Page 106 of Role Play
Lucy
We managed to arrive at work on time Monday. All day long, Ash was like a different man from last week, when he was barking orders and snapping at anyone who dared to look at him wrong. Today, however, he was smiling. Saying thank you. I even heard him whistling as they set the light changeover. And thank God for me and my magical vagina, because I don’t know that the crew and myself could have taken another week like last. At one point last Friday, even Kelly looked at me and said she was grateful for the fact that he no longer ran ourdepartment.
Strangely, once Ash was no longer heading our department, she and I started getting along much better. Maybe the timing was just better. Or the fact that she had accepted our new budget. But whatever the reason, we were workingwelltogether foronce.
That afternoon, I’d barely had time to make it to craft services between all the work I had. Once I finished organizing the invoices, I pulled the consent contract out of my bag and sat there rereading, pen in hand, tapping it nervously on the edge of the table. Ash’s neatly scribbled name stared back at me from the bottom of the page and, taking a deep breath, I signed my name too, feeling immediately better. Grabbing my cell phone, I texted Uncle Rich, asking him to meet me in his office after we wrapped for theday.
Just as I hit send on the text, Kelly popped into the wardrobe section, her heels clicking against the marble floor. My phone slipped from my hands, smacking the floor hard. Not that it mattered. The damn screen was already shattered, and I hadn’t had time to go to the cell store to repair it. She seemed almost as startled as I was, and I used the moment to shuffle the invoices over my consent contract, breathing a little easier once it wascovered.
She walked over to the table I was sitting at and dropped a tray of mac and cheese and salad next to my stack ofpapers.
I jolted at the sound of the tray hitting the table and looked up at her blinking. “Since when do you eat mac and cheese?” Iasked.
“It’s not for me. It’s foryou.” She rolled her eyes, but balanced it with a smallsmile.
“Oh… thankyou.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, sliding the paperwork out from under my nose. I gasped and brought my palm down hard on the invoices. “No,don’t!”
“Relax. The invoices will still be there after you eat.” As she had moved the paperwork, the top of the consent contract had peeked out. She looked down, tilted her head, and glanced up at me knowingly. I swallowed hard. “Lucy Rodriguez,” she said. “Have you been holding out onme?”
“No. I just, um… someone asked me out and I was considering it. But… um…” I gulped and snatched the consent contract out of her hands, folding it and putting it back into my bag before she could seeit.
“Lucy,” she said, her voice softer and more gentle than I’d ever heard it. “Relax. You’re talking to the queen of sleeping with people she works with,” she rolled her eyes, but I got the impression it was directed at herself, not me. “You don’t have to tell me. Or be embarrassed around me. Especially not aboutthat.”
I swallowed, my throat dry. She was being so… nice. What the hell hadchanged?
“Would you stop looking at me like that? I know I’m a hardass, but I’m not totally unreasonable, Lucy. Jesus. Noweat. We have the meeting with your friend tonight to see her wardrobe after wrap so if you don’t eat now, you’ll regretit.”
She sounded oddly like Ash. Did he put her up to this? Was this his weird, convoluted way of making sure I waseating?
Also… did it really matter? This wasn’t triggering me in the same way that it did when Ash brought up the subject. Kelly making sure I ate wasn’t angering me. Andrea doing the same thing wouldn’t make me think twice, or Uncle Rich sending me home with a casserole. So, even if this was Ash’s doing, maybe it didn’t matter. I hadn’t eaten yet. And I was freaking hungry. I looked down at the plate, grabbed the fork and dug into the creamy, cheesycarbs.
“You might want to think about having the salad as well. Get some greens in yoursystem.”
“I’ll take a bite of greens if you take a bite of mac and cheese,” I offered, holding the fork up to herface.
She pushed my hand away, her mouth twisting…but she was fighting a smile. “I haven’t had a complex carbohydrate since I was twenty,” she said, as though that was something to be proudof.
I put the fork up to my ear. “What’s that? Awww, they miss their Auntie Kelly. Come on, onebite.”
She laughed as I made airplane noises, flying the fork toward her face. “Okay, fine!” she said. “Give me the damn fork. It smells ridiculously good.” She grabbed my fork, wrapping her ruby red lips around it and moaned the second it hit her tongue. “Holy shit,” she said, mouth full. “Oh my God, it’s better thansex.”
I lifted my eyebrow. A couple weeks ago, I would have thought the same thing. She moved the fork back to take another bite and I slid it away. “Oh, hell nah. You get your own mac andcheese.”
She poked me playfully with the fork before hopping to her feet. “Fine. Maybe Iwill.”
I called after her as she danced down the hallway, “Women would pay good money to see you eat a whole plate of mac and cheese,girl!”
The rest of the day went smoothly and we wrapped around six p.m. I rolled a rack of dirty costumes down the hall toward the laundry room. I should have just enough time to drop these off, run to Uncle Rich’s office to rip off that Band-Aid, then get to Ash’s office for Andrea’smeeting.
Behind me, I heard footsteps. The distinct sound of Kelly's clicking heels. “Lucy,” she barked my name and even when she wasn’t mad or annoyed, it sometimes still sounded like she was. I took a deep breath before turning to faceher.
Kelly stopped in front of me, crossing her arms. “Richard Blair just asked me to find you and send you to his office.” Her brow arched so high, it was practically comical. “He said you’re late for yourmeeting.”
Shit. I didn’t think he would take it literally to mean the moment we wrapped. “Oh… um,okay.”
Kelly eyed me carefully. “Any reason that the president of Silhouette Studios would want to see a costume assistant within the first month ofshooting?”
