My brother’s voice cut through the ballroom like a serrated knife through cheap butter, loud enough to silence the string quartet.
“Everyone, I want you to meet my family. This is my beautiful wife, Vanessa. My wonderful mother, Diane. And this…” He paused for dramatic effect, pulling me roughly by the shoulder into the spotlight. “This is my stinky sister. No real job, no future, just a manual laborer.”
Two hundred people in designer suits turned to look at me. Champagne flutes paused mid-air. A woman in emerald silk actually gasped. And there I stood, in my nicest dark-wash jeans and the cream silk blouse I’d bought specifically for this occasion, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks like a brushfire. Scattered laughter, cruel and sharp, rippled through the crowd.
Gregory raised his glass with a smirk, basking in the attention. My own brother, at his merger celebration, in front of everyone who mattered to him, had chosen this moment to gut me.
And the worst part? My mother smiled. Not a big smile, just that tight, pursed expression she always wore when Gregory put me in my place. It was a look that said she agreed but was too polite to say it herself.
Let me back up. My name is Susie Fowl. I am thirty-four years old. And according to my family, I am the failure who digs ditches for a living.
Here is the thing they don’t know: I own Fowl & Company Landscape Architecture. I have forty-seven full-time employees across three states. Last year, we cleared eleven million dollars in revenue. Just this month, we landed a $4.2 million contract with the city for the downtown riverfront restoration project. My company has been featured in Architectural Digest twice. We won a National Design Award for the Morrison Park restoration.
But sure, to them, I’m just the stinky sister who plays in the dirt.
