Beezus on writing

[kinglearisstupid]

Beezus's aspiration to become a Chinese FBI agent is short-lived.

"I'm going to be a writer," she tells Rossi the following week at bedtime. "I'm going to write a book."

Until his daughter came along, Rossi used to consider himself a profiler first and a writer second. Now he is Daddy first, writer second, and profiler only when the BAU needs an extra pair of eyes on a case. (Husband is not so much a job as it is a luxury when you're married to Emily Prentiss, and the first time he had said that, he was rewarded with the filthiest, most exquisite blowjob of his life.) As much as he would like his daughter to follow in his footsteps, Beatrice with a gun seems like an extraordinarily terrible idea, while Beatrice as a writer is something he can live with.

"What's your book going to be about?" he asks, as Beezus stares at her bookshelf and tries to choose a bedtime story. Rossi personally prefers anything that doesn't require him to pretend to be a unicorn despite having perfected the accent, but he and Emily agreed early on that they would encourage their daughter to read anything as long as it doesn't contain graphic descriptions of violence, sex, or bitchy teenage vampires.

"My book," Beezus says as leaps onto her bed, "is gonna be about me."

"Your book is going to be about you," he repeats. That doesn't surprise him in the least, and to be fair to her, most of Dave's books are technically about him.

"Yes, and it's going to be the best book in the world. It will be even better than yours, Daddy, because the insides would rhyme."

Rossi wants to point out that she has never read his books, and therefore her assessment is flawed, but he has to concede on the point about the rhyming. Good luck trying to find something that rhymes with devolving spree killer on a psychotic break.

"But first I need to change my name."

"Why is that?"

"Because nothing rhymes with Beatrice," she says, narrowing her eyes at Rossi. Of course it's his fault he didn't take this into consideration when he and Emily were coming up with names. Never mind that she was the one who kept them in a constant state of terror and exhaustion during the whole process.

He will have to admit though, there is nothing that rhymes with Beatrice. "It's a tricky word."

"It's not fair because lots of things rhyme with Dave. And lots of things rhyme with Jack."

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think there are any words that rhyme with Emily either. Or Olivia."

"Olivia doesn't have to write her own book, she already has one!"

It takes a moment for him to realize that Beezus is talking about the pig, in the red dress, and not any of the Olivias in her school.

"Eloise has her own book too," Beezus says.

"Is this what this is about?" Rossi says. "You don't want to write your own book. You want a book written about you."

Beezus considers this carefully. "There are no books about girls named Beatrice," she says, nodding despondently.

"That's not true, Beezus. For starters, there's Dante's Divine Comedy."

"Are there pictures in it?"

"I . . . don't remember," Rossi says. It's been a while since he last read it, and there could very well be an illustrated version by now. Who knows?

"Is there a movie made from it?"

Not one you would watch anyway, kid, unless Pixar decides to make a 3D version.

"Then it's not a very good book, is it?"

"Probably not by your standards, Beezus, though centuries and centuries of literature scholars may beg to differ."

"You should write a book about me," Beezus decides, sliding under the covers. "It doesn't even have to rhyme, but it should have pictures. You don't have to draw them though, Daddy, because your pictures aren't very good."

Persuasion is not his daughter's strongest suit.

"Maybe I'll do that," Rossi says. His publisher has been asking him to expand his scope and children's books make big money and he already has a fanbase that rival five-year-olds in obsessive behavior.

"And you can call it 'Beatrice, Don't!' because that's what you say to me all the time."

Rossi has to laugh at this. "Baby, if I'm going to write about every single thing I've told you not to do, it would be a really, really long book."

A grin spreads across his daughter's face as Beezus is thoroughly delighted by the notion. "Longer than Harry Potter?"

"Definitely longer than Harry Potter."

"If they make a cartoon out of it, I can be a rabbit and Mommy can be a panda bear and you can be a tortoise!"

"Why am I a tortoise when Mommy gets to be a panda bear?"

"Because you're old and tortoises live forever."

If he means he gets to live forever with this kid --- this exhausting, hilarious, brilliant, spoiled, manipulative, downright amazing kid --- Rossi might not mind having to be a tortoise.

His thoughts are interrupted by a gentle tug on his sleeve. "Daddy, I just thought of something! You know what rhymes with Beezus?"

"What?"

"Jesus."

Before he can tell her that they probably shouldn't go down that route, she's off, spouting all the words she can think of that rhymes with her name. "Jesus. Sneezes. Wheezes. Breezes. Freezes."

"It's time for bed, honey. We'll work on the first draft tomorrow," Rossi says, but his daughter is a force of nature that can't be stopped, a rabbit hurdling towards the future with his grumpy, old tortoise self trailing behind her.