Mira is driving home with a girl she barely knows. She is short, red-haired, pudgy, and irresistably adorable. Mira feels self-conscious, with a bony frame that just manages to pass most days, pale skin, and dull straight hair. This is a prank, it has to be. Any second, this girl Rosie's friends will probably cut in front of her and torment Mira like the freak she is.

"Stick of gum?" Rosie rips open the plastic wrapping and turns to Mira with a thin foiled strip held up. Does she think I smell bad? Mira wonders. She nods, takes it, smiles, tilts her head in the way she does to show how much she's not overthinking. Mira doesn't usually like mint, but this one has sweet tones that feel strangely fitting for the moment.

Mira had needed help finding dry lentils, if they were in stock, and a little human interaction struck her as a good idea anyways. She made eye contact with a girl stocking the shelves and waved her down, after watching her perhaps a beat too long. 

"You seem familiar, you usually come this same time of week?" Rosie had asked. Mira didn't think anyone would have noticed her, though she did tend to stick out like a sore thumb given her height.

"Every other, usually," she replied. "I tend to stock up a bit."

"I can see that," said Rosie, raising her eyebrows at the nearly full cart. 

Rosie then followed Mira around the store, helping her find the rest of her list while being surprisingly personable. "That dress really suits you. Have a favorite cereal? What do you do for a living?" Mira was surprised at her willingness to answer the stream of questions. She told Rosie all about her model business, her tiny farmhouse, the comfort it brings her to have everything 

carefully managed.

"It sounds beautiful," Rosie said at the checkout line, which she had taken the liberty of opening to get Mira through quicker. "You wanna give me a tour? My shift is about to end anyways."

And now they are in Mira's workshop. Rosie had insisted on helping put away groceries despite not knowing Mira's organization system. Mira sits in the rolling chair to shake off the feeling of towering over Rosie. She invited herself over, Mira reminds herself. I didn't trick her into anything.

"Aww, is this you?"

Mira looks up, flushed, to see Rosie turning her tiny lookalike in her hands. She fidgets nervously, imagining herself being examinated so thouroughly.

"Is this the sort of place you'd like to live some day?" Rosie asks

"Something like that." Mira shifts her gaze to the paint cupboard in the corner. She can't stop picturing how easy it would be to swap her consciousness to the doll, even for a brief moment, and feel Rosie's giant, gentle hands caressing her.

"What about this on the table, need groundwater for your dream home?"

Mira stops bouncing her leg and scoots the chair over to her worktable, happy for the change in subject. Rosie steps aside with her hands held politely behind her back.

"No, just a commission. Someone wanted a centerpiece for a medieval market square."

For a while, Mira describes her process of shaping, gluing, and painting each individual piece, and Rosie watches with genuine interest. Admiration, if Mira could be that charitable to herself.

As the sun starts to fade into twilight, Mira moves to turn on her lamp when Rosie, who is now seated text to her, interrupts.

"I should probably head out, i just remembered I was meeting someone for dinner tonight."

Mira realizes she has been rambling for nearly an hour now and winces before facing her guest.

"Of course, I've taken so much of your time already! Do you need a ride there?" He asks.

"No... no thats alright!" Rosie stammers. "I'll walk, she lives close."

"Oh, ok." Mira is startled by her own disappointment.

Rosie presses a stick of gum in Mira'd hand. "We should do this again sometime."

Once she is alone, Mira lies in bed and looks at the wrapper, just now seeing the phone number etched into it. She sighs and places it on the bedside table. with all she told about herself, she hardly learned a thing about her new friend. Instead of wrapping up work for and changing into more comfortable clothes for the day, she decides she needs something smaller, more dependable, and closes her eyes.