"Are you sure we haven't met?" the young woman asked, her high pale forehead furrowing in an almost comical expression of consternation. Roxanna couldn't help feeling a tiny warm glow of satisfaction at putting the stranger on her heels just a little bit; the petite brunette with the wide hazel eyes and the slash of burgundy lipstick that looked even darker against her milky complexion had been acting supercilious and arrogant from the moment the conversation began, and Roxanna was getting a quiet satisfaction out of making her question herself even for a moment.
That satisfaction turned to annoyance when the other woman shook her head as if to fling free any last little wisps of clinging doubt and said, "No, I think you've probably just forgotten. No offense, dear," she added, looking Roxanna up and down as if she was evaluating everything from Roxanna's frizzy blonde hair to her heavy chest to the little run in her pantyhose that happened when she was sprinting for the bus this morning and finding every last bit of it wanting. "But between you and me, you seem a little bit, well... D-U-M-B." She shot Roxanna a conspiratorial look, one that absolutely infuriated the administrative assistant. But of course it didn't pay to let her frustrations show.
Even so, she couldn't help seething with anger. Bad enough that she had to come in on Saturday... again... to do a bunch of the extra work that always seemed to pile up on her desk by Friday. Bad enough that some smug little goth bitch who barely came up to Roxanna's tits was wandering into the office asking for help with some abstruse request that didn't make any sense and sounded a lot like it was intended for a different company entirely. But to have her insult Roxanna's intelligence by spelling things out in front of her as though she was some kind of ditzy Fifties secretary and not a competent, capable professional? It was... it was absurd, was what it was. There wasn't even anyone else here. Unless she thought that Roxanna didn't know 'D-U-M-B' spelled... spelled....
Roxanna giggled nervously, unable to explain in that instant why her brain refused to parse the letters into words. "I, uh, n-no, I really don't think we've... uhhhh, ummm... met?" She found herself uptalking at the end of her sentence, an old nervous habit she thought she'd broken back in her freshman year of college, and a deep blush spread across her ruddy cheeks as she realized she was also playing with a ringlet of her long blonde hair as she spoke. Clearly she was more flustered by the stranger than she thought if she was letting the conversation get to her this bad.
The brunette smiled. "And of course, thinking is something you're so used to," she murmured wryly, playful contempt dripping from every syllable. "I don't mean to be rude, but someone as...." She leaned in a little, looking Roxanna not in the eye but directly down her top. "You know... S-T-U-P-I-D... as you can't really be trusted to keep her own memories straight. I was in here last Saturday, remember now? You were here by yourself doing a bit of catch-up, and I stopped by to see if I could book an appointment. But you said you didn't know how to work the office calendar, so I figured I'd come back today to see if you'd smartened up at all."
She chuckled, taking in Roxanna's expression of glassy-eyed confusion and her slowly slackening jaw. "Guess not."