Counting down from ten never worked for Grace. If anything, it only exacerbated her temper and focused it, creating a keener point to her already sharp tongue, so that when she opened her mouth and spoke, the words that emerged were more painful, more disdainful, and more disrespectful. When she reacted without thinking, she’d usually stumble around with inadequate phrases that blunted the fierce criticism; she kept more employees this way.
Grace was not, to say the least, graceful. Besides her forge-heat temper, she was also frequently rude – not on purpose, but because the niceties of polite small talk and banter seemed like a waste of time and she hadn’t the patience for them. She was also leery of letting others do any work for her and preferred counting on herself. She despised debts of any sort and had difficulty thanking those who helped her. Those who loved her, though, accepted this in her, and learned to become deaf to her tactless observations and blind to her sometimes embarrassing behavior.
She ran a small business, which was unfortunate for it forced her to hire others and trust them with at least a certain amount of responsibility. She always had the uncomfortable feeling that she was turning into a cliche mega-boss-lady, a woman universally feared for her tight bun and neatness. At the same time, she hated the thought that people would look at her and think “Oh, she’s really all mushy inside.”
It was hard for her, being Grace. She often wondered whether there was anything she could do about it.