Animate Me

“Thanks for coming. I was about to pull my hair out.”

“Don’t pull your hair out,” I exclaim as we pull apart. “You’ve got beautiful hair. Besides, I’m more than happy to help.”

“Do you want something to drink first?”

“Some water would be great.” I follow her into her kitchen where she pulls a glass that looks hand-blown out of the cupboard. While she pours the water, I step over to her kitchen desk, noticing the collage of postcards and artwork on the bulletin board. I’m also intrigued by a collection of antique lady head vases lining the back edge of the desk, the holes in their wide brim hats holding miscellaneous markers, pencils and scissors. They have actual little strings of pearls around their necks and dangling from their little ceramic ears.

“Those are cool,” I comment. “Where’d you get them?”

“I used to go to the Rose Bowl swap meet, but now mainly from Ebay. Arnauld doesn’t like flea markets. Do you collect stuff?”

“Yeah, I’m a collector,” I confirm. If she only knew. My figurines and vinyl doll collections have taken over my living room. “Ebay is addictive, but it certainly takes the adventure out of the hunt.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” she says intently. “We should go flea market shopping one day. It’d be fun to go with another collector.”

“That’d be great,” I agree, remembering Curtis’ advice. I look back to the bulletin board and notice a photograph of her and Arnauld, and something occurs to me. I suddenly straighten up. “Is Arnauld here?”

“No, he went with his buddies to Vegas this weekend. Regardless, he doesn’t live here. We have separate places.”

“Oh, I see,” I say calmly. Luckily she can’t see my internal happy dance.

She leads me down a narrow hallway to her home office. The walls are painted a buttery yellow, and the room is bright and cheerful with a window looking over a portion of the canyon.

“So here are the little monsters that have been torturing me.”

I move towards the laptops confidently. This is something I know, and I’m happy to be her tech savior. Hopefully it will make her understand that she can count on me.

I sit down at her desk and open the first laptop. “Okay, I’ll need your password.”

“Buttercup,” she replies without hesitation.

“Like the flower?”

“No, like the Powerpuff Girl.”

I laugh. “I would have taken you more for her sister, Blossom. Buttercup was kind of mean.”

“You don’t know my dark side yet. I can be quite nasty.”

“Really?” It’s hard for me to imagine. “You aren’t mean at all; I just know it.”

“No, not really,” she admits. “But my Dad used to call me Buttercup, and I can have a smart mouth.” She steps closer. “Hey, take off your glasses.”

As soon as I do, she slides her hand up my forehead and pushes my long bangs back. “I knew it! You look like Professor Utonium! You’re tall like him and have that sculpted face and sharp jaw line. I always had a thing for him…he was so loving with his girls.”

“Watch out, your boyfriend Mojo Jojo may get jealous.”

“Are you calling my boyfriend a monkey?”

“Well, you’re the one that talked about his monkey’s back.”

“And he does want to take over the animation world,” she admits.

“Besides calling me the Professor isn’t so great—he was clueless after all,” I say.

“Don’t knock the Professor; he was brilliant in the lab,” she admonishes me.

“Yeah but he was clueless when it came to the girls,” I remind her, laughing.

Brooke smiles at me warmly, and I turn back to the computers and start my diagnostics.

Over the next hour while I check the systems, update her software, and transfer her data, Brooke sits on the daybed in the office and keeps me company. She tells me stories about growing up in West L.A. where her mom worked for a chiropractor and her dad owned an organic food co-op, years before organic food became a trend. She describes herself as bookish and self-conscious because she wasn’t part of the “in” crowd at her middle and high schools. Other kids thought her obsession with cartoons and comics was weird, especially for a girl. She ignored the naysayers and took every kind of drawing and cartooning class until she finally had to accept that she didn’t have the natural talent for it. It wasn’t until she got a chance to intern one summer at Animation Magazine that she found her calling. She ended up earning a scholarship to the USC film school where she focused on the administrative and marketing side of the business. The contacts she made there served her well once she was out of school.

“You know, my first job was with Nickelodeon as an assistant in development, and that’s where I first met Arnauld. He’d come in to pitch a joint production between our studios. The project never happened, but Arnauld and I did. Within six months, he got me hired for a higher level position at Sketch Republic.”

“Management didn’t mind that you were involved?”

“They didn’t seem to,” she admitted. “We’re very professional. Sometimes it feels like more of a professional relationship really.”

As hard as it is to hear about Arnauld, these are the little nuggets I’m gathering in my arsenal to win over Brooke.

Later when Brooke serves me a platter full of weird non-food, like barley salad and brown rice with lumpy tofu gravy, we take our plates outside to enjoy the view. From her balcony, you can see parts of Hollywood and downtown. We are just about to start when her cell phone rings and she sees it’s from Arnauld.

“Do you mind if I take it? We’ve missed each other several times today.”

“Sure,” I agree as I watch her step a few feet back into the house. She’s close enough that I can hear what she says.

“Hey, baby.

Yeah, that sounds like fun. Is Stuart behaving himself?

Yes, I went to the gym, and you’ll be happy to know I took the class and did my full work out. Now I’m eating that crappy healthy stuff you like from Whole Foods.

No, not alone…I’m about to eat with my friend, Nathan, from the studio. He came over and helped me set up my new computer.

Yeah, okay, get going. I’ll talk to you later. Don’t lose too much at the tables.

Okay, me too. Bye.”

She slips back into her chair and stabs a tofu nugget with her fork before wrapping her lips around it.

“Does he mind that I’m here?” I ask nervously. If Brooke were my girl, I’d go atomic to hear another guy was at her house having di

“No, not at all. He knows you’re just a friend, but even so—he isn’t the jealous type. Besides we have an open relationship; we’re both free to date other people.”

“You do?” I ask horrified.

“Last month I hooked up with an old boyfriend I hadn’t seen in years. We only went out a couple of times, but it was fun.”

I don’t know if I should be happy with this news or discouraged. She can date other people, but I’m just a friend. I push the nasty food around on my plate as I consider everything.

“You don’t like it?” she asks, nodding towards my meal.

“No, not really. I’m not a health food kind of guy. Don’t worry, I’ll order a pizza when I get home.” I grin at her.

“Oh, thank God!” she laughs as she pushes her plate away. “You’re so fit looking that I figured you ate like Arnauld does. Well, to hell with this crap. Let’s order a pizza! I even have some beer stashed in the back of the fridge.”

“Now, you’re talking.” I didn’t miss that she called me fit. Buying that damn treadmill now really seems like the best investment I ever made.

We dump our food in the trash and tease each other about what toppings to have on our pizza. I draw the line at artichokes…nasty little buggers. They look like alien food.

A couple of hours later, we’re sprawled out on her couch, watching a compilation DVD of independent animated films from the A