Page 18 of By A Thread

“Best of luck to you,” he said, briskly stacking the papers. “I’ll get these over to the editorial team.”

“Thank you, Linus. Please close the door on your way out,” Dalessandra said, sinking into the chair behind her desk.

She gestured at one of the ivory armchairs opposite her.

Linus’s eyebrows were nearing his hairline again when he did as he was told. The look he shot me as he closed the glass doors was more “beware” than “good luck.”

I sat, gluing my knees together. It had been a while since I’d donned a skirt. I felt like I was mid-crash course relearning how to sit like an adult.

“So, Ally,” Dalessandra said, interlacing her fingers. “Welcome toLabel.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Why am I here?”

She didn’t laugh, but her smile was warm.

“That is why,” she said, pointing at me.

My hair? My charming confusion? Maybe I reminded her of a long-lost best friend from summer camp?

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”

She did laugh then, and I could hear the assistants’ chairs outside spinning in our direction.

“I’m hiring you for our admin pool. You’ll have new administrative tasks every day. You might help with research or fact-checking. You might be called upon to take notes in meetings or run scheduling on a specific project. You could liaise with a designer’s team to help coordinate photo shoots. You may fill in for personal assistants or you may be asked to organize catering, pick-up coffee, et cetera.”

“Okay.” That sounded reasonably doable.

“But.” She let the word hang in the air between us.

I waited for the very luxurious stiletto that was about to impale me from above.

“I’m interested to know what you noticed about our offices so far,” she said.

“You mean in the three minutes I’ve been here?”

“Yes.”

Great. There was already a test. I knew there was an answer she was looking for. I just didn’t know what it was.

“Everyone seems…” I trailed off, not sure how honest I should be.

“Say it,” she said.

“Terrified. Like deer in headlights.”

She sighed and tapped her pen on her desk. “We recently went through a… difficult transition.”

“Mmm,” I said, not ready to admit that I’d internet stalked her and her company.

“In the transition, we removed, lost, and replaced several key employees. The ones we removed were no longer the right… fit,” she decided, “for our values. They had become liabilities of sorts. Unfortunately, we also lost several valuable team members.”

There was a whole hell of a lot that she was dancing around about behind the public relations vocabulary.

“My husband took advantage of my generosity and abused his power here. I was aware of some of his… flaws. But I was not aware of just how inappropriate he’d become.” Her tone was steely and anger all but crackled off her. I hoped she got the guy’s balls in the divorce.

I stayed silent and forcibly choked down the kajillion questions I had.

“I was so focused on growing a brand, transitioning into digital-first, and enjoying the perks of being a powerful woman in an exciting industry that I didn’t look closely within my own family, my own company. Maybe I didn’t want to.”