Chapter 13: Dot
The afternoon break was fifteen minutes, and the crew took it in a small room off the loading dock nobody else seemed to know existed. Victoria sat across from Dot Washington with two paper cups of water between them, and her shoulders ached in a way they had not ached in years. She was glad to be sitting down.
"You did good work today," Dot said. "I watched you on four. You did not rush a single room."
"Thank you," Victoria said. "Twenty-two years, June tells me."
Dot laughed, low and easy. "Twenty-two years this past March. Came on as a temp in two thousand and four."
"And lead janitor for how long?"
"Eleven years," Dot said. "Supervisor came open three times. Each one went to somebody with less seniority. The third time stung the worst, because by then I was training everybody who got the job."
"Did you apply?"
"Oh, honey, I applied all three times." Dot smiled, and there was no bitterness in it. "Each time they called me an outstanding team member. The third time, the woman in HR told me I lacked leadership presence."
"What did you do after that?"
"Same thing I did before it. Came in the next morning and cleaned this building like it was a church." Dot leaned forward. "People think this job is about floors. It is not. It is about the person who walks in tomorrow and never has to think about any of this. Some woman comes in with her head full of a sick child or a deadline, and for one minute her day is easy. That is what I do. Nobody can promote me out of knowing that."
"Your pride is intact," Victoria said quietly.
"My pride was never in their hands, baby. People think your worth is sitting in somebody else's drawer, waiting to be signed off. It is not. I know what I am."
Dot showed Victoria a photo of a framed certificate. Pinnacle Solutions, Outstanding Service Award, her name in careful script.
"My granddaughter made me frame it. I told her it was just paper. She said, 'Grandma, they put it in writing.' So it hangs next to her school awards. She tells her friends her grandma runs the building."
Victoria studied the photo. "Does she?"
"In the ways that matter," Dot said.
They were quiet, and then Dot's expression changed, the way people look before they share something they are not sure they should.
"Did you hear what happened this morning?" Dot said. "In the lobby. They say a woman got pulled off the line, and that Miller woman from HR ordered her down on her knees like she was one of us. Made her scrub something, or almost. June heard it from a guard who heard it from a temp."
Victoria set her cup down carefully. "What did you think, when you heard it?"
"I thought about that woman all through my shift." Dot's voice went softer. "I thought, if somebody did that to me, I would want somebody in this building to see me as a person before the day was over. Not a uniform. Not a pair of hands. A person. It sat heavy on me."
"Why heavy?"
"Because it could be any of us. Tomorrow it could be June. It could be me. When somebody does that to one of us, they are telling all of us what we are worth to them. And I will not accept that arithmetic. I know what I am worth."
Something rose in Victoria's chest, fierce and sudden, and she had to look down at her hands. A woman who had scrubbed toilets for twenty-two years, passed over three times, telling her that her worth was not in anyone's drawer. And Victoria, the owner of the entire building, sitting in a borrowed uniform.
"I hope that woman knows she was seen," Victoria said, and her voice was rougher than she intended.
"She will," Dot said firmly. "Word gets around faster than the elevators. Somebody always tells."
Dot stood, checked her watch, and nodded toward the door. "Break is over, baby. Three more floors before the day lets us go. You coming?"
"I am coming."
Victoria rose and followed her out, and as they walked the corridor she made herself a promise, silent and complete. Dot Washington would never again be told she lacked leadership presence. Whatever this company became, Dot would have a seat at the table and a title that matched the authority she had carried for twenty-two years. Not as a favor. As a debt finally paid.
She did not say any of this. She just walked beside Dot, matching her pace, and for the first time all day the building felt less like a battlefield and more like something worth saving.