Kate pulled the bottom panel off the photocopier and wriggled her shoulders inside, wielding her torch. She could hear the machines in the workshop on ground level grinding out pencils, the chatter from the canteen through the open window sending a draft up her shirt—or was the chatter from the cupboard-like breakroom? Then again, it could be everyone in the open-plan office: bosses and admin staff all buzzing with catch-ups from the holidays while she worked.
She’d changed three lights, Rog from promotion’s chair twice; replaced the lead to Rita from accounting’s keyboard; and taken all the decorations down single-handed already, and it was only half past nine. Place always looked bigger without all the decorations, but it felt bare too somehow.
Christmas highlights had seen Mikey full of song and laughter, her mother and stepdad attempting karaoke like always, her dad trying to get her drunk and take her go-karting. There’d been a load of lowlights too, but she was shoving them out of her head. Christmas always filled her with cheer, but somehow it felt lonely. It always felt lonely. Ah, ignore it. She scrunched up her face and focused on fishing out the paper jammed in the printer-photocopier.
“You rescued it yet, Kate?” Frank asked somewhere outside the printer. The CEO was busy as always, then.
“Nearly. Why did Rog need to print off a thousand pages of the report again?” She wasn’t technically IT support, but then no one in the office was remotely IT gifted, so she spent most of her day rescuing them. One small factory plus no IT department equalled her being the go-to IT guru. Good thing they didn’t actually need security. Why a family-run factory making pencils needed security guards, she didn’t know, but she wasn’t arguing.
“There’s a new mechanical pencil coming out on the market that has more lead, better action, and holds the page better.” He let out a yawn. “I told him our pencils are the cheapest and do the job. Who pays fifteen quid for a pencil?”
“Someone with more money than me,” she mumbled, leaning in…further…nearly…got it. “Who knew pencils were so…technical.” She extracted herself and held up the shred of paper. “Congratulations, it’s A4. You must be very proud.”
He snorted, flicked his long ginger hair out of his face, and took the page with stubby fingers. “Pencils are highly technical. If you tried them, you might like them.”
Was he hitting on her? She could never tell. “I prefer pens, mate. Big ink-spreading pens.”
He pursed his lips. He looked camp when he did it. Best not to tell him. “Traitor.”
“Eh, what can I say?” She switched the printer on and hit the button for it to continue. It churned into life, and paper spat out Rog’s tome on pencil competitors. Job done.
“So, did you meet anyone at a Christmas party?” He grinned at her and stroked his chin beard. That was the best way to describe it; he had no other facial hair apart from two inches on the rim of his jaw all the way from one side to the other. Why? “A lovely lady?”
“My parties involved a nine-year-old throwing cake at my stepdad for giving him the wrong colour vegetables, my mum whining that she never gets help from my dad and she shouldn’t have to put up with Mikey alone, and me consoling him when he overheard.” She let out a shuddering breath. It had been a relief when Mikey went back to school and she could hide in work. “Oh, and shitloads of that crazy woman telling people that their clothes are the most important thing about them.”
Her mum was way too into The Style Surgeon. Who watched back-to-back episodes of it? Plus, the surgeon was a bitch. A bitch who loved herself and made her poor victims stand around in their underwear. Sad sacks, that’s what they were.
“You don’t think Darcy is hot?” He grinned, and his beady eyes twinkled. “I’d stand in my underwear for her.”
Hmm. Not sure that would be good TV. “Have at it. Hot comes from the inside.”
“Are you seriously saying that if she turned up on your doorstep and said she wanted a coffee, you’d send her away?” He snorted and tidied Rog’s piling papers.
“Yes. Imagine the nagging when you got to the bedroom?” She shook her head. Imagine the nagging full stop. “Not to mention most of her is probably fake, and she isn’t going to dig your pencil.”
“Bet she’d go for a fifteen-quid one.” He pulled his mouth to the side. “But in my head, she loves Y-fronts.”
She patted him on the shoulder. “Dream away.”
He let out a wistful sigh, then flashed a cheeky grin. Oh, here came the teasing. “You’d look good in the stuff she puts on people, though.” He smiled and scanned over her—like he could be a letch if he tried. He’d blushed and stumbled off when Rita in accounting had been talking about periods. “Bet you’d be hot in a dress.”
“I’d be freezing in a dress.” She shook her head and patted his shoulder again. He’d had three girlfriends at the age of fifty, and she was sure two of those had been when he was still in school. “And I’ve got knobbly knees.” Or so her mum told her. Knees were bone—what else would they be?
“I could work with that.” He chuckled, then heaved the mountain of sheets into his arms. “I should enforce dresses as a dress code.”
“Only if you wear them. And should anyone steal your pencils, you can chase them.” She gave him her best scowl. Frank wouldn’t dream of enforcing anything. He’d tried making the staff clock out for breaks once, an idea which had lasted five minutes until Rita told him it was discrimination against smokers. “You want to see Rog in a dress?”
They both glanced back at Rog, shuffling up the floor plate. He was at least a hundred; she didn’t care if her boss said he was fifty-five. His clothes hung off his withered frame, he’d lost his hair decades ago, his eyesight not long after that, and she wasn’t sure if he’d ever been able to hear.
“Your report,” Frank said to Rog. “Happy reading.”
Rog stared at him. “Eh?”
“Report!” Frank yelled. What was the point in shouting? Rog hadn’t heard the fire alarm go off when everyone else had needed ear defenders.
“Eh?” Rog looked down at the sheets. “How many people are in the meeting? I haven’t even read the minutes.”
“Haven’t you sent him for a hearing test?” she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand. Mikey had hearing aids. Amazingly, they helped him hear. Who knew?
“I tried. He said he has perfect hearing.” Frank handed the papers to Rog, who strained to hold them. “All yours.”
Rog squinted down at the sheets. “Ah, my report.” He turned and shuffled off.
“What do you do with that?” she asked, then frowned. Why was Frank blushing? Why couldn’t he look at her? What was on the ceiling that was so fascinating? Oh, right. She’d popped a button in the printer. “It’s a bra, Frank. It won’t hurt you.”
“Didn’t want you to think I was staring,” he mumbled, staring at the printer like he wanted to hide in it. “Guess you don’t like all that lacy rubbish, huh?”
“Do you want me to put your head in the printer?” She did up her button. Her ex had always complained that she wore sports bras. That there wasn’t anything sexy about them. But then, Laura had never been near a gym. They didn’t let you smoke in a gym.
“Hey, Darcy said that a bra gives you the key to a woman. She says that we need to break the divide between us and be able to talk about each other with respect,” he said like it had been a training seminar. “She says, women should be celebrated, and if you get her in lace she will feel like the lady you love.” He nodded with utter seriousness. “Not sure she said that at the same time…” He pulled his mouth to the side. “I got lost at ‘bra.’”
“Darcy is an idiot.” What was he doing watching her—apart from the blonde hair and full lips? She just pranced about, talking clothes. “Are you going to wear a bra to test it out?”
He cocked his head to the side. “Would it show I respected you? I could do that.” His eyes flickered with some cheeky thought. Best not pry into that one.
“Well…anyway, I’d better go make sure the drinks’ machine is secure.” She scurried off and ducked through the doorway into the cupboard with a TV monitor she called an office. But at least no one ever entered without knocking. Keeping pencils safe was a serious business. She slumped into her chair and flicked her boots up on her desk. Car park was full. Gates were open. Canteen staff were having a sneaky cigarette outside the back door. Lacy bras? Darcy the Style Surgeon? How could anyone take her seriously? She smiled and closed her eyes. Hmm… Darcy in a lacy bra wasn’t a bad picture at all.