THE BOSS AT THE KIDS’ TABLE

The kids’ table.
—Jeffrey, that’s the kids’ table.
—Great-aunt Maude is there too, he replied as if that fixed anything. Besides, she barely hears. You’ll be comfortable.
—Comfortable with preschoolers?
His patience snapped.
—You don’t fit the atmosphere, Cassidy. This is where people network, close deals, talk to serious people. You… you’re not at that level. Just sit in the back, eat, smile, and please don’t embarrass me.
The anger tightened in my throat.
—I do work, I said. A lot.
Jeffrey let out a short, dry laugh.
—Your little blog doesn’t count as work. Look, I don’t have time for this. Stay at table nineteen and don’t even think about approaching Xavier Thorne. Do you hear me? Don’t even look at him. That man is way out of your league.
And he walked away.
Just like that.
I watched him move through groups of men in suits, greeting them, smiling, shaking hands, acting like he already belonged in that world that still didn’t quite fit him. He had no idea that the man he had just forbidden me to approach, Xavier Thorne, the billionaire CEO of Vanguard Tech, the tech company Jeffrey idolized, was one of my most important clients.
He had no idea that the speech Xavier had delivered a week earlier, the one that went viral from an international summit in London and boosted the company’s stock, had been written on my laptop at two in the morning while I ate instant noodles in sweatpants.
To Jeffrey, I was still the weird sister. The one who wrote “little things” from cafés. The one who, in his mind, had never made it.
I took a deep breath and walked to table nineteen.
It was worse than I imagined.
A high chair. Plastic cups. Crayons scattered everywhere. Cold nuggets. A baby crying in a stroller. Three kids arguing about whether a dinosaur could beat a truck in a race. Great-aunt Maude was asleep with her mouth open.
I stood there, humiliated, until a round-faced boy with a crooked bow tie looked at me.
—I like your dress, he said.
I couldn’t help but smile.
—Thank you.
—I like monsters and trucks.
—I do too.
The woman watching the kids, probably a nanny or some distant relative, gave me a sympathetic look.
—Did they exile you too? she whispered.
—Apparently I don’t fit the profile.
She let out a tired laugh.