Glass Half Full

CHAPTER FIVE

"Now, I can handle the Matisse in the bathroom, but is, uh... is that a fax machine?"

Birdie chuckles. "Miles doesn't even have a phone."

Sensing a conversation about to happen, I set down my script onto the table and lean back. Miles starts rubbing my leg and I can't help but feel relaxed at the moment.

Blanc walks over to the chair next to Birdie with a magazine in his hand, still wearing his cute swimming outfit and yellow ascot.

"It's really convenient. I have one number, goes to all my fax machines all over the world. There's something about analog that's—"

"Oh! Look at this blast from my past." Birdie cuts off Miles and scoots into the other chair with Blanc. She grabs the magazine from his hands and looks at the cover with her face on it.

She turns it around for everyone to see and orders us to look at it.

"Miles, you're so funny, having this around."

At that moment, Whiskey comes over and sits down on the other side of Miles. He puts his other arm around her and she looks at him and smiles.

"May I ask, if it isn't too presumptuous of me, what first drew you all together? You're such an eclectic bunch." He chuckles and looks back at Birdie who is recreating the face she made on the cover.

"I think disrupters recognize each other."

"Yes." Birdie agrees, giving Blanc the magazine back and sitting in the other chair.

"Now you've used that word before, "disrupters." What does that mean?"

Birdie leans back and kicks her feet up onto the lap of Blanc, catching him off guard, and making him uncomfortably clutch the magazine to his chest.

"Well, some people think Birdie is disruptive every time she opens her mouth." Miles jokes. "I mean, just because she says what everyone's thinking, but no one's got the nerve to say.

"It's true. I say it like I see it." Birdie brushes the blonde hair out of her aged face as she gazes at Blanc.

"No. But seriously, you know about Sweetie Pants, right?" Miles questions.

"I'm going to embarrass myself here. I adore Sweetie Pants. I live in mine—" Blanc starts before Miles promptly cuts him off.

"You're sitting next to Birdie Jay. She was a fashion icon," Blanc looks back at Birdie and she shrugs, as if she can't stop Miles from complimenting her.

"And then the youngest editor ever of She She Magazine. Right? Establishment BS, on top of the world, but then..." He points to Birdie to say her side of the story.

"Well..." she sighs, " Then there was the whole thing with the Halloween costume. It was a tribute to Beyoncé, but people did not take it that way." Her eyes catch mine and I try to look away before she drags me into another one of her "race talks".

"Daph! Daphne, my little mini-me, tell him it wasn't like that. She thought it was fine, right?"

"Umm, um...well. I wasn't exactly there at the time. I was in New York during Halloween so—"

"So the poor girl got to hear all of the hate from the people in magazines and on Twitter before hearing my side of the story! Must've been horrible." She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. She starts petting it as if I was the one who got hate crimed.

"Anyway, I had a lot of time at home," She says as she sits back in the chair.

"Mm-hmm." Blanc nods his head after watching our interaction closely.