“Thanks for doing this, Sloane,” one of the voices said.
It was Josh. I squinted, trying to figure out if it was Bear sitting next to him on the couch. He seemed tall enough. I frowned.
“Who’s this?” the man on the other end of the couch asked.
“This is Hayley.” Sloane stepped to the center of the room, where there was a microphone set up. “Hayley, you know Josh.”
“Hi.” I waved into the darkness.
“Our editor, John Gordon.” Sloane gestured to the man behind the desk. “Mike Hanttula, our producer, and you know Bryan, of course.”
I stiffened as Bryan came into focus. For the first time I wished that it had been Bear. I wondered why he wasn’t here—if he was just wandering around the studio free range while Josh was tending to production needs.
Bryan was sitting in the middle, arms crossed, looking at me. And I’d been frowning at him. This was worse than the whole hand-in-the-chip-bag situation.
“Can you close the door?” Josh asked.
“You can sit here.” John pulled up a chair next to him.
I sat down quickly and loudly. I wanted to die.
“You have the lines?” John asked Sloane.
“Yep.” She held up the paper. “You guys really need to find someone else to be your hag. I’m starting to get a complex.”
The men laughed, but Sloane wasn’t smiling.
“Let’s try the first line,” John said. “Give us three different readings, okay? One right after another.”
“ ‘Stay out of the woods.’ ‘Stay out of the woods.’ ‘Stay out of the woods.’ ”
I could tell why they kept using Sloane for temp dialogue. She was pretty good. Each version she did sounded completely different. They had her read four lines—doing several versions of each.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“Well…” John flipped through his script. “I was going to ask Zoe to do some of Hazel’s lines, but she always sounds too old.” He glanced over at me. “How about you, Hayley? Want to give it a shot?”
I froze. I’d half expected that everyone had forgotten I was there, but now I could sense all attention shift toward me.
“You don’t have to—” Sloane said, but was interrupted by Bryan rising off the couch.
He stretched. I could hear his back crack—pop pop pop.
“It would be incredibly helpful,” he said. “You’d be doing us a favor.”
How could I say no to that? Since he hadn’t chosen my pitch, I needed to show that I could be useful to Bryan. To the studio.
“Um, okay,” I said, and stood.
“Come over here.” Sloane gestured for me to join her.
There was a podium by the microphone and the script pages were laid out. There was just enough light for me to be able to read, but my eyes widened when I saw what they were expecting. This wasn’t just a line or two. This was a full paragraph. This was acting. And I was not an actor.
“Just do your best,” Sloane said. “It’s only temporary, okay? They’ll replace it as soon as they can get the real actress to come and record it.”
I knew why they needed it—once storyboards were sent down to editorial, they were given new life with sound and dialogue. It helped the story team, as well as the producer and the director, see what was working and what wasn’t. The last thing an animated film wanted to do was waste precious time animating scenes or sequences that didn’t work. Sometimes a voice performance was the only thing standing between a sequence being kept or cut.
My palms were sweating and my throat felt tight.
“Relax,” Sloane said. “Just read it a few times through. Try it out.”
“Okay,” John said. “I’m ready when you are.”
I wished I had a glass of water.
“We are the trees,” I said, each word halting and awkward. “We are the trees and the birds and the grass and the sky, and everything that grows from above and below. Your fire cannot burn us. Your machines cannot destroy us. We were here before you and we will be here when you are gone.”
There was silence, and I was pretty sure I was about to be kicked out of the program for butchering some very important dialogue.
“Not bad,” Josh said.
“Not great,” Bryan said.
My face got hot. I’d failed him. Failed the movie. Just like I’d failed my pitch.
Bryan got up from the couch again, coming over to the podium. The room was dark except for the light from the projector, and he stepped right into it, his outline interrupting the storyboard on the screen.
“Why don’t we try it again?” he said.
I nodded.
“Take a deep breath,” Bryan said, lifting his hands. “And close your eyes.”
I did as he said.
“The forest is all around you.” His voice was low, comforting. “The smell of damp earth, the warmth of the sun, the sound of birds and insects. This is your home. This is the only home you’ve ever known. It’s a part of you. You’re safe here.”
Bryan’s words and my imagination conjured a lush canopy of trees, rays of sunlight piercing through the leaves above, the air hot and moist. “But you know that something is coming,” he said. “Something that threatens all of this.”
My shoulders tensed.
“There are men out there—with machines and tools—whose only purpose is to destroy your home.”
I could see it. See them.
“To them, it is expendable. Your world is expendable.”
The room was so quiet that I could hear myself breathing. When Bryan spoke once more, it was close to a whisper. “You are the only thing standing in their way,” he said. “You are the forest’s only hope.”
Experiencing Bryan’s genius in real time was surreal and powerful. All I wanted to do was please him. To make myself worthy of his attention.
“Try again,” he said.
I opened my eyes. The movie was projected on Bryan’s palms—most of the forest on one, Hazel in her tree on the other.
“I believe in you,” he said.
The praise filled me up like a balloon, and I faced the podium, the script, once more, feeling as if I were invincible. As if I could be exactly what Bryan wanted. Exactly what he needed.
But no matter what I did, no matter how clearly I could see Hazel, no matter how deeply I felt the stakes, I couldn’t make my voice reflect that. Each version sounded exactly the same to me—a slow, mumbling monotone. I couldn’t even look at the couch. I knew I had disappointed Bryan—again—and the thought made me woozy.
“Hayley and I have somewhere to be,” Sloane said before John could ask me to do it one more time. I wanted to hug her.
We stepped out of the edit bay, Sloane closing the door behind her. Zoe spotted me and immediately got up from her chair.
“Can you get us some water, please?” Sloane asked.
I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, but I was grateful for the cold bottle of water that Zoe pressed into my hand.
“What happened?” Zoe asked, her voice low as we walked over to her desk.
“They had Hayley read Hazel’s part.” Sloane squeezed my shoulder. “She did great.”
It was a lie, but it was a nice one.
“I hate reading for them,” Zoe said. “But it’s part of the job.”
And as it turned out, just another part of the job that I wasn’t good enough at.
* * *
Josh’s office was around the corner from Sloane’s, with a desk out front. Usually his assistant, a friendly girl named Steph, was seated there, but today it was Bear, shoulders bent, pencil flying over the page of his sketchbook. I couldn’t see what he was drawing, but I could see what he was using.
His art supplies were always top-of-the-line, all the things I could never afford even if I was working this summer. Half of the money I usually earned went into a savings account, while the rest I could spend on sketchbooks and pencils, but my budget was
always stretched thin. This year, I’d have to be careful about how quickly I went through my supplies. Especially since the special edition BB Gun sketchbooks had cost way more than my usual ones. I’d stockpiled enough stuff to last for a few months, but after that, things could get dire. Before the internship was announced, I had planned to save for the newest Wacom tablet. That wasn’t going to happen now. I bet Bear had the tablet—or could have it if he just asked. I couldn’t help wondering what he was drawing. Wondering if it was any good.
There was a watercooler right by Josh’s office, so I pretended I needed a drink, hoping that maybe if I walked slowly enough, I could see what Bear was working on. But when I returned with my water bottle, I found that he was gone.
But not his sketchbook.
It wasn’t a special edition BB Gun one. That was a little surprising, as everyone at the studio seemed to have them. It was still a nice one, though. Really nice. Unable to help myself, I leaned forward over the little wall around the desk and took a look. He’d drawn a stick figure waving with a word bubble above its head.
Look behind you, it said. I didn’t have to.
“You’re a terrible spy,” Bear said.
I was embarrassed to be caught, but I wasn’t going to let him see that. It was the first time we’d spoken since he’d approached me outside the dorms. And I figured he owed me.
“You saw my ducks,” I said, reaching for the sketchbook. “Fair is fair.”
He slapped his palm down before I could turn the page, trapping my hand between his and the paper. “Nothing’s fair in animation,” he said.
His skin was warmer than I expected, but the callus on his ring finger matched mine. One I’d earned from hours of drawing. There were other calluses too. Ones I could feel against my knuckles. Heat traveled up my arm. I wiggled my fingers, but he didn’t move. He was standing very, very close to me.
I cleared my throat. “The line quality’s good,” I said. I was joking but not completely. It was a stick figure, but it was a good one.
Bear snorted. He smelled a little like pencil shavings and breath mints.
“Hayley?”
He stepped back at the sound of Sloane’s voice coming from the other end of the hall. I lifted my hand from his sketchbook and he slid it away. We stared at each other for a moment.
I was still annoyed at him, still annoyed at the whole situation, but he just seemed wary.
“I didn’t want to see it anyway,” I said, fooling no one.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”
“Whatever,” I said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I was irritated when I returned to Sloane’s office. Bear refusing to show me his sketchbook just confirmed what I knew everyone was thinking: that he’d only gotten the position because of his dad.
Sally had been assigned to work on Bear’s team, but I couldn’t ask her what it was like working with him. She was still barely talking to me—usually getting up early, going for a run, getting dressed and leaving just as I was coming back from the bathroom.
It didn’t seem fair. All I wanted was a chance to prove myself—to show Bryan, to show the studio, to show everyone that I was good at this.
Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I didn’t know what good was.
Sloane was sitting at her desk, bent over some storyboards, so I took a look at her shelves, which were full of books. When I reached for one of them, it disturbed something that had been propped up behind it.
“Oh,” Sloane said.
I froze, my fingers brushing the side. It was covered in dust. “Sorry,” I said.
Sloane came over and took the item from the shelf. It was a framed picture.
“It’s okay.” Sloane handed it over. “Just some dumb drawing that someone did of me.”
The frame was cheap, and it was immediately apparent that it was plastic, not glass, protecting the image.
It was a drawing of Sloane, only it didn’t really look like her besides the long hair and funky glasses. Whoever had drawn it had put her in a slinky strapless evening gown that was basically painted to her enormous—and completely inaccurate—boobs. She was holding a whip and there was a word bubble above her head.
I’m not a bitch, I’m just drawn that way, cartoon-Sloane was saying.
“It’s a reference to Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” she said.
It had taken me a moment to place it but now I saw it. The dress, the pose, the body—that was pure Jessica Rabbit. And the quote? A play on her famous line: “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s not the first caricature someone’s done of me,” Sloane said. “And it definitely won’t be the last. It’s a rite of passage, really.”
I couldn’t tell if she thought it was funny. The expression on her face—pinched lips, a wrinkle between her brow—indicated that she wasn’t very amused by it. But it had still been on her shelf. Framed. Who had drawn it?
Sloane put it back, facedown. “You have to have a sense of humor about these things,” she said. “It’s part of the gig.”
I nodded. There were so many things I wanted to ask her. About the drawing and who had done it, but also about the choices that Bryan had made. The directors he had chosen. Specifically Bear.
“Have you…” I tried to choose my words carefully. “Is Bear like his dad?”
I was trying to ask if he was as talented as Bryan, but the shadow that passed over Sloane’s face seemed to indicate that she’d taken the question a different way.
“Bear is a good kid,” she said. With conviction.
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t really want to talk about Bear’s personality, I wanted to talk about his talent—or lack thereof.
“He’s a pain in the ass, don’t get me wrong,” Sloane said. “But he’s been through a lot.”
“Sure.” I was angry and confused. Why was Sloane making excuses for Bear? Didn’t she see the obvious nepotism at play?
But I didn’t say anything. Sloane was my only advocate right now and maybe my reaction was just further proof that I didn’t deserve the director position. That I couldn’t work collaboratively.
Sloane offered a sympathetic look. “I know this is hard for you,” she said. “I know it doesn’t feel fair.”
That just made me feel guilty. Sloane had told me that there was a skill in helping other people achieve their creative vision and here I was, harping on my own disappointments. It just proved that Caitlin and my dad and even Shelley Cona were right. I was a brat and a bitch.
I promised myself I’d try harder. Because I already felt so alone.
I wondered if Sally was having a better time working on Bear’s movie—if any of the other girls were having a better time than I was. We were all divided between the four projects and departments—no one working together. I imagined us like little islands. I’d even sketched it out—each of us far away from one another in a big, vast ocean full of sea monsters and stormy waves. Anything to distract myself from the angry, vindictive feelings swirling inside of me. Because despite my best efforts, I still hated Nick’s short.
“Okay, let’s spitball,” Nick said that afternoon.
It quickly became clear that his idea of spitballing was just him and Karl reading aloud the jokes they’d come up with the night before in their dorm room and asking the rest of the story team to find a place for it in the script. Which was a mess.
Nick’s pitch had been vague, mostly built around a beautifully drawn world and some visual gags involving the skyscraper, a.k.a. “the Stalk.” From a pitch perspective, the story had potential. There were endless ways to make Jack interesting and dynamic—to dig into his motivation. Unfortunately, that motivation—the reason behind Jack’s desire to get to the top floor—had yet to be determined.
“The top floor represents the giant’s kingdom,” Nick said. “It’s off-limits, so of course someone like Jack wants to go there.”
“But why?” I asked. “Wh
y specifically does he want to climb the Stalk?”
That just seemed to annoy Nick.
“Because he’s a rebel,” he said. “And Mr. Bigsworth is the establishment.”
I hated saying the character’s name. It made the whole project seem childish.
“Are we sure we can’t think of a better name?” I asked.
“Why would we do that?” Nick asked. “It’s a perfect name. It hints to the audience who this guy is—I mean, we can’t just name him Mr. Giant. That would be too obvious.” Karl and Nick shared a laugh and a fist bump. “Now come on, Hayley, give me something I can actually work with.”
That’s how it went with anything I suggested. Nick would shoot it down immediately, explain why it was a bad idea, and then ask for something better. Not only that, but he ended the day by giving us all homework.
It didn’t feel like we were a team at all. I felt especially bad for Zoe, who had to sit at the end of the table taking notes.
“I think you should all watch The Nightmare Before Christmas tonight,” Nick said. “It’s full of inspiration.”
Besides the fact that both main characters were named Jack, I couldn’t see how they were connected in any way—the style wasn’t even the same.
“It does a great job combining the creepy and the funny,” Nick said. “I think that’s something we should really focus on.”
Nick’s short wasn’t creepy at all. And it definitely wasn’t funny. At least not to me.
“Tim Burton is a master of that,” Nick said. “Maybe we should have a marathon of all the movies he directed.”
“Tim Burton didn’t direct The Nightmare Before Christmas,” I said.
Nick laughed. “Uh, yeah, he did,” he said, sharing a Can you believe this? look with Karl.
“Henry Selick directed it,” I said. “Tim Burton produced it and came up with the idea, but he didn’t direct it.”
I knew I was right.
“Uh, I think I would know if some guy named Henry Selick directed The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Nick said.
Some guy? I tightened my fingers around my pencil. How many times had I been quizzed on animation trivia by some random dude who thought he knew more than I did?
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