She sneered that my hoodie stained her boutique — then my name lit up

I didn’t argue. I pulled out my phone and typed a short message to my assistant: please push the quarterly review call to now, and loop in Elorian’s regional director. Then I set the phone face down on the glass counter and waited. Vanessa rolled her eyes and started ringing up the woman behind me, making a show of asking if she needed help carrying her bags to a nicer car. Ninety seconds later, the store phone rang. Vanessa answered in her sugar voice, then went very still. Her eyes flicked to me, then to my hoodie, then to the paint on my sleeve. She whispered, “Are you sure?” three times. When she hung up, the regional director was already walking through the front doors with two men in suits behind him. He crossed the floor, stopped in front of me, and said, “Ms. Halden, I am so sorry. We had no idea you were on site today.” The shoppers who had giggled suddenly found the ceiling very interesting. The director turned to Vanessa and asked her to explain, in front of everyone, why the majority owner of Elorian Maison had been told to shop at an outlet mall. Vanessa’s mouth opened and closed. I didn’t raise my voice. I told the director that I did not want her fired on the spot for a bad afternoon, but I did want her retrained from zero, starting with a week on the loading dock where the “serious clients” apparently didn’t shop. I picked up the scarf myself, paid full price out of principle, and asked for the receipt to be handed to Vanessa personally, so she’d remember which hoodie bought it.