Chapter 17: A month later
The administrative building loomed, all glass and steel. She hit the heavy doors at a jog, her shoulder bag sliding down her arm. The lobby was quiet, cool, smelling of lemon polish and carpet cleaner. The elevator doors at the far end were beginning to slide shut, a slice of the lighted interior shrinking.
“Excuse me, sir, can you hold the elevator please!” she called out, her voice echoing too loudly in the sterile space.
A man inside, a blur of dark suit, looked up. For a fraction of a second, their eyes met. Then his hand moved, not toward the ‘open’ button, but to his tie, adjusting it. The doors met with a soft, definitive thunk.
Tessa skidded to a stop in front of the polished metal. She stared at her own breathless, frustrated reflection. Without thinking, her fist came up and banged against the door once, a dull, impotent sound.
“Asswipe,” she muttered.
A soft ding sounded to her. Heat flushed her cheeks. She turned and walked in, pressing the button for the third floor.
“Thank you,” she said to the air, adjusting her bag properly on her shoulder.
“Did you call me an asswipe?”
The voice was low, amused. She turned. It was him. The man from the other elevator. He leaned against the back wall, hands in his pockets. He was younger than she’d thought, maybe late twenties, with close-cropped dark hair and a gaze that was currently sweeping over her with detached curiosity.
Tessa’s stomach dropped. “Excuse me?”
“You just called me an asswipe.” He said it plainly, looking right at her now. A small, unnerving smile played on his lips.
“Umm, no I didn’t.” She faced forward again, watching the numbers light up.
“Yeah, I guess I just imagined it.” He mirrored her posture, looking forward.
“Guess so.” The elevator hummed.
“You know, I was trying to hold the elevator for you.” His tone was conversational, as if discussing the weather.
“Sure you were,” she shot back, the words out before she could filter them. The frustration of the day—the letter, the lake, the cold, the running—boiled over. She turned to him, forcing a tight, professional smile. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s my first day. I’m just trying to make an impression.”
The doors slid open with a cheerful ding. Third floor.
“Well,” he said, stepping out ahead of her. “Certainly succeeded at that.”
She walked out into a carpeted hallway lined with identical dark wooden doors, nameplates gleaming. He was walking a few paces ahead. She followed the room numbers, her new employee itinerary a nervous flutter in her mind. Office 312. She found the door, took a breath, and walked in.
It was a modest, neat space with a large window. And he was there, standing by the window, turning as she entered.
“You work here?” The question left her in a stunned exhale.
He shrugged, that same infuriating half-smirk on his face. “Surprise.”
Before she could form a coherent thought—anger, apology, sheer disbelief—another voice cut through the office from the doorway behind her.
“Tessa”
She turned, seeing Kimberly walking towards her. Kimberly’s smile was warm, professional, a stark contrast to the icy knot in Tessa’s stomach. “Welcome to Vance Publishing.” She extended a hand.
Tessa shook it, forcing her own smile. “Hi, Kimberly, right?”
“Excellent memory. I’m impressed.” Kimberly said, her grip firm.
The man next to her stepped forward. The elevator guy. He looked even more polished under the bright office lights, his suit jacket perfectly cut. “Yes,” he said, his eyes locking onto Tessa’s. “She makes quite the impression.”
Kimberly glanced between them, a polite question on her face. “You two know each other?”
Tessa opened her mouth, a denial ready. He spoke first.
“Oh, we’re old friends.” He said it looking directly at Tessa, that same infuriating, knowing smile playing on his lips. It wasn’t friendly. It was a challenge. “Now, if you’ll ladies excuse me.” He gave a slight, mock-courteous nod and walked away, his shoes silent on the carpet.
Kimberly watched him go for a second before turning back to Tessa. “Excited to get going?”
“Yeah,” Tessa said, the word coming out a bit breathless.
“Then let’s introduce you to the boss.” Kimberly led her across the open-plan area to a glass-walled office in the corner.
Inside, a man was on the phone. He wasn’t just talking. He was yelling, his face flushed, one hand chopping the air.
Kimberly turned around so fast she almost bumped into Tessa. “Actually,” she said, her voice dropping, “this might not be the best time for introductions. Why don’t I show you your office instead?”
She walked Tessa to a small, room nearby. A desk was buried under teetering stacks of manuscripts and loose invoices. Two dead plants wilted in the corner. “I apologise for the mess,” Kimberly said, sounding genuinely embarrassed. “We’ve been short on interns lately. We’re a bit backlogged.”
Tessa stared at the chaotic landscape she was expected to conquer. The physical disarray felt oddly validating, a mirror for her own head. “That seems crazy to me,” she said, picking up a fallen pen. “An intern would kill for an internship here.”
Kimberly nodded, leaning against the doorframe. She lowered her voice further. “I know. It’s just that Vance has this small problem with firing them after a day.” She must have seen the alarm on Tessa’s face because she added quickly, “But that’s not going to happen to you. I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
Kimberly grabbed a few things from the desk—a precarious stack of papers, the wilting plant whose pot left a damp, circular stain on the wood. She cleared a bit of space, setting the plant on the floor by the door. She looked at Tessa.
“Like I said in the interview, your job is to read five manuscripts a week,” Kimberly said, brushing dust from her hands. “And if you like them, just forward them on to me.” She smiled, a genuine, encouraging curve of her lips.
“Okay,” Tessa said, her voice steadier than she felt.
Kimberly headed towards the door, pausing with her hand on the frame. “Any questions?”
“No, I’m good,” Tessa responded, forcing a confident nod.
“You got this.” Kimberly smiled once more as she walked out, the door clicking softly shut behind her.
Silence flooded the small room, thick and immediate. Tessa stood still for a long moment She exhaled, a slow release of the breath she’d been holding since the elevator. This was real. She was here.
She placed her bag on the cleared section of the desk. The chair was an old, padded thing on wheels. She sat, grabbed the edge of the desk, and pushed off. The chair spun once, a full, smooth rotation. On impulse, she put her hands in the air, just for a second, feeling the childish rush of motion. Then she let the chair drift to a stop, her hands coming down to grip the armrests. Okay.
She spent the first hour cleaning, not because she had to, but because she needed to. The physical action was a tonic. She scrubbed the dusty desk surface with disinfectant wipes until it shone a pale, lemony gold under the fluorescent light. She filed heaps of loose invoices into a brittle, accordion folder labelled ‘MISC’. She dragged the dead plants out into the hallway, a small funeral procession for dried-out greenery.
By late morning, the office was functional. Neat. Hers. She pulled the first manuscript from the ‘IN’ box. The cover letter was clipped to a thick stack of pages. ‘A Historical Romance of the Pennsylvania Railroad,’ it proclaimed.
She read. The prose was dense, cloying, full of heaving bosoms and predictable yearning. She made neat notes in the margin: ‘Dialogue feels anachronistic. Conflict lacks authenticity.’ She typed a brief, professional email to Kimberly and hit forward. One down.
The next was a crime thriller set in a bakery. It was worse. The protagonist, a pastry chef, discovered a body in a sourdough starter. Tessa almost laughed, but the sound caught in her throat. It was all so absurd. People writing about murder in dough while her own life felt like a poorly plotted drama, all heightened emotions and brutal reveals.
She forwarded it with a single line: ‘Concept lacks narrative credibility.’
The afternoon light shifted, stretching long across her now-orderly desk. She read two more, a forgettable fantasy and a self-help book that made her eyes glaze. Her responses grew more efficient, detached. This was a job. She could do this. The rhythm of it—read, assess, send—was a wall she could build between herself and everything else.
The fifth and final manuscript was slimmer than the others. The title was a single word: ‘Graft.’ No cover letter. She opened it.
The truth isn’t a tree, it’s a graft. A cut made in the living wood of a lie, and a new piece bound tightly to it until they grow together, indistinguishable, the scar the strongest part.
Tessa’s breath hitched. She read the line again. The words were clean, sharp. They didn’t heave or yearn. They cut.
She kept reading. It wasn’t a love story. It was about a family, the silent, corrosive lies between a father and a son. The prose was spare, brutal, and beautiful in its precision. It felt true. It felt like a fist in the chest.
For an hour, the office, Vance Publishing, the entire city fell away. There was only this voice, this grafted truth on the page. When she finished the last sentence, she sat very still. The institutional hum of the building seeped back in.
Her hand went to the mouse. The ‘Forward’ button stared back. This was the one. She knew it. She drafted an email to Kimberly, her fingers flying. ‘This is exceptional. Raw, beautifully written, psychologically acute. Please read immediately.’ She attached the file.
Her finger hovered over the send button. A sudden, irrational doubt froze her. What if she was wrong? What if her judgment was clouded by the emotional typhoon of her own life? What if this voice that spoke so clearly to her was just noise to everyone else?
The email whooshed away, irretrievable.
A hollow feeling followed its digital departure. She rubbed her eyes, gritty from screen.
She rested her head on her folded arms, just for a moment. The scent of lemony polish and old paper filled her nose. She just needed to close her eyes, to let the static in her mind settle into quiet lines, like the text she’d been devouring all day.
Tessa woke up, her eyes adjusting to sterile, morning light. She saw a man sitting on a chair in front of her desk. She sat up quick, a jolt of pure adrenaline sharpening the world into painful focus.
“Mr. Vance, I’m so sorry, I must have dozed off,” she stammered, wiping a trace of drove from her chin. Her blouse was crumpled, her hair a mess.
He looked at her for a brief moment, his expression unreadable, before returning his gaze to a folder in his hand. “It’s nine twenty-five,” he said, his voice flat.
Tessa stood up, looking out the window seeing the morning sky. Panic, cold and slick, tightened her throat. “Nine twenty-five? Am I fired?”
“Sit down.” Vance said, looking at her now. His eyes were a pale, assessing blue.
Tessa sat in her chair, her back rigid. She looked at Vance, at the sharp line of his jaw, the perfectly knotted tie. The silence stretched, punctuated only by the distant hum of a copier.
“You mean to tell me you read five books and did coverage on all of them last night,” he began, tapping the folder, “and you think Carnival by Tina is a great read.” He said, putting the folder down on her desk with a soft slap.
The confrontation was so absurd she almost laughed. “Yeah, it is,” she said, defiance cutting through her fear. “She has a really original voice. It’s messy, but it’s alive.”
Vance got a call, the buzz cutting her off. He answered it, his eyes still locked on her. “I’m coming down now.” He stood up, a single, swift motion. “Grab your things. Come with me.”
“Shit.” Tessa mumbled, scrambling to shove her notebook and phone into her bag. She followed Vance’s retreating back, her heart hammering against her ribs.
He moved through the now-busy office with a brisk, ignoring pace. Colleagues glanced up, then quickly away. She felt every wrinkle in her clothing, every strand of out-of-place hair.
He walked outside to a black town car idling at the curb. The city morning was loud, bright, jarring. “Mr. Vance, I was just wondering if we had time to go back to—” she started.
“Get in.” He said, opening the van door. The command brooked no argument.
She got in, the leather seat cool through her thin pants. And sitting there, across from her, was the guy from the elevator. He looked freshly showered, crisp in a light grey sweater. Kimberly was next to him, offering a small, sympathetic shrug.
The elevator guy’s gaze traveled over Tessa’s wrinkled blouse, her general state of disarray. He leaned forward slightly. “Little work tip,” he said, his voice a low, confidential murmur. “Helps if you don’t wear the same clothes everyday. That, and showering.”
Heat flared across her cheeks. Vance slid in beside the driver and shut the door, sealing them in quiet, air-conditioned space.
“Umm, where are we going?” Tessa asked, looking from Vance’s impassive profile to Kimberly.
Vance didn’t turn from the front passenger seat. “There’s a digital publishing conference tonight and I need to secure some funding for my expansion.” The car pulled off, merging into the slow crawl of mid-morning traffic.
Tessa absorbed this, the city blurring past her window.