Of course she said no. Like the Allen’s hummingbird that chose that moment to chase an interloper from the red honeysuckle behind the crew, its zuppity chup terse and dismissive. Like Lily’s “No thanks”. Not angry. Just busy, with things to do, his rejection an extra item on her todo list, now checked off.

The location was really birdy. If he hadn’t been there for a shoot he’d have liked to sit with his binoculars, watching and listening.

How had the bird thing started? It must have been that time when his grandmother, visiting, had pointed out a gray bird on the lawn in their backyard. That was the house on Hilton, before they moved, so he would have been four, or at most five. Before the divorce. The first divorce.

“Do you see that bird? Do you know what it is?”

No, grandmother.

“That’s a mockingbird. When it flies you’ll be able to see the white flashes in its wings.” And then it did fly, and he saw, just like she’d said.

“You can always tell a mockingbird by those flashes.”

Later, when he was 12, he stayed with her for six months during what became the second divorce. That’s when the birding bug really bit him. He came back from Florida obsessed, and the obsession never wore off.

He loved the Allen’s, small even for a hummingbird, with that gorgeous auburn back and the flash of red at the throat. More than that, he loved its exuberance, its lack of concern.

Not like him. He knew it surprised people when they heard about the acting. “Really?” Because outside of acting people tended to think of him as shy and self-conscious.

But it was different with a script. Playing a character with lines on the page was liberating. It was like having rails to carry the scene where it needed to go. He could play it straight or be spontaneous, and it didn’t matter; either way it wasn’t him.

And like bird-watching, he realized, it was a chance to be in the presence of something beautiful, to stand enraptured before it, watching and listening, with no pressure to say or do anything that wasn’t on the page. Until the director said, “cut.”

The hummingbird’s call faded, and he was aware of himself again, the awkwardness, the silence that hung between them.

“I didn’t either. I was just testing you. I was just making sure.” Ugh.

Audio: Kissing in the Rain, Episode 1. Image: Flickr user Wokcus.

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