Chapter 7: Full of Fire
Jason got the assignment the moment he walked in.
All ten new hires were called into the conference room. One of the deputy leads — a sharp, no-nonsense woman named Sandra — came in, set a folder on the table, and got right to it.
"You've all been here varying lengths of time. Some of you, three months. Turner and Rivera, you've been here one week." She looked around the table. "Today I'm giving you a topic. You have until end of day — one story outline, minimum five pages, in my hands before you leave. This is not optional."
Everyone sat up a little straighter.
"The title is Muddy's Big Adventure." She opened the folder. "The concept: a little clay figurine named Muddy escapes from a toy factory before he can be packaged and shipped. He ends up out in the world, falls in with a group of misfit toys, and things get complicated from there. That's your spine — build on it. Character, stakes, structure. Five pages minimum." She closed the folder. "Any questions?"
Nobody had questions.
"Good." She left.
Jason went back to his cubicle, put on his headphones, and started thinking.
Clay figurine. Toy factory. Escaped before shipping. Found by other toys.
He started mapping it — the eight-column grid he always built first, sequences sketched underneath, each one locked to a clear dramatic question. By early afternoon he had the structure. By three he was writing. By four he had seven pages, printed and bound.
He walked to Sandra's office and set it on her desk.
She looked up, glanced at the clock, looked at him. "That's fast."
"Felt pretty clear once I had the concept."
She took the manuscript, glanced at the first page, and set it on a pile to her right. Two other submissions were already there. Jason was third.
He picked up his bag and headed home.
Ms. Carol called while he was on the bus. Dinner at her place — she'd made a real meal and wouldn't hear no.
He stopped at a grocery store and picked up a fruit basket, arrived to find Ray already at the table and something that smelled genuinely wonderful coming from the kitchen.
Ms. Carol leaned out of the kitchen. "Sit down, ten minutes. Ray, tell him about your novel."
Ray immediately looked at the wall.
"It's not a novel," he said with great dignity. "It's a memoir."
"Nobody asked what kind," Ms. Carol called back. "I said tell him about it."
"If you don't appreciate literary nonfiction," Ray told her, "that's a you problem."
"My teeth appreciate it. They're the ones grinding every time I hear about it."
Jason kept his face neutral. Ray leaned forward conspiratorially.
"You're working at Sunset Pictures now? Story department?"
"Still learning. Reading scripts, doing coverage."
"Good company. Old studio." Ray nodded approvingly, then, seemingly against his will: "Keisha still in Atlanta?"
"Two more days, apparently. They extended it."
Ray shook his head with the expression of a man who has opinions about corporate travel policies and is choosing, for now, to keep them to himself.
Dinner was a spread — braised short ribs, roasted sweet potatoes, green beans with garlic, cornbread. Jason looked at the table and felt something shift in his chest.
"Ms. Carol." He set down his fork for a moment. "These were all my grandmother's recipes."
Ms. Carol had grown up two houses down from Jason's grandmother, been in and out of that kitchen since she was six years old. Their friendship had been one of those rare lifelong ones, the kind that outlasted neighborhoods and generations.
She smiled, a little quietly. "I'm glad you recognize them."
Your grandmother would be so happy to see you like this, she thought but didn't say.
She'd been watching Jason carefully this past week. The man-bun was gone and so, apparently, was everything that had gone with it — the carelessness, the arrogance, the way he used to look through people rather than at them. She'd stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. Whatever had changed seemed real.
"Eat," Ray said, pointing at the short ribs. "Tell me if that's as good as the original."
Jason took a bite. "Better, actually."
"Ha!" Ray pointed at Ms. Carol. "I keep telling her."
Near the end of dinner, Ms. Carol set down her fork.
"I went to the precinct today. I saw Lily."
The table got quieter.
"She's lost weight. Cried when she saw me. Wouldn't calm down for a long time." She folded her hands. "They haven't found her family yet. Her mom's from somewhere up north — they've contacted the authorities there, but nothing so far."
Ray's jaw tightened. "What kind of parent just leaves a four-year-old?"
"A desperate one," Ms. Carol said, not sharply, just evenly. "I've met the mother. Single, no support system, working herself to the bone in a city that costs a fortune. She loved that little girl — that was obvious. Something broke."
"Something broke," Ray repeated. "Where's the father in all this?"
Ms. Carol looked at him. "You want to know where the father is? He left them both. Took off before Lily was two. So before we get too comfortable criticizing the mother—"
"I'm just saying—"
"I know what you're saying. And I'm saying the father walked away from an infant, and now we're sitting here criticizing the woman he left behind for not holding it together forever." She picked up her water glass. "We can discuss that separately."
Ray appeared to find the grain of the table very interesting.
Jason looked at his plate. "He's not wrong that it's not okay. But you're also not wrong about the context."
Ray pointed at him. "Reasonable man. I like him."
Ms. Carol rolled her eyes but smiled.
On the walk back, Ms. Carol got to it.
"The officer I spoke to today asked about bringing Lily back to the school temporarily. While they keep looking for family." She glanced at Jason. "I didn't answer yet. It's your call."
"Why is she struggling so much at the precinct?"
"She's four, she's been taken from everything familiar, and she doesn't understand why." Ms. Carol's voice was matter-of-fact but not cold. "She's got friends at the school. She knows the teachers. The officers think the familiar environment would help stabilize her — and stop the weight loss — while the search continues. They'd cover the costs."
Jason didn't hesitate long. "Bring her back."
Ms. Carol nodded like she'd expected that.
Maybe Maya will finally let this grudge go, Jason thought. Give me a break from being the villain.
Right on cue, as they walked through the gate, a commotion erupted from the far side of the courtyard.
Maya, teeth bared, was chasing a heavyset boy roughly twice her size around a picnic table, yelling something at full volume.
The boy couldn't outrun her. She caught him near the water fountain, got him on the ground — he flipped her over — and then the two of them were rolling in the dirt in a full, committed, no-holds-barred scrap while three other kids stood in a circle watching with the focused interest of sports fans.
Jason: …
Ms. Liu and Earl arrived from opposite directions and separated them before it could escalate further.
Both kids stood in the courtyard, panting and dust-covered.
The boy — six years old, solid, looked like he played youth football — had a bloody nose, tear-streaked cheeks, and his pants had somehow migrated four inches south, revealing a significant portion of his lower back. There was also, visibly, a toy rubber snake hanging out of his waistband, its battery-powered tail still twitching.
Maya looked like she'd been through a car wash. Hair everywhere, face streaked with dirt and a small cut on her cheek, shoelaces untied, and the zipper on her tracksuit had given out completely in the altercation. She was staring down at the zipper with what appeared to be genuine distress — less concerned about the cut than the wardrobe malfunction.
The boy was crying. "She hit me!"
Maya's eyes cut to him. "You started it, you big—"
"Maya," Ms. Carol said.
Maya closed her mouth. Something in Ms. Carol's tone apparently registered in whatever part of her brain managed self-preservation instincts. The wildcat ears flattened. She became, in a matter of seconds, a very small and relatively harmless-looking little girl who was definitely not the kind of person who'd just been in a brawl.
Ms. Carol looked at her for a long, wordless moment.
"Why," she said finally, "did you hit him?"
Maya stood up very straight and explained clearly and methodically — exactly what had happened, in what order, and who was responsible for what. Her account was coherent, detailed, and structured in a way that placed all moral culpability on the other party.
Summary: the boy had been chasing a smaller girl named Gracie around the courtyard with the rubber snake, making her cry. Maya had told him to stop. He hadn't. She'd argued with him. He'd shoved her first.
Ms. Carol was quiet for a moment.
Jason, standing slightly behind her, thought: that's an airtight account.
"Did he put his hands on you first?" Ms. Carol asked.
Maya nodded, solemn and sincere.
Ms. Carol turned to Ms. Liu. "Take him inside, get the nose looked at. Sit them both in my office once they're cleaned up — separately."
She looked back at Maya. "And you — face, hands, that zipper. Ms. Liu will help you."
Ms. Liu took Maya gently by the shoulder and steered her toward the building.
Maya, passing Jason, delivered one last glare. Efficient. Practiced.
Jason did not respond.
As she disappeared through the door, he heard her voice carrying back down the hallway:
"Please make sure there's no scar. I can't have a scar on my face. I'll be less cute."
A pause. Then, apparently addressing Ms. Liu very seriously:
"I need to stay cute. It's important."
Jason looked at Ms. Carol.
Ms. Carol looked at Jason.
Should someone tell her, Jason thought, that cute was never really the word?