“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”
Zoe shook her head. “Just a bad day,” she said, moving toward the sink.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Zoe pulled a wad of paper towels out of the dispenser and wet them. Dabbing gently at her eyes, she checked herself in the mirror before looking at me.
“What are you doing down here?” She slid her glasses back on. “Did they need you to record more of Hazel’s lines?”
“Ha,” I said. “Doubtful. Pretty sure Bryan doesn’t want me to come within ten feet of that movie ever again.”
Zoe turned and leaned against the sink. “You know, after John did all his editorial magic to your voice-over, we played it for Bryan, and he loved it. Wants the actress to record all of Hazel’s lines with that same monotone style.”
“It’s not a style,” I said. “It’s just my voice.”
Zoe laughed. “I know. It’s just that when John reminded Bryan who had done the voice-over, Bryan said that he had known immediately that you would be perfect.”
“He said that?” I asked. Not great, I could still remember Bryan saying.
Zoe nodded. “He’s a man that likes to rewrite history when it suits him.”
She glanced back at the mirror, peering at her red eyes.
“It looks like I’ve been crying, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“A little,” I said.
“Dammit.” She pushed her glasses up onto her forehead and pressed her palms against her face, shoulders slumped.
“Did something happen?” I asked.
She sighed. “I just had a meeting with one of the production managers,” she said. “Apparently, someone made a complaint about my conduct.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
Zoe was one of the nicest, friendliest PAs in the building.
“I know exactly where the complaint came from,” she said. “I was helping out in animation last week—prepping scenes. And one of the lead animators walked by the desk I was working at. I was wearing headphones, trying to meet a deadline—I was a little distracted, so I didn’t stop and say hi to him.”
I thought of Cole—the animation PA—and how I’d greeted him last week and he hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge I was there.
“There was a PA meeting a few days later where management talked about how we were expected to act, especially when walking around the building. We’re supposed to set the tone for productions—cheerful, upbeat, and positive. Then this morning, I was called into my supervisor’s office, where she told me that they’d had that meeting because of my behavior. Because I’d been rude.”
I stared at her. “Do you know who made the complaint?” I asked.
She snorted. “Of course. It was Hal. He thinks of all the female PAs as his personal secretaries. Like, old-school secretaries. The ones that were expected to be pretty and accommodating.” Zoe pressed the wet paper against her eyes.
“But what about Cole?” I asked. “He’s super rude.”
“You noticed that?”
I nodded. “I mean, everyone calls him the Robot.”
“Hilarious, isn’t it?” Zoe adjusted her glasses. “It’s kind of his schtick that he’s such a sullen asshole. We’ve been working here about the same amount of time, but I’ve heard that he’s up for a promotion.” She shook her head. “This is probably all the excuse they need to withhold mine for another movie. Another year and a half stuck at minimum wage.”
I felt terrible for her.
“The worst part is that my supervisor is a woman,” Zoe said. “She thinks that because she had to deal with this same kind of stuff when she was starting out, that the rest of us should as well. ‘Rites of passage’ and all that bullshit.”
I was silent, thinking about how unfair it all was. Not just for the female interns, not just for the female artists, but even the production staff was apparently dealing with this kind of crap on a regular basis.
“But enough about me. What are you doing down here?” Zoe asked.
“I actually came to see you,” I said.
“Yeah?” She looked a little more cheerful.
I hesitated, though. After everything that had happened, could I really ask her for a favor?
“Please tell me Bear wants me to work on his project,” she said. “Between helping out Cole last week, Hal’s power trip, and having to sit through Nick’s train wreck of a short, I need a break from arrogant assholes.”
“It’s not that.…” I said. “Not exactly.”
Zoe raised her eyebrows. “Go on,” she said.
“It’s probably a terrible idea,” I said. “But me and the other girls in the program, we’re thinking of doing our own short.”
Ten minutes later, Zoe was all in. “This sounds amazing,” she said. “Right now, I have to go home after work and listen to Bikini Kill to cleanse myself of the all the sexist shit I have to deal with all day. This sounds like a much better use of my time.”
I gave her the lowdown on the project, and she promised she’d give us a schedule by the middle of the week. I practically ran back upstairs to tell Bear the news.
We had a solid story, a strong beat sheet, and soon, we’d have a schedule and an extremely capable PA guiding us through the process. This short was going to happen—and it was going to change everything.
* * *
The seven of us interns started spending whatever free time we had together. We sat together on the shuttles, met in the evenings at the library, and ate in the dining hall at the one long table by the window.
“Who did you hang out with before?” I asked Bear as we walked back to the dorms after dinner Tuesday night.
“I have friends,” he said, a little defensively. “At my school, I have lots of them.”
“I know you do,” I said. I gave him a gentle push on the arm to show I was teasing. I’d seen the pictures.
And when he sat with us, with the girls, he fit right in. He made everyone laugh, but didn’t try to be the center of attention. The other day, he and Jeannette had spent at least thirty minutes discussing the US women’s soccer team. She stanned Megan Rapinoe, while he was an Alex Morgan fan. He sometimes joined her and Sally for runs in the morning. He and Caitlin had started making each other Spotify playlists. He told Rachel all the behind-the-scenes stories he’d learned when his dad had gotten a private Disney World tour a couple of years ago, and shared pictures from his trip to London last year with Emily. He asked questions. He listened. They liked him.
“You’re friendly and nice,” I said.
“I know,” he said.
We went into his room and he pulled me down onto the bed, into his lap. I let him, looping my arms around his neck, my knees on either side of his hips.
“What would you be doing if you weren’t here?” I asked.
Bear thought for a moment. “I was going to learn how to surf,” he said.
“You were not,” I said, even though I could picture it clearly.
He grinned. “I probably would have spent the summer rock climbing with my friends. Hiking with Howl. Trying to train Calcifer to walk on a leash so she and Howl could go on adventures and become Internet famous.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to do those things,” I said.
“It’s not so bad.”
At least he didn’t have to spend all his time alone anymore. He had our little group now.
“Do your friends—people at school—do they know who you are?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “But you know where I go to school. I’m like, the least famous kid there. Some of my classmates have paparazzi waiting for them at the end of the day. I’m pretty invisible.”
“Not here, though.”
He sighed. “I knew it would be a big deal. Like that time I went to Comic-Con with my dad when I was a kid.”
I’d seen some of those pictures. Bear had been so much younger, and not very good at hiding his feelings. He’d been visibly ov
erwhelmed and terrified, both he and his dad mobbed by fans.
“At my school, no one cares. Animation people, though,” he said, “it’s just different.”
“They think you’re special.”
“I am special,” he said. He was joking. “Fans have expectations. No one knows how to treat me—they either want to be my best friend or ignore me completely. Like they’re scared of me. Of what I might tell my dad. Or they’re hoping I’ll introduce them to him. It’s just easier to avoid all that, if I can.” Bear looked up at me. “I was worried you’d be like them,” he said. “At first.”
I could see why. I’d basically been a walking, talking Bryan Beckett fan club. I would have been exactly the kind of person he would want to avoid. “And now?”
“Hmm.” Bear put his lips to the curve of my jaw. “Still not sure.”
“Oh?”
He kissed my neck. “You are pretty awkward,” he said.
I shoved him, and he fell back on the bed, bringing me with him.
“Oof.”
“Pretty awkward?”
“Did I say that?” he asked. “I think I meant pretty.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure you did,” I said. “You’re pretty too, I guess.”
“Why, Hayley Saffitz.” He turned so we faced each other. “You say the nicest things.”
I pulled him close and showed him exactly how nice I could be.
* * *
“Which department are you going to today?” Zoe asked when I met her Wednesday morning for breakfast.
“Layout,” I said.
She made a face. “That’s Charles,” she said as we sat down at a table. “Check out the right side of his desk when you’re in his office.”
“Uh, why?”
She gave me a cryptic grin. “Oh, you’ll know why when you see it.”
Reaching down, she pulled a colorful spreadsheet out of her bag.
“I can’t decide if you guys are geniuses or lunatics. Probably both,” she said. “But I had a lot of fun putting this together.”
I gave her a look.
“What?” she asked. “You guys are nerdy about animation, I’m nerdy about production schedules. Why do you think I’d put up with all the other crap if I didn’t love the work? Besides, I never get to run point on projects like this.” She gestured to the page. “It’s a very aggressive schedule, but if you want to get your short done by the end of the internship, this is the only way to do it.”
I examined what she’d given us. We were all about to become very, very busy.
“Making it half the length of the other shorts is really smart,” Zoe said. “It’s still going to be a crunch, but you’ll be able to focus on quality over quantity.”
With a schedule and deadlines laid out neatly in front of me, the whole thing suddenly felt very real. Very ambitious. And extremely risky.
“Maybe this is a bad idea,” I said.
Zoe shook her head. “Most of the guys here—most guys in general—think they’re twice as talented as they actually are,” she said. “What you’re making—it’s good. Trust me.”
I wanted to. I wanted to trust my own instincts that said that the story—that the short—was strong. That there was something there. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Bryan’s assessment of me. Of my abilities. No matter what, would I ever be able to get his voice out of my head? Would I ever be able to stop hearing him tell me that I wasn’t good enough?
* * *
“Did you get the schedule from Zoe?” Bear asked as we headed to layout.
I patted my bag. “I saw her in the cafeteria at breakfast,” I said. “Where were you?”
He’d been absent this morning—our production PA had told us to work without him.
Bear frowned. “My dad,” he said. “He wants to meet with all of the directors this Friday, but of course, he had to give me the heads-up first. Can’t spell ‘nepotism’ without Bryan Beckett.”
The head of layout was a surprisingly well-dressed man in black slacks, a white short-sleeve button-down shirt, and dark-rimmed glasses.
“I’m Charles Osbourne. Welcome to layout.” He nodded in Bear’s direction. “Bear.”
“Mr. Osbourne,” Bear intoned formally.
Charles shook his head, less than amused. “How many of you are familiar with what our department does?”
We’d all been in the internship—and working on our shorts—long enough that everyone lifted a hand, albeit tentatively.
“A good way to think about our department is if we were a live-action film, we’d be the DPs—the directors of photography,” Charles said. “We’d also be the ones building the sets and providing all the props.”
Even though I was interested in what Charles was saying, I was distracted. What had Zoe been talking about when she said to check out the right side of his desk?
“Why don’t we go into my office and I’ll show you the layout we’ve been working on for No One Fears the Woods,” Charles said. “You’d be amazed how complicated a ‘simple forest’ can be. Then again, everything is complicated if you’re building it from scratch.”
We followed him into his office, but I got stuck in the back so I couldn’t see anything but his enormous screen.
“What are you doing?” Bear asked as I stood on my tiptoes, trying to see around the other interns. “Since when are you so curious about layout?”
“Zoe told me to look at something on the right side of Charles’s desk,” I said.
He frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.
Now I was even more curious. “Why? What is it?”
“Trust me,” he said. “You don’t want to see it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You know that’s just going to make me want to see it more.”
“Yeah, I realized that as soon as I said it.” He sighed. “Fine. You’re going to regret it, but come on.”
Taking my arm, he gently moved forward. All the other interns immediately got out of his way, scooting back until we were at the front of the group. Right behind Charles’s desk. Charles was still moving us through the forest layout for No One Fears the Woods, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore.
Taped on the right side of his desk was a drawing of Jennifer Pride, a character from the second BB Gun film, The Grand Adventures of the Frog King. In the movie, she’d been the shy best friend/romantic interest of teen hero Thaddeus.
In the drawing she was grown up and topless, her mouth in a surprised O. She was wearing the same outfit that she had been wearing in the movie, but with her shirt wide open. Her nipples were drawn with plenty of detail.
In my shock, I backed up, stepping on another intern’s foot.
“Ow,” he said.
That caused Charles to turn around, see me, and see exactly where I was looking.
“Watch your step,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Mom called that night. I thought about not picking up, but I knew that if I kept avoiding my parents’ calls, they’d get worried, and when they were worried, they had a tendency to just show up places.
Zach had texted me the other day to warn me that Mom kept mentioning that she might just casually “drive by” the dorms to check on me. I was a little surprised he hadn’t encouraged it. Then again, I’d done the same for him when he wasn’t responding to their calls during his first year away.
“Your father told me what happened,” Mom said.
It was funny how that seemed so long ago. How everything had changed since then.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“It’s okay if you’re not,” she said.
I wondered how much Dad had told her. I didn’t think I could take it if Mom started lecturing me on sounding spoiled and ungrateful. I really didn’t want to talk about it.
“I’m over it,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “How is the rest of the internship going?”
Mom and Dad didn’t know about Bear. And they de
finitely didn’t know that I was basically doing a whole “alternative” internship on the side. I knew that they thought this whole summer was a waste of time and resources, useful only insomuch as it could be used for college applications. It made me even more determined to complete the short. So I’d have something to show them. Something tangible.
Especially since I was no longer sure what I wanted to do after the summer. I still loved animation, but instead of feeling like a place where I belonged, BB Gun Films had become a place where I had to fight tooth-and-nail just to be seen. And it was starting to feel like the whole industry might be that way.
“Are you learning things?” Mom asked.
“Yeah,” I said. I was learning things. Just probably not the kind of things she wanted me to be learning.
I thought about that afternoon, about Charles Osbourne’s drawing. I’d hated it. Hated that Bear had been totally right—that I wished I hadn’t seen it at all.
But I understood exactly why Zoe had told me it was there. It made it clear that a lot of people in this studio—in this business—didn’t think that I was supposed to be here. Not as an artist, at least. Support staff, maybe. Or as cleanup artists, or in-betweeners. Inspiration.
Girls like me, we were expected to inspire. We weren’t supposed to be inspired.
“Are you getting enough sleep?” Mom asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I worry about you and Zach,” she said. “About how hard you both work.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
We lapsed into silence for a bit. What else was there to say?
“Did you know that your dad applied to art school?” Mom asked. “When we were in undergrad, he wanted to go to graduate school to study sculpture.”
That surprised me. He always talked about his sculptures as a hobby.
“That’s cool,” I said, not sure what I was expected to do with this information.
I could hear Mom nodding, her earrings jangling. “I think that, maybe, your dad is trying to protect you,” she said.
From what? I thought. From myself?
“You’ve always been so determined and motivated,” Mom said. “I just wish…”
Drawn That Way Page 20
