Author'sNote:

This story is the first part of my story, "The Girl With The Mini," and although it is the first of three-parts, it has an ending, sort of.   I'll continue it when there's more time.   As it is, I have to thank Sephy for extending the deadline enough so I can get this first part posted in time for the contest.

This story is an official entry to the "September/October 2012 Reconciliation Story Contest," and is actually a fictionalized version of parts of my own life, circa 2004 - 2006.   Perhaps 75% true-to-life and the rest changed around so it'll be a better story. Needless to say, liberties were taken to change the names, many of the details, and some of the events. The story is about how Zoe, our protagonist, deals with how relationships can sometimes end, and from there, how a new life can begin.

I hope that you will like the story, and I hope that you will be gentle. Thanks!

  

Chapter One:    A Monday Morning

Waking up nowadays felt like how Christmastime used to feel when she was like five or six, or even seven - when the day starts full of expectations of wonderful kitchen smells, smiling faces, and wonderfully wrapped gifts under the tree.   Like a day full of wonderful possibilities.

But the difference was that this wonderful, expectant Christmas-morn feeling would quickly give way to the fears of the new day.   For a regular person, these fears were nothing major. You could say they were just the humdrum, everyday worries that one managed automatically:   how to make friends; how to make people not make fun of you; how to be accepted.   Worries, yes, but ones a regular person would know how to manage automatically based on the experiences one accumulated in a lifetime of living.   

But for Zoe, there were too few experiences that, well, worked, making Zoe a very isolated and timid type of person. So, for Zoe, these were major worries.   But with her new... persona, it was like she had a blank slate to write down new experiences.   So she was experimenting, learning how to do these things again, and trying to do so without any negative predispositions or assumptions. Everyday was now akin to exploring a new world without a map.   Used to be, she didn't even try.   But she does now.   A bit.   The thing is, when you try, there is now a possibility of being hurt.

So it became a habit with her to linger in bed nowadays, and savor that wonderfully expectant feeling of limitless possibilities for as long as possible, because she knew that it wouldn't last.

She... Even the pronouns she used for herself - "she," "her," "herself," all of that - exhilarating, even exciting. Until the reality of her situation would come crashing down on her as it inevitably did.

She wasn’t a real “she” or “her.”   Yet.   Deep down, that’s what she thought.   And she desperately wanted to be real.   Soon, maybe.

... and there it was. That moment had come.

She sighed and sat up to start the day.   She leaned to her left, to the little bedside table, and opened the little cabinet.   Nowadays, all she needed was to dilate once a week.   Reaching in, she pulled out a white plastic box and put it on her lap.   Opening it, she looked at the five dilators and selected the smallest of the five instead of starting with the second-smallest as was usual.   She had skipped the routine last week so she had to start with the smallest one now.   She attached it to the handle with the rubberized grip that came with the dilators, bounced up a bit to pull down her panties and scootched them down her legs.   She lied back down in bed and raised her knees.

As it often did, her position reminded her of a girl having a pelvic or an ob-gyn exam.   She pulled her nighty's hem to the sides, put a little water-based lubricant on the dilator and slowly worked it in.   She then did those little pelvic contractions that most would assume to be kegel exercises, a milder version, to be sure - rhythmically contracting her tummy muscles and ass-cheeks in what felt like an exercise in trying to stop herself from pooping.   A non-standard part of her exercise but one recommended by her surgeon, and approved by her doctor.

She looked at her little watch, which she rarely took off, and continued for about a minute.   After which, she slid the dilator out, rested her muscles a bit, replaced the dilator with the next larger one, lubricated, and then repeated the process.   And on and on until she did it with all five.

After the short exercise, she slid out the last one, wiped herself with some tissues, got up, went to the bathroom and washed the dilators with hot water and a mild disinfectant solution.   She then finished her toilet and had a nice long shower.

Most times she wouldn't draw the shower curtain closed and would watch herself taking her shower in the bathroom mirror (she would usually keep the bathroom window open just a crack to stop the mirror from fogging too much so she could see).   It wasn't for eroticism, although there was a large component of that, but more to check the progress of the hormones on her physique.   As she soaped down her flanks, her arms and legs and her derriere, she'd turn in profile, catching the modest curves of her booty and waist.   She wasn't a tall person.   She was also rail thin, from a lifetime of depression and self-denial, she supposed, although the hormones have plumped her up - her ribs weren't showing anymore and the dimples on her ass-cheeks were more prominent on her now-perkier backside.   Still, she fancied that her showers were quick because she didn't have too much to wash.   Truth was, her showers took a while.   If someone told her that, she'd probably feel a little pleased, since long showers are so iconically feminine.

- - -

Actually, she had a pretty serious complex about her height. Or lack of it.   Her therapist says that it stems from her childhood: As a short, scrawny boy, she was often picked on by bullies, and this exacerbated the young adolescent's isolation and, in her still-formative mind, she associated being short with being worthless.

Her therapist's other male-to-female TG patients that she got to interface with once in a while often told her how lucky she was to be so slim and petite, allowing her to more easily pass for a born girl.   Intellectually she knew that, but it didn't really help alleviate her feelings of being singled out and picked on for her shortness.   She contented herself with her therapist's words, that adjustment, acceptance and understanding will come in time.   But she was impatient. As she always was with anything to do with the changes she was trying to bring about for herself.

  
Chapter Two:    Morning Shower

She washed her modest breasts (smallish 32B's, or maybe larger-than-normal 32A's were closer to the mark) and watched as her now-larger nipples perked up under her ministrations. "Oh, how I wish my boobies were bigger," she said to herself.

She washed the soap off, and her hands again traveled over her flanks and buttocks.   The now-soft-and-silky feel of them was wonderful.   But they were far from perfect.   Oh, to have the hourglass figure of the classic female beauty, or to have the bootylicious curves of Beyonce.   Given her progress, maybe that was within the realm of the possible. She knew that, even with more hormone therapy, her skeletal structure will not change (nothing can change that), but changed muscle tone and the redistribution of her body fat that the hormones were making happen might just make the curves possible.   But at present, she thought that her booty was at best perky, not sexy.

Her bath routine gave her a tactile kind of pleasure, which was the only kind of physical... fun she had anymore.   Her operation, done at great expense to her, went well, she was assured, and post-op exams showed nothing wrong.   Her therapist said that sexual pleasure would come eventually.   A large psychological component was part of it, her therapist said, so she will need time.   But she was getting worried (as was her therapist, though she tried to hide it) since it had been more than a year since her SRS and FFS, and it hasn't happened for her yet.

She then started washing her face and, as usual, she felt the small eraser head-size spots of numbness from her surgeries, and the vestigial remnants of scar tissue that weren't noticeable anymore, unless you knew where to probe for the scar tissue (they felt like string underneath the skin when you pressed down hard enough).   Her cheek implants, the smallest goretex implants that she could get away with and still get the perky cheekbones she wanted, felt huge to her.   But they had settled already and felt natural, both from the outside and from the inside (the goretex had already fixated to her cheekbones, as designed).   Most of the numb spots were around the back of the ears, around the nose and underneath the jaw (where the doctors reached in to crack the bone and trim it down).   She washed her face quickly and a little gingerly, especially near her nose and along her jaw, even though the operations had been quite a while back. It was just her being unnecessarily careful.

The last part of her shower - washing her hair - was, for her, the best of all.   In her scariest nightmares, she would come to believe she had lost most of her hair, and what was left would be graying.   Many on her dad's side suffered from thinning hair but no grey hair, and on her mom's side, most of the old folks had white or graying hair but no baldness.   If she was extremely lucky, she'd have neither graying hair nor bald spots.   On the other hand, maybe she might go grey and bald, like in many of her nightmares.   She had often thought that she had a high forehead - the highest any girl's could be, perhaps, and still be considered as attractive, sort of like a young Helen Hunt's.

For the moment though, she didn't have any grey spots and wasn't balding. At least for now.   It might be, her therapist said, that she started early enough that the hormones may have delayed or even prevented any male-pattern balding. She fervently hoped so, because of her relatively high forehead (though not unduly so) she was especially scared about going bald.   As it is, for now she had an extremely respectable head of brown hair which was now long enough to flow past her shoulders.

Finishing her shower and shampoo, she toweled off and went to the sink to brush her teeth.   Since she never really got the knack of wrapping her wet hair in a towel, she just left it wet on her back as she finished brushing.   She had to stand there nude as she would have just gotten her bathrobe soggy otherwise.

After she finished with her blowdryer, she finally put on the robe, took her dilators, dried them, put them away, and finished dressing.   It was near ten and she needed to check in by eleven, in time for the lunch crowd.   So she rushed.

In a way, she was glad that her new job had a uniform since she still had some trouble picking casual clothes that didn’t make her look, well, dowdy. With the uniform, she didn’t have any such problems as she had to wear what they told her to: a shiny, low-cut (or rather low-buttoned), long-sleeved ivory silk blouse with a long bow where a necktie would have been, a super-tight stretchy black jumper with a skirt cut well above the knee, dark, semi-opaque tights and high-heeled pumps.   Pretty spiffy duds for a waitress (well, cashier, actually). But it was a pretty upscale restaurant, after all.

She looked at her reflection in her full-length mirror and was halfway pleased with her image.   Halfway because she had yet to feel fully accepted as female by her peers and the world at large.

- - -

In those long-past RLT days, as required, she started preparing for a change in name before she had her operation, and when she came back from Mexico after her SRS, she finished the name-change process - she had stood in front of a judge, signed her name on some papers, and published an ad in a newspaper.   There were other easier ways to do it, but this was the cheapest way she knew to do.   And she had to save what she had for the other upcoming surgeries.   Legal papers in hand, she had her other documents, cards and financial papers changed.   She took a couple of months to recover from the SRS prior to her facial, or FFS surgeries, and while recuperating, she had a series of electrolysis sessions to remove whatever facial and body hair remained after the hormones, and attended exhaustive voice therapy sessions with a speech pathologist.

She didn’t like surgery, but she knew it was her only way to pass easily as female, so she decided to proceed but to have only what was needed to be convincing.   So she had gone back to that clinic in Mexico that did her SRS and had surgery done on her face — fix her nose (it didn’t look quite like a greek nose now), shave down her adam's apple, chisel down her brow ridges, raise her eyebrows, put implants in her cheeks, and, though not really needed, she had her ears fixed so they laid back more against her head.   What was the most painful and difficult of the operations was the one to give her a more feminine jawline and smaller chin.   After the long procedure, she had to have a jaw-brace, mostly just to immobilize her jaw muscles and allow the bones to set without being disturbed, and had to eat through a straw for more than two weeks:   when she left the clinic, she was told to stick to soft foods that didn't need a lot of chewing or biting for a while, and to wear a sort of elastic that the clinic gave her while she slept (it went on top of her chin and underneath her jaw).   In the end, she had a face that she thought she could get used to and, in time, maybe even get to like: a heart-shaped face with prominent cheeks, and a perky smile.   With some left over from the money that she had gathered/borrowed, she was sorely tempted to make her face better than it turned out, or have some other procedures done, like maybe lipo or a breast augmentation, or an ass lift, maybe even have a couple of ribs removed, but she had stopped herself.   The doctors admired her restraint and followed her wishes.   In the end, all they gave her was a face that she could have had were she born a female. With cheeks perkier than her sister's or her mom's, and a chin tinier than theirs, her face was the stereotypical heart-shaped face. As for the rest of her, they told her she had to make do with dieting (the kind to put on weight - not the kind that takes it off), exercise and hormones.

During her RLT (she had heard it's called RLE nowadays), she made do temporarily with a feminized version of the name she had been given by her parents, more like a nickname, reasoning that this would make changing her official papers easier.   But finding out that it didn't, she decided to change it completely in the end.

She had given a lot of thought to the final name she would give her new girl self, and, in the end, she decided on Zoe.   In the bible, it meant “eternal life," but in Greek, it just meant “life” — the name was to be a symbol of the new life she was hoping for herself.   She had thought a second name would sound nice, so she picked Anastasia - its meaning in Greek was “resurrection.”   At the very least it sounded better than her original second name, which was the Greek word for juniper - "arkeuthos.." yuck (her parents had wanted a biblical-type name). So she was now   Zoe Anastasia - the girl reborn into a new life.   

She completed the legal rigamarole, and this time, since her surgeries were done, she was able to put her new picture in her papers and new IDs.   She could have changed her last name as well, but she felt she didn't have the right - her last name was her family's as well.

She turned back to her mirror image.   “Well,” she said to her mirror clone.   “Here you are, again.   Glad to seeya, Zoe.   Zoe Anastasia Papadakis.   ‘Kay, Zoe.   Let’s go to work!”

  
Chapter Three:    Getting a job - The restaurant

It was a heck of a letdown for Zoe to be working in a restaurant when, just months before, she was working as a senior business analyst for one of the largest IT consultancy companies in the country.   On the other hand, her RLT made that job hell, largely because of her prejudiced and small-minded office-mates.   So, as soon as she got the signal that she could start SRS, she gathered up all the cash she could spare without affecting her and Connie's life too much, borrowed what money she could, resigned, and went immediately to that little semi-secret clinic-slash-hospital in Mexico.   But when she finished SRS and everything else three months later (her therapy sessions and doctor visits, the voice lessons, the electrolysis, the plastic surgeries and the reshaping of her jaw) - with the job market the way it was, she couldn’t find a job.   In six months, with the bills mounting, she had eaten into more than three-fourths of what little was left of her savings and the money she borrowed.   She had stretched her finances somewhat by selling most of her stuff, such as her PS2 and x-box, her stereo, her desktop computer, her TV, all the electronic knick-knacks she had accumulated over the years, her boy-clothes and boy-toys (at least she wouldn’t miss those) and so many other things (She didn't ask for Connie's help - one, she was ashamed to ask for that kind of financial help; and, two, she knew Connie didn't have any money she could borrow nor any stuff in the apartment they could sell).   The only major electronic thing she kept was her laptop.   Thank God she didn't go for the boob job and additional procedures the clinic had suggested or else she'd be all that closer to destitution.

At that point, her back was against the wall and was desperate for a job — any job.   And rather than lose her apartment or have to sell her beloved little vintage mini and maybe go and live with her folks (actually, there was only a slim possibility of that - they had all but disowned her for what she had done to herself), she grabbed the only job she could.

- - -

Originally, the opening was for a waitress.   With her newly-perfected feminine voice, she thought her presentation was perfect now, or at least no one would doubt her being female.   However, after being in there for less than fifteen minutes, the interview was over and she was rejected.   The manager said that what they needed were tall, pretty waitresses with lots of waitressing experience.   In Zoe’s mind, she didn't hear the tall part - in her mind, what they meant was that she was too ugly, or that they needed a real girl, not some freak.   Intellectually, she knew that she could fight it, but she felt so down, so rejected, that she just stood up to go.

As she was about to step out of the restaurant manager’s office, the manager said, “Stop!”

The manager went to her. Zoe felt so small and the manager so confident and tall and powerful.

"Turn around."   

She wanted to rebel, but she was feeling very small at the moment. She slowly spun around and the tall lady looked her over as she did.   After Zoe finished turning, she looked up at the manager.   The restaurant manager, hand on her chin, nodded.   Zoe felt a bit elated at that small gesture of approval.

"Do you really need a job?"   the tall lady said.   In Zoe's shyness, fright and desperation, all she could do was nod meekly.

"Well, we do have an opening at the cash register. Although it pays a tiny bit more, none of the girls want the job. Too much responsibility and not enough tips. You want it?"

Zoe nodded her head emphatically, which made the manager and the head waitress (who was standing against the far wall watching her) giggle.

The manager told her some of the more pertinent details of the job and asked if she was still interested.   Zoe nodded again in that desperate/comical way, causing the others to giggle again. "Okay then, you can start on Monday. All right?"   The manager extended her hand and Zoe timidly reached out and shook it.

The head waitress handed her a little piece of paper.   "That's the address of a little clothes-maker's shop a few blocks from here.   Go there this afternoon and tell them you were sent by Rachel, and that you need a couple of uniforms. Bring the bill for the uniforms back to us. We're taking half of the cost of the clothes out of your first week's pay, and if it turns out you need more sets, that's up to you."

Rather than protest, Zoe just nodded again.

"We'll go over your contract and your duties next week, so be here early. At nine."

"Thank you," Zoe said. "I really needed the job."

"Don't thank us yet. Let's just see how it goes first, all right?"

"All right. See you Monday. Thanks, again!"

She handed Zoe two little booklets. "Study these in the meantime.   This is the restaurant's current menu, dessert list, and drink list, and this other one is the manual for the POS machine.   Study them thoroughly."

Zoe clutched them to her chest, smiled gratefully at them and stepped out of the office.

"Poor girl," the head waitress thought. She closed the door after Zoe, and turned to the manager. "What do you think, Josie?"

"I think she'll do okay as the cashier. She better be a good cashier though 'cause we can't use her as a waitress - no experience, and definitely too shy, that's for sure."

"Well, she's cute enough."

"Yeah. But that outfit."   She shook her head.   "Plus boss likes his waitresses to be tall."

"He didn't say anything about the cashier being tall."

"Ahh, you're right, Rachel.   I worry too much."   She went around to her desk, sat down, picked up a sheaf of papers and started to work.   She looked up.   "Now shoo! Get back to work."

Rachel smiled, gave Josie a kiss and went back out into the restaurant.

- - -

Zoe left the restaurant office and breathed a sigh of relief.   So it wasn't because they thought she wasn't a real girl - they they actually believed she was female.   That alone was at least as important to her as getting the actual job.

She was so grateful she finally found a job.   She tucked the two books Rachel gave her into her purse, resolving to study them later, and as she passed the front window of the restaurant itself, she saw that the place was fairly full and the waitresses seemed cheerful and very competent as they zoomed about carrying trays of food. Zoe worried if she'd measure up and fit in.   But she shook her head and said to herself that she won't worry about that for the moment.

As a sort of celebration, she left her old little Mini parked at the corner lot (and saved some gas in the process - nowadays, every penny counted for Zoe), and walked half a block to her favorite soft yoghurt stand to get herself a treat.

Zoe's car was an early-seventies model 1300cc Austin Mini Cooper S that she named "English", with a black top and bright red paint job.   Zoe had it detailed long before her RLT, and had taken meticulous care of the car ever since, keeping it gleaming and showroom-shiny.   To her, her little Mini was her one luxury that she wouldn't give up, though nowadays, she rarely drove English as often as she'd like because of her very limited budget.

In fact even this little trip to the yoghurt stand would affect her budget.   Zoe hated her situation so much that she was almost always on the verge of tears about it - that those little things she used to take for granted, like having one lousy cup of frozen yoghurt, mattered so much now.   She was just surviving by the skin of her teeth, just this side of the poorhouse.   And she was alone.   No friends, at least not anymore. And no family to turn to.   And no Connie. Her chronic insomnia seemed to have gone away, but in its place was her constant sleeping and napping.   She had taken enough psych electives in college to know that that wasn't healthy.   So it was a matter of principle to her not to dwell on things she couldn't change, or on things that made her depressed. She couldn't afford to be depressed.

Anyway, though she knew that little bit of largesse at the yoghurt stand would eat into her self-imposed daily budget, she just said to herself that she'd just skip dinner tonight.

- - -

Old Joe, the proprietor of the frozen yoghurt stand (Joe wasn't his real name, it was just what Zoe called him because she didn't know his real name), looked on at Zoe's obvious enjoyment of the dessert, and smiled.   He loved seeing her enjoying herself.

He knew the little lady was hard up for money, as most folks nowadays were, and only allowed herself the treat if she had a good interview or something, or was feeling especially depressed.

Once, he made the mistake of giving her an extra cup, but she said she didn't ask for it. He was about to say that it was just a little treat, but Zoe had given him the three dollars for the yoghurt, along with a scowl.   Zoe was one of those people who didn't want to accept charity from anyone.

He had never tried giving her another freebie again, but made sure to pad her cup with a little more every time.   Once he overdid it and made her yoghurt cup almost six inches tall. Zoe was about to protest, but he forestalled it. "What?" he said in feigned indignation.   "You got something to say about it? That's what you asked for!"

He was only able to hold in his laughter in for a few seconds before he broke down.   Zoe had initially looked at him in a bit of a shock, but eventually she couldn't stop from giggling as well.   That was the start of their being friends.

- - -

"You seem very pleased with yourself," Joe commented.

"Oh, Joe!" she said, and gave the big man a hug. "Congratulate me! I finally got a job!"

"You did? Well, I'll be... ummm... a monkey's uncle..."

Zoe giggled. "You know you don't have to watch your language around me, Joe."

"Well, me mom said not to cuss in the presence of a lady."

Zoe's smile faded and regarded the old man while he busied himself with serving another customer.   "If he only knew what that meant to me," she thought to herself.

When he turned back to her, Zoe gave him a big smile.

"Thank you, Joe," she said.

"What for, darlin'?"

She shrugged. "Oh, nothing in particular. Just... thanks."

"Well, all right.   In which case, you're welcome."

The both laughed.

"Have to go," she said.   "Gotta go get my uniform."

"Oi! You forgot this!"   Joe held up her yoghurt cup.

"Joe, it's..."

"Take it.   You know how I hate my yoghurt going to waste."

Zoe took back her cup.   It was three-fourths full.   She could have sworn she'd finished off her ice cream, ummm, "yoghurt".

"Joooeee!" Zoe said in a warning kind of tone.

"Whaaaaaat?" he answered humorously in the same tone.

Zoe exploded in giggles.   She gave the old man a kiss on the cheek and skipped down the street, on her way to get her uniform.

- - -

Zoe took her time walking to the address on the piece of paper.   She felt a feeling of calmness and pleasant anticipation, a feeling she'd not had for a long while.   The pay was pitifully low - just a smidge over minimum wage, but after looking at her finances, with this, she knew she could get by until she could get a better job.   These past months have shown her how to get by at the lowest minimum possible, and any improvement over that she would greatly accept.   Beggars can't be choosers.

As she walked, she felt the vibration of her Sony-Ericcson cell phone.

It was one of the claims adjusters from her old job (she might as well have said her old life) - seems that she was entitled to some back pay as well as some overdue commissions from some projects.   She told the person on the phone, a little heatedly, that she had completed all her turnover work and she had paperwork to prove it. The man said that she misunderstood: she basically had a check coming to her, and he just needs to have her receive the check.   He asked that she come in to the office, but she was suspicious. She countered that they should just mail it to her instead.

The man compromised and asked if she could meet him over dinner (he mentioned a fancy place over in Embassy Row) and she could sign for it then.   

Zoe thought it over and decided to accept.   She accepted the offer more because that means she doesn't have to worry too much about dinner, and the man confirmed for seven tonight.

After hanging up, Zoe felt a little happier.   It's probably just a couple of hundred - some amount that they needed to liquidate to square away their books.   She remembered that happening a lot when she worked there.

Still, she could use the money.   Not to mention the free dinner.   She felt happy and a little sad, that she had a new job and some cash coming her way, but was so poor that each meal was a worry.

She couldn't have anticipated how her life would come to be like this. Truth be told, though, her fatalistic attitude, very common to many GID sufferers who realized their gender problems early in life, never really allowed her (or "him" at the time) to think of the future. If it weren't for her ex, she wouldn't be in this situation.   True, she had come to realize (with the help of her therapist) that it was a trap to lay blame on someone else for one's troubles, regardless of the circumstances, because doing so would absolve one of one's responsibility for her actions and hence make it justifiable for one to not accept the consequences (it was like saying, "this is all her fault!   She should be blamed for everything!" and then not do anything to fix things.). In the end, she knew it would still be her to face the music and not her ex.

  
Chapter Four:    The Breakup

Those many years ago, just after her SRS and FFS, she was still living with Connie, her girlfriend - a college friend that had been her one friend that accepted her for all that she was, gender dysphoria and all.   She didn't mind the physical discomforts that came from her still-healing body.   And it was all due to Connie.   Zoe was in love, head-over-heels in love as only a love-starved loner could ever be.

All through their college days, and the time after, they were inseparable. Connie was Zoe's one-woman cheering squad and support group, and it emboldened her to actually go for the transition - RLT and eventual SRS. In fact, Connie was the one who told her, in no uncertain terms, that she should go for it.   Zoe was scared that their relationship may change after she was done, but Connie said no - that she would love her regardless.

And so Zoe did, and she started her transition into her new female persona soon after.   And, in the beginning, they were fine, but Zoe noticed a growing uncertainty, a growing unrest in Connie.   Zoe was successful in ignoring much of it, including the arguments that became more and more frequent. True, their nights together had changed.   Indeed, throughout her RLT, as the hormones started effecting changes in her, their moments together became less and less. Their moments of lovemaking also became less frequent, and though she found it more and more difficult to achieve an erection of any... consequence, Connie seemed to enjoy it more.   No wonder, as it took longer for Zoe to achieve orgasm, and only towards the end, just before Zoe's trip to Mexico, Connie let her know that she had been having the best sex of her life those last six months.   Zoe knew it was largely because she had a hard time having an orgasm, so twenty or thirty-minute sessions were normal, and in her anxiousness to perform, Zoe had a tendency to over-compensate.   And Connie would be out of her mind from endless multiple orgasms before Zoe herself had one.

After her surgeries, Zoe still had to recover, so they didn't... get together as often.   Truth be told, though, Zoe didn't feel like it really, and her need to recover was a convenient excuse.   She did like to cuddle more though, to be physically close and to have tactile contact. But Connie didn't seem to want to. Zoe has this suspicion Connie was actually cringing away every time Zoe tried to hug her.   Zoe now knew that she was deluding herself then, thinking that everything was fine until that fateful day she came home from an electrolysis session and yet another fruitless day of job-hunting.

- - - - -

On that day that they broke up, Zoe was clueless about what Connie had made her mind up about.   Zoe came home and dropped her keys in the little dish on the table beside the door, as usual.

"I'm home!" she called, and shrugged out of her coat.   "Connie?"

Zoe noticed all the bags by the couch. "Is she going on a trip?" she thought. "She didn't tell me anything..."

Connie came out carrying another bag, dressed in a heavy coat, her purse slung over her other shoulder.

"Connie!" Zoe exclaimed. "What's happening? Where are you going?"

"I'm leaving," she said.

Zoe looked stricken. "When are you coming back?"

Connie couldn't look her in the eye as she busied herself with picking up her other bags.

"I have to hurry," she mumbled. "My cab's waiting downstairs..."

"Connie?"

"Damn, I hope I didn't forget anything..."

"Connie!"

She finally looked her in the eye.  

"What!"

Zoe couldn't stop her tears from falling.   "Where are you going? When are you coming back?"

"You don't understand. I'm leaving you. I'm leaving forever."

"What! Why? What happened? Why are you leaving me?"

"How can I stay? You're not you anymore.   You're something else now."

"But, Connie - it's still me! It's still me!"

"Didn't you hear me!" she all but screamed.   "You're some THING else!"

Zoe couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"But Connie," she said in a strangled voice, "you were the one who said for me to go through with the RLT and SRS! You said..."

"I don't care!" she screamed. And then, in a hoarse whisper, she then said. "I have to go..."

Zoe stood there like a frozen statue, unable to hear, to understand, what Connie just said.

"Bye..." Connie mumbled, stepped out of the apartment and closed the door behind her.

Zoe just looked at the closed door, unmoving and seemingly uncomprehending.   And after a while, she crumpled to the floor and fainted.

She came to, maybe an hour later.   She had a bit of trouble opening her eyes since they were crusted over with dried tears.   Her lower face was manky and she couldn't breathe through her nose. She reached for some tissues and blew.   She had to blow hard but eventually, she cleared her nose and could breathe properly again.   She hadn't heard of people crying through their sleep, didn't even know that was possible.   Now she did.

Zoe felt lethargic, but she was eventually able to get up.   She went to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror.   The, red, puffy eyes, the gunk in her eyes and on her face - she looked pathetic. But she didn't really care.   She washed her face, blew her nose again and toweled it dry.   Better.

She went to the bedroom and noticed that all of Connie's stuff were gone.   But a lot was still left, all of it Zoe's stuff.   Barely nothing had changed, really.   It made her think - Connie didn't really have much stuff in the apartment.   Maybe she really didn't think of the apartment as her home - maybe Connie just wanted a place to stay...

Zoe sat down by the dresser and opened her jewelry case.   It was practically empty except for the costume jewelry, which were mostly Connie's.   Zoe felt fleetingly bad that the rings that her ma had given her, which she knew came from her grandmother, were missing as well.   They were expensive, antique pieces - beautiful pieces, and she absently thought Connie could get a big chunk of cash out of those, not to mention the other pieces she got.   The other pieces she stole, actually, Zoe corrected herself.

She was more sad than she ever thought she ever was, or could even be.   It was beyond simply being sad.   She wracked her brain, looking for the right word and came up with "desolate." Yes, that's the word - desolate. Like a desert, barren and empty; like a wasteland...

She opened the drawer where they kept their toiletries and medicine stuff (the medicine cabinet in the bathroom was too small to keep stuff in except their toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste), and rooted around in it.   The toilet paper rolls and the supply of tampons were gone, including the sanitary napkins that Zoe kept on hand in case she needed them (she had been having bladder-control problems since SRS).   All the expensive makeup stuff were also gone, and what was left was the cheap stuff from the corner drugstore.   Also the cute bangles that Zoe had collected over time, since she was a little boy - all of them were gone as well...

She didn't have the strength to cry anymore, but she didn't really care about that.   She kept on rooting around until she found the big, white plastic bottle of sleeping pills.   She got them, went to the kitchen, got a big tumbler of water and went to the couch in front of their big TV.   At least she didn't steal the TV as well...

She tuned in to Desperate Housewives, snuggled into the throw pillows and opened the bottle of pills.

Every few minutes, she would take one of the big pills and pop it into her mouth like a peanut, chasing it down with water, and pretty soon, she was feeling drowsy.   She kept on taking pills until she fell asleep.

She tumbled out of the couch, throw pillows scattering, and fell to the floor.   One of the throw pillows knocked the phone beside the couch onto the floor as well.

No one really knew how it happened, at least not specifically, but the speed dial for Zoe's therapist was hit.

Several hours later, Zoe found herself in the ER, with her therapist watching over her.   Eventually, her therapist told her she got a call from Zoe, but no one was answering, and she had assumed the worst. She sent an ambulance and the paramedics found her sprawled on her living room carpet.   They brought her to the ER, pumped her stomach, and then kept her for what was known in nurses' circles as "suicide watch."

That was a long time ago now, and she wasn't suicidal anymore, but still, it just seemed like yesterday to Zoe.

  
Chapter Five:    Uniform

On that day after her so-called interview for the cashier's job, and she had finished her little yoghurt snack, Zoe proceeded to the address that was written on the piece of paper on foot.

Zoe rang the bell.   A little old Italian lady opened the door and said something in Italian.   It couldn't have been just "hello" because it was too long.

"I was sent here by the restaurant?" Zoe said.   "I'm supposed to have some uniforms made?"

The lady answered her back in a long stream of indecipherable Italian.

At a loss on how to respond to her, Zoe handed her the little slip of paper, and the lady read it.

"Ah! E Raquel dal ristorante. Okay.   Avete bisogno di alcune uniformi?"

All Zoe understood were "Raquel" and "okay," and "ristorante," but she nodded nevertheless.

"Ah, si.   Viene questo senso, bambina."   The lady ushered Zoe in, and she timidly stepped into the cluttered shop.

In the back was a girl by a sewing machine, maybe ten years older than Zoe, with a measuring tape around her neck, putting the finishing touches to what looked to be a black dress with lace around the hem and neck.   She looked enough like the old lady that Zoe assumed she was her daughter or granddaughter or something.

"What is it, mamma?" the girl asked

"Mio amore, abbiamo altro cliente.   Qui."   The old lady handed her my little slip of paper.      She read the note, thanked her,   and turned to me.

"Hi," she said.   "I'm Maria.   Don't mind mom." She waved as the old lady went further in the store.   "Grazzi, mamma," she called to her mom before she disappeared behind a curtained doorway.

"So you must be one of Rachel's girls," she said, turning back to me.

"Yes. I'm staring there next week."

"You're a little different than the others."

Zoe froze.   What did she mean by that?

"Oh, you're definitely one of them," Maria continued.   "You're pretty enough. Seems they haven't changed their policies.   It's just that you're a trifle shorter than the ones they usually send.   The usual?"

"I guess? They didn't really say..."

The girl giggled.   "Typical Rachel," she said.

Zoe had always bought her clothes off-the-rack, and had very few opportunities to have made-to-order clothes, even when she was still a boy, so this was a bit of a novelty for her.

Maria looked at Zoe's outfit. Poor girl. Zoe was clueless about how to dress up.   Just look at what she was wearing!   Floor-length skirt, long-sleeved poet's shirt with a high neckline... good God... Maria decided right there that she will help this poor, clueless girl.

Maria chatted her up while she worked, and though a bit timid at the start, Zoe found herself opening up, and though they mostly talked about inconsequential things, like TV, music and the news, they had hit it off.

Maria was very quick, measuring the distance from one shoulder to the other, and running the tape measure around her chest and over her modest boobies.   She then ran   the tape right under her boobs, and after that, she measured her sleeve length.   She then measured her neck, neck length, and the length of her torso - from the breastbone down to her bellybutton.

There were other measurements - her waist, her hips, leg length, inseam, et cetera.   It took fifteen, maybe twenty minutes tops, and normally, Maria would have asked the girl to come back when the uniforms were finished, instead she told Zoe that, since she was an easy size (which was true), her uniforms would be done shortly, and asked her if she'd prefer to wait while she finished them.

The blouses needed some re-thinking. Since Zoe had very little waist, Maria got one that was similar to the restaurant uniform, but was one size larger. It was also made from an ivory-colored lycra-polyester-cotton blend that was comfortable, thin, shiny like silk, slightly translucent and drip-dry.   But above all, it was stretchy.   It was one of her shop's knockoffs of a Victoria's Secret bodysuit (which they sell to a wholesaler at scalper's prices).

With a lot of judicious adjustments, mostly at the seams, and the part near the waist, Maria had made it so that it was tight around Zoe's flat middle and slightly loose in the upper chest area.

Maria did the same thing with the jumper: She picked one that was a size larger than it ought to be, gathered the material at the waistline and added more pleats to get the waist down to Zoe's measurements.   For good measure, Maria added a bit of lining to poof out the hips more, and shortened the skirt a lot.   With Joe's measurements, the hem of the jumper should be just two thirds up Zoe's thigh from the knee.

Maria gave Zoe the just finished blouse and jumper and ushered her to one of the changing booths in the shop to try it out  

When Zoe came out, Maria had to stop from gasping. Zoe looked beautiful.   Maria knew it was mostly because of the contrast from Zoe's original school-marm look, but she definitely was a pretty girl. And with the assist from the uniform, Maria was sure the patrons at the restaurant will be all over her, especially with the sexy tummy and the extra-short skirt.

Zoe pirouetted in front of the mirrors barefoot, her jaw slack.   "Maria, the uniform is fantastic!"

Maria giggled.   The slightly-loose top part of the bodysuit coupled with the puffed-out short-short jumper gave Zoe the illusion of a larger chest and an hourglass figure, and with the stretchy, shiny material taut against Zoe's rail-thin middle...

Maria didn't bother to explain that this was totally different from the uniform that Rachel orders for her staff, but no one would really catch her alterations.   Put Zoe beside Rachel's other girls, she wouldn't look like she was dressed differently at all, except that she'd look real sexy.

After the first set, Maria was able to make up a couple more in a short amount of time.   Zoe tried out these two new ones as well, and they both fit well.   In the end, though, Marie only gave Zoe two sets, as per Rachel's instructions, and kept one set as her pattern.   (Maria wasn't sure she could replicate it properly if needed, if her only basis would be Zoe's measurements, so she kept one just in case.)

As she wrapped the two uniforms up, as well as four sets of drug-store tights still in their packaging, she watched Zoe walk out of the changing booth, already back in her dowdy street clothes. Maria also slipped a sheet of paper into the bag, with a list of brands and sizes of padded t-shirt bras, bikini panties, dime-store-priced tights and low-priced but chic shoes.

"You're a tiny little thing, aren't you," Maria commented as she aped up the bundle into a pillow-like package.

Zoe looked at her nervously, thinking that Maria was putting her down, but Maria was smiling at her in a friendly way.   Zoe smiled back tentatively.   "You're such a lucky girl to be so tiny," Maria continued, "but you need to trim down a little bit.   Exercise will help, I'm sure, and you should watch your diet."

Zoe was perplexed.   She was already thin, and she hardly eats.   With her meager house budget, she couldn't really afford to grocery-shop much, much less overeat.   But she caught Maria looking at her stomach.

"The tummy's the hardest to trim down, I know," Maria said.

"It's always that, isn't it?" Zoe said to herself... she knew an hourglass figure is not a likely possibility for her.   Oh, to be a real girl and not a fake...

"But, you know," Maria continued, "I know some tricks you can do."

Maria then proceeded to give her some clothes advice, such as wearing wide belts, or blouses belted at the back, but with lots of ruching to give the illusion of wider hips.   Zoe also found out from Maria, that wearing tight tanks and wearing a loose, unbuttoned top over it would do much the same thing.   She was also aghast to find out that her preferred long-sleeved, long-skirted outfits were making her stand out, but not in a good way.   Maria called her look very "school-marmish," and that it didn't compliment her at all.   In fact, Maria said her outfit was just begging for a put-down or something.   Connie never did give Zoe any clothes advice, so most of what Maria told her were eye-openers.

Zoe asked some timid questions, mostly on picking out better styles.   Maria looked at her, one eyebrow raising.   Maria thought to herself - could it be she's... Maria shook her head. Ah, well, she thought - regardless whether she is or she isn't, the kid's asked for help and I'm gonna give it to her.

"Well, honey," Maria said, "I can't give you too many pointers since I don't know you or your preferences, but here's a sure-fire way to pick clothes: look at pictures of your favorite stars or celebrities on TV or in the magazines, pick an outfit of her that you like and copy that outfit exactly."

"How about colors? Can I pick..."

Maria raised a peremptory hand.

"No!" she said, cutting Zoe off.   "I said exactly! Don't rely on your clothes sense, which I have to say..." She indicated her high-neckline, long-sleeved, lace-choked outfit, "is nonexistent.   You'll just likely make a mistake."

"But..."

Maria shook her head.

"Okay," Zoe said meekly.

"Also, dearie," Maria said, "you best be careful picking your celebrity - pick someone that's closest to you."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You have to match your look with the person whose clothes sense you are borrowing.   You can hardly do with trying to copy the look of, say, some six-foot-tall blonde bombshell from Victoria's Secret, right?   You're, a brunette, right? And, umm, petite, and pretty skinny, So that means, you pick a skinny, petite brunette celebrity as your model."

Zoe got what she was trying to say.

"And," Maria continued, "judging from your name and your look, you're greek, right? No offense, of course."

"S'okay," Zoe said. "I grew up in DC, but my dad's Greek, yes. Though my mom's a blonde from Finland."

Maria looked at her appraisingly. "Hmm... Yes, indeed.   But you're lucky you got the good features of both. Thank God you didn't get a Greek nose, huh?" Maria giggled.

Zoe smiled a bit sheepishly.   "Oh, if you only knew," Zoe thought.

"Well, Anyway," Maria went on, "I think you can't go wrong by trying out the outfits of, say, Mila Kunis or Rachel Bilson. Maybe Cristina Ricci, although she's a bit goth for my taste. And maybe Natalie Portman."

"Natalie Portman?" Zoe said excitedly. "You're kidding! I love Natalie Portman!"

Maria laughed at the girl. "Hold it, honey - all I'm saying is that you can use their styles..."

Zoe looked a bit crestfallen. "Darn..."

Maria giggled and gave her a hug. "Oh, honey, you're so precious!"

Zoe instinctively wanted to pull back, but she just stood there passively.   "No need to let my neuroses put off the friendly lady," she thought. Besides, she desperately needed a hug or four. Zoe hugged her back.

Maria pulled back and thought. "You know, I think I have some stuff you can have that'll suit you just fine."   

Maria steered her to one of the long dressers in the cluttered fitting room, opened it,   and dozens upon dozens of outfits - blouses, tops, skirts, dresses, pants and other things were displayed.

"We get a lot of commissions for made-to-order clothes from a lot of teenage girls, mostly the kids of our more well-to-do clients, but a lot of them don't come back to pick them up.   So they end up cluttering the shop.   We store them away, but when there are too many already, we have to throw them away or give 'em to Goodwill.   But given how small you are, I think a lot of them will fit you, so you can have any of them. Let's see..."

Maria cast another appraising eye over Zoe, measuring her by eye, and then started taking down stuff from the dresser. Soon blouses, dresses, skirts and pants were piled on a nearby table.

"I'm sorry but you'll have to launder these. They've been in the dresser for a while now... hmmm.   Wait, here's one!" At the rear of the dresser, Maria pulled down an outfit still in the plastic from the dry cleaners.

"This was something one of my clients had made for her daughter, but when it was done, the girl said she didn't like it because of the color. It got back from the cleaners a week ago, so it's still fresh 'n clean.   You can even wear it home!" Maria handed it to her.

Zoe looked at the crocheted top and chiffon skirt and in her hand, and all the clothes on the table, eyes about to pop out.   But she then looked down, crestfallen.

"Maria," she said, "I don't have to money to pay you for all this. I..."

"What do you mean, pay?   Dearie, I'm GIVING you all of this!"

"I can't accept..."

"Either that or I throw them out or give 'em to Goodwill!"

"Maria..."

"Zoe, you'll be doing me a favor!"

Zoe giggled. "... okay, you twisted my arm."

"But how will you get all of this home? I didn't think of that. Darn!"

"I brought my car. I left it parked near Rachel's office. Lemme get it, though."

"Well, then, girl, scoot! Oh, but wait!   Change out of that ridiculous outfit and put that on first."

"Maria?"

"I insist! Burn those, and change into this. Now,dear, now!"

Maria's commanding, peremptory voice galvanized Zoe to action and changed.

  
Chapter Six:    Monday Blues - Starting the Work Week

Zoe had been working at the restaurant for more than two weeks now, and she had developed a daily routine already.   

Zoe pulled up at the pay-parking lot she usually parked in half a block from the restaurant.   True she could park in the street but she preferred parking in the lot.   But as she pulled up the gate, the attendant waved and indicated that the parking lot was full.   

"Damnit!" Zoe muttered.   She forced a smile, tooted her horn and waved at the attendant.   She pulled back into traffic but stayed on the curbside lane.   She kept an eye out for a free parking spot but there weren't any available.   That's DC for you.   In a few minutes, she started worrying that she would be passing the restaurant by, but as soon as she was about to pass the restaurant, she saw a big boat of a Mercedes Benz pull out of a parking space.

She pulled in and maneuvered her little Mini in the allotted space, grateful that her car was so small it was easy to maneuver it in.   She looked at the meter and saw the green sticker.   Great!   She pulled out her phone, dialed the PARK telephone number, punched in the location ID and entered fifteen hours' worth.   She ended up parking just twenty or so feet from the restaurant entrance, in clear view of Larry the Doorman.   She lowered her window and waved.   Larry waved back and pointed at his wristwatch.   Zoe stuck her tongue out at him.   She knew it was near ten in the morning.   Nevertheless she went into double-time.

She combed her hair and clipped her favorite gold barrette to the hair near her temple (everyone was required to put clips to restrain their hair, but under no circumstances no plastic or cutesy clips, hairnets, scarves and, of course no scrunchies!), and slipped on her vest.   She checked if her tights have bunched up or anything like that, grabbed her knock-off Gucci purse and stepped out of her car.

She was wearing her newly-bought high heels, straight from Maria's list of affordable stuff.   Extremely cheap at thirty dollars a pair, but pretty comfortable and classy-looking.   Who would have thought Clarks and Rockport had nice heels? And if you didn't know they were Rockport, you'd have assumed they were Italian imports or something.

"Spiffy shoes, Darlin'," Larry the doorman said and leaned down for his kiss. All the girls would give him a casual hello-kiss as they came in.

Everyone liked him, and he was extremely protective of "his" girls.   And as the newest member, Zoe got special attention from Larry.

"Musta cost you a pretty penny," he said, still referring to her new heels.

"It was okay." Zoe leaned up and gave the tall man a peck on the cheek.   

"Best get in there, kid.   Rachel's on the warpath."

Zoe gulped and hurried in.

Larry gave Zoe a playful slap on the ass. Normally, such a thing would have earned a guy a slap across the face, or get him fired, but Larry didn't mean anything by it.   Zoe turned and stuck her tongue out at him and Larry laughed his big man's laugh.

Inside was a madhouse. As she punched in with her timecard, Zoe found out from Mike, one of the busboys that had been chatting her up since she started at the restaurant, that four of the kitchen crew as well as three of the waitresses were out sick.   The girls were therefore double-timing to help set up the tables with the remaining kitchen crew, as well as lay out all the flatware and other paraphernalia.   The chef and his sous chefs were exempted from this, of course.

"Where you been, kid," Marge, the head waitress said as she helped Piper move some tables.

"I'm not late," Zoe responded defensively.

"Didn't say you were," Marge said.

"We need some help, kid," Piper interrupted. "Grab a table or some chairs or something."

Zoe went and got a chair and put it by the table Marge and Piper had just put down.

In a little while everything was set and they were almost ready to open.

Rachel came bustling out of the kitchen with several pieces of paper in hand.

"Hey, Rache," Marge said.   "Whatcha got there?"

"I just finished talking with the chef," Rachel answered.   "He says he'll be shorthanded for at least a week.   He can't let his guys come back sooner otherwise the health inspectors might shut us down."

"So?"

"So he's decided to change the menu.   He's taken out a lot of the entrees and replaced them with other more simple dishes." She waved the sheets she was carrying.   "He hopes that we can all cope even though we're short-staffed if we don't have meals on the menu that are too complicated."

"Sure, it'll help," Marge said. "It'll help the cooks mostly though. What about us?"

"Well, since he's taken most of the stews and long roast stuff - no more heavy silver, chafing dishes or crock pots to worry about for a while..."

"Like I said!" Marge interjected, "I am all for this plan! Great work, Chef!"

Everyone in earshot laughed, and went back to getting the restaurant ready.

Rachel gestured to Zoe.   "Hey, Tiny!" she called.   "Come over here."

Zoe put down the pile of plates she was carrying and shuffled over.  

"Yes, Rachel?"

"You're good with computers, right? Can you print up some new menu cards that we can slip into the menu folders?"

Zoe looked over the sheets of paper.

"Shouldn't be difficult. But aren't we opening in ten minutes? I don't think I can finish in time."

"No problem.   I think I can delay our opening for one more hour.   Besides, we don't get people in much until around twelve thirty or so."

Zoe nodded.

"Okay." Rachel gave her a quick hug. "So get to it, girl! Chop chop!" Rachel turned Zoe around towards Josie's office and padded her lightly on her tush.

It was an easy thing to replicate the menus - Zoe scanned the restaurant's logo, made it black-and-white to strain out the crap, and then replaced the black with lavender.

As for the menu, she picked the closest font she could find to the menu's text, and she just used Microsoft Office to re-type everything.

She came out of the office and showed Rachel a printed sample.

"That's quick work, kid," Rachel said, and ran a practiced eye over the text. "What're the asterisks beside some of the entrees?"

Zoe pointed to the line at the bottom of the menu that she added.   "Try our new menu items, available for a limited time only," it said.

Rachel nodded.   "Good thinking, kid." She handed the sample back. "Great work. Now go and have about a hundred printed up."

"Huh?"

"There's a copy place half a block away, I think. Go, girl! Run!"

Zoe rushed back to the office, copied the file into a thumb-drive, got her Sort-of-Gucci purse   and rushed back out.   Rachel intercepted her, gave her the company credit card and directions how to get to the copy place.

  
Chapter Seven:    Nothing Much - Just Saying Goodbye Forever

When she stepped out onto the sidewalk, she waved to Larry and started to walk uptown.   Because it was in the opposite direction of traffic, she decided to walk.   She was half-worried about negotiating the walk in her new high heels, but there's no better time to practice than today.

"Thank goodness much of downtown DC's sidewalks are kept well maintained," Zoe thought.   Her new three-inch heels with the one-inch platform (making the "real" height of the heel only two inches) were not really a problem, and after five minutes, she was starting to navigate on them like a pro.   She started "scissor-walking," just for fun.

She looked at her tiny little wristwatch and noted the time. "Have to hurry," she thought, and quickened her pace. And, without intending to, because of the accelerated pace, she started doing that sexy little catwalk grind, and started creating a little havoc in the minds of the men she passed by.

Five minutes later, she was at the copy store. She handed over the thumb drive and the scrawny kid behind the counter started preparing to make color prints of the new menus in A2-size card stock.

While she waited, she saw someone walk in. It was Connie!

"Hi?" she said to the kid at the counter. "Can I have this printed out? Standard paper only, please."

"Standard paper?" the kid said.   "What do you mean?"

"Ummm, the standard size you use for resumés..."

"Lady, there's no standard size for resumés..."

Connie looked crestfallen, and she looked like she didn't know what to do.

"Just have it printed on letter-size paper," Zoe mumbled. "Connie was such a clueless ditz," she thought, "and apparently she still is."

Connie heard her comment about letter-size paper. "Yes, please!" she said to the kid. "Letter size would fine. Four dozen copies, please?"

Connie turned to Zoe. "Thanks so much, miss," she said.

"She doesn't recognize me!" Zoe thought.

"Ummm, no big deal," Zoe said.

"Getting resumés printed too, I suppose?" Connie said.

"Ahh, no. It's for work."

Connie nodded her head absentmindedly, as she usually did when she wasn't paying attention - something which she often did when they used to be together.   Zoe hated it.

Connie looked her up and down and noted her outfit sexy outfit and the Gucci purse hanging from her shoulder. "Either well-to-do or some consultant," Connie thought.   "Nice shoes," she said. "Manolo Blahnik?"

Zoe suppressed a giggle. "No."

"An italian import, then," she said. Zoe made a non-committal gesture, but Connie wasn't paying attention again.

The kid at the counter came back.   "Miss," he said to Zoe, "I don't know about you, but I think the letters are too small. If you want, I can make the font larger."

"No, keep them as-is at twelve pitch, and keep the margins at two inches all around. I'm trying to maintain the look.   Also, use a sixteen-color palette, so the colors don't bleed."

Connie was looking at her, listening to the pseudo-technical jargon   and then at her outfit again.

"You're with some IT firm, huh?"  

Zoe looked at her in a bit of a shock.   "Does she recognize me, after all?" she asked herself.

Connie giggled.   "I can tell things about people," she smirked.

Zoe had heard her say the same thing a million times before. Whatever Connie believed she was, what she was wasn't a good judge of character.

Zoe let Connie believe what she wanted and gestured at the resumés.   "Job hunting?"

"Yeah," Connie said. "I just vested all my shares from my brokerage company. I'm currently looking for a new company that can make use of my assets."

A patent lie, Zoe knew.   The last she knew, Connie was an entry-level copy writer for a tour guide company.

"Well, good luck with that," Zoe said.

"Thanks."   Connie paid the kid for the resumés in coins (Zoe wondered at that), and put them in a folder she was carrying.

"Well, glad to have met you," Connie said and shook Zoe's hand.

Zoe shook her hand, and tried to be casual about it.

Connie looked at her a little more closely.

"You look familiar," she said. "Have we met before?"

Zoe didn't trust herself to speak and just shook hear head.

Connie nodded. "Well, goodbye then."

"Goodbye," Zoe said a little hoarsely.

As Connie stepped out of the door, Zoe gave her a finger wave. "Goodbye forever," Zoe whispered.

Relationships can start, in spectacular fashion, like with fireworks and confetti and so much fanfare; it can die like being stabbed in the heart with a knife or a sword; and it can finally end in a humdrum kind of way. Like a casual meeting in a copy store.

Zoe had to smile a little bitterly.

No doubt she's gonna spend a lot of time on the couch, talking to her therapist about this morning.   Maybe, like shock, she doesn't feel it now, but maybe in time... but for now, Zoe felt fine about it, mostly. "Goodbye, she said," Zoe thought.   "Goodbye, I said, too."

Zoe went to the glass door and watched Connie walk away, casually swinging her purse from one shoulder and holding her folder of resumés under her arm.

"Goodbye, Connie," Zoe whispered aloud. "Goodbye forever." A single tear escaped her eye.

The kid from the counter called her back, and said her stuff was ready. She turned back to the counter and handed over the credit card.

On the counter, she found one of Connie's resumés.   Connie was always doing that - leaving stuff... She giggled at the pun.

She picked up the three sheets of stapled paper and read through them, noting the out-and-out lies that Connie put down.   Zoe had to giggle at the extreme chutzpah of the girl.

She noted the home address that Connie had put down. Hmmm...

The end.

 

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Roberta J. Cabot

Author’s Postscript:   I suppose, anyone who has been reading my blogs would recognize some of the events depicted here, although they have been altered to suit the story. (Some might even be moved to read the posts in my "Working Girl" blogs, also here in Big Closet.) As I said, this is like a fictionalized version of my life, or at least parts of it. And, though it does have a definitive ending that is in keeping with Sephy's contest requirements, it is clearly not done.   As I mentioned in the author's notes, it is first of a three-parter, and I hope you liked it enough so that you'd be willing to considering reading the next two parts when they come out. Thanks.

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To see the rest of Bobbie's stories in BCTS, click this link - http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/14775/roberta-j-cabot To see the old Working Girl Blogs,   click this link - http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/19261/working-girl-blogs To see all of Bobbie's blogposts, click this link - http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/bobbie-c     note: pictures used are publicly-accessible pictures from the net - no i.p. or copyright infringement is intended