Page 17 of Semantics

Stella walked outside just as the car pulled up, and it had not dawned on her until she got home that they still hadn’t even kissed, which wasn’t a requirement by the second date, but it felt a little weird. Shouldn’t she want to kiss Amber? Well, her libido certainly did, but Stella wasn’t sure yet if the rest of her did. She also felt bad because their night had felt stilted, and that hadn’t been Amber’s fault. It had been hers. After sending Amber that text she had promised her, Stella flopped down on her sofa, really feeling that bottle of wine now, and knew she needed to get up and grab a giant glass of water to help prevent a hangover. Instead of doing the smart thing, though, she pulled out her phone and did a ridiculous thing. She typed and then hit send on an email.

CHAPTER 5

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Sarai noted. “And we promised that if we ever saw a ghost, we’d tell each other about it so that we could go full Ghostbusters on their ass.”

“Huh?” Violet said without looking up from her computer screen.

“What are you looking at?” Sarai asked, pulling Arlowe’s desk chair over next to Violet.

“You know she hates when you do that. It’s a very particular chair.”

“It’s a chair. She can calm down.” Sarai looked at Violet’s screen. “Is that from Stella the boss Ross?”

“I opened my email for the first time this morning because you guys always make fun of me for being glued to it, and I was met with this. It came in around nine last night.”

“Dearest Violet Russell? What the fuck?” Sarai laughed. “Nice way to open an email. Old-school. I respect it.”

“It’s really weird. She says that even though I was a bitch back in school, she’ll still do a demo with me, but I haven’t replied to her email to set one up.”

“Oh, my God. She really called you a bitch?” Sarai set the computer in her own lap, leaned back in Arlowe’s ergonomic chair that she’d custom-made for herself, and began reading the email out loud. “Dearest Violet Russell, you still haven’t responded to my email, even though you sent me one first. Well, you sent the company an email, but I replied, and now, you won’t reply. Even though you were a bitch to me in school, I’ll still do a demo for you, but you have to click the little blue icon with the words ‘book a demo’ on it and then choose a date and time so that we can do that. If you don’t want to do that anymore, fine. I’ll take you off the list. I just wanted to check because it’s been a few days and, in your form, you said that this was urgent.” Sarai looked up at her and asked, “What form?”

“The contact form. It asked if this was an urgent need for my business. I said yes because I thought that would grab their attention.”

“Please reply at your earliest convenience with either a no, so that I don’t have to email you again, or click the demo button, so that I can show you what we do. Okay. Bye.” Sarai laughed wildly. “Oh, my God. She said, ‘Okay, bye.’ What is this?”

“I have no idea. And I didn’t think I was exactly a bitch to her. We didn’t get along, yes, but I definitely didn’t expect to get an email like that from an SVP of anything.”

“That’s hilarious. And a little disturbing, too. Like, what made her think she should send that?”

“I don’t know. I also don’t know what to do now. Do I tell her that I’m not interested anymore? Cerebral was the best fit for us from what I gathered with my initial research.”

“Maybe reply and ask for someone else there to do the demo, but do it like you’re perfectly cool with her weird-ass email. Wait.” Sarai turned Violet’s computer around in her lap, showing Violet the screen. “She just emailed you again. Came in, like, three seconds ago.”

“She did?”

Violet took her computer back.

“Out of my chair,” Arlowe said when she walked back into the garage office, carrying a cup of coffee.

“It’s closest to Violet’s,” Sarai explained as she stood.

“Your chair has wheels. This floor is concrete. You do the math, Sarai. And what are you all looking at? Did she see a ghost? We said we’d talk about that.”

Arlowe pulled her chair closer to herself and sat down.

“I know. I reminded her as much. But no, she just got an email from Stella, and it’s weird as hell. Then, Stella sent another one. Vi’s reading it now.”

Sarai took Arlowe’s coffee cup and stole a sip.

“I’m sitting right here and can hear you,” Violet stated.

“We know.” Arlowe took her cup back and asked Sarai, “Why was her email weird?”

“She’s apologizing,” Violet said.

“For what?” Arlowe asked.

“The first email.”