Drawn That Way

by Elissa Sussman

  “Not exactly what you’re looking for, right?” he asked.

  “Still helpful,” Sloane said. “Oh, this is Hayley, by the way. Hayley, meet Isaac Flores, storyboarding savant.”

  Isaac pushed his glasses back. “Ah, the intern. Welcome.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I waved.

  “Sloane’s the best,” he said. “You’re in great hands.”

  Sloane fluttered her fingers in his direction. “You have to say that.”

  Before Isaac could respond, we were on the move again.

  “He’s the head of story on the next feature,” Sloane said. “Just below Josh in the story department hierarchy.”

  That was a little strange, since Isaac seemed at least fifteen years older than Josh.

  We passed by an open conference room. Sloane backtracked immediately.

  “Boys,” she said, leaning against the open door. “Working hard?”

  I peered in to find Josh and Bear sitting at the conference table. Well, Josh was sitting, leaning over a pile of papers, while Bear had his feet up on the table, his head tilted back as he stared at the ceiling. His chair was perched precariously on two legs. Too precariously, because when he glanced up and saw me and Sloane, he leaned back and went down, his feet practically flying over his head.

  He immediately scrambled upright, brushing his jeans off.

  Josh’s eyes were closed and he was shaking his head, his lips pressed together. It was hard to tell if he was annoyed or trying not to laugh.

  “Men,” Sloane said. “Always falling at my feet.”

  “What are you two up to?” Josh asked.

  For one horrible moment, I thought that Sloane might tell them the same thing she’d just told Isaac. It was bad enough that she was telling other BB Gun employees about my film, but it would be a disaster if she told my direct competition about it. I pressed my sketchbook hard against my chest, feeling it dig into my breastbone.

  “We’re just brainstorming Hayley’s project.” Sloane put her hands on my shoulders. “She’s going to blow your boy out of the water.”

  Josh looked down at the pile of papers in front of him, and then at Bear, who had righted his chair and sat back down at the table. “She can try,” he said, but it didn’t sound like he had much faith in Bear.

  Confidence surged through me. I was going to get one of the four directing slots. I just knew it.

  “How are you guys doing?” Sloane asked.

  “We’ve decided I’m just going to wing it,” Bear said.

  “We have not—” Josh started, but then seemed to give up. “Where are you guys headed?”

  “I thought we’d get some ice cream,” Sloane said.

  “Great idea.” Josh pushed back from the table. “Come on, Bear. I think we need a break.”

  “I think you need a break,” Bear said. “I could do this all day.”

  As Josh ignored him and gathered up his things, I tried to communicate my displeasure to Sloane. Silently. But she wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she walked ahead with Josh, leaving me alone with Bear. Why did this keep happening to me?

  We were met by the dry heat of summer as we headed outside. Despite my annoyance at Bear and my frustration that I’d accomplished absolutely nothing today, I could still appreciate the sunshine and the respite from the frigid studio air. My skin felt like it was thawing as warmth spread through me.

  Bear was whistling something under his breath. It took a moment before I realized it was “Oo-De-Lally” from Robin Hood. Apparently, he and Sally had similar taste in music. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he liked it just out of spite. I didn’t understand his relationship with his dad. Even though I had a hard time imagining what it was like to be Bryan Beckett’s kid, I was pretty certain I’d be a hell of a lot more gracious than Bear was.

  “Your pitch is about ducks?” he asked.

  I was confused until I realized I’d lowered my sketchbook, giving him a pretty clear view of the page. At the drawings I’d been doing in Sloane’s office.

  “They’re good,” he said.

  I pulled it back against my chest. “I know.”

  I was annoyed that he seemed surprised.

  “You do have something prepared,” I deflected. “Right?”

  The thought of going into a pitch this important and just “winging it” made me a little nauseous. I imagined a duck going into the pitch meeting and flapping at the brain trust. A duck’s version of “winging it.”

  “Thought you’d be thrilled,” Bear said. “Less competition for you.”

  “What’s the point in winning by default?” I asked. “I want to know I’m the best.”

  I turned and found that Bear was staring at me. I couldn’t read his expression. Was it awe? Or intimidation?

  He laughed. Nope. Neither of those.

  I didn’t say anything, and he widened his eyes in mock amazement. “Oh my god. You believe that. You believe that talent actually matters.” He shook his head. “Wow.”

  I sped up, but he just matched my pace.

  “You know, it’s kind of cute that you think that’s how this will work,” he said.

  Anger boiled up inside of me. Cute? What a condescending asshole.

  I faced him. He stopped short, his feet almost touching mine. He was way too close, but neither of us moved. I wasn’t going to back down if he wasn’t.

  “How will it work, then?” I asked.

  He gave me a long, assessing look. “It will work the way it always does,” he said. “The way it always will.”

  “Guys?” Sloane asked.

  I turned and found her and Josh waiting by the entrance to the cafeteria.

  “Ice cream?” she asked.

  I put a smile on my face. “Sounds great.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I used all my available free time to work on my pitch. When I wasn’t at the studio, I was in the library on the CalAn campus or in my room. Even though I knew the other interns were working on their pitches, the only person I ever saw in the library was Nick.

  We each had commandeered our own sides of the building—I liked the big table underneath a row of round windows—while he seemed to prefer the desks in the back. We’d wave to each other, but for the most part, we were focused on our own work.

  I had a feeling that Nick was going to be the pitch to beat. Even though I still stayed later then he did each night, his dedication seemed to match mine. I respected that. Unlike Bear, who never appeared to be working. I did my best to ignore him, but it wasn’t easy. He wasn’t in the library, but somehow, he always seemed to be everywhere else—reading by himself at a table in the dining hall, or listening to music out on the quad. Sally even mentioned that she’d seen him out running in the morning. Always alone.

  The day before the pitch, Sloane and I were in her office. I had just shoved my hand into a bag of chips when someone appeared in the doorway. It was Bryan.

  I hadn’t seen him since our first day, when I’d been just one of the forty unfamiliar interns following him through the halls of BB Gun Films. It was unlikely that he had noticed me then, and he didn’t seem to notice me now, his attention focused on Sloane.

  “Just wanted to stop in and say how impressed I was with the work you did this week,” he said. “The forest dance sequence turned out great.”

  “Thanks,” Sloane said.

  “You and Josh really nailed it.”

  I’d gone totally still when he appeared, but for some reason, my hand hadn’t gotten the memo and chose that moment to get caught in the world’s noisiest chip bag. The rustling is what caught Bryan’s attention, and he turned toward me.

  It was like that moment in Ratatouille, the camera zooming in fast to capture my frozen, deer-in-headlights look. I had a weird impulse to wave. Thankfully, I did not. My hand was still stuck.

  “Working on your pitch?” he asked.

  I nodded, wondering if I should say something. Or do something. How would he react if I just
whipped out my sketchbook?

  “Looking forward to seeing it,” he said, before turning back to Sloane. “Keep up the excellent work. You really have a great handle on Hazel as a character.”

  He gave the doorjamb a very dad-like knock, as if he couldn’t really figure out what to do with himself at that moment. Rat-a-tat.

  “All right, then,” he said. “I’m expecting to be impressed tomorrow.”

  He said this to me.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  Sir? His eyebrows went up at my formality. I wanted to die.

  After he was gone, I extracted my hand from the salty, noisy chip bag and let out a groan. Sloane could barely contain her laugh.

  “Well,” she said. “At least you’ve faced him one-on-one. Tomorrow should be a snap.”

  * * *

  The next morning, I got only twenty minutes with Sloane before all the eligible interns were called down to the adjoining conference rooms. We’d be pitching to the brain trust first and then to Bryan immediately after. You’d enter one door and leave from another.

  It was alphabetical so I was going to be one of the last to present. I didn’t mind—in fact, it played into my fantasy of Bryan offering me the directing position right on the spot. If he’d seen all the other pitches by the time I arrived, then he would know for sure that I deserved the opportunity.

  “I wish that you could just wait here,” Sloane had said while straightening my collar. “But Bryan tends to have a flair for the dramatic.”

  It did feel dramatic, twenty-one of us story interns sitting or standing in the hallway outside the conference rooms. Occasionally, an employee would pass and give us all a sympathetic smile.

  I wiggled my toes in my shoes. Before leaving my phone in my room that morning, I’d texted a picture to Julie and Samantha of the good-luck socks they’d bought me. I knew I’d get back tonight and have a dozen messages, though by that time, the conversation would have moved on to something else.

  My parents hadn’t texted me—I was pretty sure they’d forgotten today was the day and I hadn’t reminded them—but Zach was taking a lot of pleasure in sending me Willy Wonka GIFs in the middle of the night.

  I stood against the wall, my sketches in their case, tucked behind my legs. Every few minutes, I would lean back to feel the leather case against my knees—worried, irrationally, that they’d collapse and I’d have to go into the pitch with bent drawings.

  Both Emily and Rachel were on the other side of the hallway, sitting on the floor across from each other, going over their notes. I’d done the pitch for Sally last night, who’d told me that it was better than Emily’s, the only other pitch she’d seen.

  “It was fine,” she’d said. “But not as unique as yours.”

  I was 95 percent sure my idea was brilliant. The 5 percent kept me up at night. It drove that unrelenting, divided half of my brain.

  Sloane and I had finally come up with a name for my short film: Golem Goes West. It was simple and precise and completely right. Immediately, it told you that the story was both ordinary and extraordinary. There was a hint of fear, but also humor.

  The door to the conference room opened and everyone stopped what they were doing, the tension in the hallway immediately going to eleven. Yvett, the PA who would be escorting us, poked her head out.

  “It’ll just be a few more minutes,” Yvett said before disappearing back into the conference room.

  We all relaxed—but just a little.

  “Are you ready?” Nick stopped in front of me. He had been pacing the hallway for the last ten minutes.

  “Yep,” I said. I didn’t really want to talk. I wanted to focus.

  “Me too.” He glanced down at my portfolio. “How big are your images?”

  “Sixteen by twenty.”

  “Huh,” he said. “Mine are eight and a half by eleven.” He’d left his drawings against the wall across from me. The images were faced away.

  “It didn’t say how big they had to be,” I said.

  Secretly, I thought his were way too small. Sloane and I had debated between sixteen by twenty and eighteen by twenty-four, but eventually decided that based on the size of the room, sixteen by twenty would be fine.

  “You want them to be easy to read but you don’t want to have a hard time moving them around.” She’d even lent me a case to keep the drawings from getting bent.

  “What’s the title of your project?” Nick asked.

  “You’ll find out when they announce it,” I said.

  “That’s funny.” He looked down the hall to where Bear was. “Did he tell you his pitch?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Huh.” Nick looked surprised.

  “Why would he?”

  Nick shrugged, and stared at Bear again. He was sitting on the floor, hands draped over his knees, head back against the wall. He could have been sleeping, for all I knew. Unlike everyone else, he didn’t have a stack of poster board. Instead, on the floor next to him was a thin pile of paper, some of it wrinkled.

  “You know, he has his own room in the dorms,” Nick said. “Guess his daddy decided he didn’t need a roommate.”

  I hadn’t known that, but I wasn’t really surprised. Bear seemed to be the odd man out in our group, in a way that felt increasingly intentional.

  The door opened again, and Yvett’s head appeared.

  “Bear Beckett,” she said. “You’re up.”

  There was a loud sigh from the end of hall, and we all watched as Bear slowly pushed himself up from the floor and ambled toward Yvett. As he passed, he glanced over at me.

  “Quack, quack,” he said, and then disappeared into the conference room.

  I rolled my eyes. He probably still thought my pitch was about ducks.

  Even though each presentation was limited to five minutes, it felt like hours between when Bear was called and when he emerged from another door at the end of the hallway. He looked none too worse for wear when he came out, whistling “When You Wish Upon a Star,” his hands shoved in his pockets, his messy stack of paper tucked under his arm, as he walked away.

  “Nick Cunningham,” Yvett said.

  Nick, who had started pacing again, bolted toward his drawings, reached for them, dropped them, reached for them again, dropped them again, and finally managed to gather them up in his arms. I hoped that they were all still in the right order. I felt a twinge of secondhand nervousness on his behalf.

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “Thanks,” he said, clutching his drawings with white knuckles.

  “Ready?” Yvett asked.

  Nick took a deep breath. “Yep.” He was pale. I hoped I didn’t look as anxious as him.

  She held the door and he marched in there like he was preparing for battle. Or a firing squad. Minutes ticked by. When Nick finally appeared, he was swarmed by the other waiting interns. I stayed where I was. I was curious about what had happened but I also didn’t want to let it distract me. I listened with one ear.

  “What was it like?”

  “Did they ask anything?”

  “Did he say anything?”

  Now that Nick was done, I could see his confidence returning. His color had improved and he addressed the other interns with ease—fielding questions like a politician at a town hall.

  “It was all a blur,” he said. “The brain trust had a few questions, but I was prepared. And Bryan didn’t say anything, but I expected that. Remember his Vanity Fair article?”

  I knew exactly what Nick was talking about. “I’m not a fan of false praise,” Bryan had been quoted as saying. “Words are meaningless. Actions are all that matter.”

  I’d read that when comedians auditioned for SNL, the people they were auditioning for were instructed not to laugh. I assumed it was for the same reason. That if they liked you, they’d hired you. And if Bryan liked my work, he’d pick me to direct one of the short films.

  “My mentor says that we shouldn’t expect much from Bryan as a response,”
one of the other interns was saying. “I guess he’s known for his poker face.”

  I revised my fantasy of him applauding after my pitch. Instead, now, I just imagined him standing and extending a hand for me to shake.

  Sloane had mentioned that the brain trust might ask questions. I’d told Emily and Rachel, so they’d be prepared as well. Because I’d meant what I said to Bear—I wanted to know I was the best. I didn’t need to sabotage anyone to prove that.

  Slowly, Yvett made her way down the list of us, and the hallway began to empty out. Soon it was just me, Emily, and three other interns.

  “Karl Randolph,” Yvett said.

  Emily would be next, and then me. My fingertips were ice-cold as I pressed them against my palms. My mouth was dry, my armpits were damp, and I couldn’t tell if I had to go to the bathroom or not.

  “You’re going to do great,” Emily said, and put a hand on my shoulder. She was trembling a little.

  “You too,” I said.

  We were both leaning against the wall, staring at the closed door.

  “They wouldn’t laugh at me, would they?” Emily asked. “Like, if I made a mistake or my pitch was bad—they wouldn’t laugh, right?”

  I shook my head. “No, they wouldn’t do that.”

  But I hadn’t even considered it. Except for Nick, no one else had stopped for a postmortem, looking either relieved or a little shell-shocked. No tears, though. When Rachel had finished, she’d seemed somewhat dazed, but managed a thumbs-up in our direction before heading back upstairs.

  “They wouldn’t do that,” I repeated, hoping that it would make it true.

  “Yeah,” Emily said. “That would be mean. And we’re just interns. Why would they do that?”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “Emily Reynolds,” Yvett said, and both of us jumped.

  With wide eyes, Emily turned toward me. “Wish me luck.” She gave me a quick hug.

  “You’ll do great,” I said.

  She nodded and followed Yvett into the conference room. The slam of the door behind her felt final. Ominous. I let out a deep breath.

  I was going to be fine. I’d practiced my pitch a million times. I could do it in my sleep. I could do it upside down. I could probably do it backward if I needed to.