Animate Me

The right girl’s hand is placed over my heart. Every moment we are together she’s guiding me in ways I can’t yet understand. But until I have the courage to tell her the truth, all I can do is follow her lead. I hope one day I won’t just be stumbling after her, but right by her side.

Somehow Brooke magically keeps things from being awkward by distracting me with flea market talk as we ease off the bed and get ready to leave. I try to push my failure out of my mind so it doesn’t ruin our day.

Remembering our coffees in the kitchen, I smile showing her where I wrapped up her macchiato like a baby swathed in a blanket. Despite my efforts, the drinks are no longer hot so we nuke them before grabbing our muffins and heading out the door.

“I can’t believe you made it to Starbucks before I even got here. You’re a saint.”

“Well, you warned me you’d be tired, and I need you amped up to keep up with me.”

“So you’re a serious antique-r then?” she asks, her eyebrows rise playfully.

“I’ve been known to knock over an old lady to get to something I want. One even tried to wrestle me for a Spiderman bobble head for her grandson.”

“Who won?”

“No contest.” I grin.

“Hardcore,” she shakes her head. “I took a mini-Snoopy piggybank away from a kid once. I made him cry.” She flexes her little muscles dramatically. “We’ll make quite a pair.”

“I’m sure we will,” I agree.

“What’s our strategy today?” she asks. “Divide and conquer?”

“No, I think we should stick together—see if we’re flea market compatible. You know, you can’t have a dawdler with a speed shopper.”

“Absolutely,” she agrees with a mock-serious look on her face. “If you are a dawdler, this will be our one and only Rose Bowl outing together…just saying…”

“Noted,” I confirm as I pull into a parking space. My cheeks flush with treasure-seeking anticipation as we exit the car.

She extends her hand, and I take it.

“Excited?” she asks.

I nod.

“Let’s do this!” We march towards the entrance buzzing with anticipation.

“Oh my God, oh my God…Nathan look!”

Alarmed I move quickly towards her. We already have several purchases between us.

I turn my nose up. “Why are you holding a Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox?”

Her eyes are watering. “I had this exact one Nathan! I remember that was during my stage where I ate peanut butter and strawberry jam for lunch every single day. It made my mom crazy.”

“That sounds like the kind of memory you would want to forget.”

“No! I loved the little freckled girl with the strawberry shaped hat attached to her head. And I loved The Peculiar Purple Pieman too.”

“I’ve gotta warn you, your pedestal has some serious cracks right about now. That thing is trippy, like the artist was on acid,” I tease her. “What’s with those magic mushrooms anyway? If I were you I’d put the lunch box down and walk away.”

“Hey, I didn’t make fun of you for that Transformer toy you just bought.”

“But that was cool,” I argue.

She holds up the lunchbox to the vendor.

“Fifty,” he shouts out.

“Too much,” she says with a pout, and we move on.

Of course, when she takes a break to find the port-a-potties I run back to the booth and buy her the Strawberry Shortcake lunch box.

She rejoins me about three booths down where I’ve spotted a Mojo Jojo keychain mixed in with a bunch of random Christmas ornaments. I lift it up to show her.

“Hey look…you can get this for Arnold.”

She gives me a dirty look. “Would you stop. He isn’t that hairy.”

I set it back down. “Can I ask you something?”

She nods, only paying half attention as she examines a case with Bakelite jewelry.

“How did you start going out with Arnold in the first place? You guys seem so different.”

“Yeah, we’re very different.” She pauses and she turns to look at the table of depression glass. “Do you promise not to think less of me if I tell you why?”

I nod. “Promise.”

She stops to think for a minute before she starts explaining. “I guess I’ve always felt like an outsider…my whole life, I was the girl everyone thought was strange. My grandmother made all my clothes, and I brought these weird organic lunches while everyone else ate the fish sticks and chicken nuggets from the cafeteria. But most of all I was weird because I was obsessed with cartoons and comics. They were my escape, they took me to my happy place.”

I smile at her. Her past is yet another reason why we’re destined to be together. I watch her pick up a cobalt blue vase and hold it up to the light. She sets it back down and turns towards me.

“Later when the hormones kicked in, I always had a boyfriend but they were outsiders like me. Arnauld would’ve never looked twice at me.”

“But I’m sure you were always beautiful,” I argue.

She smiles and shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe like you, I blossomed late and once I was working at Nickelodeon I put more effort into how I looked so that I could fit in with the people in my department. The irony is that I always fit in with the artists, but I wasn’t talented enough to be one, so I had to carve my own path. As I worked my way up I found myself in meetings…dealing with executives.”

“Did changing the way you looked really help?” I ask, curious.

“Sadly, I think it did. As much as we hope it’s not true, we are judged so much by how we look.”

We move towards the next vendor who has a lot of vintage toys. I pick up a random Mickey Mouse faded plush so that I don’t seem like I’m too fixated on what she’s saying.

“Right around then I met Arnauld. From the moment I met him he made me feel like I was cool and part of the in-crowd. He’d take me out to hot clubs and the edgy, word of mouth bars and restaurants. Suddenly I was meeting a lot of people and had something exciting to do all the time. It was like I had walked into someone else’s life, and I just went for it. He would even take me shopping and buy me clothes. And then when he started to help me professionally my career really took off.”

She picks up a vintage Barbie in a little black and white swimsuit. “We had so much fun in the early days. It was crazy-fun for a long time.”

Crazy fun? I’m sure I’ll never make Brooke feel that way, and I’m actually not sure I would want to anyway.

“Is it still really great like that?” I look up at her hopeful that she’ll say no. I’m searching for a sign that her passion for him has truly faded.

When she sets the Barbie back down her tiny shoe falls off. Brooke carefully picks it up and wiggles it back on her permanently pointed foot.

“You know what I’ve learned Nathan? All those people living the glamorous, hip life are really not that interesting even though they think they are.”

“Really?” I ask. “You wouldn’t rather be out with them right now than at Rose Bowl with me?”

She laughs and loops her arm through mine pulling me along. “Oh Nathan, you’re soooo much more interesting than those people. I would choose this over sitting in a chic café listening to gossip any day.”

My hope flares brightly. It occurs to me that there could be no better time to give her my gift. “Hey, I got something for you.” I step away and present the bag to her. “Go on, look inside.”

She puts her hands on her hips and tilts her head. “What did you do?” she asks in a playful admonishing tone. She reaches for the bag and peers inside. She looks back up at me with big doe eyes.

“Natha

I smile. “I could never be too good to you.”

She steps close and wraps her arms around me and presses her cheek against my chest. “Thank you, you’re the best.”

I wrap my arms around her too and note that I’m no longer awkward and stiff when I hug her like this. It just feels right.