Animate Me

“Brooke,” I correct him. “It’s going fine, well better than fine, I think.”

He raises his eyebrows like he can’t believe a dork like me can be doing fine with a girl. “Are you being chill, like I told you to be?”

It occurs to me that in his eyes my plan may be a good one, so I test the waters.

“Really chill. As a matter of fact she thinks I like another girl at the studio, and she’s going to help me get her.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I told you to be chill, not insane.”

“Don’t you see, she feels safe now spending time with me. And she’s like my dating coach, she was showing me how to kiss Dani…the other girl.”

“No shit, that is bizarre. So she is kissing you to show you how to kiss someone else when she doesn’t know that you’re actually really kissing her?”

“Exactly!” I exclaim.

“You are one crazy fucker. So tell me Einstein, how do you see this playing out in the end? Or did it occur to you to figure that out first?”

“No, the whole thing just sort of happened. I’m figuring it out as I go along and it seems to be working just fine.” I am getting irritated with his doom and gloom. It’s a black cloud lingering over our table.

He shakes his head. “But in the end—no matter what—she will know that you lied. You deceived and manipulated her. And in my vast experience with women, that’s usually a deal breaker.”

I spend the rest of lunch watching him eat, since I’ve completely lost my appetite. As we go to leave I ask if he minds us swinging by Outer Limits since Billie wants me to pick up my special-ordered vinyl Harley Qui

Billie is standing near the door rearranging a display when we enter the store. She turns towards us, and her eyes widen when she sees Curtis. For almost any girl, you would hardly notice the gesture, but with hard-ass Billie it’s like the earth has tilted off its rotation. He must be wearing that pheromone cologne or something, since I appear to be witnessing textbook instant attraction.

“Hey, Nathan,” she says, never taking her eyes off him. “Who’s your friend?”

Curtis steps forward. “Hi, I’m Curtis, Nathan’s brother. And you are?”

“Wilhelmina.” She smiles. “But you can call me Billie.”

I move to the back of the store, disgusted that in ten seconds he has scored with Billie-the-ball-buster. Everyone but me has asked her out and she usually just rolls her eyes and punches them on the arm.

When I finally head back to the front to see what’s going on, Billie has her shirt hiked up and she is showing Curtis the tattoos on her lower back. He is ru

Curtis wins yet again.

I’m quiet for the first part of the ride back to the studio, but then I can’t help myself. I need my suspicions confirmed. “When?” I ask.

“Late this afternoon, after work.”

“Really?” I grumble. I’m not jealous, just frustrated. Everything is always so easy for Curtis.

“She told me that she wants to know everything about me…if you know what I mean.”

I take a sharp breath. Damn. We weren’t even in there twenty minutes.

“I can’t even believe how I feel,” he says. “There’s no bullshit with this girl. She serves everything straight up, and it’s a revelation compared to the other women I’ve known. Our attraction was completely visceral.” He shakes his head in wonder.

• • •

Later in her office, Brooke gives me a soft smile as I present the latest Starbucks cup to her. “Do you know how much I look forward to seeing what you’re going to create for me?” She asks.

“Well, I like drawing them for you,” I reply. “I hope you like this one.”

She turns the cup and grins when she sees that I’ve rendered one of her collectible lady-head vases on the cup, but this time she’s the lady head with pencils and a pair of scissors coming out of the top of her head.

“Oh, Nathan…I love it! I’m going to set this cup next to my collection.”

“I’m glad,” I say. “It was fun to do.” I let out a sigh as I sink down into her guest chair.

“Hey, are you okay?” Brooke asks as she notices me pull my hand through my hair.

I can’t hide anything from her. “Not really.” I admit. After my loser lunch with Curtis I’ve convinced myself to tell Brooke the truth and cut my losses.

She walks over to her office door and closes it.

“What’s up?” she asks after sitting on her couch and motioning for me to join her.

“I just have the worst feeling, like everything’s a mess and I’m not sure how to fix it. Do you ever feel that way?”

“More often than I’d like,” she says nodding.

I look over at her and notice that her face looks drawn and pale.

“What about you? Are you okay?”

“Not really, no. I had something really disturbing happen earlier.”

“You want to talk about it?”

She suddenly stands up and goes over to her desk, grabbing her purse. “Come on. Let’s get out of here, I need a drink and it sounds like you do too.”

Morgan doesn’t say a thing when Brooke tells her that we’re leaving to take care of something. I keep as neutral of a face as I can, despite the fact that I am nervously thrilled to be ru

We stand quietly in the elevator, and when we stop on the sixth floor Kevin joins us holding some storyboards.

“Hey, Nathan,” he says before turning to look forward.

Something suddenly occurs to me. “Um, Kevin, will you do me a favor? I need to run out and take care of something. Can you let Joel know? Tell him I finished the revisions.”

“Sure, no problem.” Kevin nods. I don’t think he’s associating me with Brooke who is standing quietly in the corner.

For a moment I’m grateful he’s the one that I ran into. Andy or Nick would have asked me twenty questions.

Once in Brooke’s Prius we head out without a word. After a long quiet minute I finally speak up.

“Where are we going?”

“Smokehouse, over by Warner Bros.”

I smile at the odd choice. It’s so old school that it’s cool. Despite the traditional decor, and older clientele, there’s something about the place. I’m sure a million film and cartoon deals have been made there.

“I saw Frank and Ollie there once eating soup.”

“Disney’s Frank and Ollie?” I ask with reverence. They were a famed part of what was termed Disney’s Nine Old Men, the brilliant animators who had worked on all his key classic films.

“Yup, I almost asked if I could join them.”

“I bet they would have loved that, such a beautiful woman fan-girling all over them.”

She looks up at me surprised. Is it because I called her beautiful? It can’t be since that fact is irrefutable. Maybe she’s just surprised that someone as dense as me noticed.

“I wish I had.” She responds after the pause. “Now they’re both gone, and I could have told them what Bambi and Dumbo meant to me as a young girl.”

After being sat in a deep booth in the corner of the room, we decide to order serious drinks so Brooke gets a martini and I, a double Jameson on the rocks. We start out talking about the cartoons we grew up with. The Smurfs are on both of our lists and I laugh telling Brooke about the twisted caricature I remember seeing of Hefty Smurf doing inappropriate things with Smurfette. Brooke practically spits up her martini.

“You’re so evil,” she laughs. “I’ll never be able to look at those little creatures again without having that idea in my head!”

“I guess that’s the point, revising animation history, one disturbing caricature at a time.” I can tell as I watch her face warm up that the drink is doing its magic. She looks much happier and relaxed now then when she was in her office.