Page 42 of No Words

But he had sunk down into the middle seat as if he couldn’t quite believe the mess he’d stumbled into.

Why? Because he had to talk to me alone, on a stage? Was I that scary?

“Um,” he managed. “Yes. Yes, we will.”

“Great!” Oh my God, he was totally leaving me dangling. “Okay, well, we might as well get started. Will, what was your favorite children’s book growing up—one that contained a strong female lead character?”

“Uh.” For such a big man, he looked as if his chair was swallowing him whole, he’d sunk so far back into it. “I don’t—I guess, er—Peter Pan?”

“Oh,Peter Pan.” Peter Pan? Dear God, how was this happening? I glanced at the audience, although honestly the stage lights were so bright I couldn’t see them, even with my sunglasses on. “All right. So the strong female lead you’re referring to is Wendy?”

“Yes.” He appeared to be growing slightly more confident, if the way he was straightening up in his chair was any indication. “Wendy.”

Oh, no. Not Wendy.

But he was serious.

“Wendy,” I repeated. “Okay. You’re sure? The girl Peter Pan abandons at the end of the book after dragging her all the way to Neverland so that she can essentially function as a domestic servant for him and all the rest of the Lost Boys? You see J. M. Barrie’s characterWendyas a symbol of female empowerment?”

While a large portion of the audience sat in silence—probably bored witless—a few people laughed, including, I noted, Frannie. She had a very distinct laugh that I could pick out anywhere.

But Will wasn’t yet down for the count. He sat up even straighter in his seat.

“Peter doesn’t abandon Wendy,” he surprised me by arguing. “She has some agency. He asks her to stay in Neverland—”

“As a mother figure. In the book he informs her that his feelings for her are those of a devoted son.”

“—and she turns him down.”

“Because she doesn’t want to sit around darning his socks all day, competing for his affections with Tiger Lily and Tinker Bell.”

“Right. Which makes her a feminist character.”

Although I was impressed that Will had actually given so much thought to a children’s book, a form of literature he’d publicly declared beneath him, I couldn’t pretend to agree with him, even to be polite. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Wendy’s choice—I wouldn’t want to stay in Neverland, either. I’m just saying hers was the only choice a man writing in J. M. Barrie’s day could conceive of for a female character. Fortunately today there are tons of great books forkids to read that show female characters having all the same opportunities and rights as their male counterparts—”

Will nodded. “Like in my books.”

Whoa. I stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“Like in my books.” He said it again! And went on to say more about it: “In my books, the female characters are treated as absolutely equal to the male—”

“Hold on. You do realize every single one of your books features an unrealistically perfect female character who is unfulfilled until she meets a man—usually a man whose heart has been badly damaged by some sort of ‘evil’ woman.” I made quote marks in the air with my fingers when I said the wordevil. “But then that man is healed by the perfect woman’s love. And then, just as they’re about to find blissful happiness together, the same thing happens: tragedy.”

This got a nervous titter out of the audience... and one big horse laugh out of Frannie.

Will stirred awkwardly in his seat. “First of all, that isn’t what happens inallof my books. You obviously haven’t read them all. But secondly, even if that were true, what’s so wrong with that? They’re works of fiction, written to help readers escape reality.”

“You’re right, I haven’t read all your books, but I know how they all end—you yourself call them tragedies. How is that escape fiction? Escape fiction is supposed to make you forget your problems and feel happy.” Like reading about a funny teenage cat who earns her own money, I wanted to add, but didn’t, because that would sound too self-promotional.

“But for some people, having a good cry over a sad storydoes make them feel happy,” Will insisted. If he was still nervous, it didn’t show anymore. He was no longer slumped in his chair. Now he was leaning forward, clutching his mic with both hands, his elbows on his knees, looking intently into my face. “It was Aristotle who first coined the termcatharsis, only he was talking about the emotional release or purge people experience when watching a tragedy take place live onstage. He felt that it could help to get them to move past their own stress or grief.”

Whoa again. Also... was it my imagination, or was this guy even hotter when he was riled up about literature?

“So is that why you always write such sad endings?” I managed to keep it together enough to ask. “Are they an emotional release for you? Do they help you move past your own grief about...?”

I let the end of the sentence dangle, hoping he’d fill in the blank. Come on, Will. What happened just before Novel Con that made you be so mean about my books? Let it out. It will becat-artic.

But he only gave me an enigmatic smile and leaned back in his chair, crossing an ankle over his opposite knee. His body language could not have been more clear:Back off.