Her twenties pass. At thirty-two, Claire is fastidious about her appearance, serious about her job. She spends too much money on shoes and clothes. It's been eighteen months since she lost her mother, and the world has moved on too quickly. Thirty, she thinks, is too young to lose your mother, and like a kid who gets kept back in school, year after year, she's not moved on.
Some days are worse than others.
She's made an error at work, an oversight, a mix-up really, on a marketing report that has been put into the hands of two hundred and fifty sales reps. An exponential mistake. Under florescent lights in the windowless meeting room, she's unable to brush it aside as just a mistake or to pass the blame or to shrug it off with an apology and a quip, as anyone else would. Instead she blushes. She confuses her words.