Alex shook his head. "You and Holly should start a poetry workshop."
"Rather stick to woodworking." I gestured toward the stage. "After you. Let's see what you've got, Broadway."
Holly clapped her hands. "Places, everyone! Alex Garland will observe our run-through of 'Plastic Alligator.' Alex, dear, feel free to share any observations that occur to you."
The cast members waved and called greetings. Alex waved back.
"All right," he said. "Let's see what you've got. Start from the top."
He held off exactly forty-three seconds before stopping them to fix a spacing issue. Three minutes before he was on stage demonstrating proper crowd flow. Five minutes before he'd reorganized the entire number.
I leaned against the proscenium arch, watching him work. Holly appeared beside me, watching with satisfaction. "Told you."
"You did."
"He's staying."
"Maybe."
"The valley knows what it wants," she said. "And Ben? So do you. Stop fighting it."
The music started up, and Alex led the cast through the revised blocking. It was better—organic but controlled, building momentum perfectly.
He ran the cast through "Plastic Alligator" for the third time. My hands moved on autopilot, mind only half-present, the other half listening to his voice carry across the theater—patient and encouraging.
"That's looking amazing."
I startled. Alex had crossed to the workshop without me noticing, still flushed from directing, eyes bright with the kind of joy I'd seen in him on stage fifteen years ago.
"Thanks. Just finishing the detail work on—"
"Ben."
His voice went quiet. He was staring at the scrollwork I'd been carving.
"Is that..."
I looked down, and my breath caught.
Carved into the ornate Victorian scrollwork, emerging from the pattern as if it had always been there, was a face. Alex's face. The strong line of his jaw, the wave of his hair, and even that small scar above his eyebrow he'd gotten falling off a bike when he was twelve—a detail I remembered from the newspaper photo when he'd won the middle school talent show.
I hadn't meant to carve it and hadn't even been thinking about it consciously. Still, there it was.
"I didn't—" My heart hammered. "That wasn't intentional."
Alex traced the carving with one finger, and the wood warmed under his touch, glowing faintly gold. He looked up at me.
"The wood knows what it wants to become," he said softly, and I realized he'd been listening when I'd talked about my grandfather's philosophy earlier. "You said that. About finding what the wood wants and helping it get there."
"Yeah."
"So what does this mean?" His finger was still on the carved lines of his own face. "What does the wood want?"
You. To keep you. To make you permanent, carved into something that will last generations.
I shrugged, looking away. "I don't know."
Alex smiled, small and secret, and I knew he didn't believe me.
