Timewarp: Acoustic Rooster (Sean)

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

The sun had been up for about half an hour. Outside of the Neville-Bernstein home, sparrow chattered softly. Dew lay in the blue shadows underneath the shrubs, newly lush with leaves, as the sky turned from gold to pale blue. It promised to be a breathtaking day in May.

Thunk.

Nory groped for another stone. The movies made it look so easy. She wound up again and flung the rock with all her might. But her aim was off, and the stone hit six feet to the left of the second-story bedroom window before cluttering back to earth. Nory sighed as she selected another projectile from the front garden.

Thankfully for the paint on the side of the house, she got lucky. The next pebble struck the windowpane with a satisfying tink, and Nory breathed a hiss of victory. Then she snatched up her guitar and bounded out to the center of the yard. She wore the same face paint and bright red bellhop costume that she had for Mr. Batista's telegram a few months ago, though she had swapped out the sombrero for a peaked hat. She owned a gorilla and Rainbow Dash costume as well, but the bellhop attire afforded the most mobility.

She made sure she was clearly visible from the window and readied her fingers on the first cord. The moment of dawning comprehension was her favorite part.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

At the best of times, Sean slept lightly and woke easily. That trait allowed him to respond quickly to emergencies, while simultaneously ensuring that he remained on schedule. Unless sick, he never worried about sleeping through his alarm and missing work or another engagement.

At the worst of times, Sean slept poorly, if his chronic insomnia allowed him to fall asleep at all.

As a result, he took poorly to waking in the middle of the night due to interruptions, even if he sprang up quickly.

Particularly when he sprang up quickly. Waking was easy; falling back asleep was more difficult.

The tink at his glass woke up, and the telepath rolled over. Josh was still asleep, and he hoped that his partner would remain asleep. A glance at his bedside clock told him it was just 6:00a.m. Too early for a Sunday morning, when he had not set an alarm and had hoped so sleep for another couple of hours.

Pulling on his bathrobe over his pajamas, he crossed to the window. The flood lights on the lawn activated by Nora Marie’s presence, and coupled with the backdrop of the rising sun, he caught a clear view of her. There she was, dressed in her over-the-top bellhop costume and carrying a guitar. The

Absolutely not.

Quick as a flash, he pulled on his slippers to dampen his footsteps on the stairs. Then he left the bedroom, gingerly closing the door behind him to provide additional noise barrier for his partner, and he started down the stairs.

Were he thirty years younger, he would have taken them two at a time. Too old for that, he simply walked as quickly as he could, one at a time, while holding onto the bar for balance.

Reaching the bottom, he walked to the back of his house, to the porch where he could meet call out to her in the middle of the lawn.

Sliding open the glass door, he called out to her in a stage whisper, “What are you doing?”

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

His stage whisper was met with a bright C chord. Nory stood beaming in the rising sun and began, "Today is a birthday, I wonder for whom? It must be for somebody right in this room!"

Silence had never been among Nory's many virtues. Her voice, while not unpleasant, startled a cloud of sparrows from a nearby tree. "So look all around you for somebody who, is smiling and happy, my goodness, it's you!" This was the point in her song when she normally stopped in front of the cubicle/desk/car of the birthday person, and she punctuated it with a flourish on her guitar.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean shook his head and, after tightening the belt of his robe, stepped outside onto the grass towards Nora Marie in her absurd costume. He didn’t need to hear the rest of this song to know that she was mistaken. It wasn’t his birthday. It was the wrong month for his birthday. Nobody in his close social circle would hire this for him in the first place, and they were the only ones who knew his birthday. Nobody else knew, and he tried to keep it that way.

Moreover, he didn’t want to hear the rest of this song, as it was too early in the morning, and it wasn’t his birthday, and, even if it was his birthday, he didn’t like calling attention to it.

“That’s quite enough, thank you.” He informed her as he continued to approach, crossing the distance between them so that they could speak without singing or shouting towards each other. All he wanted to do was to stop her before she finished the song, or before she launched into a dance or whatever it was that followed a birthday telegram.

Having been born in the middle of the 20th Century, he had no experience with telegrams, jokes about his age notwithstanding.

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

“Happy Birthday, Doct—huh?” She hesitated. Dr. Neville was briskly closing the distance between them, wearing exactly the kind of robe she would have pictured for him and pinstripe pajama bottoms. Her clients had a whole range of reactions to birthday telegrams, and usually only obvious discomfort could shut down her momentum once she got going. A car door opened somewhere on the quiet street, and it occurred to her that he was probably trying to be considerate to the neighbors.

Her smile, which had deflated slightly, brightened again and she continued, albeit much more quietly and with only small plinks on the guitar, “--Doctor Neville, May good luck follow you! Happy Birthday Doctor Neville, Happy Birthday to you!” Rather than a final chord, she punctuated the last “you” with two handfuls of confetti, summoned from nowhere, that now sprinkled gently down around the psychiatrist like a pink and orange cloudburst. And Nory remained, beaming, on the lawn.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

At least she had lowered her voice. While not as good as if she had simply stopped when he had first indicated that she would, he didn’t have to worry about her waking his partner. Josh slept more deeply than he did, which was the saving grace in all of this. While he didn’t want to bother his neighbors either, they were not his primary focus of concern. After all, several of them kept him awake at night, even if that was residual from the telepathy rather than intentional band practice or throwing dishes.

Not that this display was his doing, deliberately or otherwise.

“It isn’t-” Before he could complete his correction, she finished her last refrain, and suddenly there were bursts of confetti. Confetti that rained down on his lawn (which he would have to clean up later), on his shoulders and the rest of his bathrobe, and on his head. Several pieces landed in his hair, and one landed on his forehead. Dejectedly, he sighed, and then blew upward to dislodge the piece that had landed in that spot just within his upper peripheral vision.

That moved it up into his hair with the other pieces.

When she had stopped, he tried again. “It isn’t my birthday.”

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

If Nory had not been grinning already, the sight of Dr. Neville in a confetti-bedazzled bathrobe would have certainly put one on her face. She was delighted. Halfway to pulling the card out of her back pocket and starting on the prepared speech that accompanied it, Dr. Neville finally managed to make her pause. "What?" Her face creased with confusion. "It's not? Ms. Riv--I mean, the person who hired me was sure--" She finished removing the card. "Is it close?" Another grin flickered through the confusion. It was a great look for him anyway.

Besides, she grew up in Portland. The confetti was biodegradable.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Kateri...

Sean should have known. Only a handful of people in his social circle even knew when his birthday was, and not a single one of them would dare pull something like this with him. Both Josh and Greg knew he grew despondent around his birthday and would find this cruel rather than amusing. As irreverent as his nephew could be, this was hardly his style, and, again, much like Josh and Greg, Ryan actually knew when Sean’s birthday was. He had no reason to take a shot in the dark.

Kateri Rivera, on the other hand, like most of his social circle, had no idea when his birthday was, since he didn’t celebrate it. He kept it that way specifically to avoid situations like this, or to avoid surprise parties like the one from when he had turned fifty. This was right up her alley: guessing when his birthday might be by improper process of elimination and then trying to make a big deal of it while not letting anyone else know about it.

The psychiatrist shook his head, which caused more of the confetti to scatter to the grass around him (and into his bathrobe). “No.”

Not remotely close.

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

This information put a dent in Nory's enthusiasm. She lowered the extended card. "Oh."

Then again, she had done singing telegrams for occasions other than birthdays. "Well, um, is there anything else?" She had produced a pen from whatever extra-dimensional pocket the confetti had come from and crossed out Happy Birthday at the top of the card. "Maybe an anniversary, or the start of the sailing season, or Celiac awareness month or something?" She looked hopefully up at Dr. Neville, pen poised just above the scribbled out Happy Birthday.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

While Sean typically didn’t like to dampen other people’s enthusiasm – his reputation among the Hammel student body notwithstanding – he wasn’t in the mood for cheering. It was far too early in the morning - and despite being a morning person, he categorized this as too early or not quite morning - and he hadn’t slept well the night before. By any rational metric, he should be in bed, as should Nora Marie.

Instead, here they were, staring at each other on his lawn, while confetti continued to drop slowly from his hair onto his robe and from there onto the grass.

The psychiatrist shook his head, again repeating, “No.” There were no other major occasions now or in the near future. His and Josh’s anniversary was two months away. Hammel wouldn’t have its graduation ceremony for another month - although, given some of the students who were graduating, the psychiatrist did intend to throw a barbecue for the staff members to celebrate. Sailing season had started the month before. There were no major holidays on the horizon.

There were no minor holidays on the horizon. Kateri had made a shot in the dark, and she’d missed.

“There aren’t, but you can thank Ms. Rivera for the sentiment all the same.”

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

Nory's brow frowned in thought. "Oh, okay. Um...well, we'll just..." She wrote in May 7th above the 'Birthday' that she had scribbled out in Happy Birthday. There was a short note underneath that, sometime to the effect of Thanks for being great Dr. Neville!!! This remained untouched, and she flipped the card closed, pushed it back into the envelope, and presented it to the psychiatrist. "Well here you go, anyway," she said cheerfully. "When is your birthday, by the way?"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Happy May 7th.

On some level, perhaps Sean could find some amusement in the fact that he was outside in his pajamas and bathrobe, covered in confetti, in an effort not to wake up his partner or his neighbors with the song or the absurdity of it all.

However, that hypothetical level was not the psychiatrist’s baseline level. Instead, he was tired, and he had already resolved to call Kateri later today – when it had reached a socially acceptable hour to reach out to a person absent an emergency – to ask where she had gotten the idea that today was his birthday.

He didn’t fault Nora Marie for this, despite the fact that she had woken him. After all, this was her job, and she had been hired with incorrect information. She was an innocent bystander in all of this, which meant that Sean probably should tip her. He wasn’t entirely sure, as he’d never received a singing telegram before. Primarily because he didn’t live in the 1920s.

Sean then shook his head in response to her question. “That doesn’t matter,” he replied. While his voice held no edge to it, his phrasing implied that he wanted to end the topic here. He didn’t share his birthday for a reason: to avoid displays like this, and he would prefer to experience the inconvenience on any day but his birthday, if given the option.

[Nora Marie "Nory" Gwinn]

'Innocent bystander' was probably not completely accurate for describing Nory's role in the scheme. 'Incompletely informed but enthusiastic agent' was probably more accurate. The time of day and confetti had been all her idea, for example. She didn't know a way to surprise a telepath besides waking them up, and a birthday telegram was only as good as the surprise. She still hadn't quite grasped the idea that there were some people in the world who didn't like surprises.

"All right then," she replied happily. She doffed her peaked cap and executed a neat bow. "Well, have a wonderful May 7th, Dr. Neville! And many more!"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean considered himself well-centered, friendly, and optimistic. However, he couldn’t imagine being so enthusiastic in this situation, primarily because he had to clean up the confetti on his lawn, and he was the one who had been woken from a deep sleep in order to deal with a birthday telegram on a day nowhere near his actual birthday – not that he wanted a birthday telegram on his birthday in the first place.

When he couldn’t find cheeriness, he settled for politeness. He didn’t force a smile, but he inclined his head to acknowledge her bow and substitute for a parting wave. “You have a good day too, Nora Marie.” His tone remained pleasant rather than turning curt. “And if you speak to your benefactor, please tell her not to try this again.”

The psychiatrist would handle that himself as well; Kateri would get a telephone call later today – at a reasonable hour because he had no intention of waking her – to discuss her little surprise and how he wanted no part in it next year. Or later this year, should she decide that another random day must be his birthday for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom.

Only in Pilot Ridge.