Chapter 4

(Zachy)

When all you want is something more

“Uggg, oh my gosh it was sooooo hot out there today,” Patrick grumbled as he pulled the head of his Oswald the Owl costume off and gulped in a lungful of air.

“Those lemonade mimosas are gonna taste amazing when we get to Cabos,” Jillian said as she shook out her hair.

Zachy’s head was throbbing, his hair braided much too tight. He couldn’t wait to release it from the elastic and peel the rest of his fluffy weasel suit off.

“Dibs on the next shower!” Greg called as he maneuvered between Zachy and Emilio, the final member of the animal cast. He played the porcupine. The round suit with its various layers of quills were forever getting snagged on things, like the ridges between feathers on Oswald’s suit, leaving them locked together for the third time that afternoon.”

“Oh, come on! Can you please be more careful?” Greg griped as he tried to help Emilio untangle them only to make it worse. One of the production assistants batted their hands away, while two more jumped in to help. Zachy drank a whole bottle of water before they finished getting them out of their costumes and by then he was the only one left in the room still in his suit, his tail draped over one arm to avoid getting it stepped on.

“Hey guys, I hate to do this to you, but we need one of you back on stage in full costume so we can figure out why there is suddenly an echo when we place the new mics inside the heads.”

“Awe, come on, it’s hot out there,” Greg complained as Zachy turned to face the new head sound engineer, who also happened to be the very hot biker Daddy he’d seen Saturday night at Velvet Illusions.

No thinking about Saturday, his inner voice hissed. If he did, he might wind up crying at work again like he’d done that morning and come dangerously close to being caught doing it too. It was embarrassing and not something he wanted to try and share with cast members who barely paid any attention to him unless they were on set and making an example out of his bad behavior. Sometimes he really wondered if they’d forgotten that Zachy was just playing a character. He wasn’t the mean, wicked little weasel he played on television. Hell, if it wasn’t for him, they wouldn’t get to be heroes week after week when they helped the children thwart him. Would be nice if they remembered that part too, and how Zachy always did his best to think of a creative hiding spot or a new scenario, so it wasn’t just the same skit week after week. That wasn’t the writers, that was all Zachy and had been since their second year when he’d grown so good at brainstorming ideas during their planning sessions that their producer had entrusted his character’s depiction to Zachy and one of the show’s cowriters, who Zachy spent a great deal of his downtime brainstorming with.

“I’ll stay,” Zachy offered as the complaints around him grew, his fellow cast members all announcing their plans to meet up for mimosas and burgers at the place just down the street. When they’d first started working on the show Zachy had gone with them, but the more they’d developed their parts and grown into their roles, the more the kids had fallen in love with the show. The producers had issued warnings to the cast about being mindful of their behavior in public and of course, the image of the show they were a part of. They’d been taught to conceal their identities from the public and had even taken things a bit further and insisted on a non-disclosure clause and that the good characters not be seen with the show’s villains.

Like it mattered when no one was supposed to know what parts they played in the first place. That right there had just seemed like a bit too much when they’d signed their new contracts last year, but no one else had complained, so Zachy had signed his without wanting to rock the boat and upset what had turned into an amazingly successful show and the opportunity for him to sock away all the money he’d ever need to travel all around the world and do all the cool stuff he’d been journaling about for years,

Disneyland in 2026 was happening and he was finally gonna learn how to snowboard and go to the Circe De Solie in Vegas and go to Seattle to eat at the restaurant that spun. And he’d do it all without a Daddy if he had to, even if it would be much more fun if he had one who loved him and had fun traveling with him.

You’re just too damn much sometimes Zachy. Too damned much.

The words were still rolling through his head as he pulled his cowl back on and tucked his hair back beneath the fur. He kept hold of his tail as he followed Mr. Gage back out onto the set and waited for him to give instructions.

“Alright, let’s try clipping the mic just to the inside of the mouth, how’s that?” he asked as he reached several fingers through the slot and easily positioned the device.

“Okay,” Zachy said, keeping very still to not make things difficult for him.

“Alright, try saying a few of your lines” Gage said as he stepped back from Zachy and signaled to the booth.

“This is the perfect hidey spot,” Zachy declared, pitching his voice high the way he always did for his character.

“Still echoing,” the tech in the booth called out, so Zachy held still while the mic was removed and settings on it were fiddled with before it was positioned again.

It took several more tries before the echo diminished some, but not enough for Mr. Gage or his fellow engineer to be happy with, so Zachy sweated and focused on following instructions through a half dozen more adjustments, before both the setting and the levels were deemed perfect.

Mr. Gage made a notch inside his costume and attached a loop that would hold the mic in place when Zachy was moving around, then finally they were finished, and Mr. Gage packed the device back in the case with the others.

“Thank you for being so patient,” Mr. Gage praised as he helped Zachy remove his hood.

His eyes were the pretty green of the moss Zachy liked to gather for his terrariums, and he couldn’t look away, despite how flushed and sticky he felt with the inside of his suit clinging to him.

“I’m glad I could help,” he said, trying to smile a little.

“I hope we haven’t kept you so long you won’t be able to catch up to the rest of the cast,” Mr. Gage said. “They were headed to Cabos, weren’t they?”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t invited anyway,” Zachy explained. “They aren’t supposed ta eat with the villain, just in case somebody recognizes us.”

“Well, no one will recognize me, so how about we go grab something to eat after you take a shower, and I get everything shut down.”

“Oh my gosh, I’d love that. I’m starvin’ and I hate eating by myself.”

“Well then go get cleaned up and we’ll have the biggest, cheesiest, juiciest burgers and a couple cold drinks to wash them down with.”

“Yum, yum,” Zachy declared spinning and clutching his tail, he skipped back to the dressing room and carefully removed his costume, zipping it in the garment bag and hanging it beside the others on the dry-cleaning rack to be picked up in the morning.

No texts on his phone and no messages, so he grabbed an icy water from the fridge and drank it in the shower as the cool water flowed over his head. Had Mr. Gage recognized him the way he’d known exactly who the Daddy was when he’d seen him doing the demo, or was he just being nice to Zachy because he’d stayed and helped get the sound levels right?

Either way it made him happy to not be heading home to eat alone in his kitchen once he’d thrown something together that he rarely took time with because it wasn’t fun just cooking for himself, which sucked. He loved to cook but cooking was more fun when someone did it with him and they got to feed each other all the yummy pieces when they were done.

Mr. Gage was waiting outside of the dressing room for him when Zachy came out, and he just smiled when Zachy skipped beside him towards the exit, his long hair soaking the back of his shirt and occasionally sending droplets flying if he turned his head too fast. Mr. Gage had super long legs, but when Zachy skipped he found that he could easily keep up with him. It felt good to be out from beneath the weight of the costume and not have his hair tied and braided so tight. Maybe he should finally cut it, since it was causing almost daily discomfort whenever the new stylist got her fingers on the strands.

He settled down by the time they reached the sidewalk though and walked beside him properly as they passed beneath streetlights on the two-block walk to the restaurant.

“Is ours the first children’s show you’ve worked on?” Zacky asked as they walked.

“It’s the first television show, period,” Mr. Gage explained. “I’ve spent most of my time behind a soundboard working with several bands over the years. I’ve done everything from live performances to full length albums.”

“Whoa, did you get to travel a lot?”

“Sure did. I’ve been all over the world and I loved every minute of it, but it was time to retire and find something more stationary.”

“Why, if you loved it?”

“Well, the main reason was because the band I’d been with for the last fifteen years was forced into retirement when two of its members were killed in a helicopter accident,” Mr. Gage replied. “None of us had the heart to start over in the music industry. We might not have been blood, but they were still family to me and that isn’t an easy thing to shake off.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah kid, so am I. Adrian Lee was a gifted man with plenty left to give the world. It was a shame that his light was snuffed out that way.”

“I love their music,” Zachy said. “I play them all the time when I’m working on the miniature worlds I create. I don’t know why but it really helps me dial in on the details and get lost in putting them together.”

“Maybe you can show them to me sometime.”

“Really? You want to see them?”

“I sure would.”

“That’s awesome! They are so cool, and I never get to show them to anyone! I have some pictures on my phone if you wanna see?” Zachy said as he eagerly fished the phone from his back pocket and opened his camera roll to show a fishbowl sized terrarium with a fairy home and garden inside. It had three faeries perched in various spots, including one sitting on a mushroom cap, and the little flower buds, butterflies, dragonflies and colorful caterpillars he’d added were visible in several spots in the photograph, despite being so small.

“Whoa, that’s not what I expected, but it’s amazing nevertheless,” Mr. Gage said as he studied the image from several angles. “Why don’t you show me the rest while we wait for our order?”

“I’d love that,” Zachy said, since he hadn’t even shown them to his Daddy yet, but he would, soon, if Daddy was still his Daddy after the little talk he’d told Zachy he wanted them to have on Wednesday night.

Nope.

Not gonna think about Wednesday either.

That was the other reason he’d been crying, along with finding out that Daddy hadn’t gotten them tickets to the Wet n’ Wild event even though he’d promised Zachy he’d think really hard about it.

Mr. Gage held the door for him as they stepped inside, and he even stayed right beside Zachy when they passed the table where the rest of the cast was seated, despite the way they called out to him and one, Emilio, even tried to wave Mr. Gage over. He just waved back and followed the waiter to a booth in the corner, where he sat beside Zachy, instead of across from him.

“So I can see the pictures better and you can point out all the details so I don’t miss anything,” Mr. Gage declared as he leaned with his head almost on Zachy’s shoulder, smiling as Zachy showed him the grumpy betta fish display he’d created, complete with a perky goldfish waving from the sidewalk, inches away from a sign that read stay off my lawn .

“I want you to know that I feel seen after looking at that, ‘cause that’s me right there, I’m the grumpy betta,” Mr. Gage said. “And something tells me you’re the happy go lucky goldfish.”

Zachy nodded at that, beaming up at him because he loved when he could be happy and not worry about anything, even if it had been months since he’d had had a reason to be happy about much of anything.