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Add continuity dashboard and scene authoring workflow

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Joey Grasty
2026-08-27 17:31:01 -05:00
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{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil Helvetica;}}
\f0\fs24 Mai Lin had decided, sometime around the first plate of cake, that this was the best party she had been to in her entire life.\par
\par
She was sitting on the coping with her legs dangling in the water, the warm June air settling around the yard like something living, and she was wearing the white string bikini that she had purchased specifically for this summer and specifically for situations like this one. She had spent twenty minutes on her eye makeup. She knew exactly what she looked like. She was having no guilt about this whatsoever.\par
\par
"You did that on purpose," Tyler Marsh said from the water below her.\par
\par
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Mai Lin said, and used both feet simultaneously to drive a wall of water directly into his face.\par
\par
The boy sputtered. He wiped his face with both hands. He looked up at her with that expression boys got when they were trying to decide whether to be annoyed or charmed and she could see the exact moment charmed won, which was deeply satisfying.\par
\par
"Okay," Tyler said. "Okay, you want to do this."\par
\par
"I'm just sitting here," she said innocently, and kicked another small splash at him for emphasis.\par
\par
She did not have time to read his intention before his hands closed around her ankles, and then she was in the water, fully submerged, the world gone quiet and blue and glittering for one suspended second before she came up laughing so hard she could barely breathe. She got her bearings, got a mouthful of pool water, turned to find him grinning at her from two feet away, and spat it directly into his face.\par
\par
The look on his face was extraordinary. Pure shock. His mouth opened.\par
\par
She shrieked with laughter and shoved off from the wall, putting distance between them while he recovered, and she was already among three other boys in the shallow end before he got the water out of his eyes. She could hear him laughing behind her. One of the other boys\u8212?Harrison Webb, she thought, the senior Hannah had brought\u8212?made a lunge for her and she ducked under and came up on the other side and grabbed the pool edge.\par
\par
"She's fast," Harrison announced to no one in particular.\par
\par
"She's dangerous," Tyler said from across the pool, and there was something in the way he said it that made her absolutely delighted.\par
\par
She pulled herself up to sitting on the coping again and pushed her wet hair back from her face. Her red lipstick was probably doing interesting things at this point but she didn't especially care. The yard was full and loud and lovely. Strings of lights were on along the fence and the tiki torches were still burning, their orange light doubling itself in the dark water of the canal beyond the yard. The music from the patio was audible between the noise\u8212?something fast, something good\u8212?and she could see two or three couples doing an approximation of dancing near the back door, supervised at a comfortable distance by Emma's parents and Mrs. Carpenter, who had that look adults get at parties like this, vaguely watchful but basically content.\par
\par
Then Emma appeared at the deep end.\par
\par
Mai Lin watched her best friend surface like a seal behind Tyler Marsh, grab his shoulders with both hands, and attempt something that was clearly intended as a dunking and became, through some chain of physics and enthusiasm, Emma sitting on the boy's shoulders with her arms up in triumph.\par
\par
The yard exploded.\par
\par
Within thirty seconds it had gone completely wrong in the best possible way. Or right. It was hard to say. Some other girl climbed onto some other boy's shoulders, and then another, and then a cousin\u8212?one of the three wild Hayes boys who had arrived earlier and immediately treated the pool like a personal obstacle course\u8212?was yelling something from the shallow end and the shallow end was suddenly a chaotic knot of boys and girls trying to either maintain or destroy the arrangement of humans stacked on top of other humans.\par
\par
Mai Lin watched this for about four seconds.\par
\par
Then she looked around, found one of Emma's cousins\u8212?Corey, or possibly Travis, she'd been introduced at speed\u8212?standing at pool's edge looking enthusiastic and available, and said, "Hey. You. I need your shoulders."\par
\par
The boy looked at her. He was maybe fifteen and was having the time of his life. "Yes," he said immediately.\par
\par
She slid back into the pool. He bent at the knees and she climbed on and he stood and she was up, absurdly high, grabbing at his head for balance while he grabbed her ankles to steady her, and he was already wading toward the deep end before she had fully located her center of gravity.\par
\par
"Emma!" she yelled.\par
\par
Emma turned on Tyler's shoulders, wobbling magnificently. Her face was soaked and she had a leaf of something in her hair and she was grinning with every single tooth she owned.\par
\par
"MAI LIN," Emma screamed.\par
\par
"YOUR COUSIN IS GOING TO DUNK YOU," Mai Lin announced, because she believed in transparency, and then Corey-or-Travis surged forward and the collision was wonderful and terrible and loud, a full-yard tangle of shrieks and splashing and someone's elbow and then everything went underwater again.\par
\par
She came up for the second time to find herself in approximately the center of the pool, surrounded by the floating aftermath of the collision\u8212?three or four boys, two girls, Emma. Emma was treading water six feet away, still laughing, her birthday hair a complete wreck, and she looked at Mai Lin with an expression of pure unhinged joy.\par
\par
"Second piece of cake after this," Emma said.\par
\par
"Obviously," Mai Lin said.\par
\par
They swam to the wall.\par
\par
She climbed out and accepted a towel from someone\u8212?she was never entirely sure who, things were moving fast\u8212?and found herself standing near the patio, dripping, wringing out her hair, while Tyler Marsh climbed out of the pool a few feet away and shook himself like a dog, which sprayed her again, which made her laugh again.\par
\par
"You're relentless," she told him.\par
\par
"I learned it from someone," he said, and handed her a second towel, which was extremely gentlemanly of her. She took it.\par
\par
She had a general theory about boys that she had developed over approximately two years of careful observation: the ones worth spending time on were the ones who handed you towels after dunking you. This was probably not a universal rule but it was her rule.\par
\par
She was mid-examination of this theory, and also mid-examination of Tyler Marsh, when she caught something at the edge of her peripheral vision and looked over.\par
\par
Lizzie Hayes was standing at the far edge of the pool deck, at the quiet end near the fence, with the blonde boy Hannah had brought. Will something. She hadn't paid much attention to him when he arrived\u8212?he was cute but Hannah had claimed him in that territorial way Hannah had\u8212?but now he was completely absorbed in talking to Emma's little sister, and Emma's little sister was completely absorbed in talking back.\par
\par
Mai Lin paused.\par
\par
She knew Lizzie. You couldn't be Emma's best friend for three years without knowing Emma's sister. Lizzie was the one with the books. Lizzie was the one who showed up to things with that gentle apologetic expression that meant *I love you but I am here under mild duress*. Lizzie was extremely pretty in a way she didn't seem to fully understand yet and extremely smart in a way she understood completely but tried not to flaunt.\par
\par
Lizzie was not usually standing close to boys, talking fast, using her hands.\par
\par
But she was doing that now.\par
\par
She was doing that right now.\par
\par
Mai Lin watched Lizzie shake her head at something the boy said, very definite, very certain, and say something back that made him look like she'd surprised him in the best possible way, and she thought: *oh, interesting.*\par
\par
She filed this away. It was clearly something, and the something of it was clearly just beginning, and she thought Emma probably needed to know about it, and then she remembered the expression on Emma's face earlier\u8212?that wide, wondering, full-warmth smile\u8212?and realized Emma had already seen it.\par
\par
That was good. That was Emma being a good sister. Emma was good at that.\par
\par
She turned back to Tyler, who was looking at her in the way that boys looked at her when they were trying to figure out what she was thinking.\par
\par
"More cake?" she said.\par
\par
"I could eat," he said.\par
\par
"Come on then," she said, and they went toward the table in the warm evening light, the pool behind them still glittering with chaos, the music from the patio threading through everything, and somewhere across the yard Lizzie Hayes was still talking to a boy named Will as if they were the only two people at the party, which Mai Lin thought was maybe exactly what they were.
}