I tried to bring my wife here for her birthday and couldn’t even get someone to pick up the phone.
— My husband has connections. I’m not sure who he called, but I told him I wanted our reunion to be at the best place in the city, and he made it happen.
— So he pulled some strings to get us into “Vera’s.”
— The results are what matters. So, you’re welcome, everyone. Without my husband’s influence, we’d be eating greasy burgers at some dive bar down the street.
— I wouldn’t mind a good burger, but this steak is something else, — Al said. — I’d eat here every night if I had the bank account for it.
His loud, self-satisfied laugh filled the room again.
— You know, Scarecrow, we actually placed bets on whether you’d show up. The buy-in for this dinner wasn’t cheap, — Greg said, pulling a salad bowl closer. — Back in school, you never had a dime. You never chipped in for class trips or parties. What changed? Did you save up for six months for this one dinner? Or did your mom help you out? Though, as I recall, she didn’t have much either. Remember that time you got caught stealing a bagel from the cafeteria? They hauled you down to the principal’s office in front of everyone. Only your grades saved you from being expelled.
— My mother passed away five years ago, — Vera said quietly, looking past him.
Greg’s tactless comment sent her straight back to the past she had tried so hard to bury. Her family had lived in a tiny, run-down apartment. Her father had been a heavy drinker who regularly took his frustrations out on her mother—a quiet woman who never raised her voice.
Young Vera never understood why. It’s hard to find logic in a man who drank his life away until the night he froze to death just yards from their front door. If it hadn’t been for that, he probably would have kept making their lives miserable for years.
Their meager budget was swallowed by her father’s habits, making Vera the outcast who could never afford the “extras” of high school life. And that bagel? She really had stolen it out of pure desperation. At fifteen, she was often hungry. Their kitchen cabinets usually held nothing but generic pasta. That day in the cafeteria, she had seen a tray of fresh, warm rolls. Her stomach cramped so hard she couldn’t help herself. She grabbed one, ran into the hallway, and ate it in three bites.
A teacher caught her and dragged her to the office. The public humiliation that followed was devastating. Standing before a mocking crowd of her peers, her only regret was that she hadn’t stolen something more filling. When she got home, her father had punished her with his belt…
