Chapter Five A Pretend Hot Person #2
He blinks at me. God, he’s so serious, and I never know what to do at serious business meetings without creative ideas and laughter. I create silly voices for silly characters and write silly scripts that hopefully top both.
Be yourself.
“Why did you want to meet with me?” I ask. “Honestly, it doesn’t seem like a thing you like to do.”
He tongues his cheek, silent for a moment, before answering, “You’ve seen my interviews, huh?”
“Well, no, but I did talk with you forty-eight hours ago. Sort of. Me and Bernie.”
“And what was your impression of me?”
I tilt my head side to side. “That you didn’t want to be there.”
He huffs out air through his nose. “I didn’t.”
I feel bad for stating the rudely obvious, so I stumble out, “But you seem fine now, though. Well, fine enough.” I laugh. “Then again, you are wearing casual clothes to a fancy restaurant. Such rock star behavior.”
“Rock star,” he muses. “I don’t know if I’d say that.”
“What would you call yourself?”
His eyes drift to the wall, as if it had answers, then back to me. “Musician.”
“Musician? Really?”
Then he almost smiles—maybe a small shift—as if he’s fighting it. My own smile grows. Turning reluctant smiles into laughs is what I excel at.
“Can’t decide if that’s more pretentious or not,” I say.
He bites his bottom lip—so close. “No? Says the woman coming to this place in that.” He knocks his chin to me.
“Hey, my dress is pretty.”
“It is,” he agrees.
My head jerks back.
God, he didn’t even skip a beat, did he?
He squints, and the corners of his mouth finally crook up. A full smile. “But you do look like a kindergarten teacher.”
He’s joking with me.
I curl my lips in, adjust my napkin, then pop them out to a smile. “Wow. Even my blind dates don’t insult me like that.”
“You go on blind dates often?” he asks.
“Try not to with musicians.”
“And what’s wrong with musicians?”
“What isn’t?”
I finally get a breath of laughter from him. It’s gruff and low. “Touché.”
“So, what is with the interviews?” I ask, leaning my forearms on the table. “It’s all people talk about.”
“I guess I don’t like people much nowadays,” he says. “I prefer my home.”
“I’m a homebody too. Well, home or the workshop,” I clarify. “It’s where I work. Or, worked?” I tilt my head to the side and squint as if thinking through the words myself. They’re so foreign on my tongue. “Finch is retiring.”
“He’s famous, isn’t he?”
“God, no, he’s…just some old guy,” I tease, waving him off. “No, he’s my boss and a mentor of sorts,” I clarify. “He’s kind of the grandfather of puppetry. I moved here five years ago to work with him, and I’ve been doing that ever since.”
“Why?”
“My grandpa was his business partner for years, and when he passed, I wanted to continue his legacy. Y’know, if I’m gonna get all woo-woo, meaning of life and all that.
” He snorts. “But I’ve also been puppeteering for a long time, so it was a natural fit.
Except for the show on Saturday, Finch and I have done every performance together for the last five years. ”
“Sounds like he really respects you.”
I laugh. “I don’t know. I just assume he sees me as a lost kid with a dream.”
“Dreams are the reason we get out of bed in the morning.”
It’s my turn to snort. He’s charmingly quick-witted when he’s not being a massive pile of grump. The weird thing about Griffin Harvey is that he says things so genuinely yet so brusquely that it’s disarming. My gut says it’s a game. But the way his eyes dart between mine says otherwise.
“Well, I’m sure you feel the same way about making music,” I observe.
“Yeah…” The word fades, and he clears his throat.
I smirk. “Well, that’s convincing.”
“I’m trying to feel that way again.”
“You don’t right now?”
Griffin swallows. “It’s complicated.” He looks at the midnight blue wallpaper that, now seeing it closer, has raised details in the shape of roses with glimmers of gold. He’s silent for a moment before turning back to me, searching my eyes as if I were some zoo animal or freak of nature.
“Tell me why you’re reviving the show,” he says, adding, “honestly.”
I straighten my spine and shrug. “Well…I guess…it means a lot to me,” I answer. “Birds means a lot to many people. The world is a weird place, and this show made everything feel good when I was a kid. I want that for everyone else.”
He stares, and I continue into the silence.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” I confess.
“I’m not sure if I can capture the same feelings I had back then, but…
this was my grandpa’s pride and joy. Flock Workshop was innovative at the time.
It still is. The company did good, y’know?
I mean, when does that happen nowadays? In fact, did you know kids that watch Birds before pre-K are more prepared for school? Factually. Look it up.”
Griffin opens his mouth, closes it, then nods, as if confirming a thought.
“So, why not just let the episode backlog exist?” he asks.
I shake my head. “A kid now is not the same as a kid in the ’70s.
The culture changes. Kids need to understand phones.
The internet. Social media. It’s important to keep up with those innovations, or else kids are just gonna watch old episodes about the invention of, I don’t know, planes or whatever, and… that means nothing to them.”
He laughs again. Gentle. Soft. Deep.
“Five years ago,” I continue, “I mourned with my family and Finch and the rest of the puppeteering world over one of the industry greats. My grandpa embodied the best parts of this world. He’s the reason I make puppets.
He taught me to be whatever I wanted and that no dream was off the table.
That sometimes the hardest things can also seem easy if you love them enough.
Well, my dream is to do good like he did.
Albert Starling believed in giving back.
He believed it was easy. So, you asked why I want to revive this show.
” I lift my shoulders and let them fall again. “I believe it’s my purpose.”
My sentence rings in our silent booth for one second, two, three…
Then the table is suddenly awkward.
I shift in the booth as Griffin Harvey stares at me, pinning me in place with pupils pointed like lasers.
And then he rattles the ice in his bourbon glass and says, “I want to make music for your show.”
He sets down the glass with a plunk.
The world stops. Buzzing rings in my ears, like little bumblebees flitting around inside my head.
“You what?” I ask.
“I want to make music for you.”
He says it again, and the little bumblebees hit a brick wall, falling to the mushy floor of my mind. My stomach disappeared somewhere beneath me—my heartbeat with it.
What is this?
What is going on?
I’m being pranked. Ha ha, very funny, Finch. Classic.
Or, worse, it’s real and this is some tit-for-tat nonsense. You scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours. It’s…well, it’s something not good. I know it.
“No,” I blurt out. I shake my head feverishly. “No, I don’t need your help. I’m sorry.”
Griffin’s lips part as he stares.
“You’re sorry,” he echoes.
I straighten my posture and nod. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I choke out a disbelieving laugh, taking all the tension with it. “I’m not ridiculous; you’re ridiculous.”
Whatever he’s proposing comes with strings—I know it—and I’ve never been one for strings. Especially when they’re attached to the guitar of a musician I barely know.
He leans back. “What’s the point of all this if I can’t help someone?”
“This? This what?”
“Fame. Talent. Money.”
I shrug, holding my hands up. “Then donate to charities or something.”
“I already do that.”
Of course he does.
I blink at the table and lick my lips. “Why? Why help my show?”
“Because I need this work too.”
I squint. “What do you mean?”
He opens his mouth and closes it. Cocks his head to the side.
In classic secret-sharing fashion, I lean in to listen, my hands folded in my lap under the table.
Griffin blinks at my movement; then, to my surprise, he mirrors me, tilting his torso closer as well.
His bulky shoulders look even bigger when he tucks his arms to his side.
I wonder if he’s holding his hands together under the table too.
We’re like two kids whispering under the playground slide.
Griffin’s voice is low, as if he’s keeping this secret from even the walls.
“I can’t write anymore. At least, nothing that should be on a studio album.
But I think I can write for your show. It’s what I…
I need something—anything—as an outlet. Maybe if I get all these other songs out of my head, it would clear up space for something better.
So, you’d be helping me too. My music. My writing. All of it.”
The admission floats between us like particles in the air, dancing and untouchable but real. It’s like putting on noise-canceling headphones with only a dull tone. Like it’s only us in this restaurant.
“If you could describe this place in one word, what would it be?”
Griffin fidgets, looks at the wallpaper, the table, then the floor.
“I don’t know. Gilded, I guess?”
I let out a breathy laugh. That’s the perfect word to describe this place. Pretty, but plain underneath. Definitely too pretty for two people unsure what to wear or how to sit.
“See? You can still write,” I say. “I knew there was a better word for it than ritzy. You don’t need me.”
He slowly shakes his head in disagreement.
“Let me help your show,” he says. He’s intense. Determined. “Listen, I’ve…” He clears his throat. “Like you, I had a dream. Music.”
I let out a stifled laugh. “Kind of a successful dream, isn’t it? You’ve won awards.”
“That’s just fluff. I want to write for as long as these fingers will let me strum a guitar or play a piano.”
“You play piano?”
He hesitates. “I…yes. But I’ve struggled with it—and that dream—lately. I don’t want to watch another person go through that. You deserve this. The world deserves Birds on the Block. And if I can help, I’d really like to. You’d be helping me too.”
I narrow my eyes. He’s serious. He’s totally dead serious.