pixie.”
I chuckled through a tight throat. “He didn’t want to handle me. Still doesn’t.” Ugh, after that cut, he’d demanded I wear a bunch of makeup, and dresses, to emphasize his idea of what a “daughter” should look like. Even now, swiping on mascara felt like trying in vain to please a crappy dad who’d ignored me 99% of the time.
The muffin sat in my mouth like a rock. My heart sorta went… black-hole-y whenever I thought of him or my mother. Like it was being sucked into an invisible void from which no light escaped. I forced down the muffin. My parents had been ill-suited for each other. Ill-suited for me. They’d wanted to birth the sparkling, ideal child, whoever the hell that is. Not sure she exists, but she sure ain’t me.
A gentle hand turned my chin. “What’s that face?” Jodie tilted her head and did the cute thing she did—she pushed her bottom lip under the top. “Your stomach acting up still?”
“No, the butter medicine is perfect. I just –” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Do you think if I’d’ve been the perfect kid, that –”
“You stop right there!” Jodie shot off her bench, came around, and bumped my hip to scoot me over. “First, you are the perfect kid. Adult. Whatever. Secondly, nobody’s perfect!”
I blinked. “What?”
“Sophie, your mom would not have been happy if you’d have gotten straight A’s and made hats for the poor and… and… fed soup to indigent cats.”
I blinked. “What?”
Jodie waved her hands. “I don’t know what perfect people do. Point is, she was unhappy with your father. He was miserable with her. Instead of coming to their senses and getting divorced like normal folk, she pulled a disappearing act, and he took it out on you with his silence and disapproval. Classic transference. Probably. I read that on the internet.”
Whoa. My brain spun anew with the force of these truths. Usually, I worked hard not to remember any of this stuff because it made the black hole beckon, cold and hollow. I tipped my head back to stare at the stars, yet they formed a gray mass. Time to shove the painful stuff way, way down. Ugly feelings were why I’d left home at 17 for good. Out of sight, out of existence, right?
But Dr. Jodie was on a roll. “…and your mom! Not even a phone call on your birthday. You didn’t deserve their emotional abuse! Sure, you’re a little wild and mouthy and made of barbed wire, but those are wonderful things.”
I shot her a sideways look. That’s not what those kids said when they’d stomped Hubba Bubba into my bangs.
Jodie squeezed my shoulders. “You’re generous with the people you like –”
“You,” I said.
“Yes, and I appreciate that.” Jodie’s brown eyes burrowed underneath my armor. “There is no more loyal friend than you, Sophie. You don’t deserve to be depressed about the fact that your parents are assholes. I said what I said. Assholes. Now—eat your disgusting buttered hot dog bread.”
I did as Jodie ordered, and her reassuring grin made the dark, feathery edges of the black hole recede. About the only place I’d ever behaved was at Jodie’s house. Her parents housed me when I couldn’t cope with my unbearable home life anymore; they were so supportive of Jodie that I got abundant cast-off affection. It was nice. A smile burst out of me; I took a bite to cover it. Okay, more than nice. Jodie’s family had given me my first and only glimpse of parental love and stuff. I could breathe with Jodie.
“Thank you, Dr. Jodie,” I said through muffin. Huh. What useful advice had I ever given Jodie? Ah! I taught her how to punch without breaking her thumb. Not that she ever had to punch. Not around me, anyway. “I’m sorry I’m not good at this—the advice… feelings, uh…”
“Talking?”
I grunted and shrugged.
“No, you are not. But later, you’ll win me a dirty stuffed animal prize, and we’ll call it even.”
“I’ll probably steal one.”
“Thanks, girl.”
I laughed and finished my snack. Mmmm… butter. I licked my lip, reaching for a glob with my tongue.
“You missed.” Jodie snapped a photo.
“Hey!”
“New phone background, thank you.” She chuckled like an adorable supervillain. “Feeling better?”
I nodded. My hand shot out to grab hers on the rough wooden table as I met her gaze. “Thanks.”
Her eyebrows rose. “For what?”
A million warm and fuzzy emotions I refused to name because I was too cool for them crowded into my chest. They didn’t seem tight, like a panic attack, more like being tucked into soft blankets with a purring cat. Or beach sunshine on your face. How did people express this kind of stuff without sounding like a soap opera? Jodie was my world. My bosom friend, as Anne of Green Gables would say, not that I got sappy like that. It’s just… she was the best person I’d ever known.
I tucked my hair behind my ears and changed the subject to something less terrifying. “Thanks for the cheddar corn-dog muffin.”
I put my thumb to my nose and wiggled my fingers at her in our sacred gesture of friendship. Maybe not-so-secret, because a little girl nearby cracked up and joined in. Jodie returned the compliment, and we grinned like dorks. In this circle, when your best friend wiggled her digits in your face, she meant, “I love you.” And I did.
Jodie snorted. “I’m not saying ‘you’re welcome’ for buying you the muffin. You’ll probably barf it on me after the next ride.”
“You’re welcome. What will our next adventure be, boss?”
“Gwendolyn the Fantabulous!” she announced, most fantabulously. “I am so painfully single I keep cruising straight girls at South Beach drag shows. I need her reassurance I won’t die alone.”
“You’ll never die alone—Barfy will stick to Buffy like a crusty barnacle. Forever.”
“That’s hot.” Jodie hauled me to my feet.
We started toward “the psychic’s” tent. The only thing that old bat Gwendolyn could promise was that you’d be parted from your money in exchange for fake fortune-telling, but I readily agreed. Gwendolyn—an old Russian white lady who could’ve been 50 or 150— was hilarious, and always shared her vodka, offered in a skull-shaped shot glass.
“Should I tell her that I never did run away to become the world’s first stripping astronaut?” I asked.
Jodie gasped, clutching her bosom like an Austen heroine. “Don’t be so cruel! I’ve concocted a whole story about how my career as a spy for the Kremlin is proceeding apace. See?” She fished in her pocket, then lifted something over her head.
I busted out laughing. “Wow. That is one amazing eye patch.”
She posed from side to side, the red sequins of the patch glinting with intrigue. “I am Kremlin spy-ski!”
“How did you lose your eye, comrade?” My turn to snap a photo of this dork.
In an epically atrocious Russian accent, she said, “Baking accident. I try to put file in Matryoshka doll cake for to break partner out of gulag.”
“Oh!” I applauded her performance. “Because Gwendolyn predicted that you’d be a baker who made dirty cakes in the shape of male body parts.”
“Da.” Jodie screwed up her face. “Swing and a miss with that one. I’m a boob cake girl.”
“You can cake my boobs any day.”
“That’s very reassuring.”
I took a deep breath, the nip in the air settling my swirling brains with each inhale. The blinking carnival lights flashed rainbows across our path, and everything was right with the world. Me and Jodie—that’s all I really needed. Plus game code. I sat on my butt for hours commanding computers and building worlds of violent fun. In a game, I was God.
Ooh, maybe I should add a skeevy carnival to my game! Imagine the battles my heroine could fight in a scary, decrepit setting like this—perhaps with an eccentric psychic as her nemesis.
I flung an arm around Jodie. “Why do so many of our conversations eventually turn to tits?”
“What else is there to discuss?”
“Buffy—asking the important questions.”
We arrived at the psychic’s tent, a purple and pink eye-assault painted with shooting stars, fading crystal balls, and mystical shapes borrowed from miscellaneous religions. The “open” sign had been flipped our way, so I tossed back the flap and went straight in.
“Gwendolyn!” I called. “Show me my sexy future, baby! But if you say ‘ballerina,’ I will riot.”
Jodie collided with me in the tent. “Whoops, sorry, eye patch.”
Gwendolyn was not in the front part. It smelled different. I blinked to adjust to the darkness and took a sniff. What was that?
“Chanel Number Five?” Jodie guessed. She lifted her eye patch. “Look, Gwendolyn got a decorator.”
A pink velvet couch sat where Gwendolyn used to keep her dusty collection of stuffed Victorian birds. And her table, with its entirely non-magical crystal ball, was gone, replaced by a kidney-bean shaped one. A goofy orange armchair sat across from the sofa. Strings of lights bobbed and weaved from the tent supports, flashing yellow and pink in a candy-coated seizure.
“You’re here!” piped a voice from behind us.
We jumped as one to see—
“Who the hell are you?” I asked. “Where’s Gwendolyn?”
The human cupcake tossed her long, black hair and laughed, her face breaking into a gorgeous smile.
Yes. That Mike Reiss.
Have you read 
