Page 64 of Love Felt Like This

She crosses her arms. “I’m assuming your music isn’t normally kids’ songs either?”

“Do you always ask this many questions?”

She laughs, then her expression shifts as she snaps her fingers. “Oh! I have something for you.” Beverly reaches over to her haphazard stack and hands me the plate covered in tinfoil. “Morning pancakes, courtesy of my mom. They’re at the diner now, but she whipped these up before they left.”

I take them, lifting the tinfoil. The insulation has kept the pancakes warm and smelling like fresh syrup. Like a bloodhound, Ava sniffs the air.

“Want some pancakes, munchkin?” I call over.

“Cakes!” she says, wobbling to a stand. Ava stumbles over, her arms waving wildly in excitement. She’s acting like she didn’t get scarcely more than an hour of sleep. I set the plate down on the floor and rip the pancakes into tinier pieces. She plops down and starts to eat right away.

“Tell your parents thank you.”

“Of course.” Beverly then licks her lips before saying, “So…I actually came over to talk shop, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

She falls onto the couch, grabs her laptop, and pops it open. Her fingers with their chipped polish—now green—clack over the keys, almost as if she were mid-thought in the document before walking over. Her knees bounce. She takes a sip from her steaming coffee and sets it down.

“I have a script written,” she announces.

“That’s great.” It comes out unenthusiastic. I’m doing a terrible job here.

“It’s a bit iffy, but I think it’s ready to go for music, if you are.”

“Go!” Ava calls over.

Beverly smiles. “That’s right, A. Go.”

But suddenly I’m distracted by how precious Beverly’s wrist looks holding the coffee-mug handle when she picks it up again. The small protruding bone leading to delicate tendons over the back of her hand. A simple ring over her middle finger. A small array of barely there freckles.

On the side table is a spiral notebook, already folded back to a busy page. The paper is a mess of notes in various colors, sketched on with colored pencils and highlighters. In one section is a small set of paragraphs. Fragments of one-liner jokes. And throughout the margins are little sketches of bird puppets. It feels like peeking into a different, more colorful world. Nothing like my own.

“What’s all this?” I ask.

She shrugs, but it feels like she’s feigning nonchalance. Her quick answer says she’s very chalant. “Just brainstorming episode two.” Beverly takes another sip from her mug. “I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it yet. I need to play with it more.”

Her laptop screen displays a formatted script. There are what seem to be millions of tabs open on her browser. I would love to pick through her mind.

“Want me to read it?” I offer.

Her fingers freeze over the keyboard. “Oh, no…it’s…well, it’s not ready to be seen yet. Still kinda needs work.”

“Maybe a second set of eyes would help?”

“No, it’s silly.”

“Probably,” I say on a tired laugh. Her face falls.

My damn mouth.

“I meant…it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” I clarify.

“Yeah. It is.” But her smile is forced.

Shit shit shit.

“I didn’t mean that.”