Meena strolled past rehearsal dressing rooms of the Moon Theater, humming. She did little dance moves as she walked into her own rehearsal room. When she got to a certain part of the song, Meena sang out loud (perfectly) with her eyes closed, being her own back-up singer,
"Big wheel keep on turnin'
Proud Mary keep on burnin'
And we're rolling, rolling,
Rollin' yeah, rolling,
Rolling on a river."
She sung the last line the most powerfully.
Meena sure did LOVE to sing. Sometimes, when she did it, she seemed to be in her own world.
Eyeing her vanity desk, she walked to it and opened a couple of its drawers, looking for something.
"Psst."
Meena straightened up and widened her eyes, accidentally pulling out a whole drawer. She looked around.
"Pssst. Over here." It was a familiar male voice.
Meena set the loose drawer on the desk and walked away from the vanity, glancing around the room. She stopped before a large, heavy cardboard box with other, smaller boxes set on top of it.
"I'm right in front of you."
Meena almost jumped at the suddenly very near voice. Surprised, she stared down at the guy whom it belonged to.
And that guy was Mike.
He was standing on top of the large cardboard box, which put him closer to Meena's eye level.
Meena wondered. What did he want? She started to frown. He was probably going to insult her again. She sighed almost inaudibly. Here we go, she thought.
"Hey... listen, um..." the white mouse began. His ears lowered a bit, and he cleared his throat.
Meena was still frowning.
Mike put his paws behind his back, gently kicking the cardboard he stood on.
"What you did the other day..." Mike trailed off in his words and stared at Meena. His ears drooped very low, and his tail went limp. His jaw fell.
It looked like he was suddenly put in some sort of trance.
Meena got alarmed. "What?" she asked. Mike snapped out of his gaze. Meena felt her face with her hands. "I-is there something on my face?"
"Er, no! No, no, there isn't," Mike told her. "There's... nothing."
"Then... wh-what were you looking at?" asked Meena, putting her arms down.
"Uh, don't worry about it," Mike said, waving one of his paws. "Listen, I just came here to... I just wanted to say... I..." He took a deep breath. "Your act was... it was..."
"...Terrible?" Meena suggested, expecting the mouse to say something negative as usual.
Mike looked very shocked at her suggestion. "What?" he said. "TERRIBLE? What uncultured idiot would say that? No! Far from it! It was absolutely phenomenal! Amazing! I-I loved it. Everyone loved it. Who wouldn't have loved it? I mean, you stole the show!"
The elephant lady gasped silently and began to smile a very cheerful smile.
"R-really?" she asked, finding it hard to believe that she was hearing this from Mike.
"Really!" the white rodent confirmed, nodding with a smile. "I really enjoyed listening to you. I... I never knew you could sing like that. You're a natural! It-it just blew me away. Even more so than those 'copters did!"
Meena was both dumbfounded and flattered by Mike's complimenting.
"YOU," Mike said, taking off his fedora and holding it in his chest with both paws, "are truly talented."
She couldn't help but giggle briefly. "Oh my gosh, th-thank you, Mike!" she happily replied.
Mike was looking at her with a dreamy expression before shaking his head quickly and putting his hat back on. He looked up at Meena and smiled again at her. "Just saying the truth, elephant broad..." he told her. He frowned. "I mean... Meena."
Meena's eyes widened. "Wow," she whispered.
The male mouse looked at her wonderingly. "What?" he asked.
"Uh... sorry, I'm just... not used to you calling me by my name and not a... hurtful nickname," Meena answered him, looking at the ground.
Mike's face fell. He stared at Meena sadly for a few seconds. "Woah, hey now, don't look so glum there, toots," he said to her. She looked at him again. "You know what? I take it back. ALL of it. All the rotten stuff I ever said to you before. Forget all of it, though it may be hard for you 'cause of your impressive memory. And I'm not gonna be insultin' ya anymore. Those days are over. I promise. No more Mr. Mean Guy. 'Kay? I'm..." Mike looked up into Meena's eyes with a sincere expression. He paused for a bit. "I'm sorry."
Meena's jaw dropped slightly.
"So..." asked Mike, extending his right arm to Meena. "No hard feelings?"
A warm smile formed on Meena's face. She chuckled. "...Sure," she responded, lightly putting her right hand in Mike's paw. "No hard feelings." Mike flinched a little when Meena touched him.
And the two shook, as if officially renewing their acquaintance with each other.
"Also, FLAWLESS singing you were doing a moment ago, when you walked in here. Couldn't help listening to it," said Mike as he and Meena ended the handshake. "I gotta say, you have great taste in music."
"Thanks! So do you," Meena replied, beaming at him. "You know... I really liked your performance too, Mike. You're a pretty good singer!"
Mike's eyes grew and his ears drooped, his white cheeks turning red. He smiled bashfully and replied while waving a paw, "Aww, stop it, you're too sweet, you know that?"
"And not just that, I love the WAY you sing," Meena added, "So nice and... smooth. And I think it was pretty cool how you managed to keep your composure AND stay mostly on key in your singing even though you were getting blown to the sky. Plus, you kinda used the helicopters to make the show even cooler," Meena laughed. "As if it wasn't cool enough already." She smiled. "Even though it was hard, you didn't give up. You just kept... doing your thing. And THAT was just amazing."
Mike stared up at Meena, looking very flattered. His eyes seemed to be shining at her. "Well... gee... thanks Meena!" he said, as if no one had ever told him such nice words before...
"Meena!" the elephant heard Buster call from his office. "Can you give us a hand here? I have this huge safe and, well... Ms. Crawley and I can't quite budge it."
"It's a stubborn one," Ms. Crawley, who was with Buster, added.
"Oh, um," Meena said awkwardly to Mike. She answered Buster, "I'll be there in a minute!"
"Safe?" Mike whispered very quietly to himself.
Meena turned to Mike, who focused on her again, and told him, "Uh, I gotta go. It was nice talking to you, Mike! I'll see you later, okay?"
Mike smiled at her. "And it was nice chattin' with ya too," he said. "Take care." He waved.
She waved back and turned around, starting to walk away.
The mouse remembered something. "Wait!" he called to Meena, reaching an arm out to her.
Meena turned around to face him.
He held up a finger to her as if to say, 'Just a moment.' He leaped down behind the large cardboard box, out of Meena's view.
She stood, waiting with a curious expression on her face.
Mike ran out from behind the box to Meena...
Carrying a red rose.
Meena's eyes grew wide.
Mike stopped before her, lifting the rose up to her.
"Just uh, thought maybe you'd like this," Mike said to her.
Meena's ears closed inward. Frozen, she stared at Mike for a moment. He didn't seem to mind her staring at all. It was like he was expecting her to.
Was this really happening? First, Mike was all rude and sarcastic, and now he was saying nice things to her and giving her a flower?
Slowly, Meena bent down and took the rose from Mike with her trunk. She transferred it to her hands and examined it. Then she stared at Mike again.
He took off his hat and bowed to Meena. "See ya... Meena," he said to her before putting his hat back on and running out of the dressing room.
The elephant still stood there, astonished.
She studied the rose in her hands. It was a real, fresh, beautiful rose. She thought it might have been the reddest rose she ever saw. Its petals were fully bloomed, and Mike made sure to cut off its thorns.
Meena thought of him again...
And found that she couldn't stop smiling. She held the rose over her racing heart and kept it there for a moment.
The female elephant set the rose gently down on her vanity desk, planning to take it to her house later so she could place it in a lovely vase. She didn't want the others to ask where she got it from, or worse, who gave it to her. Meena was still shy about that sort of thing.
"Meena? You coming soon?" Buster called.
"Just a sec," she answered.
Meena headed for the exit of the dressing room. Before stepping out, she glanced at the rose one more time, beaming. Then she went on her way to help Buster and Ms. Crawley lift that stubborn safe, unable to get Mike out of her mind now.