The Shirt She Judged
Lauren Pierce poured red wine down the front of my white shirt three minutes before she learned she was sitting in my restaurant.
The strangest part was that she smiled while she did it.
Not a nervous smile.
Not the embarrassed kind people make when their hand slips and they realize they've ruined someone else's clothes.
It was the same smile I remembered from seventeen years earlier—the bright, polished smile Lauren used whenever she wanted cruelty to look harmless.
“Say cheese!”
Her phone was already raised.
I heard the soft click of the camera just as the wine tipped over the rim of her glass.
Cold liquid hit my chest.
For half a second, neither of us moved.
Around us, the dinner service continued as if nothing had happened. Silverware touched porcelain. Low conversation drifted beneath the music. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, downtown lights reflected against the glass.
Lauren lowered her phone slowly.
“Oh my God.”
Her voice said accident.
Her eyes did not.
I looked down.
A dark red stain was spreading across my shirt.
Then I looked back at her.
“You still haven't grown out of bullying people, have you?”
Something flickered across her face.
Recognition that I had named it.
Then amusement.
She gave a little laugh.
“Come on. It's just a joke.”
Of course it was.
With Lauren, everything had always been a joke.
When she hid my backpack behind the bleachers junior year, it was a joke.
When she told half the cafeteria that the thrift-store dress I'd worn to homecoming had been pulled out of someone's trash, it was a joke.
When she once asked loudly whether my mother cleaned houses because “that would explain the smell of bleach,” it was a joke.
And whenever I got angry, I was too sensitive.
Whenever I cried, I couldn't take a joke.
Whenever I ignored her, I was stuck-up.
Lauren had always possessed the strange talent of hurting someone and then acting offended by their pain.
I had wondered, occasionally, whether adulthood had changed her.
Apparently not.
She leaned back against the velvet booth, still wearing the same pleased expression she'd had when I'd walked up carrying two glasses of sparkling water.
I'd recognized her before she'd recognized me.
It had taken me maybe two seconds.
The perfectly smooth blond hair was a little shorter now. The face had sharpened. The inexpensive designer knockoffs from high school had become the real thing. Her jacket was probably worth more than every outfit I'd owned at seventeen combined.
But her eyes were the same.
Quick.
Measuring.
Always calculating who mattered.
I'd been helping on the floor because Friday nights were busy and because I liked being there.
My executive team thought I needed to stop doing that.
Apparently founders were supposed to sit in offices, stare at dashboards and let someone else notice when table nine had been waiting too long for appetizers.
I disagreed.
Restaurants lived or died six feet from the guest.
So whenever I could, I still walked the dining room.
Sometimes I greeted regulars.
Sometimes I carried plates.
Sometimes I refilled water.
And because I was wearing black trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves folded to my elbows, Lauren had decided she understood exactly who I was before I had said more than three words.
“Maya?”
Her face had lit up.
Not warmly.
Hungrily.
“Maya! It's been forever. Since high school, right?”
I had set the waters down.
“Something like that.”
She'd looked me over.
Noticed the shirt.
The plain black trousers.
The fact that I wasn't wearing jewelry except my wedding ring.
Then came the expression.
“Oh... so this is what you do now?”
I hadn't answered.
I wanted to see how far she'd go.
Lauren gave a sympathetic little nod.
“Makes sense. You were never exactly great at school.”
There it was.
Seventeen years disappeared.
Suddenly I was sixteen again, standing beside a locker that stuck every time it rained, holding a chemistry test with a C written across the top while Lauren showed everyone her A.
The difference was that at sixteen I had believed grades might prove something permanent about me.
At thirty-two, I knew better.
I also knew that Lauren apparently didn't.
“So what have you been doing?” I'd asked.
That was all it took.
She'd launched into it immediately.
Wealth management.
Major private clients.
Institutional relationships.
A competitive internal promotion.
She didn't call it competitive, of course. Lauren had never competed. She merely existed at the altitude other people were trying to reach.
Then she'd mentioned the meeting.
A significant potential client.
One of the biggest prospects her team had pursued that year.
She couldn't name him because of confidentiality.
I almost smiled.
My husband wasn't quite as concerned about confidentiality at breakfast.
Ethan had told me Lauren Pierce was leading the pitch from Hawthorne Private Capital.
I had simply failed to realize it was my Lauren Pierce until she was sitting ten feet away from me.
The coincidence had been almost funny.
Then Lauren decided to take a selfie.
And pour wine on me.
Now she reached for a napkin as if that erased seventeen years of pattern recognition.
“Seriously, Maya, don't make a thing out of it.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
That seemed to reassure her.
Until a familiar voice sounded behind me.
“Hello! I hope I'm not too late.”
Lauren's entire body changed.
It was almost impressive.
Her shoulders straightened.
Her smile softened.
She stood so quickly she nearly hit the table.
Ethan Bennett approached us in a charcoal suit, one hand adjusting his cuff.
My husband had spent most of his adult life walking into rooms where people already knew his name.
Lauren certainly did.
“Hello, sir.” Her voice became warmer by an entire octave. “It's a pleasure to finally meet you.”
She extended her hand.