Page 44 of One Adult, Please

The captain's quarters of the crime boat is a room that was designed by someone who Googled "pirate captain's cabin" and then spent a theme park budget making it real. There's a wooden desk bolted to the floor, carved with fake nautical motifs, with a map of a fictional ocean painted directly onto its surface. I appreciate the commitment to atmosphere.

Beck has turned it into a bedroom. Sleeping bag on the bench. Spare clothes in a pile. Three empty funnel cake plates stacked on the desk. A flashlight. A phone that's dead. A WonderSphere visor hanging on a hook.

"Welcome to the thinking box," I say, sitting in the captain's chair and immediately spinning because the chair spins and I'm incapable of sitting in a spinning chair without spinning. This is a law of my personality. It's non-negotiable.

Beck's leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over the fish vest. The dolphin eye watches me spin. It looks entertained.

"This is where we think. Every important decision happens in this room from now on."

"Every decision?" Joel is standing near the porthole, doing his scan thing.

"Every important one. Minor decisions can happen elsewhere. Snack decisions are field decisions. But strategy? Thinking box."

I pull the where picture out of my pocket. Unfold it on the desk, on top of the fake ocean map.

I find the periwinkle crayon behind my ear. I find the seafoam green in my hoodie pocket. I locate a red one from the stash in my tote bag, and a yellow one that's broken in half but still functional, and a purple one that has bite marks on it from a child who made choices.

"Okay," I say. "The crayon plan."

"The what?" Joel says.

"The plan. Made with crayons. The crayon plan." I flip it over to the blank back side. "I'm going to draw the park," I say.

"There's a map of the park on the other side of that paper," Joel says.

"That's the corporate one. This is the one with the truth on it."

"The truth."

"The truth as it currently exists, Joel. Sit down."

Joel sits on the bench, next to Beck's sleeping bag. Beck sits on the floor, cross-legged, axe across his lap, the way cats sit on floors, by choice, with authority, as if the floor is honored.

I draw.

I'm not a good artist. My circles are suggestions. My straight lines are negotiations. What comes out is a wonky rectangle with four sections inside it, each labeled in crayon with the name I've assigned them.

Top left, in periwinkle: THE FISH PART. I draw a little shark. The shark looks like a bean with teeth. I'm proud of it.

Top right, in red: THE ADVENTURE PART. X's for the buildings we secured. A tiny crime boat that looks like a bathtub with a stick in it.

Bottom left, in seafoam green: THE GARDEN PART. A question mark because we haven't been there yet. A tiny flower that I add because maps should have decorations and I won't be taking feedback on this.

Bottom right, in yellow: THE BIG MIDDLE. I draw a churro cart. The churro cart looks like a box with smoke coming out of it. It's a portrait and it's accurate.

Beck is watching me and finding it genuinely compelling. Joel is watching me and is choosing, through what I can only assume is an act of tremendous self-control, not to intervene.

"Okay," I say. "Roles."

"Roles?" Beck says.

"Everyone gets a job. A zone of responsibility. A thing that's theirs."

"Like in a video game," Beck says.

"Sure. Like in a video game. Joel…" I point the periwinkle at him. "You're infrastructure. Water, power, structural stuff. You keep the buildings alive. You've been doing it already and you're good at it."

Joel nods. He accepts the role the way he accepts everything: silently, with competence already in progress.