The other day on the train, I saw a woman who looked oddly familiar. She had longer hair than when I had last seen her six years ago. She had also added a few lines to those that had already formed on her face, but she wore exactly the same expression, which I can only describe as a half smirk/half sarcastic purse of the lips coupled with disapproving, hooded eyes that you only usually see when a sneer is on the cusp of someone's next facial movement.
I had to suppress the urge to make sure that the woman saw me as well as a powerful desire to make sure she didn't see me. This conflict of instincts made me stand up taller while also making me want to step backwards (though I didn't). We had been seated on either side of the train doors and now, at the final stop, we would inevitably clash at the doorway. There were plenty of people around but the rush-hour crowd was not so thick that we would be shielded from one another. I looked at her again and again, smiled to myself, and knew that I had more drive in me now than I had had when I first knew her (and back then, when she and I fought, I gave her hell). I was daring her to look up, to meet my gaze. But she did not, lost in some inane thought, no doubt. Or maybe she had seen me.
This woman, with her beige bag and beige hair and face (and personality) is the last person I worked for before going freelance [I am so tempted to name her here...]. Let's call her Linzi [she'd like to think that that would suit her]... So, Linzi. A bully in a beige suit. A bully who made me vow to never work for a company, to be tied to any one place for my income (after I woke one day with blood all over my pillow and duvet) was there, right there... I thought I had an ulcer but I didn't – there was a bizarre amount of blood over my chin and mouth, and I have no idea where it came from – there were no cuts in my mouth or bites caused by teeth-grinding.)
Linzi was a bastard and probably still is. I know where she works because me and my ex-colleagues (now friends – oh, how we bonded!) sometimes Google her. I know which train she takes now, and where she sits. And that she still wears beige. Not much changes.
Suffice to say that this woman tried all manner of means to get me and my colleagues to leave so that she could replace us with her cronies. I came off badly because I stood up to her. In time, the office ended up as a Linzi version of Friends Reunited. My colleagues and I eventually left because, frankly life was too short to put up with the evil idiot who embezzled a load of money and somehow got away with it – due to an incredible police mess-up with the case notes.
By the time Linzi's computer was seized, I must have been a distant memory, and had left only a legacy of my fury and defiance (I started cases against her – just to teach her a lesson – and I got the unions involved, though they were largely useless, but it gave Linzi something to worry about...). I remember when a friend called me to tell me that Linzi had been arrested. I was in M&S buying tights at the time and yelled with delight and laughed for about 15 minutes. Shame she didn't get to spend some time in jail.
If I see her again, I'll grin. She'll probably fall over on her beige shoes with shock.
