The glass wall above Olivia’s desk frames the overcast skyline like a faded postcard: low-slung clouds pressing against the tops of buildings, traffic lights flickering on empty streets below. Late afternoon light seeps in, flat and unyielding, erasing contrasts until her face feels as featureless as a matte photograph. On her desk, everything has the grainy cast of newsprint: the slick brochure for the Patel account, the yellowed Post-it notes, even the ceramic mug streaked with old coffee rings. She’s been staring at the same line for ten minutes—Patel’s revised deliverables—and the highlighter in her hand has gone dry. Her pen, a gaudy giveaway emblazoned with a pharmaceutical logo, taps against the spiral binding of her notepad in a weary, off-beat rhythm: two slow beats, a pause, a hi
