by Carol Rose
“Auditioning bunnies?” Staring at him, his friend frowned. “Do the rabbits have to have a special talent? I thought they all just sat there, wiggling their noses. Not much to audition.”
Chuckling, Drake swallowed before saying, “Don’t be an idiot. She’s auditioning guys to play the Easter Bunny, not auditioning actual rabbits.”
“You don’t know how relieved I am to hear that. I’m used to being out of some loops, but I thought I knew how rabbits worked.”
“Yeah, I thought you knew, too.” Drake teased.
“Hey,” Aaron nudged his friend. “There’s a women at the bar with red hair who’s checking you out.”
Drake glanced over. “Oh, yeah. That’s Preslee. We’ve hooked up a couple of times.”
Aaron’s glass hit the table. “Really. You never mentioned it. She’s hot!”
Shrugging again, Drake took a sip from his drink.
“You’re dating her?”
Drake glanced at the woman, raising his hand in response to her salute. “No.
Preslee isn’t looking for anything regular—not that I’d be interested in that with her, either. But she’s an okay every-now-and-then, between girlfriends thing.”
“Good grief.” Aaron yanked at his tie, still looking at the redhead. “I need to go home and see Emma.”
Drake looked at him with amusement. “Why?”
His friend took a gulp from his glass. “Suddenly had a thought. She had a waxing appointment this morning. Maybe she’s trying to tell me something.”
* * *
Later that day Molly walked down the line of people auditioning for the job of cartoon character, trying not to laugh—which was crazy because she needed an Easter Bunny for the picnic. Of the twelve guys that had showed up today, maybe only two or three were even possible.
“So, I have all your resumes.” She deliberately smiled at the bunnies lined up in front of her. She remembered all too well how nervous job interviews made the interviewee.
But some of the bunnies in front of her just made her giggle—and not in a good bunny way.
The first guy in the line wore a cheap suit with an open face. There were bright pink circles painted on the guy’s cheeks and he wore a headpiece with ears that flopped instead of standing up. In addition, the bunny suit was dirty and bunched around his ample midsection.
Bunnies were cuddly and pudgy, rather than skinny, so his weight wasn’t a problem, but he didn’t look cuddly.
The next bunny looked like Bruce Willis on a bad day. He also had an open-face head piece and he was chewing on an unlit cigar.
“Umm.” Molly’s smile tightened. “I need a cartoon character for children’s events. These would be non-smoking.”
“Sure,” the bunny shifted his dampened cigar to the other side of his mouth. “But this is just an audition, right?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s right.” Molly turned to look at the others in the row.
One looked like he was fourteen. Another wore a headpiece with a face that wore a grin like a leer. She moved her gaze along.
“Ahhh. Like I said, this is for children’s events.” She really didn’t know what to say to this guy.
Dressed in a rabbit suit with fangs and terrifying claws, he didn’t fit the role at all.
“I thought the agency said you were looking for a rabbit, like, in a haunted house.”
She shook her head slowly, not able to imagine why a haunted house would want a rabbit of any sort. “Noooo. This is for an Easter Rabbit. I don’t think many haunted houses are bunny-shopping, particularly in March.”
The guy shrugged. “Oh. Well, okay. I guess I’ll go.”
He turned, leaving the line.
Molly looked at the next bunny-suited possibility, not impressed that the ears didn’t match the suit. Moving on down the line, she stopped.
There in front of her was a man in a Playboy Bunny-suit drag.
Seriously. Full on snug, shapely bodice, satin ears, dark hose and high heels.
How could she have missed seeing this when she first walked in?
She just stood in front of him now, staring.
“I know. I know,” he said. “Kid’s events. Some people have no imagination.”
“I think I need to clarify a few things with the agency,” she mumbled watching the guy’s fluffy tail as he walked to the door, following the fanged bunny out.
The next bunny in the line was more encouraging, carrying a stuffed carrot in his hand. His ears stood upright and he also had an open-face costume, with whiskers painted on his face.
Stopping in front of him, she shuffled through the papers in her hand, looking down at his resume. “So, you worked as a cartoon character—various super heroes—for several summers at the theme park?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled broadly. “I was Superman and one summer I played Batman. I can do all the characters, except Tweety Bird. I’m a little too tall for that.”
Smiling as he laughed heartily, Molly made a mark on his resume.
The next bunny also looked good. “So you worked with Cheryl Summers for two years now?”
“Yes, I did, but my availability is considerably less now that I’m raising my grandson.”
“Okay.” She made a notation on his paperwork. “Kudos on that, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
* * *
“Now where did I put that?” Mike Tanner, Drake’s boss, sifted through the messy pile on his desk a week later, the florescent light reflecting off his bald head.
Sitting across from the older man, Drake waited, knowing that the hunt could take a while. Mike had his own form of organization that looked like chaos, but it worked for the older man.
Drake didn’t say anything, just waiting for whatever his boss wanted to show him. When he’d started the blog, he’d been surprised to realize that rather than a hard-hitting television executive, his boss was more like a guy wandering the aisles of Home Depot in an orange apron.
“I thought I laid it right here,” the older man said in frustration, growing more agitated as he shuffled through papers. “Aha!! Here it is.”
He held up a slightly grubby sheet, peering over the top of his reading glasses at it before tilting his head back to look through the lenses. “Yes, this is it.”
Mike beamed over his glasses at Drake. The paper looked like it had resided on the grimy floorboard of a work pickup, despite the fact that his boss drove a moderately tidy Camry.
Years before, Mike had worked with his tools as a contractor and Drake had learned through their various interactions that his hapless-appearing boss was quite a skilled and intelligent man. He just didn’t look it.
Mike placed the paper on top of the pile with apparent pride. “This is a very exciting opportunity for you and for us.”
“Okay.” He’d learned that the older man would have his say in time.
Reading over the paper again, Mike looked up and beamed at Drake.
Despite his conflicts with the work, Drake was always glad to hear if the blog was picked up by another site. “So tell me about the opportunity, sir.”
“Oh! Oh, I haven’t told you. Well, son. You’re going to be on television.” Mike beamed at him.
“What do you mean? I’m going to be on tv?”
Mike picked up the paper again. “This is an invitation for you to shoot a segment for House Today for the Home Improvement network! And they’re doing this test right here in Austin! You know the Bloggies are always announced here at the SBSW Festival, right?”
“What?” Drake sat up in his chair. “What did you say?”
Mike frowned in confusion. “The Bloggies? You know they always have a big event at the Austin South By Southwest festival.”
“Yes.” Waving a dismissive hand, Drake said, “What did you say about my doing a television segment?”
“The Home Improvement people have requested you give them several segment ideas for their House Today show—you know, topics their
viewers might be interested in—and they’ll pick one that they’d like you to do. You know, my boy, this could lead to big things for you…us, too, if you get to be a big name. This could work into being a regular segment. Heck, you might even be offered your own show….”
The older man rambled on happily, talking of possibilities Drake couldn’t even imagine.
He held still in his chair, wondering how he needed to go about getting out of this damned mess. He wasn’t qualified to write the blog, much less appear on a home improvement show. What the hell was he supposed to do? Wild thoughts occurred to him. If he did the show, he’d surely be exposed and shamed. He couldn’t imagine it. The possibility was too ugly.
What the crap had he been thinking? He couldn’t do this! He should never have taken on the damned blog. Damn, Molly and her pushing. He was a writer, for heaven’s sake. He liked news stories and hard-hitting journalism, not this home improvement fluff.
His face felt tight and all Drake could think about was Molly. She knew this stuff. She’d help him. She had to help him. No sooner had the thought echoes in his head than he slammed the brakes on it.
Molly had said she wouldn’t keep helping with the blog. No way she’d help him with a TV show.
What the hell was he going to do now?
* * *
Molly opened her front door, the banging having brought her in a hurry.
Drake stood there in the fine misty afternoon, looking haggard in a white dress shirt that was open at the collar. His dark navy dress pants and loafers made him look like the journalist he was. He leaned on her doorway, a tall and well-built man. In that moment, Molly felt the impact of his dark blue eyes and had a crazy, almost overpowering urge to throw herself at him, to kiss his warm mouth and unbutton all those silly buttons.
She knew she couldn’t, of course, but she wanted to, really badly.
“Hi,” she offered. They’d been friends for years and she knew she wanted him in her life, somehow, even if love was off the table. That ship had apparently sailed a long time ago.
“Molly,” he said, his gaze not leaving her face. “I need your help. Really, really, need your help.”
“Come on in.” She stepped back. “What’s going on?”
He seemed more serious than the blog situation called for.
Drake walked over and sat down on her couch. She’d seen him there, in her living room a million times, but something shifted between them when she’d told him she wouldn’t keep doing the blog stuff.
He hadn’t been over to her house since.
“You’ll never believe what Mike Tanner threw at me today.” Drake looked down at his hands. “Totally out of the blue.”
“What?”
He just looked at her a moment, apparently gathering himself. “They want me to film a segment for the Home Improvement Network. You know that show ‘House Today’? I’ve been asked to audition to do short spots on it. I’m supposed to shoot them three home improvement ideas that could be demonstrated in five minutes. They’ll choose which one they want me to do. Tanner’s thrilled. I tried to get out of it. To tell him I don’t televise well, that my ‘home improvement’ process isn’t quick like they always want it to be.”
“I’ll bet he didn’t believe you wouldn’t televise well, did he? You’re fairly good looking, you know.” Molly couldn’t help pointing it out.
Drake stopped to stare at her. “What are you talking about?”
She waved a hand. “All those guys on the home improvement shows are hot. Well, except that bulldog guy who goes to people’s houses and announces everything the contractor did wrong. Haven’t you noticed how good looking the rest of those guys are?”
“Umm. No, not really.”
“Well, they are and,” she raised her eyebrows at him, “news flash: You’re a hot guy yourself.”
“Thanks, I think.” He didn’t look thrilled about the compliment.
“You’re welcome.”
“Anyway, the network sent Mike a letter, saying they want me to submit three different ideas of segments I could do.” He looked over at her. “I can’t do any segments. I don’t know this crap. I’m not a home improvement guy! Or a TV guy for that matter.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re smart and very articulate.” She sat down at the other end of the couch, knowing that part of his freaking out was because Drake didn’t tolerate not doing well at anything. He wasn’t easily vulnerable. Giving him a level glance, she said,“You can do this.”
“Really?” he said in sarcastic disbelief. “And you know this how? Since I’ve never done any of this stuff and don’t even know what a crescent wrench is?”
She sat a little straighter, smiling at him. “Because I believe in you, that’s how I know. And you do know what a crescent wrench is now that we fixed your toilet.”
“You fixed my toilet,” he returned a little sulkily. “I just handed you tools and sprayed water all over both of us.”
“Could you pick a crescent wrench out of a pile, if you had to?”
Drake glanced at her before admitting, “Probably. If I had to.”
“And you know now not to pull the toilet fill line out of the overflow tube. I’d also bet you know how to turn off the water behind a toilet.”
“Yes,” he admitted finally. “I did learn those things from our toilet debacle the other day, but you can’t really make a television segment out of that.”
“Maybe not—although I’ll bet most of the people who watch that show have never done any home projects—but it’s a start and you have to start somewhere. You won’t look stupid,” Molly nudged his thigh with her foot, grinning. “Just think if I had to write a thesis for a class or an article for the paper.”
“God help us.”
“I’m sure He is helping,” she said, flapping her hand dismissively. “Now, what segments are you thinking of submitting to House Today.”
“I’m not,” he said in a flat voice. “I’m thinking of running for the border—of course, I could write a really great piece on it before I lit out.”
“Silly.” Molly resisted the urge to run her foot against his thigh again. “What about taking some ideas from the blogs we’ve done before?”
“You might not realize this,” he told her, “but I haven’t really absorbed much knowledge from smoothing your text.”
She looked at him consideringly, “I bet you’ve learned more than you realize.”
“You’d be wrong.”
“Well, let’s brain storm.”
He leaned forward, grabbing her hand, his dark blue gaze on her face. “You’re going to help me with this?”
Ignoring the sudden racing of her heart and the heat from his touch, she shot him another grin. “Just think of this as giving you the right incentive to learn.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not going to give you this. You’re going to have to do it yourself, but with my help—at least for this.”
He dropped her hand. “Why do I feel scared?”
Molly vaulted off the couch. “Don’t be silly. This is going to be great. We just need to practice some ideas for you to write up. You know, do a few things to help you feel more confident.”
Tapping her chin, she stared into space. “I’m seeing some more costume character guys in the morning, but we could do something tomorrow afternoon.”
“Haven’t you found someone to play Tweety Bird or Superman or whatever? Couldn’t he be the Easter Bunny, too?”
“Maybe.” She walked back and forth behind the couch, working off the nervousness that always attacked her when she remembered the Easter picnic. “I just need to make sure I look at all my choices and get the right guy. You’d be surprised how lame most of these character people are and lots of them have other jobs, too, so they can’t be available for the picnic, even if I did want them. Crazy.”
“Actually, I’m not surprised that some of them are lame. But do they audition for a job they can’t do?�
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“Some of them. I’ve already seen one guy who’s a cop, another who does some sort of call center work and a stay-at-home mother who wants to make sure any jobs won’t conflict with her coaching her kids’ soccer team. Most have regular nine-to-five jobs and try to get ‘acting’ jobs, on the side.”
“Okay, so what do we do tomorrow afternoon?”
“I think we should do some jobs that are pretty simple. After all, they can’t expect you to build a house in a five-minute segment.”
“One would hope not.” He sounded gloomy.
A sudden idea hit. “I know, let’s refinish the floor in my bedroom! That’s a longer job, but you could put the steps in fairly quickly.”
“That doesn’t sound simple,” Drake protested.
“Yes, it is. We can do it in an afternoon. Make sure and bring a notepad to write the steps down.”
“Yeah, then I can high-tail it to the border,” he said fatalistically. “Thankfully it’s not too far from here.”
* * * * * * * * *
CHAPTER THREE
“Maybe I should suggest House Today let me do a segment on moving furniture.” Drake flexed one arm while using the other to carry his end of the dresser.
“Stop being a show off.” From the other end of the dresser, Molly made a face. “Here. Just set it down and we’ll leave everything in the living room while we do the bedroom floors.”
“The floor looked okay to me,” he commented as he followed her back in her room.
Today, she’d abandoned the shorts for a pair of jeans that had been washed almost white and fit her in loving detail. Drake trailed behind her, noticing again what a cute butt she had.
“It is okay. I just want to darken up the finish.”
She looked at the bare room, a considering expression on her face.
“This floor is fine. The bleached wood still looks great. You do know that you suffer from a designer’s disease of changing the inside of your house just to change it.”
“You should be glad there are people like me.” She told him. “It keeps the blog in business to have lots of home projects. Besides, keeping everything the same for years bores the heck out of me.”