Page 5 of Love Felt Like This

Two.

Three.

That’s too long.

Because we’re on live television, because it’s quiet on set to the point of someone in the audience awkwardly coughing, and because I’m a professional—I’m a professional; I’m a damn professional—I flex my hand and move Bernie’s beak. I attune my voice to Bernie’s iconic nasal pitch, and then I ask into my headset, “Who are you?”

Chapter Two

Another Door Opens

Griffin

A woman is sitting next to me at crotch level. I must be dreaming, because that same petite blonde definitely has her hand shoved up the ass end of Bernie Bird.

“Who are you?” Bernie says—no, she says.

I’ve had a lot of weird dreams the past two years while drifting in and out of consciousness with the TV on and my screaming daughter in my arms, unable to sleep through the night. One time, I dreamed I was onstage with my guitar, but it was Ava wailing into the mic. Another time, my bandmates took us out for drinks, except the shot glasses were small bottles of milk. But I’ve never dreamed about this woman.

Her long lashes catch on blond bangs, pressed down by the headset looped around her forehead. A dimple rests in the corner of her lips as they crook into a gentle smile.

“I didn’t—” I start to say to her, but the woman averts her eyes and refocuses her attention to a monitor on the floor. I follow her gaze to the screen. The monitor displays an exact visual of our awkward situation: my face glaring off-camera at the floor below and, beside me, Bernie Bird, staring my way with expectant raised eyebrows. My heart plummets.

“Ahem,” Bernie says. She says. I watch the woman’s lips move as her hand flexes and opens his beak, but a squawking voice asks into her head mic, “Mr. Harvey?”

I finally look up, trailing the length of her coverall sleeve until it disappears underneath the slack fabric coated in blue feathers. Where her hand should be, a bird stares at me with blank circular eyes.

“You seem distracted,” Bernie Bird continues with a slight squawk.

Cue audience laughter. I don’t join in. Nerves bubble up my chest, to my cheeks and the top of my head, boiling over and dripping heat down my spine like lava.

I’m not dreaming.

I grit my jaw. “I shouldn’t be here.”

I was distracted. I got a text from my nanny about Ava and walked a few steps too far, completely ignoring Jimmy’s hissed whispers of “Griffin!” before I landed smack-dab under this spotlight. I’ve made a lot of missteps as a sleep-deprived dad, but this takes the cake.

“Oh boy. Well, this is uncomfortable then,” Bernie says in the silence, tapping his fingers against his round stomach.

More laughter erupts from everyone but me.

“Right there with you, Bernie.”

He bounces in place, sending small dust motes from his feathers sparkling under the stage lights. “Wait, wait, Griffin Harvey knows Bernie Bird?” His feathery hand points to himself.

Christ.

Of course I know Bernie Bird. What person born in the ’90s doesn’t? I spent more afternoons with him and the Birds on the Block crew than I did with my own parents. Birds followed me into my adult life too. It was the only show that calmed Ava at night before it got unceremoniously ripped from streaming platforms six months ago. Seeing Bernie beyond the television’s glow in my dark living room almost feels like talking to a celebrity.

I glance again at the hands stuck inside him.

A very violated celebrity.

Poor guy.

We spent many long nights together, and here we are again. Both embarrassed. Both humiliated.

I look behind me, searching for someone—anyone—to drag me off this damn stage.