Page 1 of Love Felt Like This

Chapter One

The Professional Bird

Beverly

Sometimes I wish I’d been lucky enough to inherit a resting bitch face. Life would be easier if I were consistent. Instead, I wear every single emotion the moment it happens.

Every. Single. One.

Tell me surprising news, and my jaw drops to the floor. I attempt to cover my mouth afterward, but I can’t pull that shock back in. If you publicly tell a joke that doesn’t land, I—God, I’m so sorry—feel your pain with a cringe that everyone in the room can witness.

I’m so sorry.

“Are you all right?”

And if I’m tired and haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours, my face falls like melted butter. I gain about three discolored creases beneath my eyes that I wish said Thirty-two-year-old woman working overtime to achieve dreams, but it’s more like That poor woman has the flu. Bless her heart.

I wave to the concerned production assistant at the end of the hall, clearing my throat to call over, “I’m all right! Thanks, Tara!”

Tara smiles. I smile. We have a blast pretending I told the truth.

Finch’s voice chimes through the phone pressed to my ear, “I don’t know who you’re talking to, but I bet they don’t believe you.”

“They definitely don’t,” I respond, giving a tight grin as the production assistant trails off, clipboard held close.

“Are you all right?” Finch asks.

“Absolutely not.”

I am five minutes away from appearing on live television. The risky steps I took to get here feel like a slow, inevitable march into a career grave I dug for myself.

Step one: Fly to Los Angeles to live with my now ex-boyfriend and pursue puppetry, like my grandfather before me.

Step two: Deplete my savings account to purchase the intellectual property of a canceled children’s show.

And step three: Appear on this live variety show solo, as a last-ditch effort to find sponsorships for my revival, all before moving back to my hometown in two days, penniless and a loser. Nationwide television exposure could prevent the whole penniless part. Or not. Especially since I’m not supposed to be performing solo.

“Please tell me you’re close,” I plead over the phone.

Finch’s mournful sigh responds. “I’m still stuck in traffic.”

Traffic.

Traffic in Los Angeles.

Repeating it in my head doesn’t make it an easier pill to swallow. I know better than to leave late and risk traffic, and so does Finch. But he’s also seventy, and he moves a lot slower now than he has over the past fifty years of spearheading Flock Workshop.

I pull in an unsteady breath and let it out.

“Bev? You there?” Finch asks. My mentor’s gentle voice could just as easily be delivered by an all-knowing wizard with a pipe. My grandfather sounded the same way. “My hearing aid is whining. Oh wait, or is that just you?”

I choke out a laugh at his joke. “Just figuring out which floor of this building has windows that aren’t barred so I can fling myself out.”

“The fourth.”

“Thanks for the tip. You’re an awful influence.”

Calmly, sagely, totally ignoring my freak-out, Finch asks, “How is Bernie taking all this?”