sound filled the room and I stood at the front of it with my photograph and my notebook and my face going hot in a way I could feel moving into my ears.
I did not argue.
My mother had told me, years ago after a different humiliation in a different room, that people who need to embarrass others usually feel small inside, and that I should not make myself smaller to match them. I had carried this like a tool, something you keep in your pocket for the moments
that require it. I used it now. I stayed where I was. I held my notebook. I did not argue.
Mr. Reynolds said: “There’s nothing wrong with ordinary jobs. Not everyone has to make up dramatic stories just to sound impressive.”
Make up.
Not exaggerate. Not embellish. Make up. The phrase that locates the thing being said in the category of fabrication, of dishonesty, of a child who invents things because reality isn’t sufficient.
I looked at the words in my notebook, the ones I had written at the kitchen
