well, Serafina, thank you for asking. How are you?”
“I’m super excited to show you what I have in mind for your office. You ready to get started?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.” He isn’t selling it at all.
I call out, “Charley, can you bring in the first set of items?” Charley drags in a large box before hurrying out of the room.
I open it up and say, “I’m going to need you to keep an open mind, Ben.” He looks like he’s about to throw up. “Go sit down and close your eyes.”
Once he’s situated, I turn to the camera and whisper, “Check this out.” Then I pull out a wall sticker of an opening into space. Stepping onto a chair, I hurry to unroll it and stick it to the ceiling in the corner of his office.
After several moments, Ben asks, “What exactly are you doing?”
“Open your eyes,” I tell him.
As soon as he does, he looks around and says, “It looks like the same old room. What did you do?”
I point at the ceiling and watch as he opens his mouth, closes it, tilts his head back, all before looking back at me.
“Do you like it?” I ask. “It’s designed to look like a hole in your ceiling that’s showcasing a distant galaxy.”
He nods his head once. “Not bad.”
“I was worried you’d think it was too ‘little boy’s room’ or something.”
“Every astrophysicist was once a young person dreaming of outer space. If I’d had wall art like this as a child, I’m not sure I would have ever wanted to leave my room.”
“Ben Williams, are you actually complimenting my design choice?”
“Just because I don’t buy your zodiac nonsense doesn’t mean I think you lack any talent whatsoever. Of course, this is only one thing. I haven’t seen everything you’ve brought.”
I look into the camera. “As far as compliments, he almost gave me one, didn’t he? Quick, someone mark this day on the calendar, so we have proof!” Then I turn back to Ben. “I’m delighted you like it, and I can’t wait until you see your brand new, fabulous workspace.”
Stuffing his hands in the front pockets of his trousers, he shrugs. “To be honest, you could stick my desk next to the garbage bins outside. As long as I have power for my computer, I’ll be productive.”
Rolling my eyes, I ask, “How can someone so intelligent be so wrong?”
“Are you talking about yourself? Because I’m not wrong. Work is work. You set your mind to whatever task is before you until you complete it. I don’t need trinkets or curtains or whatever else you’ve got in the boxes to make me a good astrophysicist.”
“Okay, Dr. Stubborn. Get out of here so I can transform this place.” Before he can protest, I add, “Shoo!”
“And cut,” the director says. The moment the words leave her mouth, Ben turns to me. “You want me to leave and give you free rein?”
“Thought you didn’t care…” I taunt.
Waltraut walks over to Ben and explains that the network decided he should leave me to it because it’ll make for better television if there’s a big reveal. “Also, it’ll give us time to interview you so that you can explain to our audience what you do in a really in-depth way.”
He glances back and forth between Waltraut and me, looking pretty rattled for someone who apparently could work between two stinky garbage bins. “Fine,” he says before surreptitiously creeping toward the door.
Once Ben is gone, Charley and I hurry to pull in all the boxes before releasing the blinds on the glass wall. Then we get busy transforming Dr. Ben’s inner domain.
Waltraut pops her head back in. “You have two hours, can you do it?”
“I thought we only had forty-five minutes?” That’s what Ben said anyway.
She shakes her head. “NASA approved Dr. Williams to tell us about some of the logistics of the Earth Two project. We probably won’t be able to air much of it, but we’re going to set him loose and let him talk about what he wants. I’ll text you when we’re about to come back.”
Then she’s gone; Charley and I get busy. The first thing we do is pull out all of the old furniture, then we assemble a replica of a mid-century modern boomerang desk in blond wood. The only thing we have to do is screw the legs on. Then we bring in a matching chair with a chartreuse seat cushion.
We don’t have time to paint