“When there isn’t any reason to think that way, except it’s the scariest option? That kind of thinking can close you into a box.”
“A box?”
“A mental box, made by fears. Remember the sky when you rode the serpent? That’s the world outside the box. You could think about that world, just to yourself, if you feel your fears trying to box you.”
Sam lifted his face toward the sky, where stars had begun to emerge. He smiled a little. “When I get big, I’m going to grow my hairlong. Like a samurai. And I will not be scared, just like a samurai.”
“You’ll be able to do that.”
“Yeah, because my box is big. Big as the world. Because it has Squeak, and Ratty, and shifters in it. And dragons, too. Even though I never saw one. But I know they’re there.”
“I do love a world with dragons in it,” Alejo said. “Friendly dragons. Come on, your mom said something about hot chocolate with whipped cream when we got back. I like lots of whipped cream on mine. Do you?”
“Yes.” Sam skipped into the house.
TWENTY-TWO
WENDY
It was a school night, but everyone seemed happy.
That was part of the miracle that was Alejo.
Wendy was so grateful, and so happy herself, that she refused to think of the future, lest this happiness pop like a bubble. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t waken every day, listening for Alejo’s breathing before she even opened her eyes, and then begin a wonderful new day.
Everything seemed to be going right. Oriane had taken to school without a hitch. Having a friend group made all the difference. Luckily Lisi Endicott was one of those queen bee girls who included everybody, the more the merrier, so there were occasional after-school girl gatherings to go roller skating and the like. Oriane accepted the rule that homework must be done before fun. It was clear that this was a rule with her mother. And Lisi’s parents had the same firm rule.
Sam, Wendy learned, had decided that he had a “box” that included everything he loved, including samurai. He was drawing so much these days that Wendy discovered that she’d have to get him new materials—but Alejo was there first. “I saw a sale on when I went over to get new drill bits,” he said, after leaving a huge set of professional markers in Sam’s room. “I couldn’t resist.”
Things between them were so strong, so good, that Wendy found herself striving to capture that sense of how a made family could face any adventure together, and her pages piled and piled until one day, about a month after meeting Alejo, she sat back, blinked, and realized she had not only an entire pilot script—but her notes had shaken down into a series outline.
She stared at it. This was not what her agent had asked her to try for. If anything it was the opposite: instead of an elegant world of competitive singles striving to get to the top of power in a glamorous atmosphere, she’d put together a fantasy about magical animals on another world who banded into a family.
With a shrug, she sent the pilot and the series outline off to her agent. What could it hurt? The agent could sayNo way, of course, but one thing Wendy was used to: rejection.
She went into the kitchen to peel apples for a pie. When the pie was in the oven, and a lentil soup simmering, she glanced at her laptop still on her desk, and decided to put it away until she got a fresh idea. But first, to check e-mail.
To her vast surprise, there was a note from her agent. Oh, probably just a boilerplate “I got your submission,” of course.
She sat down and opened the letter:
Wendy: I have to confess I opened your project to do a quick triage before sending it back to you, but I ended up falling into it. In fact, I read it all the way through—while my espresso sat here cooling beside my mouse pad. It’s not perfect, of course. I think you need to bring the excitement in earlier especially to hook your teen and adult audience, but I really think that you’re onto something here. We’d be pitching to a completely different market, but one that embraces the likes of Miyazaki and similar work. If I’m right, you might do for flying squirrels whatWatership Downdid for rabbits…
Wendy looked up, blinking. For about thirty seconds, she let herself glory in wishful thinking—series! Big bucks! Emmys!
Then she firmly put the skids on. Too much wishful thinking had gotten her into trouble before, beginning with dating Bill and seeing what her mother wanted her to see, rather than the real person. She promised to attend to the agent’s notes on the morrow, and turned back to get the biscuits into the oven next to the pie.
Late that night, she told Alejo what had happened. To her surprise, he diffidently asked if he could read it. She was so used to Bill’s rejection, she had not thought Alejo would take an interest—but he read it that night, as they sat in bed, and she hungrily watched every grin and blink on his face.
He noticed, and began adding comments. As he read further, those became clipped into grunts and muttered “That’s good!” It was clear he liked the story. And at the end, he pulled her against him, and his voice resonated through his chest as he said, “I don’t know a thing about the film industry, but I’d watch this.” A tiny line appeared between his brows, and she sensed that he was trying to express why he liked it.
He smiled at her, then said, “I think Sam and maybe even Oriane would watch it. For the same reason they like some of those animes—it’s the core friendship, the made family. Their squabbles are small, but when they encountered danger, you could see that they were learning to have each other’s back.”
Wendy grinned like a kid. “That’s what I was trying to do.”
The next day, between all her chores, she made time to tweak the script according to her agent’s suggestions. Over the next few days she finished it, and then sent it off, glad that with everything going on, her days (and nights!) were too full to gnaw with painful hope the way she had in the past. Writing something just for her instead of writing for what the market seemed to want was a long shot at best.
And her days were not just full, they were great! She found herself looking forward to each day. It wasn’t so much what she was doing, which was pretty much the same as she had been, with the delightful addition of Alejo, and the interesting one of his daughter. She was becoming aware that she had lived with loneliness, accepting it however reluctantly as her future. She’d closed herself into her own mental “box.”
