A Picture of What Now?

‘What if I got another job? A different occupation to the mundane task of shooting people all day everyday?’ Bonnie pouted her lips as she pondered the thought. It was a typical day in the office, the usual hive of activity buzzed around her, but Bonnie couldn’t be less interested in the work of ensuring true love.

‘That’s a lovely idea, Bonnie. I’m not sure it would work though. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you sign an agreement that committed you to this role till you depart this earth?’ Richard smiled at her sympathetically.

‘Well, yes, technically, but there are always loopholes and ways to exploit the system. The problem is that there is no point doing that without something to fall back on.’ She twisted a pen in her hands and toyed with the career possibilities. ‘I could write another book…’

‘You could. The first one was lovely. Cheryl really enjoyed it. The only thing was that, well, it didn’t really sell that well, did it? So I’m not sure that would work out, is all.’

‘Richard, reality does a good enough job of killing my dreams. You don’t have to jump on board as well.’

‘Sorry, Bonnie,’ he said sheepishly and turned back to his computer screen. ‘Maybe we could talk some more about it later? New orders. Just emailed them to you.’

Bonnie’s eyes scanned the screen. ‘Are you kidding me with this?’ she spat.

‘I know it’s not your usual.’ Richard had lowered his tone.

There he was. The back-up plan, the man who had rejected her because he’d met someone else. Bonnie had been certain that as he hadn’t landed on her desk yet, this affair of his would amount to nothing more than a fling. Instead, she stared at their picture, the stats scrolling the screen beside it, feeling very much like her own heart had been pierced with an arrow. Okay, maybe not her heart, but definitely something in her torso. Or wherever it might be that the ego was contained anyway.

‘Fucking Tinder. As if Ok Cupid wasn’t bad enough. Now we’ve got stupid apps on phones making my job harder.’

‘If it wasn’t a genuine match it wouldn’t come through, Bonnie. They do check these things.’

‘No, they don’t. The get kind of a vibe and then they send it through to me. I had to weed out over 3000 matches they sent through last year that would never have survived the year. The year! Screw it. I’m not shooting him.’ She folded her arms, very much caught in the throes of a tantrum induced by the dire state of her love life.

‘Bonnie…’

‘No, Richard. That jerk has kept me waiting on a commitment for two years now. He wants a girlfriend? He can fake his way through a relationship with her and just pray that his love is pure enough to get them through. Ugh! Three weeks ago he was sending me penis pictures and now he’s apparently in love? No. He can do it without me.’

‘Bonnie,’ sweat appeared on Richard’s top lip. ‘Are you really sure about this one? I mean, I know you are the best-‘

‘The best in the world, Richard. The very best,’ she said, a smug look settling on her face.

‘Yes, but surely part of that is knowing when to make the match and when not to. You never let your personal feelings interfere before. I know it must be upsetting having to shoot all the men you’ve had feelings for, but surely you are mature enough that you wouldn’t avoid making a match just because of a few untoward pictures? Come on, let’s rise above this.’

‘No, Richard. Just no.’ Bonnie’s bottom lip jutted out stubbornly. She was not going to be swayed.

‘But you know what can go wrong,’ he protested.

‘Yes, I do. And you know what? I’m not sure I care anymore.’ She felt a tingle in the exact spot on her ribcage where she’d been branded a cupid. To unknowing eyes it looked like a normal tattoo, but an x-ray of her ribs would reveal it had been etched deep into the bone. The skin burned where the arrow marked her flesh, but Bonnie ignored it.

Richard, mouth agape in horror at Bonnie’s defiance, watched as a sly smile slowly spread across her face.

Fine, she thought to herself. If they weren’t going to let her quit her job, she would be the first cupid in history to get sacked.

And so it was that Bonnie Martin refused to set up a match because of a few penis photos and put herself at risk of becoming the first Cupid in history to be stripped of her arrow.

Peep Show? Ugh, No.

The screen flashed a message in the bottom right hand corner. It was her own fault. What sort of self-respecting woman left the Facebook chat on, she groaned to herself. Without looking at the name she re-filled her glass, certain it was going to be the very person she was ignoring. She took a sip, followed it up with a deep breath, squared her shoulders and clicked on the bottom right hand corner.

'Oh Christ.' The dogs looked up at the unfamiliar noise. Bonnie was as useless with small-talk with them as she was with people. The sound had them both pricking their ears up.

Hey, sweetie. How's things?

Bonnie shook her head.

Mother, it's weird when you message me on here.

It was going to be a three-glass night, Bonnie could just feel it.

It's weird that I have to message you on here. Don't you answer your phone anymore? It's also weird that you haven't found a man. Are you a lesbian? I only ask because your father is worried about you.

Twirling her long, brunette ponytail in her fingers, Bonnie considered which level of hell you went to for lying to your parents about your sexuality and how many levels down she would be prepared to go if it made them stop asking for grandchildren. With so little say in the outcome it was too risky though and she went with a more pragmatic response.

A woman can be single by choice without being a lesbian, mother. We've talked about this. FFS, Ellen is married. And if I were a lesbian, would this really be the best medium of communication in which to relay that message?

Nodding to herself she was proud of her self-control.

What does FFS mean? I worry about you.

Her face dropped into her hands and more groans and profanities filled the air.

I'll call you tomorrow, mum.

Turning the chat off she drained her glass and considered getting a hobby. As quickly as the idea came it was gone (most likely due to being drowned out by alcohol) so she went back to staring at the Facebook newsfeed and debating whether or not to post something contentious just for the sake of being contentious.

The last week she'd posted a political article that she hadn't even bothered to read but which had stirred a lot of debate amongst the introverts of Tumblr, which had automatically made it good Facebook fodder. Pouting her lips like a centrefold she tried to remember just what it had been but it escaped her. She'd lost seven friends over that status update though. It was hard to care when she had yet work out who a single one of those seven were. At any time Bonnie could tell you exactly how many people were in her friends list. Make no mistake though, it was more her interest in seeing what she could and couldn't get away with than any need to feel wanted that kept her checking the numbers.

Also because she was bored and wanted attention. The laptop made another annoying noise.

'Ugh.' Someone else messaging her.

DTF?

Chivalry was indeed dead. She was sure of it.

No. Go away you disgusting creep.

If he'd been in front of her she definitely would've contemplated stabbing him.

You didn't say that when I was screwing your brains out.

Bonnie's eyebrows hit the ceiling.

It was 1998, you were my first boyfriend, the sex was crap, and you spent eleven months stalking me after we broke-up. You do not now get to message me ON FACEBOOK nearly fifteen years later to ask me to have sex with you like we just saw each other. You were vile then, you're clearly still vile now. Die.

She opened his profile and with a feeling of power, calmly hit block, indicating that he was someone she didn't know. Triumphant, she smiled and poured another glass.

Yes, it was indeed a riveting life that Bonnie Martin was leading and it was nice to know her prediction had been right. It was indeed a three glass night.

This Ain't No Bridget.

Bonnie was no Bridget Jones though.

This wasn't a woman who was desperately searching for a man in the hope of tying herself down and giving birth to mini-Bonnies. The opposite of that was much closer to who she actually was. Her lack of motivation for her life stemmed from a failed career as a writer and from her dedicating too much of her precious time to Tumblr. Well, that and her drinking. It still wasn't clear to her how she felt about marriage - other than of course that she liked the idea of being adored forever, but also understood entirely that statistically that was unlikely given that her life was not the Hollywood movie that she had once hoped it would be - and while she loved her niece and nephew, whenever they were left in her care for more than a two hour stretch she went home exhausted and in need of more alcohol than a typical day's end would normally require.

It was a predicament of sorts. When you're in your thirties, or so Bonnie had found, men who weren't sold on the idea of children were significantly harder to get your hands on than men in their twenties, yet your twenties was exactly when you wanted a man willing to commit and take the next step. Even Bonnie herself had wanted that five years ago and had left a long-term partner who had refused to deliver on that desire. He had since also refused to deliver with the next woman and was in danger once again of being left for someone who was more willing to donate some sperm in the pursuit of propagation.

The thought made Bonnie shudder.

It was the very reason the divorced man was still waiting on a reply to the lunch date invitation he'd extended to her three days earlier. Divorced she could handle, divorced plus one age two was slightly more confronting.

That conundrum was the very thing that was occupying her thoughts the next day as she stared blankly at a computer screen and tried to ooze just enough negative attitude that people left her alone, but not so much that they might report her for breaching the company's code of conduct on interactions between employees or whatever it was called. It's not like she'd actually bothered to read the document.

Unfortunately some were not so adept at reading Bonnie's cool veneer.

'Hey, Bonnie. How was your weekend?'

Of all the things that annoyed Bonnie - humidity, children who hung around for more than two hours, dessert that wasn't chocolate-based, and people who didn't know how to pronounce 'pinot noir' - forced familiarity was definitely in the top ten things that made her want to grab random objects and either smash them against a wall or snap them over her knee.

Her eyes narrowed on the poor defenceless creature standing before her and forcing poor Bonnie to view them as a target.

'Fine.' Her words were curt. She let a beat pass after she'd spoken before she forced a candy-floss dripping smile. Shoot people a cutesy-pie look and they knew. They knew they were better off walking away than continuing to stay in her sights.

He took the hint. 'Oh, that's good.' Slowly he backed away and she kept her eyes on him the whole time to ensure he didn't get cocky and try with a follow-up question. 'Have a nice day'.

Not a question. She let it slide.

Look, it wasn't that she didn't like people, she wanted to scream at the room, it was just that small-talk was the most pointless of all talk. Had something happened that she wanted to discuss with this man she barely knew, she would've brought it up. She was staring at a screen, something she was paid to do, and he came along asking her questions that she didn't care about and which she wasn't paid to answer. She didn't need to be reminded that she had spent the entire weekend alone because all of her friends had gone and got married and had children. It was tough enough to have to deal with without having to relive it every time a near-stranger decided they wanted to make small-talk.

It truly was a wonder she made it through her days without resorting to violence more often, she thought to herself.

But back to the divorced plus age two guy. If she was clever she'd be able to deliberate on it long enough that at least three hours passed without her even answering a phone or replying to a single email. She knew because that was how long she'd drawn it out for on Friday when she'd first received the invitation.

Yep, she thought to herself, it is going to take something very rewarding to steal me away from this gig in a hurry. So she let the humidity continue to annoy her, she held off on giving him an answer, and instead she spent the morning staring at her old, failed manuscript and wondering whether she should throw it away like the trash it clearly was, or try to polish a diamond out of it's worthless pages. And in between those thoughts she took pleasure in ignoring all calls from her boss and routinely sending glares out in the direction of anyone who dared veer too close to her cubicle.

That was exactly how Bonnie Martin liked to spend the hours her lifestyle required her to kill at work.