Across the table, Lauren glowed. She had that kind of beauty that seemed designed to provoke other people into financing it. Her hair had been professionally blown out into perfect honey-blonde waves. Her makeup looked effortless in the way only expensive makeup ever can. She wore a white silk dress with a low square neckline and delicate gold heels that made her legs look endless. Everything about her said celebration. Everything about me said practical. I was wearing a navy dress I had bought on sale for a school banquet and a pair of heels that pinched one toe. I had come straight from grading essays in my classroom and gone home only long enough to change.
I was tired before the appetizers arrived.
Not physically tired. That kind of tired I knew how to handle. I could teach five sections of high school history, break up an argument between two sophomore boys, calm a girl who had just found out her parents were divorcing, meet with an administrator about curriculum pacing, answer twelve parent emails, come home, cook dinner, wash dishes, and still stand in front of the mirror brushing my teeth at eleven-thirty feeling more or less intact.
This was a different kind of tired.
This was soul tired.
