He moved the puppet’s mouth, and in a garish, high-pitched voice, he squeaked, “A sooouuuulllll!”
He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “I’m losing it.”
“Yep.”
He spun his chair around to see Astrid leaning in the doorway.
“How do you always sneak up on me?” he asked. “You must have the quietest shoes in the world. Your footfalls are silent.”
“Yes, I buy my shoes specifically for the purpose of surprising you,” she said. “Have a minute?”
“For you, I have as many as five.”
“Great. Listen, I heard from the Imagination Network.”
Everett sat up straight.
“They want to fly us out to New York in two weeks,” she said. “To tour the studio and meet with the president and the VP.”
Everett’s mouth dropped open. “Are you . . . are you kidding?”
“No. I already hit my joke allotment for the year,” Astrid said, looking down at her clipboard and marking something. Everett could only imagine that she’d checked “give Everett news that will completely change his life” off her list.
Everett sat back and ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe this. Our show could be with the Imagination Network. We could be working in New York, Astrid!”
“Well, you could,” Astrid said, scribbling something on her clipboard.
“Wait, what?” Everett asked. “You’re not coming with me?”
“In two weeks? Of course.” She crossed the room and sat down in the chair across from him. “But if the show gets picked up? Well, my contract is here with the station.”
“But you wouldn’t want to get a new job?” Everett asked. “I know they’d want you with me. You’re essential to the show!”
“Thank you for recognizing my brilliance, but I work on other shows here, Ev. You know that. And do you expect me to move my partner and my kid to New York for a new job?”
Everett stared at her.
“Okay.” She smiled. “So you do expect that. Not everyone’s like you, Everett. You know that, right?”
“What do you mean, not everyone’s like me?” he asked.
“I mean not everyone puts work first, and second, and third with the rest of their life a distant hundred-and-fiftieth place. I know that this is all you care about, but it’s not all I care about. I love the show, and I love my job, and I suppose that, in some strange way, I love you, too. But I have my own life.”
“This isn’t all I care about,” Everett said. “I care about work a perfectly normal amount.”
Astrid nodded. “Sure. But someday I hope you figure out that just because your name’s in the title, that doesn’t mean the show has to be your whole life.”
She got up and walked toward the door. “Just be ready for the meeting. I know you will.”
“I sure will,” Everett muttered as Astrid walked away (or at least he assumed she did; as usual, he couldn’t hear her footsteps).
He pulled out his phone and sent an SOS text to Jeremy, who showed up about ten seconds later. “Did you figure out the puppet?” Jeremy asked, sitting down.
“This isn’t about the puppet,” Everett said quickly. “Do I only talk about puppets?”
Jeremy frowned. “Well . . . define ‘only.’”
“We talk about life sometimes! Don’t we? Didn’t we recently talk about what we had for dinner last night?”
Jeremy nodded slowly. “Can I ask where this is going?”
Everett leaned forward and cradled his head in his hands. “Am I a bad friend?”
“No! Do you remember the time the station wanted to cut my salary and not yours? You threatened to quit unless they promised not to pay me less,” Jeremy said. “That was being a good friend. Or what about the time you came to my daughter’s birthday party in character and Marzipan attacked one of your puppets? You didn’t even get mad.”
“Marzipan is surprisingly vicious for her size,” Everett said, referring to Jeremy’s Chihuahua. In fact, the puppet had been on his hand when Marzipan attacked and it had been a real beast to clean blood out of the felt, but he hadn’t mentioned that to Jeremy.
“I know you care about our friendship in your own way,” Jeremy said.
Everett paused. “In my own way?”
Jeremy thought for a moment as if choosing his words. “You’re . . . focused on your work. Which is good. The show wouldn’t be what it is if you didn’t care about it so much.”
“But do I care about anything else?” Everett asked. “Does everyone else think I’m some sort of workaholic robot who doesn’t invest in human relationships?”
“No one thinks that,” Jeremy reassured him. “But some people do think you live in the studio. The other day, an intern asked me if you slept on the couch.”
“Why would I sleep on the couch? I have a home!” Everett said.
“But you’re here a lot,” Jeremy said. “You’re here when people come in, and you’re here when they leave.”
“My name is in the title!” Everett sat back in his chair so hard that it rolled across the floor and bumped into a file cabinet. “I have to work this hard because if it’s shitty, it has my name on it!”
“Is this a random outburst? A midlife crisis?”
“I’m not midlife,” Everett said.
“Any one of us could be midlife,” Jeremy pointed out. “We don’t know.”
“Okay, so I haven’t mentioned this yet because I didn’t know if anything was going to happen, but . . . the Imagination Network is interested in the show, and Astrid and I are gonna fly to their studio to meet with the big shots.”
Jeremy raised his eyebrows. “So what would that mean?”
“Well, if it goes well . . . they want to buy the show. Which would mean we’d be working at their studio in the city.”
“Hmm.”
“So . . . what do you think about that? You’d come with me, right?” Everett asked, leaning forward on his elbows.
“Well . . . ,” Jeremy started, “it’s not that I don’t want to, Ev. You know I love the show. But my kids are in school here, and Tess’s parents are getting older and they need us around. Also I’ve got that huge aquarium. You think it’s easy to move saltwater fish? Because let me tell you, it is not. They’re easily stressed.”