Television Romance

Old Dog Tricks

"I heard someone needed my drawing expertise."

"Sadie!"

"Juliet!" Sadie passed straight by Jerry and dove into the blonde's open arms. He just sighed.

Sadie Winkle was always dressed in primary colors and sensible shoes. She was rather plain-looking except for her long red hair, really red, and a big smile. It was a beautiful smile. Like the jewel tone of a ripe fruit disguising its poisonous taste. In this case, the poison was Sadie's mouth, which swore like a drunk sailor.

"You just missed Vian," Jerry said.

"I think I saw her in the hall. Asian girl with a white guy carrying a briefcase?"

"That's her."

"Fuck. I wanted to meet the new girl."

"She'll be back."

"Hey, Sades," Juliet said, "Guess who I am?" She stroked imaginary stubble and said in a deep voice, the same deep voice that was her impression of a guy, "Hey, I need you to cut four minutes from that sketch before dress."

"I don't sound like that."

"Jesus motherfuck!" Sadie almost jumped half a foot as Sam poked his head into Four.

"I'm gonna tie a bell to your hoodie strings, Samanda," Juliet said. What was the statistical chance that someone walked by just as she did their impression?

"Sorry, I'm subconsciously drawn to bad impressions." Juliet crossed her arms.

"My impressions are not bad. I just can't do the voices."

"The voice is ninety-nine percent of the impression."

"Oh, okay, if you know so much about impressions why don't you do it."

"What, an impression of myself?"

"No"—she rolled her eyes—"You have to do someone else. Do someone good."

"Fine."

Sam stood up straight, let his head lean from one side and then the other like he had to stretch for his big reveal. Then he settled into his impression. He smiled widely and transformed his voice into one eerily familiar.

"Hey guys, how's it going?" he asked cheerily.

"Eli," Juliet sighed.

Sam rolled his shoulders back and transmogrified again. He stuck his neck out slightly and pitched up to a nasal tone.

"Greg," she grumbled before he could get more than a couple of words out.

"Old dogs still have some tricks," Sam told her, "Hey, Sadie, good to see you."

"You too, Sam."

Before long the regular crowd filtered in, one by one. The first was Bill.

"Sadie!" he exclaimed and enveloped her into a big bear hug.

"You know, when he saw me on Monday he just pointed and laughed," Jerry announced to no one in particular.

"Aw, don't be jealous, honey. They just like me better because I'm cooler than you." Sadie whipped her red curls over one shoulder and grinned.

Sadie liked Bill a lot; she'd know him almost as long as she'd known Jerry because when the later pair had met two and a half years ago, Jerry had brought her to work in a cute but translucent attempt to impress her. Sadie caught up at lighting speed with Bill, bothering him about his love life (Nothing to report), asking if he had finally stopped plugging all his appliances into one outlet and shorting the whole floor (No, he had not, and he had no plans to).