Chapter 19 Fifteen Days till Christmas
19.
Fifteen days till Christmas
The next morning, Birdie took pity on her very hungover brother and made him and Ash a double helping of Sunday Eggs. Her attention was on the clock: Jecka was coming by for a meeting with Babs to discuss the work they’d seen on the art crawl.
When the doorbell rang in the early afternoon, Birdie ensured she got to it first. “Jecka, hello. Come in.” Birdie gestured in a way that was meant to be welcoming but made her feel like an English footman. “Welcome back to Belvedere Inn.”
“Thanks.” Jecka stepped inside, oversized black tote on one shoulder, looking both wary and amused. In her black leather pants and pale silky blouse, she looked like someone who knew how to pronounce Viognier and already had a will.
“Ma! Jecka’s here!” Birdie hollered. Then, to Jecka, “She’ll just be a sec.” Birdie rocked on her heels, hands in her jeans’ back pockets. Her hair was combed, and she’d double-checked her Moontower Comedy shirt was stain-free. “Thanks again for showing us around the other day. Ma loves her new sculpture.”
The bronze sculpture Babs had purchased on Sunday was now on display out front—everyone agreed it looked like a pair of breasts and therefore was fabulous. Their meander to half a dozen local art studios had been one of Birdie’s favorite days all year.
“I’m pleased.” Jecka glanced from Babs’s seminude portrait back to Birdie. “Your family is very…fun.”
“My family is nuttier than a fruitcake,” Birdie corrected, earning herself a smile. “So, how’s that pint-sized Christmas tree of yours working out?”
Before she could answer, Babs bustled in, already yammering on about wanting to see Jecka’s portfolio and did Jecka want a coffee and what did she think of photorealism? Jecka pivoted away, focusing on her client as they both left the foyer.
“Bye.” Birdie waved to no one before trudging back upstairs to the Humphrey Bogart suite, seeking solace in the arms of her cat. She’d just managed to wrangle him into sitting in her lap when someone rapped on her door. Startled, Mr. Paws bolted.
Jecka stood in the second-floor hallway.
Birdie glanced past her, confused. “That was quicker than heterosexual lovemaking.”
Jecka’s snort seemed like a decisive co-sign. “Your mom forgot she had a call.” She stepped inside Birdie’s bedroom. “Guess I’ve got fifteen minutes to kill.”
Only now did Birdie notice the clothes and plates and empty glasses strewn around. Despite her being here for only a week, the room had somehow accumulated a year’s worth of mess.
Her guest’s gaze landed on a pair of boy-short underwear hanging on a side lamp. “I’m suspecting you’re not the clean-house, clean-mind type.”
“You suspect right.” Birdie tossed the undies in the direction of the laundry pile. “My mind is absolutely filthy. There’s a community-organized effort to clean it up next weekend. Still looking for a lot of volunteers.”
Jecka laughed.
Birdie moved in front of a plate of half-eaten lasagna. “I’m guessing your…room? House? Apartment?”
“House,” Jecka confirmed.
“—is neat as a pin. Remind me, what’s the address? And the spare key is…?”
Jecka shook her head, but from the uptick of her lips, Birdie could see she was amused.
From under the bed, Mr. Paws yowled.
“Oh,” Jecka said, surprised. “You have a cat?”
“The world’s most unfriendly feline,” Birdie was quick to warn her. “Who hates everyone, especially people he…people he hasn’t…um, what ?”
Mr. Paws was moving voluntarily toward Jecka. Mr. Paws was rubbing himself against Jecka’s leg. Mr. Paws was purring.
Jecka knelt down to give him a scratch under the chin. “Doesn’t seem unfriendly to me.”
“What—who—how?” Birdie grasped for words. “I feel like I just walked through a wardrobe of coats.”
“Cats like me. We had them growing up.”
“That cat doesn’t like anyone! He doesn’t even like me. ” Birdie felt like her heart might blow up. “I’m gonna need a picture.”
“Of me and the cat?” Jecka asked.
“Mostly the cat.”
Jecka watched on in bemusement as Birdie knelt to snap the never-before-seen sight of her cat enjoying meeting a human being, until, with one final yowl, Mr. Paws sauntered off.
Jecka brushed off her hands, her attention shifting to one of Birdie’s notebooks, splayed open on the floor. Birdie scooped it up before Jecka could read any of her so-called jokes.
“Didn’t pick you for a journaler,” Jecka offered lightly.
Birdie sank down to join Jecka on the carpet, explaining it was a notebook for jokes. “I’m trying to work on a new show,” she said. “Or, trying to start to try, if you know what I mean. I’m a bit of a procrastinator.”
“Secret perfectionist?” Jecka guessed.
Birdie shook her head.
“Afraid of failure?”
Birdie squirmed. “Can you be afraid of failure if you already are one?”
“You’re not a failure,” Jecka said, straight as an arrow. “I watched your comedy special. It’s really good.”
A swift kick of pleasure had Birdie sitting up, fighting a grin. “You did?”
Birdie’s one-hour comedy special revolved around her dating life from the perspective of a young, queer, born-and-bred New Yorker, a “dirtbag femme” who’d hooked up on the L train “more than once.” The point of the show was to speak honestly about same-sexiness in a world that still centered men in queer women’s relationships—“neither of us is the man; that’s sort of the whole point.”
Plenty of people had seen her stuff; the show had been out for ages. But knowing that Jecka had watched the thing she was most proud of gave Birdie an outsized rush of joy.
“Thanks, dude.” Birdie flicked through the notepad, wincing at the many empty pages. “That’s what I wanna work on next. Another hour, like that. Even though that one came out a million years ago and everyone’s probably forgotten all about me.”
Jecka ignored the last comment. “Good first step. An achievable goal.” Jecka leaned back against the edge of the bed, her gaze softening into curiosity. “I don’t know much about comedy. What’s your process?”
Birdie did not like talking about her process. In her experience, few artists did. It wasn’t just deeply personal. Sometimes it sounded silly or embarrassingly DIY when spoken out loud. There was no handbook for process. But Jecka seemed interested and nonjudgmental, and she was a fellow artist, so Birdie tried to put it into words.
She explained that she used both her physical notebook and two separate folders in the Notes app on her phone: Working On It and Solid Gold. Her physical notebook was where it all started, the place she’d scribble new jokes and ideas—an observation about human behavior, a funny or weird thing that happened, a take on a TV show everyone was talking about. She’d test those ideas in a regular, low-stakes set at smaller clubs or open mics. If the new joke got a decent laugh, she’d type it up and move it into Working On It. That was the place for good jokes that could be further explored, extended, riffed on.
“Jokes are kind of like a…recipe,” Birdie said. “There’s a million ways you can tweak them, and sometimes it’s the tiniest pinch of salt that changes everything. But only from actually performing them—cooking them for other people to eat—do you know what works.”
Once she had a joke that reliably hit, she’d move it to Solid Gold. Those were jokes ready to become part of a polished tight five—a five-minute set with lots of big laughs. Birdie had a few tight fives—material she’d been doing for years.
Jecka nodded, completely engaged. “So how do you create a whole new show?”
That was the sticking point. Birdie tried not to squirm. “Hours—or shows, specials, whatever—usually have a big idea at their center: a key framing device, with smaller sections. Like, a buddy of mine toured a show about becoming a father. The first part was his life pre-kid, the middle was about him and his wife trying to get pregnant, and the last part was about actually being a dad. There were a lot of detours, but the big idea was fatherhood.”
“Do you know what the big idea of your next show will be?” Jecka asked.
Birdie blew out her cheeks. “Nope.”
“Okay,” Jecka said, undeterred, “what’s the first baby step in getting there?”
“Writing, I guess,” Birdie replied. “Thinking. Listening back to recent sets to see what gets the biggest response.”
“You record your sets?”
“Yeah, most comics do. Recordings are better than memory. Hate listening back to myself, though. I’m always like, Jeez, I sound like that? How can anyone stand talking to me? ”
Jecka laughed. “I think everyone feels that way. I’ve been interviewed a few times, and the first time I watched myself was the last.”
Birdie perked up. “What about you—what’s your process? What are your goals? Present your soul to me on a silver platter, please.”
A wry smile. “We’ll get to me, don’t worry. I’m more interested in stripping you of the title of Ms. Procrastination.”
Birdie smiled innocently. “Or we could just strip down, together.”
Jecka groaned at the bad joke, but were her cheeks turning red? “You’re incorrigible.” She checked the time. “Your mom’ll be done soon. Why don’t you spend the afternoon listening back to some of your sets?”
Birdie squirmed, feeling a weird nervous wiggle in her belly. “I guess I could do a few.”
“It’s only one o’clock.” Jecka got to her feet. “Why don’t you do, say, three hours’ worth?”
“Three hours?” Birdie scrambled up. “I’m down to work, but that sounds like three hundred years.”
Jecka tapped her fingers against her lips. “You could break it up with the Pomodoro Technique. That’s what I do.”
“The pomo-what-now technique?”
“Pomodoro. You work for twenty-five minutes, take a five-minute break, then start again. After three Pomodoros, you take a longer break, maybe twenty minutes, then start the whole cycle again.”
That sounded a pinch more reasonable. “But what if it’s a waste of time? What if my best days are behind me? What if a new season of Baking Show drops—”
“Birdie.” Jecka’s expression was filled with compassion and cool intent. “Want to know the secret to doing the work, even when you don’t feel like it?”
Birdie cocked her head. “Tequila?”
“Doing the work. Even when you don’t feel like it.” Jecka gestured at Birdie’s notebook. “Twenty-five minutes. Starting now.”
And for the first time in a long time, Birdie Belvedere did exactly what she was told.
—
Hours later, Birdie was floating in the outer space of her imagination when a knock at the door landed her back on earth.
Jecka stuck her head in. “You’re still going?”
Birdie blinked in surprise. “Holy ravioli.” She felt dazed but energized. Brimming with ideas. “I just did”—quick math—“ six Pomodoros.”
Jecka’s eyebrows jumped up. “Congratulations. If I sound shocked, it’s because I am.”
Birdie flicked back through her notebook. Eight pages of ideas. Eight! A burst of bewildered pride popped her to her feet. “At first it was taking forever, but then, I just…”
“Got in the zone.” Jecka leaned against the doorframe with a knowing smile. “It happens.”
But it didn’t usually happen to Birdie. Her words felt clumsy, even as she aimed for sincere. “Thanks Jecka. For the advice. And for pushing me. And watching my show.” Birdie gazed at the woman in her doorway, feeling an almost embarrassing level of gratitude.
“My pleasure.” Jecka let their eye contact linger a microsecond longer than strictly necessary before stepping back. “Anyway, I just wanted to say bye.”
“Do you want to come to our holiday party?” Birdie said quickly. “It’s this Saturday. Ma throws it every year—it’s a jam.”
Jecka narrowed her eyes, mock-serious. “Are you asking me on a date?”
Birdie affected disgust. “What is this, the nineties? Have we just seen Reality Bites in the theater? Is my cellphone the size of your head?”
“Ha, ha.” Jecka turned away. “Your mom already invited me.”
“So that’s a yes?” Birdie called after Jecka, as the artist headed for the stairs. “Okay, cool. I’m playing it cool. This is me playing it cool!”
“You’re not doing a very good job,” Jecka called back.
“Thank you for the feedback!” Birdie called after her, as the front door closed.