“You’re not buying this, are you Ben?” Hal asks, as though the pot needs more stirring.
“Of course I’m not buying it. As long as you decorate with things you like, your home will be fine.”
“Do you spend a lot of time at home, Dr. Williams?” I ask him.
“I work a lot, so I spend the majority of my time at my office. I sleep at home.”
“And how is your office at work decorated?” I want to know.
“I … it’s not. I’m there to work, not frolic in sensory fluff.” He crosses his arms in front of him like he’s in a suit of armor and I’m going to start hurling knives at him or something. Sooo tempting.
“I would suggest you bring in some bright colors like yellow, orange, and chartreuse. These hues will resonate with your creative mental frequencies and result in a burst of cognitive acuity. You should also have modern and light furniture,” I tell him.
“For the love of … Are you for real?” he demands. “I spend my days figuring out how humans can inhabit another planet. I don’t have time for this nonsense.”
I ignore him and turn to Hal and Lacey. “Do you know what would be fun?”
Instead of answering, they appear to be waiting for me to tell them, so I do. “It would be fun if we did a segment at Dr. Williams’ work where I redo his office in a way that works for his star sign.”
“Absolutely not!” Ben snaps.
“Why not?” Lacey wants to know. “I think it’s a great idea.”
“I do too,” Hal enthuses.
“How can that possibly enhance the lives of your viewers?” Ben demands.
“It’ll give you a chance to show the world where you do all of your fabulous hypothesizing,” I tell him. “You might even manage to throw in some interesting tidbits about astrophysics.”
“If there is such a thing …” Hal adds. His eyes seem to gloss over every time Ben opens his mouth.
Ben gives him a hard stare. “Astrophysics is extremely interesting for those who can grasp the concepts.”
Zing! Now he’s turning on the hosts. Perfect. Hopefully, they’ll decide they don’t need Dr. Grouchy anymore and I’ll manage to parlay this into my very own weekly segment. Mine, as in belonging to me, and not him. Now that I’m winning, I decide it won’t hurt me to play nice. “Dr. Williams is right,” I say. “People should start with the works of Carl Sagan and Brian Greene — totally enthralling.”
Ben tilts his head and blinks at me. “You’ve read Brian Greene?”
“Of course. The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos are two of my favorites.”
“Huh, mine too.” For the briefest moment, it’s like we both forget we’re on live TV and we’re just two people connecting. But then he opens his mouth again and gets back to being the intellectual snob I know him to be. “The average person wouldn’t appreciate those books. The fact that you’ve read them is surprisingly impressive.”
Raising one eyebrow, I say, “I’m not trying to impress you.”
The audience makes an ooohhh sound and I can almost imagine a scoreboard on which I just got another point.
"I find that hard to believe,” Ben says to me with a smug smile. “You’ve gone pretty far out of your way to mention two of the most famous astronomers in the world.”
Nuts. Now he just got a point, didn’t he? I quickly shift gears back to my redecorating idea. “Not really, but how about we try to stay on track? We were talking about decor. I’d really love to redo your office. You’ll be surprised what a difference it’ll make to your productivity, Dr. Williams.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the producer making a rolling motion with his hands which I’ve learned means it’s time to wrap up our segment. Hal turns to the camera and says, “We’d like to hear from you, America. Would you like Serafina to decorate Dr. Ben’s office? Let us know on social media.”
Lacey interjects, “We could even have a behind-the-scenes look at what they do down at the Goddard Center at the same time. I vote yes, but as always, we’d love to hear from our fans!” She turns to me and says, “Serafina, we’re looking forward to an update on how your date goes.” Then, as if a light bulb has just gone off in her head, she says, “Also, viewers, let us know if you think Dr. Ben should sign up for the dating app.” She winks at Ben and offers, “I’ll do it if you do it.”
Hal cuts in. “Coming up we’ll be talking with Santana Garcia about how you can spice up your bland dinner fare with a burst of culinary Mexican flare.”
“We’re in commercial,” the director calls out.
Ben stands, says good-bye to Lacey and Hal, then walks out without looking back at me. I give an innocent shrug to the hosts, bid them farewell, then follow him backstage. After the sound tech removes my mic, I hurry to my dressing room in time to see my phone light up.
I grab it off the makeup table and see it’s a text from Ben, who is on the other side of the wall.
DrBananaPants: I cannot believe you just did that. We’re supposed to come up with potential segments together. Not only did you blindside me, but you practically baited Hal and Lacey into demanding that I join your dating app.
* * *
LibraGrl: Would you like to talk about this in person? I’m literally only a few steps away.
* * *
DrBananaPants: I have no desire to let the world into my office. Unlike some people, I have real work to do.
* * *
LibraGrl: I’m going to ignore your obvious dig and take the high road. I imagine at this point it’ll be up to the network and your boss, won’t it?
* * *
DrBananaPants: I don’t want you to set foot into my office and I don’t want you to set me up.
* * *
LibraGrl: I don’t do the setting up. The computer does that according to your star sign.
There’s a knock on my open door and I see Waltraut standing there. She reaches over and knocks on Ben’s door as well, then waits a second for him to open it. “I just spoke with the powers that be at NASA. The office redo is a go, but instead of live, we’ll shoot it ahead of time, then have you both on to watch it together and talk about it. Can you both be available on Wednesday at one?”
I hear a sigh before Ben asks, “Why so soon?”
“We need time to edit the segment,” Waltraut says. “So, Wednesday?”
“Sounds great to me,” I say.
Ben offers a more sedate, “Fine.”
“Oh, and we’ve decided that having both of you on the air with Hal and Lacey is a lot of energy, so we’re going to just have the two of you do your bit from now on.”
“Fantastic!” I gush with way more enthusiasm than I’m feeling. I’m preoccupied imagining what a giant pain in the rear Ben is going to be when I redecorate his office.
Ben shuts down the conversation by saying, “I really need to run.”