Page 11 of Semantics

“Stella Ross, as in–”

“Stella Boss is what I used to call her in my head,” Sarai interrupted Arlowe. “Every time she’d piss Vi off, I’d be like, ‘Stella Boss strikes again,’ because I thought that would make a cool super villain name.”

“You’ve never even read a comic book in your life. How would you know a cool super villain name?” Arlowe asked.

“I’ve seen the Marvel movies. Well, some. Mostly just the Captain Marvel ones and the Black Widow one.”

“Lesbian,” Enya said before she took another handful of the cereal from the box.

“You watched them with me, like, four times, Enya.”

“Also a lesbian.”

“Guys, shut up!” she interjected. “It’s Stella Ross. As in, yes, that Stella Ross.”

Violet turned her computer toward the group because she’d just done an internet search to see if the Stella Ross who had emailed her from Cerebral was actually the same Stella Ross who had been a pain in her ass back in school, and she’d found Stella’s picture on their website.

“She’s still hot,” Arlowe noted.

“Not the point,” Violet replied.

“But you agree with Arlowe?” Enya asked.

“She’s pretty, I guess.”

Violet turned the computer back around and stared at the clearly professional picture of Stella Ross, who had short blonde hair now. Back then, it had been longer, and she’d had it pulled back a lot. Now, it was sort of swept to the side a bit and a little over her forehead, but Violet could still see the big brown eyes that she remembered staring her down in classes whenever her hand had gone up just seconds before Stella’s. Their competition had been juvenile and immature at times, yes, but Violet had intended on having fun and not having to study that hard to still get top-of-the-class marks for her semester abroad. Stella Ross had made that impossible for her, so she’d gone a little hard, but Violet didn’t regret it because Stella had deserved it.

“So, she works for some vendor that we’re using?” Sarai asked.

“Not yet. I reached out to a few companies that looked like possibilities for us, and she’s the SVP of sales for one of them. She just emailed me back.”

“The SVP of sales does the emailing to prospects over there? How big is that company even? If it’s that small, their product can’t be all that good for what we need,” Arlowe suggested. “Did you leave me any coffee?”

“No,” Sarai replied.

“I hate you.”

“Love you, too,” Sarai joked back.

“What do you want to do?” Enya asked Violet. “What does she say in the email?”

“It just looks like one of those template emails asking me to set up a demo, and there’s a calendar link I can click to make an appointment.”

“Blast from the past, huh?” Arlowe said. “Amsterdam strikes again.”

Violet looked up then. Arlowe was staring out the window behind Enya and into their backyard. Violet had probably been the closest to her back in school. Then, in recent years, Arlowe and Sarai had been the frenemies who loved and would do anything for each other, while Violet and Enya had been more focused on growing their business and had grown closer as friends. She supposed, every so often, their friendships shifted a bit. There had been times when she’d be extra close with Sarai, then close with Arlowe again, and back to Enya, and it had been like that since the beginning, but when they’d all met, she and Arlowe had been the first to really start hanging out, and she remembered Arlowe meeting Eline and how it had seemed like they’d been in love and would make a real go of it.

Violet also remembered how heartbroken Arlowe had been after they’d gotten back and tried their best to keep in touch. Arlowe would tell her all about the women she’d go out with and sometimes sleep with, trying to pretend like she had been fine, when Violet had known that she hadn’t been. Not much had changed for her friend since, and Violet knew that while Arlowe stared out the window, she was thinking about the one who the three of them had always thought had gotten away from her.

“It didn’t strike a first time,” Violet replied, trying to refocus. “She was another student in my program. That’s all.”

“A hot one,” Sarai added. “She’s gay, right? I know we were all guessing back then, but did anyone ever confirm?”

“I did not,” Violet announced. “I was busy with–”

“Your girlfriend, Renée,” all three of them said at once.

“Yeah, we know. You never shut up about her,” Arlowe added.