about something she could do to solve it. And so she sat down in front of the sewing machine, googling things as she went along, making a wardrobe fit for a puppet.
“You know,” Eleanor said after Teddy explained what she was doing, “it isn’t your job to fix this for him.”
“I know,” Teddy said, frowning as the machine jammed. “Come on, Scott.”
“Kirsten and I love Everett, and he’s not Richard. He’s, like, the anti-Richard. Richard was cold and boring and pretentious and—”
“Okay, I get it. Everyone in my life hated Richard,” Teddy said with a small laugh. “I promise, you don’t have to remind me anymore.”
“All I’m saying is, Everett didn’t ask you to do this. He’s not expecting you to drop everything to solve his problems.”
Teddy opened the top of the machine, moved the thread around a bit, and shut the top again. “I know that,” she said as the machine started. “But . . . I’m actually enjoying this. Is that weird?”
Eleanor smiled. “No! It’s great. You deserve to do something fun. Just . . . make sure it’s really for you, okay?”
“It is!” Teddy said a bit defensively, and Eleanor left it there. But hours later, when Teddy was standing in front of Everett’s door with a puppet-sized dress in her hands, she started to wonder if Eleanor was right. Was she doing it again? Was she melding her life to someone else’s, letting someone else’s passion take over her own?
But then Everett opened the door, and seeing his confused face break into a smile forced all other thoughts from her head.
“Oh, man, am I glad to see you,” he said as she stepped inside. “You want something to drink?”
She shook her head as she sat down on the couch. “So . . . I brought something. It’s for the puppet.”
Everett’s eyebrows rose as he sat down beside her.
“I hope it’s not overstepping any boundaries, and if you don’t like it, I won’t be offended. It’s just something I put together. . . .”
“Let me see it,” Everett said.
Teddy pulled the dress out of the bag. “It’s a puppet dress. When you were telling me she didn’t have a personality, I started thinking about how I felt so much more like I had a personality when I started wearing what I wanted. So maybe you can kind of . . . build her personality from the outside in.”
Everett held the dress in his hands, not saying anything.
“It’s okay that you don’t like it,” Teddy said in a rush. “It was a silly idea, anyway. I don’t know anything about puppets or making one, and I don’t know why I—”
“Teddy,” Everett said, looking up at her, “this is amazing.”
Teddy paused. “It is?”
“Hold on.” Everett got up, went into his room, and came back holding the puppet. He pulled the dress on it and held it up. “Look at this! Look at how perfect she looks! Her name is Bernadette, right? She’s definitely a Bernadette.”
Teddy slumped with relief. “So . . . you like it?”
“I love it,” Everett said, leaning over and kissing her hard. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“Well, I learned to sew in class, and it’s been one of the things I really enjoy doing. . . .”
“Wait.” Everett looked at her. “Maybe this is it.”
“What do you mean, ‘it’?”
“Maybe this is your thing. Your passion.”
“Making dresses for puppets?” Teddy asked.
“No.” Everett smiled. “Design. You should work on the show! You could work on puppet design, set design . . . I mean, clearly this was such a good idea . . .”
He kept talking, but Teddy tuned out. Working with Everett? Being his employee?
“No,” she said suddenly.
Everett stopped in the middle of a sentence, his mouth open.
“I don’t want to work for you,” she said.
“It’s not really for me,” Everett explained. “I know my name is in the title, but we all work together. It’d be more like working for the show. . . .”
“No, Everett,” Teddy said again, more firmly, “I don’t want to do what you’re doing.”
Everett’s brows crinkled. “Why not?”
“Because I . . . I need my own thing!” Teddy said, exasperated. “I spent years being steamrolled by my boyfriend’s passion. Everything I did was in service of Richard and his big important job as a doctor. I didn’t do anything for me or find anything out about myself and I don’t want to do that again. The entire point of Teddy Time was to figure out who I am, not leap