Author X Audience

Chapter 7: Can I?

I'm wired when I wake up. It's always like this on big, important days. The inability to choose an outfit, the rushed breakfast, the arriving early... I change clothes three different times before I vault downstairs and shove an apple into my mouth as I run out the door. I'm so nervous about getting the train schedule wrong and showing up late that I show up to the train station ahead of schedule and manage to hop on an earlier train. As predicted, there I am on Ziv's doorstep a half hour before the main office is actually supposed to open. The receptionist is there though, and he sees me through the glass office walls. He gives me a sympathetic look, lets me in, and then tells me to take a seat until Maria gets in. He even brings me a cup of coffee and a tiny muffin from the staff room.

I thank him and eat while repeating the name he just said in my head. Maria. Oh, thank goodness, they put me with Maria Diaz. I know her. She actually responded when I asked Ziv if I could interview one of their editors for a research project. I like Maria. See, things are already looking up. My brand of anxiety doesn't play well with reality, though, so I'm still shaking in my boots. I try not to be nervous and fidgety until Maria comes out to get me. Her smile helps a little.

"Alexis," she greets. She brushes her pretty black hair out of her face. She's wearing the same rose flower earrings that bring out the glow in her brown skin she was wearing last time I saw her. "Good to see you back."

"Good to be back," I say, sounding so much more confident than I feel. I stand and follow her into the office. We pass by the wall-sized character decals, the library of possible manga acquisitions all still in the original Japanese, and the anime-swag laden conference rooms. Being back...it feels like hiding under a blanket with a flashlight during a thunder storm, giggling with your sister because the power's out and there's nothing to do but listen to the wind and rain and the power boom of thunder and just marvel at it all. It's just as I remembered it, just as awesome as when I visited to interview Maria before—except now I have a desk here!

"You remember my desk," Maria says, coming to a stop just after the designers' desks. She then points to a desk by the window three rows back from her. "That one right there is yours."

"So, close by, then."

Maria shrugs. Her desk is on the aisle but set right up against the edge of the person to her right that has the window seat for their desk. "We want to make sure I'm accessible whenever you need something, and that you don't feel crowded or watched or anything right off the bat."

You hear that, anxiety? This is a considerate workplace too!

"Alright," Maria says turning away and shuffling through things on her desk. "Since you're new, you're going to be playing catch up for a few days."

"Right," I acknowledge. Unless she had a new project starting that very minute, I'd have to play catch-up with whatever series she put me on.

Maria hands off a bunch of scripts to me. "Here's that homework. These are old Skip-a-Beat! scripts, the originals that my translator gave me. I want you to study up on how the adaptation differs from the translation. I would have shared them with you before since I know you're using Skip-a-Beat! as one of your case studies for your thesis, but you weren't with the company then." She winks. "Now that you are, I guess we can bend the rules and get you initiated."

It's difficult to contain myself when she's essentially handing me everything I've wanted for the last three years of my existence. I thank her profusely and manage to make it back to my desk without crying. Once there, I give myself a moment to put myself back together, and then start in on comparing the translations to the published adaptations. This is like streamlining my thesis material. Before I know it, the work day is over and Maria is tearing me away from my desk for a celebratory first-day drink.