Chapter 6: Room 3-14
The stairwell smelled like concrete and cleaning solution.
I took it slowly.
Not because my heels made it difficult — though they did — but because I needed the two flights to figure out what I was going to say.
I still hadn't figured it out by the time I pushed through the third-floor door.
The hallway was quieter than the executive floors.
Narrower.
The carpet was a different color — practical gray instead of the deep charcoal of the upper levels.
There were bulletin boards on the walls with printed flyers.
A whiteboard calendar.
A handwritten sign pointing toward the partnership office.
Room 3-14 had a glass panel beside the door.
Through it I could see a small open workspace — four desks, two of them occupied.
A woman at the far desk had her back to the door.
Dark hair down, no longer in the chaotic bun.
She was typing.
I knocked.
The woman at the near desk looked up.
"Can I help you?"
"I'm looking for Jess," I said.
The woman at the far desk stopped typing.
She didn't turn around immediately.
Then she did.
Same eyes.
Same composure.
She looked at me the way she had looked at me in the lobby — not with anger, not with satisfaction.
Just with clear, direct attention.
"Ms.
Marsh," she said.
"I'd like a few minutes," I said.
"If you're willing."
She looked at me for a moment.
Then she said to her colleague, "I'll be right back," and stood up.
We stood in the hallway.
The door closed behind her.
"I'm not here because of the review," I said.
I had decided that much on the stairs.
"I mean — I know how that sounds.
I know you have no reason to believe it.
But I want to say it anyway." I stopped.
Started again.
"What I said to you this morning was cruel.
Not abrupt.
Not unprofessional.
Cruel.
I told you that you were nameless.
I told you that you were replaceable.
I said those things because I wanted to make you feel small, and I knew I could, and I did it anyway." My voice stayed level.
I had not planned for it to.
"I'm sorry.
Not for what it cost me.
For what I said to you."
Jess leaned against the wall.
Her arms weren't crossed.
She wasn't performing forgiveness or performing coldness.
She was just listening.
"I've been on the other side of that," she said finally.
"Not here.
Before.
A different building, a different title above me.
Someone who decided I didn't belong in the room." A pause.
"It stays with you longer than it should."
"I know," I said.
And I did know.
I had known it once, before I forgot.
"Why did you forget?" she asked.
The question was so direct it took me a second to respond.
"I don't know," I said.
"I think I decided somewhere along the way that getting to the top meant I didn't have to remember what the bottom felt like." I looked at the bulletin board across the hall.
A flyer for a mentorship program.
A sign-up sheet with names on it.
"That's not an excuse."
"No," she said.
"It isn't."
We stood in silence for a moment.
Not uncomfortable silence.
The kind that follows something true.
"Ms.
Reeves told me about your research," I said.
"Organizational behavior under power asymmetry," she said.
"Specifically, how authority figures treat people they perceive as powerless.
Whether that treatment changes when they believe they're being observed." A small pause.
"Today was a field study."
"I was a data point."
"You were a participant," she said.
"There's a difference.
Data points don't come to the third floor."
Something in my chest shifted.
Not relief.
Not yet.
But something adjacent to it — the first small movement of a thing that had been locked tight since the boardroom.
"What happens to your data?" I asked.
"It goes into my dissertation," she said.
"And then, if Mr.
Vance agrees, into a new framework for how this company assesses leadership candidates going forward." She looked at me directly.
"Your name won't be in it.
The behavior will be."
I nodded.
That was fair.
That was more than fair.
"Jess," I said.
"I'm sorry about your shoes."
For the first time, something softened in her expression.
Not a full smile.
The beginning of one.
"They were already ruined," she said.
"I stepped in a puddle on the way in."
I almost laughed.
The sound that came out wasn't quite a laugh, but it was close.
And it was the most honest thing I had felt all day.
She pushed off the wall.
"I have to get back."
"Of course."
She reached for the door handle.
Then she stopped.
"Ms.
Marsh," she said.
"The review isn't over yet."
I looked at her.
"Ms.
Reeves makes a recommendation," she said.
"Mr.
Vance makes the decision.
Those aren't always the same thing." She held my gaze for one more moment.
"What you do between now and then is still part of the record."
The door closed behind her.
I stood in the hallway alone, looking at the sign-up sheet on the mentorship flyer.
The last name on the list had been added in pencil, slightly crooked, like someone had signed up in a hurry.
The name was Jess Reeves.
May you like
I read it twice.
Then I took the stairs back down.
