Not the wide-eyed kind, but the careful, specific kind. What was morale like? Whether people felt heard by management, whether the creative teams still had room to push back on briefs. Dorian told her the truth the way he always told the truth when he thought it didn't much matter. He said the company had a good heart underneath all the bureaucracy, but that the heart had been squeezed pretty hard for a few years running.
He said the designers were talented and exhausted, and mostly afraid to say so. He said the people in operations and maintenance and support did the work that kept everything standing, and management's awareness of that fact was approximately zero. He said the new CEO, whoever that turned out to be, was probably going to walk in with a smile and a restructuring plan, and nothing would change except the names on the org chart. Tessa listened to all of it. She didn't take notes, didn't flinch, didn't offer the reflexive reassurances that people offered when they were uncomfortable with honesty.
She just listened. And while she listened, Dorian watched her watching the office. Not in a self-conscious way, but in the way of someone cataloging information that mattered to them. She nodded at the security guard by the elevator. She noticed when a young woman dropped a binder and two people walked past before someone stopped to help.
She watched Dorian stop to tighten a loose chair leg for an older employee without being asked. By the time he walked her to the correct floor and said goodbye, Dorian had convinced himself he had done a good thing. Helped a new intern feel less alone on her first day. The interaction had the clean, pleasant shape of a small kindness, and he carried it with him through the rest of Friday without examining it further. He spent the weekend the way he spent most weekends.
Amara had a soccer game on Saturday that she played with the intensity of someone competing for a championship, and Sunday was grocery shopping, laundry, and a very serious debate about whether pancakes counted as dinner. By Sunday night, he was tired in the best way. The kind of tired that meant the day had actually happened. Monday arrived the way Mondays always did at Marlowe & Finch, with a mandatory all-hands meeting that everyone attended with the energy of people walking toward something they had not chosen. The entire Chicago branch packed into the main hall, and Dorian stood near the back with the operations team, quietly betting with his colleague Marcus on how long the opening remarks would run before they heard the words "exciting new chapter."
The board representative took the microphone and said several things that Dorian did not retain because the door at the side of the room opened, and the woman who walked through it was wearing a navy blazer, and the particular expression of someone who had decided long ago exactly how much space she was allowed to take up, and had decided it was all of it. It was Tessa. Not Tessa the intern, not Tessa with the jammed folders and the unactivated badge. Tessa Langford, the board representative was saying, who had led turnarounds at three firms in four years, who brought a philosophy of structural accountability and human-centered leadership. Dorian stopped hearing the words because the words had become irrelevant.
He was looking at the woman he had called beautiful, teased about payment in smiles, and spent 40 minutes educating about the company's dysfunction, and she was the new CEO of Marlowe & Finch. The room applauded. Marcus leaned over and said something that Dorian did not catch. He was aware distantly that his expression had probably done something unfortunate because two people near him turned to look and then looked away with the specific care of people choosing not to comment. By lunch it was around the office.