CHAPTER 6; The First Day

I wore the burgundy blazer on purpose.

Not because it was my favorite, though it was. Because the old Selene owned exactly zero burgundy blazers. She wore ivory and beige and soft grey. Colors that did not demand attention. Colors that said I am here but please do not look too hard.

I had bought this one two days before my first day at Crane & Aldous. Stood in the fitting room mirror for a full minute.

Yes, I thought. That one. Her.

I took the subway. Another small thing that sounds like nothing and meant everything. For four years I had been driven everywhere, in a car that smelled like leather and Dominic’s schedule. Now I stood on a crowded platform with my portfolio bag on my shoulder and strangers pressing in from every side.

I felt, stupidly, free.

The Crane & Aldous building was a converted warehouse. Wide windows. Old brick someone had been smart enough not to paint over. I stood outside it for exactly thirty seconds before I told myself to stop being dramatic and walked in.

The receptionist looked up and smiled like he already knew my name.

“Selene, right? Nicolas said to send you straight up.”

I took the stairs.

The fourth floor opened up like a breath. Open desks. Good light. The low productive hum of people who were not watching the clock. Someone had put fresh flowers in a mason jar on the communal table. The cheap grocery store kind. That detail made me like the place more than any amount of expensive decor could have.

Nicolas was by the window, talking to a woman with silver-streaked hair and headphones around her neck. He saw me. Held up one finger. Finished his sentence. Walked over.

No performative welcome. Just a handshake and a direct look.

“Glad you’re here,” he said. “Come meet the team.”

The team was three people.

Dax, whose face always sat right on the edge of a joke, and had the talent to back up the confidence.

Petra, detail-obsessed and warm, who shook my hand and immediately asked if I had strong opinions about font licensing.

Ro, twenty-three, fresh out of design school, brilliant the way young people are brilliant before they learn to second-guess themselves.

I liked all three inside ten minutes.

Nicolas showed me my desk. Corner position. Natural light from two sides.

Better light than the studio in the penthouse, I thought.

Then, quickly: I am not going to think about the penthouse.

“Team check-in at ten,” Nicolas said, setting a folder down. “Hargrove Hotels is your first project. Full creative lead. The brief’s in there, but I want your instincts before you read anyone else’s notes.”

“You want my instincts first?”

“That’s why I hired you.”

He said it simply. The way people say things that are just true. Then he walked back to his own desk. No drama. No performance.

Just trust, handed over clean, like it cost him nothing to give it.

I sat down and got to work.

***

By noon I had filled half a notebook. Raw ideas, the kind that come fast when nobody is watching and nothing is at stake yet.

Three Hargrove properties, all mid-range luxury, all suffering the same problem. They looked like every other hotel. Safe. Forgettable. The kind of place a business traveler booked without thinking and forgot before checkout.

I wrote one line in the margin and kept coming back to it.

What does it feel like to arrive somewhere and actually feel it?

Petra leaned over around twelve-thirty. “Lunch? Thai place two blocks over. Ro swears by it, even though he’s been wrong about food before.”

“I heard that,” Ro said, not looking up.

“You were wrong about the ramen place.”

“The ramen place was going through something. It’s much better now.”

I laughed. A real one, out before I could think about it. Petra looked pleased with herself.

We went. Small, too warm, the food very good. Ro pulled up a type-design experiment on his phone, unguarded, excited in a way that had not yet learned to be cool about itself. Dax picked it apart with real precision. Petra ate her noodles and refereed.

I sat at that table and felt something settle in my chest.

This was what I had given up for Singapore.

Not the partnership. Not the career move. This. The ordinary, alive feeling of being around people who cared about the work. I had traded it for dinner parties with client wives, for international trips where I sat beside Dominic and smiled and said the right things and flew home feeling like a very well-dressed ghost.

I did not let myself stay in that thought. It was a door I could walk through and not come back from, and I had a full afternoon ahead of me.

We got back at one-thirty. Nicolas was on a call, phone at his ear. He looked up when we came in. A quick check, there and gone.

I gave him a small nod. I’m good.

He went back to his call.

A two-second exchange. But I thought about it later, at my desk, because it had been a long time since someone checked on me that quietly. Without making it about themselves. Without needing anything back.