13
Everett couldn’t sleep.
This wasn’t unusual for him, at least not when he was on the verge of a creative breakthrough. People thought his job was easy. You talked to some kids, made a puppet say a few words—no big deal, right? But the thing was, someone had to make those puppets. Someone had to write those words. That someone was Everett, and the idea that he might be letting a kid somewhere down by half-assing his job kept him up at night.
Or, more accurately, kept him up in the morning, seeing as it was four a.m.
He ate a bowl of cereal (responsible, joy-free Raisin Bran, because even though he worked in children’s entertainment he still understood the value of a fiber-rich breakfast) and by five a.m., he was letting himself into the studio.
This was his favorite time of day to be there. Most of the lights were off and it was silent, giving the whole place an almost eerily calm vibe that it never had during the day when he was filming.
But as he walked down the hallway toward the studio, he could hear the squeaky wheels of the custodian’s bucket rolling along.
“Tom!” Everett called. “It’s me! Not an early-morning robber who’s looking to steal the set pieces of an iconic local children’s show!”
Tom poked his head around the corner. “Whew,” he said. “Good. All I have is my mop to defend me.”
“You really ought to consider Mace,” Everett said, his eyebrows knit in concern. “You’re working around valuables.”
Tom nodded, then continued squeaking down the hall. “I’ll let you know if anyone tries to carry out that ugly sofa.”
“The sofa’s not ugly!” Everett called as Tom kept walking away. “It’s endearing! Families love it! Kids love it!”
Tom ignored him, so Everett opened the doors and walked onto the set, which was empty and quiet. His producer, Astrid, wasn’t rushing around and peppering him with a million questions. Jeremy wasn’t there for him to bounce ideas off of. Without the lights and people around it, the sofa in question looked like a zoo exhibit missing its animals.
“I love you just the way you are,” he muttered, running one hand along the couch. “Never change.”
Everett walked into his “office,” which was more of a storage closet for the show where he went to be alone, and pulled out his laptop. It was ultimately his job to choose which kids’ emails to answer on the show, but Astrid forwarded him the ones that she thought might be good picks, weeding out the junk emails or obvious jokes from teenagers with burner email addresses like [email protected].
So he wasn’t exactly sure how an email from a woman named Theodora made its way through Astrid’s screening process. Theodora was apparently an adult, for starters, and as such, her question wasn’t broadly applicable to his audience of four- to nine-year-olds.
He gnawed on his bottom lip as he read through the email and couldn’t help smiling. You’re my only hope. A Star Wars reference. An extremely obvious Star Wars reference, but a reference all the same. One of Everett’s favorite episodes of The Muppet Show guest-starred Mark Hamill, who ended up singing “When You Wish upon a Star” with all of the Muppets, including Miss Piggy dressed as Princess Leia.
He shook his head. Focus.
Theodora. She sounded cute. Then again, Everett tended to think that most women were cute. Natalie was always making fun of his millions of celebrity crushes.
A granola bar smacked him on the head, jolting him out of his mental wanderings.
He turned toward the source. “What the hell’s a breakup bob?”
Astrid crossed the room, picked up the granola bar from where it had bounced off his head, and handed it to him. “First off, why are you here so early? And secondly, I know you didn’t eat breakfast and I don’t want to deal with you being a petulant baby because you don’t know how to feed yourself, so here.”
Everett tore the wrapper open. “I ate a bowl of cereal at home, but I’ll accept this.”
“A breakup bob is exactly what it sounds like. A haircut a woman gets when she goes through a breakup.” She thought about it for a minute. “I suppose a man could get one, but most don’t have hair long enough for a proper bob.”
“Maybe men do a breakup head shave,” Everett mused; then his eyes widened. “So she’s single.”
Astrid gave him a no-nonsense headshake. If her essence were distilled into one gesture, it would be a no-nonsense headshake. “No. Nuh-uh. No way. I thought I deleted that email.”
“What email?” Everett muttered, already looking at his computer again.
Astrid sighed. “I absolutely did not intend to forward you that one. The last thing you need is a cute girl to get obsessed with. You’re already distracted enough as it is.”
“She does sound cute, doesn’t she?” Everett rotated the chair to look at Astrid, who leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. She narrowed her eyes.
“Why are you here so early?” he asked.
“I already got in my morning run, so I figured, why the hell not come into work?”
“This is why we work well together. You act like you can’t stand me, but we’re actually the same, me and you.” Everett paused. “Except for the running. I’m never going to start running. Hey, have you ever gotten a breakup bob?”
She pursed her lips. “No. People think a bob is an easy hairstyle, but it’s actually a lot of work. Can’t put a bob in a ponytail. Can’t put it in a bun. There’s nowhere to hide with a bob. Frankly, it’s an impractical hairstyle with great marketing.”
Everett blinked. “Okay.”
Astrid frowned, then started to walk away. “Eat,” she called over her shoulder.
Everett chewed and began typing his response.
14
Teddy looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. Women’s magazines and cute pictures of celebrities on gossip blogs had lied to her. This bob wasn’t easy. It wasn’t chic. It didn’t even look good. It was like the left side and the right side of her head were dressed up for costume parties with entirely different themes. The left was smooth and sleek, while the right side had a cowlick sticking out at an odd angle.
Whatever. Richard loved long hair, and honestly, screw him. She’d have to make this unflattering bob work somehow, damn it.
“Off to work!” Eleanor called.
Teddy poked her head out of the bathroom. “Have fun molding young minds! Don’t forget to grab one of the pumpkin muffins I made, but just because I thought we could all use muffins and not because I’m trying to prove my worth!”