EMILY

Chapter Three: An Unremarkable Tuesday

Emily met Ethan again three days later.

It happened in the company cafeteria, where she was attempting to balance a tray, a cup of coffee, and a stack of fabric samples.

One sample slipped from the pile.

Ethan caught it before it reached the floor.

“I'm beginning to think these fabrics are trying to escape you.”

Emily took it from him.

“Perhaps they know how much work I have waiting for them.”

He smiled.

“Mind if I sit here?”

She glanced at the empty chair opposite her.

“It's a public cafeteria.”

“I'll take that as permission.”

He sat down.

For several minutes, they ate without discussing business. Ethan asked whether the cafeteria's soup was always that terrible. Emily told him it had once been worse.

“You sound experienced.”

“I've been here two years. I've survived things.”

He laughed, and she found herself smiling despite her exhaustion.

Then he asked about her collection.

Emily's expression changed immediately.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I know you're here to discuss work.”

“I'm interested in the work.”

“Most people are interested in whether it will sell.”

“That's important, too. But I'd like to understand why you designed it.”

Emily hesitated.

She was accustomed to people asking questions only to find a weakness in her answers.

“My mother loved clothes,” she eventually explained. “Not expensive clothes. She liked things that made women feel comfortable in their own skin. She always said a dress should belong to the woman wearing it, not the other way around.”

Ethan listened.

“Is that what your collection is about?”

“Partly. It's about women being allowed to take up space without apologizing for it.”

He looked at her sketches again.

“That's a good reason to design.”

Emily lowered her eyes, unsure how to respond.

They finished lunch discussing ordinary things: the city's weather, a terrible film Jake had persuaded Emily to watch, and Ethan's inability to cook anything beyond eggs.

When they stood to leave, Ethan picked up his tray.

“I enjoyed talking to you.”

“Even though we didn't discuss profit margins?”

“Especially because we didn't discuss profit margins.”

He left before she could think of a reply.

Emily returned to work feeling slightly lighter.

It wasn't an attraction, she told herself.

It was simply pleasant to have a conversation in which she didn't have to defend her right to exist.

And pleasant conversations, she knew, did not have to become anything more.