"Careful," he said, gently. "Down here, habits get noticed."
"Good," Victoria said. "That is exactly what I am counting on."
Chapter 9: Lunch
By noon Victoria's feet hurt, and she was grateful for it.
The cafeteria sat on the third floor, pale wood and glass, smelling of cumin and fryer oil. Victoria collected a tray and scanned the room: for where power sat and where it didn't.
The executive table was obvious. Walnut near the windows, and at its center Sandra Miller, laughing with her whole polished body, four managers orbiting. Twelve-oh-two.
She carried her tray past them without breaking stride and crossed to a round table in the far corner.
"Mind if I join you?" Victoria asked.
The woman looked up. Silver at her temples, eyes that had seen every version of this building. "You mind if I ask who you are first? We don't get many strangers here."
"Victoria. I'm observing facilities today. I got hungry."
A man to her left grinned, a scar through one eyebrow, a tag that read MARCO. "Observing. We got a word for that. You want to observe, you carry a tray to the dish window when we're done."
"Sit, Victoria," the woman said. "I'm Dot. Dorothy Washington. That's Marco Reyes, that's June Park, and the quiet one is Sam Oyelaran."
"Hello," Sam said.
June was peeling the crust off her sandwich. "You new? If you're new, I'll save you six months and give you the rules."
"I'd like that," Victoria said.
"Rule one. The women's room on twenty-one gets checked three times a day. Not because it's dirty."
"We know how to do a bathroom," Marco said.
"Marco has a certificate. He framed it."
"It is framed," Marco said. "Twenty years of bathroom science."
Dot watched Victoria over her sandwich. "You know what the job is?"
"I know what today told me," Victoria said. "That it's skilled, it's relentless, and nobody says thank you."
Sam looked up. "Eight months, a man in Legal stopped me in the hall to tell me his trash was full. I said, sir, the request portal is on the intranet. He said, you're standing right here."
"Did you empty it?" June asked.
"No," Sam said. "I filed a ticket. I am helpful like that."
They laughed, and Victoria laughed with them, and it felt like the first honest thing she had heard all day.
"There's pride in it, though," Dot said. "Hear that part too. Twenty-two years I've walked these floors. I know which elevator rattles in January. This building stands because somebody mops the lobby before the sun comes up."
"Twenty-two years," Victoria said. "You must have been considered for supervisor a few times."
The table went still. Marco studied his fork.
"Three times," Dot said evenly. "Each time they brought in somebody from outside. The last one called me her first week to ask where we keep the floor machine filters. I told her. The work doesn't stop because the title's wrong."
Victoria felt the old heat rise behind her sternum, the one she had trained herself to keep banked. She underlined the words *three times* in her mind.
June squeezed Dot's wrist. "She runs this place."
"Marco has a framed certificate," Sam said.
"Enough about my certificate," Marco said, but he was smiling.
Across the room, the executive table burst into laughter. Sandra Miller leaned back, hand at her throat, mid-story, and the others laughed the way people laugh when the speaker signs their reviews. Victoria watched for ten seconds.
"Something funny over there," June said.
"Every day," Dot said. "We hear it. We are not in it."
Victoria turned back. "What would change it? If you could change one thing."
Dot didn't hesitate. "Supervisors who've pushed a cart. That's the rule. If you've never done the work, you don't get to tell us how long it takes."
"I'd add a second rule," Marco said. "Learn our names before you learn the budget."
June nodded. "I'd add a third. When somebody says the executive toilets were disgusting yesterday, check whether the toilets were disgusting before you summon the janitor like she's a suspect."
Victoria's hand stopped halfway to her glass.
"Morning," June said. "Somebody important walked into twenty-one and decided it was an emergency. Pulled a woman off the lobby line."
"On her knees," Sam repeated quietly.
"She came back shaking," Dot said. "Wouldn't name who. Said it was the vice president of human resources."
A plate clattered at the dish window. Victoria set her glass down carefully, so carefully.
"I'm sorry," she said, and meant it for all of them, for everything, including the part she couldn't say yet.
Dot studied her face, then nodded once, as if something had been confirmed. "You eat with us anytime, Victoria. We always got a chair."