I'm working on a stunt version of a very important hero prop. The hand props boss comes casually drifting by my desk from time to time, very carefully not keeping an eye on me.

I'm not supposed to be working in hand props. I'm supposed to be in the set dec department. My real boss knows it, and it irks him that I keep being pulled over to hand props.

I flatter myself and tell myself it's because I'm outstanding.

Maybe I am.

~

A photo appears in messanger. A nice looking man, late thirties perhaps, riding a go-cart with a four year old girl. He has a kind face, and he has one arm protectively around the girl, the other waving to the camera.

Ah, adorable!

Yes, comes the message back, he was. I miss him so much, Rosie.

I want to take all the hurt away. I don't know what to say. I probably make it worse.

Later, I send her a gif of opossums trying to eat bananas and totally failing. Also a story about an elephant protecting baby cheetahs.

~

My boss stops at my desk. He carefully doesn't look at the very important weapon.

"Can you run down to Quincy's and find this panel?" He shows me a picture on his phone.

"Sure," I say, totally willing. I'm not willing. I want to get this weapon finished. I feel like I can't refuse, and with no one actively breathing down my neck, I have no excuse.

At least it's a nice walk.

~

I keep an eye on her Facebook activity. I see her online.

She posts photos he sent her. She doesn't say anything about them, and nobody comments, or likes them. I feel so alone for her.

Should I like the photos?

I don't know what to do.

I begin to assemble a package to send.

~

There's no one at the props store room. No one. Where is everyone?

I find a woman in the office. Is she a secretary? Production co-ordinator? I make a note to check her name tag, and I forget.

She helps me search the shelves for the panel I need. We go through the panel bible. Nothing.

"Quincy is down on D stage," she tells me, so I start walking in that direction.

The road is wet and pocked with muddy puddles. To one side of me, the bizarrely manicured gardens, one of the last vestiges of the English country manor house that used to occupy this land. The other side of me is an open muddy lot, where a giant, complicated chunk of city was once built, filmed on, then torn down, only months previous.

I find Quincy halfway down the lonesome road, and we head back to stores together.

"How's it going down there?" he asks.

"Oh you know," I say. "The usual."

"Yeah, but what's the usual?"

"Okay--" I begin, and I can feel my jaw unlock and all my filters come down. I can't stop the words when I get like this.

"Okay," I say. "I just wish...I just wish that I could have a penis for a day, to know what it is that makes people with penises that much better at tools than I am."

He's staring at me, mouth slightly open, for my use of the word 'penis'.

"I mean, it's not like you use tools with your genitals, is it? IS IT? You can't grab anything with your genitals! Me on the other hand, I can hold a screwdriver with mine! BEAT THAT!"

~

I go on the date. It's fine. He's fine. I don't know.

What's falling in love supposed to be like?

He didn't repulse me. He was nerdy. We have similar interests.

I don't know.

~

Quincy finds the panel in thirty seconds flat. He barely has to look for it.

We take it out of the bubble wrap to check it.

"Classic door panel," he tells me and wraps it up again. I stuff two of them under my arm and he walks me to the door of the workshop.

"Um," he says. "About what you said about the screwdriver..."

"Oh god," I say, mortified kind of. "Sorry. I run my mouth sometimes. It gets hard to stop."

"No, no," he assures, and coughs a little bit nervously. "I mean. That's very impressive. I know I can't hold any tools with my genitals."

I laugh.

"One time a date told me he could use his like a hammer," I lie smoothly, taking on my best stand-up comedian voice. "He was a liar, wasn't he just!"

Quincy laughs, and I head out into the wet afternoon air.

.

Rosie

Before&After