Page 77 of White Lights
“What exactly do we have to fear from our mentors?” Dez says.
Yael sighs. “Youwould probably have been fine. Lord knows Rafe’s not letting anything happen to you yet.”
Yet?
“What does any of this mean?” Dez says. “And just so we’re clear, Rafe’s not exactly a dream mentor.”
Yael snorts. “I’m sure not. But at least he’s not Jet.”
“You guys have Jet all wrong,” Simon slurs. “He’s a fount of knowledge. Rizz for days.”
“He’s a fount of something.” Yael rolls her eyes. “He’s not even really a Scribe.”
“Then why is he mentoring me in screenwriting?” Simon says.
“He had an accident over break,” Yael says. “Before that, he was a Visionary.”
“What kind of accident?” Dez asks.
“One that made it impossible for him to remain a Visionary,” Yael says. “There was a minute when we thought he’d have to leave the program, but they figured it out.”
“All I know,” Simon says, “is I couldn’t write a script to save my dick before I got here, and with Jet’s help I’ve written two—”
“Wait,” Dez says, “you’ve already finishedtwoscripts?”
“No biggie,” Simon says.
Yael turns to Dez, points, and starts to laugh. “I heard something about you being slow. At least Alice isn’t the only one.”
“We’ve only been here a couple of weeks,” Dez says, her cheeks aflame. “I’ll finish it before the midterms—”
“Sooner or later,” Yael says, “Rafe will crack the whip. And not in the fun way. He’s fucked if you’re fucked. Last-years don’t graduate if their protégés don’t produce. It’s called DNF: Did Not Finish.”
Dez walks in silence and thinks. She doesn’t want to consider how far ahead of her the other first-years may be. She’s barely making it through each day. She’ll get the O’Rourke film done before the deadline. And so what if Mo’s film takes her longer? She’s not working onLazarusto pass midterms. She’s working on it because her brother needs to see it, to know Dez didn’t abandon him. To feel inspired to carry on.
Dez needs time to get it right.
She needs to find that scene of Moses and their dad at the hockey game.
“There are things I don’t understand about the Vault,” Dez says.
Yael is quiet, waiting for Dez to go on.
“There’s a missing scene I want to use—”
“Nothing’s missing from the Vault,” Yael says quickly, firmly.
“Okay, but I can’t find it, and before you say I haven’t looked, I have.”
“Then it doesn’t exist.”
“It exists.”
“Typical first-years,” Yael says. “It’s not your job to wish a moment into being. It’s your job to make sense of what already is.”
A long, rumbling moan from the other side of the hedge—a sound like something being dragged against its will back into consciousness—stops Dez in her tracks.
“What was that?” she asks.
