Man in a Blouse

​My friend was followed out of a restaurant by a man in a blouse.

He accused her of stealing a glass, one of those souvenir glasses that restaurants charge $15 for but which probably cost 15 cents wholesale.

The man in the blouse was smug, as if silently saying, “we both know you stole the glass, but I’ll do you a favor and won’t cause a scene if you hand it over.”

“I paid for the glass!” my friend told him. “I checked with the waitress to make sure I had the right glass! I paid for the glass!”

The man in the blouse acquiesced but never apologized. 

My friend was mortified.

My friend paid for the glass.

My friend double checked with the waitress to make sure she had the right glass, which she left behind in the hotel room the next day, the glass now too richly associated with the man in the blouse.

Originally published in the anthology Soul of the Narrator in 2019.