JENN COOKED DINNER (noodle-based), and, yes, she would make extra for the squidoodle. But no, she would not watch the feeding. And if it didn’t like noodles, well, the kids would need to scoop the slimy leftovers from the tub themselves (with a spoon, not their hands) because you couldn’t just wash noodles down the drain. And after dinner it would be Farewell Squidoodle Hour because a wild creature, whatever it was, should be free and children were bad at remembering to close doors and what did they think might happen if Barry got into the bathroom?
“Oh no,” Timmy said, “d’ya really think the wild squidoodle would eat Barry?”
“All that fur…I think he’d taste kind of gross,” said Evie.
“No. That’s not what I meant,” Jenn said. “I meant—”
But it didn’t matter what she meant. All that mattered was that sufficient time elapsed between the return of the creature to its natural habitat and the conveyance of Timmy to his sister of choice such that these two events did not bankrupt all her points.
The children carried a bowl of buttered capellini up to the bathroom. Jenn poured herself a glass of wine. She checked her text messages. Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. She skimmed. He sure texted a lot for someone who wanted to extricate himself from her and all her underminstances.
Chuck: What is this about a new pet?
Chuck: Mason said it was a squid?
Chuck: You can’t just unilaterally agree to new pets.
She texted him back: You can’t believe everything the children tell you LOL
…which did not confirm or deny the existence of whatever thing was upstairs slurping noodles in the bathtub. She listened to the sloshing, giggling sounds of kids and their wild squidoodle. Her phone rang. It was the editor.
The editor got right to the point: “So?”
“So…”
“You worked?”
“I worked.”
“We are cutting this way too close.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We’re supposed to go to print in—”
“I know.”
“And I need a draft of the next book by—”
“I know!” she yelled, and in the wake was awkward silence.
“Jenn?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m…I’m worried about you.”
“Because of that big wave? Because you know the water level has gone back down and they never issued any evacuation orders and besides—”
“No—”
“—besides, we tried to leave but then—”
“Jenn—”
“—we couldn’t.”
“I know. And I’m glad you’re safe. But this isn’t about the tsunami. It’s, I mean, even before that, you just—”
“What?”
“You seem…” Unhinged. “Like you’re having a hard time.”
“My husband dumped me,” Jenn said.
“I know.”
“And there’s not even another woman. Or a man. I mean, at least if there was someone else—”
“I know.”
“And there’s…It’s just…surreal.”
“Of course.”
“I’m just so stressed out.”
“You used to say that writing helped.”
“I did?”
“You did. You said it helped you forget. Whatever was bothering you. That you’d sit down to write, and it was like, like the real world just melted away. You were transported.”
“I was. I…But it’s not like that anymore,” Jenn said. “Now it’s just…tedious.”
“It’s a job.”
“Yeah.”
“You need a job.”
“I know, but…it’s the same thing over and over. It used to be fun. I used to feel inspired. But I’m not. Not anymore. And it’s not that I don’t want to write anything. I just…It’s just…Philipia Bay…”
“It’s…done.”
“It’s done.”
The editor sighed. “As your editor, I should say that you’re being ridiculous. And that it would be insane to give up on Philipia Bay and, if anything, you should try and ramp it up. Or start a spin-off series. And as your editor, all I really want to do is work on Philipia Bay because I fucking love Philipia Bay, and so do millions of other people. But, as your friend…I get it.”
“You do?”
“Writing is a business. But it’s also an art. There’s a balance to be struck between the two. And I can see how you’ve been drifting farther and farther to the business side, which frankly is kind of my fault. As your editor. Though as your friend, you better not blame me.”
“I don’t.”
“I was just doing my job. But if you need to get back to the art…If you need it to be fun—”
“I need it to be fun,” Jenn said.
“Then make it fun. Whatever you need to do.”
“I…”
“But I still need those edits.”
“Right.”
“And—I say this as your editor and as your friend—you can’t just call it quits. Not without a send-off. Philipia Bay deserves a great one.”
Jenn hung up, and she felt a bit better. Not great. But resolved. Her editor understood. She would close out the Philipia Bay and Chuck Lanaro chapter of her life and begin anew, and she wasn’t sure how or where, but she knew what she wanted. The thrill of a richly imagined world. The disparate lines of plot woven perfectly together. The beauty of fiction unfurling with the truths we know about ourselves, and the truths we want.
She felt resolved until she finished her glass of wine and yelled upstairs for the children to stick their new friend in the sand bucket and carry it downstairs carefully, no sloshing but they did not come.
“Evie? Mason?” They didn’t answer. “Evie! Mason! Timmy!”
She heard a groan-creak. A splash. A thud. She went upstairs to the bathroom. The door was closed. She heard hushed child voices on the other side.
“Kids!”
The door opened, just a crack. Timmy’s eyes peeked out. From the bathroom, she heard a splash splat thwat! Followed by the sound of running water.
“What’s going on in there?” she asked.
Timmy slipped out into the hall. He closed the door behind him.
“It’s, um…it’s not an untendable situation,” Timmy said.
Splat splat swoosh!
“Right…”
“But do you remember how we’d wanted to get a shrink-ray gun? And we won all those tickets at the arcade so—”
“I remember.”
Woosh! Splat-a-splat-a-splat.
“So do you have one?” the child asked.
“Do I have…a shrink-ray gun?”
“Yeah. I mean, I’d think you’d want one. For when your kids get ornery. Or do you at least know where we can get one? I bet they sell them at the Value Valley.”
“No. They don’t.”
“They don’t?”
“There are no shrink-ray guns.”
Timmy stared up at her, aghast. “But…this is supposed to be the future!”
“Why do you want a shrink-ray gun?”
“I mean, how did they not even perfect a basic shrink-ray gun? What went wrong?”
“Timmy. Why do you want a shrink-ray gun?”
Splat-a-splat. Splash! Water pelted the door.
“Um, there’s not, um, one particular reason,” Timmy said. He glanced over his shoulder at the bathroom door. “It’s just that, well, I mean, the good thing is that the wild squidoodle doesn’t have to be totally wet. Like a fish that would die if it wasn’t in the water. It can move across dry land. It’s more like, like a turtle. Or a sea lion.”
She looked at him, eyebrows raised. “And? What’s the not-good thing?”
“It probably is good, for the squidoodle. But, he, um, he’s kind of too big for his bucket. So we couldn’t carry him downstairs. But—”
“Open the door,” Jenn said.
“—but at least now that he’s bigger he’s—”
“The door.”
“—so much sturdier. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be bigger?”
Jenn stepped past the boy. She opened the door. She stared at the creature in the tub. The wild squidoodle. It had grown, in just over an hour, from cat-sized to sea lion–sized, at least in length if not in girth. Its lump alone looked significantly larger than Barry. For a moment, she wondered if it had eaten Barry, until she noticed Barry sitting on the bathroom floor, grinning, tongue out, eyes fixed on the new family alpha-squid.
The creature was only partially submerged. Its lump-top rested against the bathroom tile. Its appendages flopped over the tub. Mason was feeding it sour watermelon gummies. He tossed a gummy in the air. The arm whipped around, caught the gummy, and shoved it into the lump.
“No! Stop feeding it!” Jenn cried.
“But he likes them!” Mason said.
“Yeah, Mom,” said Evie. “He needs them!”
“No. No, the wild squidoodle does not need candy! The wild squidoodle—”
“Squidinox,” Evie corrected.
“What?”
“He’s evolved,” Mason said, as if this explained how the creature had metastasized so rapidly. “He’s not a squidoodle anymore. Now he’s a squidinox.”
“I don’t care what he’s called,” Jenn said, losing several points. “He doesn’t need candy. He’s huge! How are we going to get him out?”
“We were hoping he’d keep growing,” Timmy said. “Until he got so big that he exploded out of the house.”
“Kablam!” Mason yelled. He pantomimed the battle move: Sea creature bursts free from confinement. “Squid attack!”
“And then he could just roll down the sand. To freedom.”
“No. No, he can’t, and even if this was my house— But this is just, it’s just—”
“Awesome?” Timmy asked.
“No!”
“I think it’s awesome,” Evie said, and Jenn waited for the girl to add the dreaded refrain Dad would think it’s awesome. Dad would let us keep the squidinox. Dad would Dad would Dad would Dad would, but instead Evie just looked at Mom, her eyes alight with hope that Mom would see what she saw, that Mom would understand.
The squidinox wriggled an appendage across the bathroom floor, to Barry. Barry licked it.
“Okay,” Jenn admitted. “Okay. It’s awesome.”
“Yay!”
“But it won’t be awesome if it gets any bigger. We need to get it out of here before it grows more. And it’s already way too big—”
“We could lure it out,” Evie said. “With candy.”
“But what if it gets stuck?” Mason asked. “Or falls down the stairs? What if it doesn’t want to go?”
“We could carry it,” Timmy said. He flexed his biceps. “We’re strong enough. If we all work together.”
“I don’t think so.” She imagined herself plus three kids lugging that thing down the stairs, her back spasming beneath the weight of the lump, Mason at the rear gathering the appendages, until he dropped one, and the appendages flailed wildly, knocking children down the stairs, splattering squidinox juices all over the walls. No. They needed—
She needed—
“But look at my muscles!” Timmy said with a chest pound.
“Even if we could carry it,” Jenn said, “which I don’t think we can, it’s going to be slippery. And we need someone strong enough to hoist it out of the tub.”
If Chuck were there.
She imagined her ex gathering squidinox limbs in his burly arms, grunting, dragging the slick beast from the bathroom, but the squidinox didn’t like Chuck and its lump opened into a gaping chasm of teeth and its swift limbs shoved him inside, to the soundtrack of Jaws.
But Chuck wasn’t there. He was probably off laminating his Lists of Underminstances, getting them professionally framed, hanging them up on his smarmy townhome walls. And he probably wasn’t strong enough. She knew exactly one person possibly strong enough to carry the creature, if it didn’t add another fifty pounds in the next hour.
And who knew what it might try to eat next?
“Mason,” Jenn said. “No more feeding it. And can you maybe just take a few steps back? Don’t stand so close to it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just…” She didn’t really think it would eat children if it didn’t have sour gummies. It seemed so nice, with its friendly scaly lump, its arms flopping from the tub, playing with the dog. “Just in case.”
“But the squidinox is perfectly safe,” Timmy said.
“We trained it,” said Evie. Mason pressed a finger into the rubbery girth of its appendage.
“Yes, but, but it might get scared, or confused. Or, I just, I don’t want anything to happen to you. So please, just, stand back. In the hallway. While I see if I can find someone to help get it outside.”