Twenty Questions with Leah Bowen

Twenty questions with Leah Bowen; an interview.

Favorite color:

“Easy. Green. I’m def­i­nitely a green girl,” she says, with a blush. I want to point out that both Mark and Hay­den have green eyes, but I move on.

Favorite sea­son:

“I love the spring. Spring in Phoenix is beau­ti­ful. The sum­mer is crazy hot, and we don’t get much of a win­ter … but the spring is all about new life, and I love that.”

If you could live any­where in the world, where would you live and why?

“You know, I adore liv­ing in Phoenix. But there’s some­thing about the Chicago metrop­o­lis that is so appeal­ing. I think if I had my way, though, some­where in Italy would be great. Maybe a Tus­can villa,” she laughs.

What’s been the great­est moment of your life so far?

Leah doesn’t even hes­i­tate with this one, “With­out a doubt, watch­ing Fire­fly grow. When I first started, I was threaded neck­laces in between classes, and shop­ping for gems when I wasn’t study­ing. It’s just so much big­ger than I ever dreamed.”

Do you have a cell phone, if so… what kind is it?

Leah reaches into her purse and pulls out a beat up flip phone. “I have this. I have no idea what brand it is. Den picked it out for me a few years ago when I needed a new one,” she says, and flips it open, giv­ing me a shrug. “Noth­ing fancy here. I can text and make and receive calls.”

If you won $1,000,000 in the lot­tery, how would you spend it?

Throw­ing her phone back into her purse, she sits back with a sparkle in her eye. “I’d buy a house. Noth­ing too big, but with a pool. And a car, so I could own it out­right,” she crin­kles her nose. “I hate monthly pay­ments. Out­side of buy­ing a ridicu­lously expen­sive purse or some­thing, I think I’d bank it and use the inter­est to build up Fire­fly even more.”

What’s one place you feel the most peaceful?

At this ques­tion, Leah blushes, and I some­how feel like I’ve asked her some­thing really inti­mate. She gets quiet and looks down at her hands. “I think a lot of peo­ple would answer that with a loca­tion … like the beach or some­thing. But for me …” she trails off and I have to clear my throat to get her atten­tion. When she looks up again, there’s some­thing serene in her face, as if she’s just men­tally gone to that peace­ful place. “Hayden’s liv­ing room. It’s always been so … peace­ful. His fur­ni­ture is so cushy and soft. He has these leather couches you can just sink into. And dark wood tables. The sim­plic­ity of the brown leather and un-fancy tables is just so … it puts me at com­plete ease.”

Favorite movie?

As if glad to be off the sub­ject, she perks up. “My favorite movie is Indi­ana Jones and the Tem­ple of Doom. When I was in col­lege Den got me turned on to them, he’d have them on in the back­ground while we were study­ing for finals.”

Favorite lyric from a song?

Leah twirls a curl around her fin­ger as she thinks. “I really love Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon, you know? It’s so …” she stops, and I swear she swoons before she con­tin­ues. “You can get lost in that song. I love the line – fill my heart with joy, and let me sing for­ever more,” she says, in a sing-songy voice, like she’s try­ing not to belt out the tune. “It’s so sim­ple, but so full of emotion.”

Are you a cat per­son or a dog person?

“Dog!” she exclaims. “Marie has a cat. We don’t get along.”

You’re stranded on a desert island. You can take three things with you. One has to be a book, one has to be an album (we’ll pre­tend you can lis­ten to it) and one person:

“Ahh, the ‘stranded on an island’ ques­tion. You’re one heck of a jour­nal­ist, CL,” she says, rolling her eyes. I shake my head and we exchange smiles. “Oh-kay,” Leah says and is silent as she thinks about it. “I think I’d bring Wuther­ing Heights. And the for album … I’m going with this one com­pi­la­tion CD I found a while ago. It’s called Clas­sics of the Heart, and it’s all of these amaz­ing clas­si­cal piano pieces – oh, you’d love it, CL – I’d bring it to remind myself of the opti­mism and beauty that I left behind. And as for a per­son? Well, I’d like to say Mark. We just started dat­ing. That’s a lit­tle weird, isn’t it?” I shrug in the way that says hey-its-all-you-no-judgment, and she sighs. “I guess Den, then. He’s my best friend and the only per­son I can stand to be around for hours on end and not want to kill,” she laughs.

If you put your iPod on ran­dom right now, what’s the first song that plays?

“I actu­ally have mine with me! Another thing Den made me buy. He gave me the whole ‘Bowen, you’re eight years behind tech­nol­ogy!’ speech,” she says, in a per­fect imi­ta­tion of Hay­den as she pulls out the lit­tle lime green iPod Shuf­fle. She pushes a few but­tons, sticks white ear­buds in her ears and waits for a few sec­onds. Then, she’s laugh­ing hys­ter­i­cally. “Of course! It has to be the most embar­rass­ing song in the world!”

Leah won’t even tell me, she sim­ply hands over the ear­buds for me to sam­ple. Ugh, yeah, Embar­rass­ing is right. She’s lis­ten­ing to “If You Wanna Be My Lover” by the Spice Girls. I just shake my head and hand them back to her.

“Can we pre­tend that didn’t hap­pen?” she asks.

I just shake my head again.

What soothes you?

“When it rains in the desert. It’s so rare here. When it rains, the sound the droplets make when they hit the dirt, or the tin roofs, the way the palms rus­tle in the wind. It’s so soothing.”

What do you want your life to be like in five years?

This, she answers with cer­tainty. “I want Fire­fly to be huge. I want every­one to know what it is, and I want to be able to work it full time. I’d love to be mar­ried. Find the one, maybe have a dog. Maybe a baby, too. But my career has to come first. I’ve wanted Fire­fly to be a house­hold name my whole life.”

What are you most afraid of?

“Fail­ing,” she says, with­out miss­ing a beat. “Fire­fly is my life. I’ll do what­ever it takes.”

What’s your favorite dessert?

“I love cupcakes!”

If could go on a vaca­tion for a week to one place, where would you go?

Leah nods, and smiles. There’s some­thing dis­tant in her eyes, as if a vaca­tion sounds amaz­ing, but could never hap­pen. “I would love to spend a week in Paris. But, for me, I want to be in love when I go, you know? I know it’s cliché to say that it’s the most roman­tic city in the world, but I believe that. And I want to expe­ri­ence that with the per­son I love most in the world.”

What’s your favorite ice cream?

“Mint choco­late chip!”

What’s your favorite arti­cle of clothing?

“Not to be all shameless-self-promotion and all, but my Fire­fly medal­lion,” she fin­gers the sil­ver chain and cir­cu­lar medal­lion that hangs around her neck. “It’s from my core col­lec­tion, and it’s my favorite thing. I wear it almost every day.”

Last one, Leah, and we’ll wrap up. What’s your favorite memory?

That famil­iar blush rises in her cheeks again and she shakes her head just a touch. I’m sure she didn’t expect me to notice, but she bites her bot­tom lip and answers in a tiny voice. “New Years Eve. Five years ago,” she says. Care to elab­o­rate?, I ask her. “It was just,” she pauses, then her gaze meets mine. “It was a great night.”