Behind me, a shrill voice cut through the silence.
“Oh. My. God. Did you see that?” the girl squealed, pitched perfectly for performance. “She shoved me. She literally assaulted me. My dress is ruined.”
I lifted my head and turned.
If someone had told me a reality television contestant had wandered by mistake into the set of a medical drama, I would have believed them. The girl standing in front of me looked about twenty-two and determined to appear older by force of contour alone. Dark powder had carved sharp shadows beneath her cheekbones. Her lashes were so thick they cast faint bars across the tops of her cheeks every time she blinked. Her lips were painted with a precision that suggested hours spent practicing the art of appearing accidental. She wore a hot-pink dress so tight it looked less chosen than negotiated with. At her neckline hung an Apex badge clipped where everyone could see it.
Tiffany Henry – Intern.
The irony drifted slowly through my mind like smoke.
She wasn’t looking at me, not really. Her true attention was fixed on the iPhone locked into a handheld gimbal in her left hand. The screen glowed with the unmistakable fever of a live stream. Hearts flew upward in pink blizzards. Comment after comment raced past so quickly they were unreadable except for the occasional burst of all-caps delight or condemnation.
“Everyone saw that, right?” she said to the phone, turning her face just slightly to find her better angle. “Guys, you saw it. This crazy woman came at me and knocked my coffee all over me. I’m literally shaking.”
Her eyes, meanwhile, were bone dry.
Then she finally looked at me.
The sweetness dropped off her face like a stage prop. Her gaze sharpened to something thin and cold and mean. She stepped a fraction closer, enough that her perfume reached me—a cloying floral over something cheap and alcoholic beneath—and when she spoke again it was low enough that only I could hear.
