Vignettes of Contemporary Conversation: Two

With an air of predetermined audacity she lets down her hair, auburn curls dancing down the curve of her slender shoulders. She pauses, tilts her head to the right 25 degrees, turns her chin downwards, and glances at the plastic reflection before her. “Too forward,” she notes, and slumps back in her leather executive chair. Scratching the mole behind her right ear, she examines the face before her. “The lighting isn’t right.” A flick of the desk lamp, an adjustment to her screen and she immediately looks livelier—a young, high spirited adventurer with a tinge of orange-tan, masking the dark circles of sleepless nights and quiet days spent in monotonous isolation.