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“Do you see what I have to deal with?”
“I haven’t felt like this since sixth grade.”
He laughed.
I didn’t point out he, in fact, was the one who started it. I went along as Luke painstakingly introduced me to all the guests, who were all so unfailingly polite that my jaw felt wired shut with a permanent grin. These were notpeople who would be rude in front of your face. As Luke talked to his relatives, I hung back with my half-empty glass of champagne, my eyes occupied with the paintings that adorned the walls and groaning whenever I checked the time.
“Excuse me. Excuse me! Hey!”
A veined hand encircled by gold bracelets waved in front of my face, snapping its fingers. I looked at its owner, who was a woman in her late fifties who I did not recognize. She glared at me as though I was something under her shoe. What the hell did she want?
She thrust an empty champagne glass in my hand. “Take this away.”
Stunned, I took itand looked from her to the glass and back again. What had just happened?
“Why are you standing there?”
Several of her friends turned around to glare at me, but I still had no fucking idea what was going on.
“Um—you want me to take this?”
A few of them giggled behind her as they gawked at me, and I felt like I transported back to middle school. She rolled her eyes at me. “Oh, Charlie Brown. You’re hopeless.”
The glass ripped out of my hands so violently that her manicured nails actually scratched me. I yelped in pain and Luke swept in out of nowhere.
“Is there something wrong?”
“This one doesn’t seem to be doing her job.” She gestured toward me with contempt laced in every syllable.
Doing her job—what?
Then I realized it with a horrible, sinking feeling. I was dressed so poorly that this woman thought I was the help. My face felt like it was on fire. I turned away and bit my lip.
“This is Jessica, my girlfriend,” he said with a little anger in his voice. “She’s not an employee.”
“Oh, I had no idea. I’m so sorry—”
Realizing her blunder, she reached out toward me, her claw-like fingers patting me on the shoulder. She couldn’t see my face, or my eyes, which were shining with tears. Luke did, and he steered me away from them.
We shoved through a throng of people and headed toward a glass door. I hoped no one had seen the exchange.
“Let’s just go outside.”
We were in a small, side garden. It was lit up with golden, paper lanterns. I growled in frustration. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to hold it together.”
“No, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”
Luke sidled up against me and stroked my arm.
My lips were shaking as I looked at him. “I’m so embarrassed."
"Don't be. They're the ones who should feel ashamed."
"I don’t belong here at all.” I couldn’t erase her expression from my mind. “She looked at me like I was—trash.” I used to be bullied for wearing used clothes from the Salvation Army, and it was the same hopelessness.
“You can’t let it get to you. I get ripped apart every day in the press. You have to let it roll off your shoulders.”
I bent down as the glare from the porch lights illuminated the ugly marks on my shoes. I scrubbed them with my fingers, but they refused to come off. “That’s different. They’re your family. I care about what they think about me.”
