“Don’t forget to take the plants with you,” Emily said.
She’d given me her enormous collection because she couldn’t take them on the plane. I’d told her that I couldn’t promise I’d keep them alive. She’d said she would expect daily updates. Caitlin had made us all a Spotify playlist to listen to when we missed one another. Jeannette said she’d have her parents record her soccer games so we could watch.
It was weird that I wouldn’t be seeing them every day anymore.
“I’ll text you guys when I get home,” Sally said.
“I’m definitely going to be applying to CalAn,” Caitlin said. “You guys should too.”
“All of us back together in the dorms again?” Emily asked.
We exchanged grins. I could just imagine the kind of mischief we’d get up to.
“Okay.” Slowly, one by one, we all started shuffling away.
“Bye,” Rachel said.
“Bye,” Caitlin said.
“Miss you,” Jeannette said.
“Ta-ta,” Emily said.
Soon it was just me and Sally.
“Bye.” She gave me a hug.
“See you soon,” I said.
EPILOGUE
From ANIMATION_STEW.COM
EX-WIFE OF BRYAN BECKETT ANNOUNCES FOUNDING OF NEW STUDIO, SQUARE PEG PRODUCTIONS; POACHES PRODUCER, ARTISTS FROM BB GUN FILMS
Reagan Davis, formerly Reagan Beckett, has announced the founding of a new animation studio, Square Peg Productions. The animation editor is best known for her work on the first three seasons of the cult classic stop-motion show Dancing Through History, as well as her previous marriage to renowned director and producer Bryan Beckett.
The announcement came a few days after the culmination of BB Gun Films’s first internship, where students were invited to work alongside artists for the summer and produce a series of short films. Bear Beckett, the namesake and inspiration behind BB Gun’s inaugural film, A Boy Named Bear, was one of the student directors who presented a short at the press screening. In addition to the announced projects, the audience was surprised by the addition of a fifth film.
During the Q&A following the screening, Bryan Beckett evaded questions about the unexpected inclusion of the fifth short. When asked, the director, Hayley Saffitz, would only say that she was grateful to the students who helped make her project possible.
There has been no statement indicating whether the internship will continue in the future, though Reagan Davis has announced that her new studio will hold yearly internships for high school and college students.
Davis has not worked publicly in animation since her divorce, but she will be joined by several BB Gun Films alumni, including producer Madeline Bailey and story artists Isaac Flores and Sloane Li.
It is expected that there will be additional staffing announcements in the coming weeks.
Bryan Beckett and BB Gun Films had no comment.
* * *
One week after the internship ended, and two weeks before my senior year began, I was back at BB Gun Films. Bryan had summoned me.
Greg, the studio security guard, waved when I drove up to the gate.
“Good to see you again, Hayley,” he said when I pulled up to his booth. “Heard about your film. Impressive stuff.”
“Thanks, Greg,” I said.
He didn’t have to tell me where to park. I knew where to go.
“He’s going to offer you a job,” Bear told me. He was in the passenger seat. He’d asked to come along.
“You don’t know that,” I said.
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “Because I know my dad.”
Secretly, I thought the same thing, but I didn’t know how I felt about it, so it seemed easier to just to pretend that I’d been called back to the studio for some other reason.
I parked the car—on the Bear level, of course—and we walked over to the studio entrance. Even though I’d just spent the entire summer walking in and out of the enormous metal doors, I still got a little thrill when I approached. I wondered if that feeling would ever really go away.
“Have you talked to him lately?” I asked. “Your dad?”
“He’s on his apology tour,” Bear said. “That’s where he sends me lots of stuff and no apologies.”
“What did he send you?” I asked.
He shot me a sideways look. “I might have gotten the new Wacom tablet,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You can come over and use it whenever you want,” Bear said.
“We’ll see how busy I am with school,” I said.
He poked me in the side.
My parents liked Bear. They hadn’t liked that I’d kept him a secret from them, but after he and his mom came over for Shabbat the other night, it seemed like almost all the adults were on board with us spending time together. Even Zach liked him, and kept threatening to spend time with him one-on-one. I was planning on introducing him to Samantha and Julie next weekend.
“Maybe you can talk her into applying to college,” Mom had said once she found out that’s what Bear planned to do. To my annoyance, he had been doing exactly that.
“You just spent a whole summer at a studio,” he said. “You know the hours they keep. Wouldn’t college be a nice break from that?”
I wondered if Mom would be so happy to have Bear on her side if she heard that he considered college to be a “nice break.” But they weren’t the only ones who wanted me to consider it. Sally kept forwarding me the e-mails she was getting from CalAn.
Think of how cool we could make our room if we were staying the whole year, she would write. Or, Maurene is going to be teaching there—we’d automatically be her favorites.
I was tempted. Very tempted. But I was keeping that to myself for now. I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do and was kind of enjoying not having a plan.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go rock climbing after this?” Bear asked as we checked in at the front desk.
I looked down at my outfit—my nicest jeans, low-heeled boots, and a linen shirt—all of which were definitely not rock-climbing appropriate. “I thought we were going to the aquarium.”
“I guess we can do that today,” he said. “But next time…” He mimed climbing a wall.
I rolled my eyes. “What are you going to do while I’m talking to your dad?” I asked.
“Probably wander around and cause trouble,” he said.
“You’re going to the cafeteria to see if Ron has any doughnuts.”
“That sounds about right,” he said. “I’m also going to try to poach him for my mom.”
“You are not.”
But Bear just shrugged, arms out, as he walked away.
I stuck my visitors’ badge to the cardigan I’d pulled out of my bag. Even though it was sweltering outside, I hadn’t forgotten how cold they kept it in the studio. Heading upstairs, I almost automatically turned the corner toward Sloane’s office, forgetting that she wasn’t there anymore. She’d be starting at Reagan’s company next week.
“We’re all in cubicles in some old factory building downtown,” she’d told me. “None of the amenities of BB Gun Films, but they’ll have me shadowing the director of their first film. Bryan never let me do anything like that.”
She’d made me promise I’d come visit soon. She also told me that she’d thrown away the drawing her former mentor had done of her.
“I don’t need it anymore,” she’d said.
Bryan’s assistant got me a bottle of water. I was too nervous to drink, so I just twisted the cap off and on and off a few times while I waited.
“Hayley.” Bryan was standing in his doorway, smiling at me. “Come on in.”
His office was just as vast and white as I remembered. Just as cold, too. I pulled my sweater tighter around me, but still felt goose bumps rising up on my arms.
We both sat—me in the weird half-egg chair, him behind his desk. He steepled his fingers and looked at me. I looked back, unsure if
it would be rude not to.
“I’m very impressed with you, Hayley,” he said.
I braced myself.
“I know that the press has been reaching out to you,” he said. “Asking for interviews, wanting to know what happened during the internship.”
It was true. I was pretty sure that everyone who’d worked at BB Gun Films over the summer had gotten a call or an e-mail from someone wanting to do a story about the secretive internship, but it seemed like I was getting the bulk of the attention. Especially after I’d been named in the Animation Stew article. I’d had to set all my social media stuff to private because people kept sending me messages. I wondered if that’s how it was for Bear all the time.
“You handled yourself very well at the Q-and-A,” Bryan said. “Very professionally. And I’ve been paying attention.”
His office smelled a little like chalk.
“We need a game plan.” He placed his hands flat on the table. “Saying nothing will just increase speculation about what happened during the internship. It will take on a life of its own—unless we set the record straight.”
My chair squeaked as I shifted my hips.
“We both know that you wouldn’t have even made that film if it wasn’t for me,” Bryan said. “I saw something in you, Hayley. I knew that you wouldn’t do your best work if opportunity was just handed to you. I knew you needed a challenge. Needed to be pushed.”
I sat there, listening to him rewrite history. Knowing that he truly believed everything he was saying. That he thought he was the hero of this story. Of my story.
“You and I are alike,” he said. “We think outside the box. We’re special.”
I’d always wanted Bryan Beckett to tell me I was special.
“This is what we’re going to do,” he said, as if I had brought him a problem and he had just come up with the solution. “I had my PR team write up a statement.”
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a piece of paper, sliding it across the desk.
“It clarifies the situation,” Bryan said. “It says that I knew exactly what I was doing when I denied you the director position. That I knew someone like you would thrive in the face of rejection. That this was all part of the plan. That it was a test. One that you passed with flying colors.”
I reached forward and took the piece of paper. His desk was cold, but still, I dragged a finger along the top of it just to say I had. He’d summed up the statement neatly. He just hadn’t mentioned the last line.
“You want me to work here?” I asked.
He beamed at me. “After you graduate high school, of course. Think of the publicity. You’ll be the youngest storyboard artist we’ve ever had.”
It was what I had dreamed of when I imagined Bryan Beckett offering me a job at BB Gun Films. But better. Bear had been right.
I thought about the box of sketchbooks that Sloane had given me. The box that was now under my desk at home. Since finishing the internship, I’d tried a few different kinds of sketchbooks and discovered that I actually did agree with Bryan about the special-edition BB Gun version being the best. Or, at least, being my favorite.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t learned things from Bryan. I had. I’d learned a lot. And I knew that if I took the job here, I’d keep learning, but not in the way I was pretty sure I needed to.
If I stayed here, I’d become the kind of artist that he wanted me to be. All I had to do was approve a press release that told the world that Bryan had done me a favor by rejecting my pitch. That I had done what I’d done because of him.
I could say yes and go back to becoming Bryan Beckett 2.0.
“No,” I said.
Because even though part of his version of the story was true—I had been motivated to prove myself—I knew that when it came down to it, I had made the short for me. Because I’d known all along that it was good enough.
That I was good enough.
Bryan stared at me. “No?” he repeated.
“No, thank you,” I clarified.
There was a long silence.
“And why the hell not?”
I didn’t know if he’d understand.
“All I wanted was a chance,” I said. “You should have given me that.”
“I’m giving you one now,” he said.
I shook my head. I knew the chance he was giving me wasn’t really the one I needed. I didn’t need more of his influence. I needed to discover my own. I needed to figure out who I was now that I’d stopped trying to be him.
“You’re making a huge mistake,” Bryan said. “Do you think opportunities like this happen every day?”
“No,” I said. “I know they don’t. But I also know that you could have taken a chance on me—and you didn’t. You didn’t see my potential. I’m just starting out. If I can accomplish what I did this summer at seventeen, can you imagine what I’ll accomplish by the time I’m your age?”
I pushed the statement back at him.
“You’re the one who made the mistake,” I said. “Because I’m the opportunity that you missed out on.”
Bryan looked at me. I held my breath. I was pretty sure very few people had ever spoken to him the way I just had. I waited for him to start shouting or throwing things.
Instead, something in his face shifted. Something in his eyes.
His gaze sharpened. Focused. On me. It felt like he was looking at me—and actually seeing me for the first time since I’d stepped foot in his studio. His jaw—which had been taut with anger—relaxed. He leaned back.
He was seeing me, but I was seeing him, too. The dark circles under his eyes. The ink smudge on one of his fingers. A little red nick under his ear. His eyebrows were bushy. His nails uneven. And suddenly he wasn’t Bryan Beckett, animation genius, studio CEO, artistic revolutionary. He was Bryan Beckett. A guy.
“You are like me, aren’t you?” He asked it with a certain kind of surprise.
I wondered what he was seeing. “I don’t know,” I said.
He nodded. Just a little bob of his head, but there was some sadness there. Some regret. Like he knew he’d made a mistake, but we both knew that he’d never admit it out loud.
“Bear tells me that you two are seeing a lot of each other,” he said.
Bryan Beckett. Dad.
“Yeah,” I said.
“He likes you.”
“I like him,” I said.
Bryan smiled. It was a very dad-like smile—one I’d seen on my own dad’s face many times. A mixture of pride and hesitancy. Wanting to ask more, but also knowing I probably wouldn’t tell him anything.
“I suppose I’ll be seeing you around, then,” Bryan said. “Thank you for coming in today, Hayley.”
He stood. Held out his hand.
“Thank you,” I said.
* * *
Bear was waiting for me at the bridge.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“You were right,” I said. “He did offer me a job.”
“Did you tell him my mom beat him to it?”
I smiled. Reagan’s offer had come right after the announcement that she was starting her own studio. She wanted me to be a story apprentice there.
“The position’s yours after you graduate high school,” she’d said. “Or we can hold it until you graduate college. Your choice.”
It was nice to have a choice. To take some time to think about what I wanted to do next.
“How does it feel to have two studios competing for you?” Bear asked.
“Pretty good.”
I’d tell him that I turned his dad down another time. Right now, I just wanted to enjoy this moment.
“I have something for you.” Bear handed me a folded piece of paper.
Opening it, I found the drawing he’d done of me a while back—a little smudged, a little creased.
“You’re pretty amazing, Hayley Saffitz,” he said.
“I know.” I bumped my hip against his.
He laughed.
&
nbsp; “And you know why?” I asked.
“Why?”
I looked down at the water—a pair of ducks were floating toward us. One duck with its beautiful green feathers and another with speckled brown coloring. The water was clear enough that I could see their little feet paddling beneath the surface. They didn’t look any different from other ducks I’d seen, but there was undeniably something special about them.
I looked back at Bear’s drawing. Traced the look that promised trouble.
“Because I was drawn that way,” I said.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The first movie I ever saw was An American Tail. Like Hayley, I fell completely in love with animation.
Unlike Hayley, however, I’m a lousy artist. I can manage a decent stick figure once in a while, but when it comes to storytelling, I’m far more effective with words than I could ever be with drawings.
Eventually I discovered that there was a whole career path within animation that didn’t require drawing skills. Production management. That’s right, I was Zoe and I loved it. Over several years, I had the opportunity to work at four different studios (Nickelodeon, Disney, Dreamworks, and Sony Pictures Imageworks) and on four different films (The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, The Croods, and Hotel Transylvania). Animation was—and still is—a form of magic to me.
Drawn That Way is a deeply personal book—I might not have Hayley’s drawing skills, but I certainly have her ambition. And I know what it feels like to struggle to be seen.
You’re holding this book in your hands because of Elizabeth Bewley. Elizabeth, you saw Hayley and you saw me. It’s not hyperbole to say that you’ve changed my life and I’m so grateful to have you as an agent and friend.
Thank you to the entire team at Simon & Schuster. Amanda Ramirez, you have the enthusiasm of a thousand editors! Thank you for loving this book. Thank you to Sarah Creech for an amazing cover and to Francesca Protopapa for her gorgeous cover art. I’m beyond grateful to Arielle Jovellanos. Your illustrations—how perfectly you captured Hayley and her world—are more than I could have ever hoped for. Thanks to Morgan York, Justin Chanda, Chava Wolin, Annika Voss, Shivani Annirood, and the myriad of talented, dedicated people who touched this book and helped bring it into the world.
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