Taeyeon scanned the 3.5”x2” cardstock in her hand, her other diving into her ebony business slacks for her phone. Lips silently mouthing the numbers, she pressed them into her phone and then set down the card.

“Ms. Jung, this is Kim Taeyeon, you know, from the Ritz-Carlton. I was just wondering what the address for the meeting on Sunday is.”

Taeyeon read over her text message, ensuring it sounded formal enough before sending it off. Her phone buzzed almost simultaneously and she opened the reply, the only text being the address itself.

Sighing in an odd mix of relief and trepidation, Taeyeon sat back down on the edge of her seat. Sunday was only three days away.

--

“God,” cursed Choi Sooyoung after a party of eleven had dispersed from the lobby. “Can’t people just stay at home for once?”

Taeyeon ignored the complaints of her co-worker as she furiously combined card keys with parking permits. Hearing silence, she looked up to see Sooyoung absorbed with her cellular device. Although Sooyoung was her one form of sanity in the workplace, sometimes she could be a royal pain. Taeyeon had just spent the last twenty minutes working on a cancelled reservation, contacting the next person on the waiting list and refilling the reservation, and then checking in the family of the bride to be married the following afternoon at the church across the street—all the while Sooyoung had somehow managed to occupy her time by recreating the fall employee schedule.

Finally able to catch her breath, Taeyeon realized her stomach was growling. Perhaps it was time to drop by The Ritz Deli. As she pulled up the time clock, the stream of sunlight resting on the counter was blotted out by a shadow. Taeyeon looked up, the sun’s rays being distorted by the revolutions of the glass door. She shot a quick look over at a disinterested Sooyoung and grimaced, realizing that she’d have the pleasure of greeting the guest.

A figure in pink stepped into the lobby and Taeyeon forced a smile, prepared to recite the usual: “Hello, welcome to the Ritz-Carlton, how may I help you?”

The guest raised her white-rimmed glasses to the crown of her head, bands fitting snuggly behind the woman’s ears. Chin raised, the woman breezed across the floor toward the east hall, heading toward The Garden.

Taeyeon could not get the words to come.

The woman walked past without a second glance.

Her smile fell. What the hell? Why would she ignore her?

“Hey, Jessica!”

. Impulses. Did she just address the Associate Director of Music of one of South Korea’s most prestigious universities….on a first name basis?

Jessica Jung’s gait slowed and she stole a glance over her shoulder, eyes falling imperiously on the insolent girl who had called her name. With a strained upturn of her lips she tore her gaze away and departed Taeyeon’s company.

“What…the hell was that?”

“Oh,” listlessly replied Sooyoung, finally tearing her gaze from her miniature screen, “that’s some bigwig at the arts university. They’ve been having conferences here all week.”

“I know who she is,” Taeyeon spat back indignantly.

Hearing the vehement annoyance in Taeyeon’s voice, Sooyoung finally met her friend’s gaze. And then the phone dropped in her lap, mouth agape. “Oh! Don’t tell me that was the one who invited—”

“Why would she act like she didn’t know me?!”

With a shrug of her shoulders, Sooyoung shook her head and relaxed in her seat. “She’s a .”

“Do you know her?”

“It’s one of those things you can just tell.”