Envy makes her rejoice in other’s misfortunes.
Lucy had smile lines when I first met her. To her they were wrinkles. To me they’re a permanent smile.
They’re gone now. The weight of gravity, bitterness and time pulling the skin downwards and erasing them.
I request a flashback. “Smile.”
The laugh that accompanies is much more pleasant than the glee Lucy shows when she gets to mark a point for bitchy karma.
I walk away from her desk. She returns to her phone conversation. A celebration of the latest scandal. A politician caught with a Swiss bank account. The words say outrage, the voice says delight.
Next up the salesperson who just got a company car. A fancy one. “Who did she screw? Who’d want to?” Cackle.
A belief in meritocracy plus being on the wrong side of the Dunning–Kruger effect equals disillusion.
At lunch I quote the opening of Pride and Prejudice. She doesn’t get the irony.
It’s a shame. Lucy was a beautiful person to be around when she still had hope.
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