Television Romance

Have You Ever Seen a Giraffe?

The table read was a brilliant exercise in restraint for Vian, who spent most of the time wondering how exactly any of these sketches were going to be made with a total of twenty dollars. Some of the writers had leaned into it. Meredith, for example, had written a sketch While others, like Reese with her Animal Farm parody, had apparently written sketches and assumed the production would be figured out by Saturday. Bill's football sketch had a couple of potentially expensive props, but it flopped so hard at the table it didn't matter a minute.

Juliet wasn't quite as smart as Meredith, but she planned her sketch out a little bit. She had written it with Mia. It was not about Abraham, as she had threatened, but instead about a fourth-grade class where one of the students had been held back for three years in a row and was uncomfortably undergoing puberty amid a bunch of nine-year-olds. The actual set was just an older one that had been used for several classroom sketches. LTV had desks, chairs, everything except decorations fit for the fourth grade. When "Fourth Grade" had shown up on the setlist Tuesday night (alongside those of Meredith and Reese), she had tried to recruit a couple of interns to produce such decor. Much to her dismay, however, there were no interns available. They were all busy putting out fires for other people. Juliet had put it off for a while, convinced people would free up as the week went on, but before she knew it, it was Thursday night. So she stole some paper from the printer and some markers from the supply closet, which resembled something closer to a supply pile. With a rousing speech and expertly performed puppy-dog eyes, she soon had Vian, Jerry, and Bill drawing simple pictures to fill the back wall of her set.

"How well do fourth graders draw anyway?" Vian asked, not looking up from her classic park-with-a-sun-in-the-top-corner landscape. After making Bill double and triple-check that no mice were hiding in Four, she had finally deigned to enter. They were all sitting on the floor in a loose circle.

"I have no idea," Juliet said, "I haven't seen a kid draw in a long time." She was wearing a flowing yellow dress. Her socks were a matching yellow and had matching dandelions suspended on them in embroidery.

"Definitely better than that, though," she amended after glancing at Bill's paper.

"Hey! I'm trying my best."

"Have you ever actually seen a giraffe?"

"Shut it, would you? I'm helping you."

"Sorry, big shot. Are you too good for drawing now that you got that big movie?" Juliet teased. Bill rolled his eyes. They all knew Bill Culver was far from a household name. The public would forget all about him in a month or so.

"What about you? Weren't you writing for that Netflix show?" he countered.

"Yeah, but my name is in the credits for like a quarter second. With twelve other people. Oh, that's perfect, Jerry!"

"That's because I'm using my non-dominant hand." Jerry held up his cast-free hand for visual accompaniment and they laughed.

"Weren't you doing stand-up before you went to Vermont?" Bill asked.

"Yep," Jerry said, "Good old shady New York clubs. Like a little taste of hell."

"How was it?"

"Alright, I think. Someone offered me free cocaine after my set, which I chose to take as a compliment."

"As you should," Juliet laughed.

"You should have told me," Vian said, adding trees to her park, "I would've come to see you."

"I thought you were off in London," Jerry said.

"Yeah, but only for a month."

"You went to London?" Juliet and Bill asked at the same time.

"Richard went to college there. He loves it. He wants to move there someday."

"Closest I've gotten to London is Doctor Who," Jerry said. He opened a marker with just his good hand. The magenta cap went skidding across the floor and underneath Four's zucchini-soup-green couch.

"Can someone get that?" he asked, exasperated. His lack of mobility was not agreeing with him.

"Not it," Juliet said. Vian turned and smiled sweetly at Bill.

"Fine,"--he checked the clock--"but consider this my last act of charity for today. I have to get to rehearsal." With a long arm, he fished under the couch, grabbed the cap, and tossed it to Vian.

"See you guys later. I'll tell Mia the preparations are going great." The door swung closed behind him, but everyone was too lazy to stand up and reopen it. Vian rifled through the stack of finished drawings. Seven, eight, nine. That should be enough, she thought. But she grabbed another blank page. It was fun and she couldn't remember the last time she drew something on paper.

"Ow," Jerry winced. It was kind of cute watching Jerry get frustrated, for two reasons. One, he never got frustrated. Vian had once watched him sit as his computer shut down randomly and deleted an entire sketch he had just written. He hadn't flinched, just stared at the screen emotionlessly and pressed the "on" button. Second, Jerry getting mad was probably akin to one of the four-graders in Juliet and Mia's sketch getting mad. He just got grumpy and scowled a lot.

"Does your arm hurt?" Vian asked.

"No, it's my other hand. It's cramping. I'm just trying to finish this unicorn," he grumbled. Vian bit her lip. She scooted close enough to look over his shoulder.

"Here, I can do it. Just tell me what to do," she said. Jerry pointed to the drawing and explained his artistic vision and Vian followed his orders, adding hair to the unicorn's mane and tail. There was a two-note knock at the door. Juliet frowned at Jerry. Who knocked at LTV?

"Come in," she called. A familiar face stepped inside.

"Rich!" Vian smiled. Richard surveyed the room. Two chairs and a couch but three people on the floor, all huddled around terrible drawings. His eyes lingered on Vian leaning into Jerry over a shaky pink unicorn.

"Hey. Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah, just let me grab my jacket out of Five." She stood, but then halted.

"Actually, Hugo's still doing his impression of a crazy person. It's not that cold. Let's just go. Bye, Juliet! Bye, Jerry!"

Jerry and Juliet waved politely to both their friend and her fiancé. Jerry waited until they were far out of earshot before he made his hushed remark.

"Can we bet on that?" Juliet shoved his good side.

"Shut up."