I don’t want to deal with it right now.
My fingers seem to move on their own, entering code while my brain races ahead, imagining how this newest illustration will look as a thumbnail next to the others.
Although the film studio has a landing page for the movie adaptation of Razor Fish, the placeholder I set up specifically for Lola’s site with only her name, a short bio, and a registration link has racked up tens of thousands of hits since they started filming. Adding these last details—along with the idea of making the page live—is both thrilling and the slightest bit terrifying.
I absently stir my cereal as I scan the pages again, searching for anything I might have forgotten. After a deep breath of bravery, I call over my shoulder. “Hey, Lola?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you come out here when you’re done? I want to show you something.”
I hear her chair scrape back from the desk, the sound of her feet against the hardwood, and then she’s there, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.
“Hey, sweetie.” She starts to say something more when her gaze flickers up to the screen—I’m still working in the site dashboard so I know it doesn’t look very interesting at the moment, but she sucks in a breath. “Oh my God. Is this the site?”
I’ve shown her various graphics over the last few weeks, had her give me feedback on the layout, and discussed what she wants where, but she hasn’t actually seen anything yet, not all together like this.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Are you ready?”
She nods quickly and takes the seat at my side.
“I think it’s good but if there’s anything you aren’t sure about, or want changed, just let me know.” I’m babbling nervously, but this moment feels so huge to me. “They’re all pretty easy fixes at this point.”
She squeals and claps, holding her breath as I click the home page, and she watches it load for the first time. Lola gasps as a simple Flash image—my initial idea for her site—fills the screen.
“Is that—?” she starts to say, angling my laptop toward her to get a closer look.
It’s one of Lola’s first drawings—from when she was only thirteen or so—of the character who would ultimately become the lead protagonist in her first comic series, Razor Fish. The sketch is simple, almost rudimentary, but as we watch, the penciled black-and-white image slowly morphs into a more complicated one. I hear Lola’s breath catch again as she registers what she’s seeing. Early drafts of her penciled art turn into ink versions, and then various colored images. More and more of her brainstorming panels are revealed, gathering detail as the Flash image accelerates and finally we’re staring at the vivid image the rest of the world has come to know: the current incarnation of Razor, the odd creature she created and who practically explodes from the movie poster.
“Do you like it?” I ask, glancing nervously back at her. My emotions are all over the place right now; I’m not sure what I’d do if she hated it. But I don’t have to worry. Lola’s eyes shine with tears and she leans over, wrapping her arms around my shoulders in a tight hug.
“Are you kidding me?” She’s shaking a little and releases me so she can stare at it all over again. “I love it. Where on earth did you get all these? These early ones were all hand-drawn. I didn’t even know I still had them.”
“Your dad kept nearly everything you ever drew, and Oliver managed to dig up a lot of your early digital work,” I tell her. “Seriously, they’re your biggest fanboys. You’d be amazed to see everything they were able to find. I thought it might be cool to see the evolution, I mean Razor’s of course, but also yours as an artist.”
“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” she says, swiping at her cheeks. “Is it done? I mean, can I show Oliver?”
I stand, and gesture for Lola to move into my chair, laptop in front of her. My hands are shaking from her reaction; it was even better than I’d hoped. “Almost. Go ahead and click through all the pages, make sure everything is where you want it,” I tell her, “and we can tweak anything that isn’t perfect. Then all that’s left is migrating it over to the new server and boom, LolaCastle-dot-com is live.”
Lola clicks around for a moment and shakes her head. “I can’t believe you did all this.” She turns and looks up at me. “I’m just . . .” she says, genuinely choked up. “You’re amazing.”
“It was nothing really,” I tell her. And I’m surprised to find—despite my nerves, despite everything that’s going on—that it’s true: working on her site wasn’t just fun, it was satisfying. It gave me an outlet for my feelings I’ve only ever found on a surfboard. “I loved doing it.”