Chapter 2 - The Empty Hallway
Stella stood completely motionless in the center of the pristine lobby, feeling as though all the air had been violently sucked from her lungs. The glass double doors behind Marcus Vance clicked shut with an airtight, final thud.
Chloe, the receptionist, lowered her gaze back to her keyboard, pretending to be deeply engrossed in an incoming email. The dismissive silence was louder than any insult.
Stella turned on her heel and walked toward the elevators. She kept her chin parallel to the marble floor, refusing to let a single tear spill until the mirrored steel doors slid shut, sealing her inside the descending cab. The moment she was alone, her shoulders slumped, and a ragged sob tore through her throat.
She leaned her forehead against the cool stainless steel wall. The numbers on the floor indicator counted down rapidly: 20, 15, 10, Lobby.
When she stepped out onto Wacker Drive, the chill of the wind off Lake Michigan bit through her thin blouse. Her blazer was still resting on the passenger seat of her car, smelling faintly of synthetic motor oil.
Stella walked back to the public parking garage, paid the extortionate twenty-eight-dollar parking fee with her nearly exhausted debit card, and climbed into the driver's seat of her Honda. She pulled out her phone.
There was a text message from her nineteen-year-old brother, Daniel: “Hey Stell, did you crush it? Let me know when you get the offer! We're celebrating tonight, ramen is on me!”
Stella pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets until geometric patterns of light danced in the darkness behind her eyelids. Daniel was working twenty-five hours a week at a local hardware store while carrying a full course load at the community college. He was trying so hard to pull his own weight, but the tuition bills, the property taxes on their late father’s modest bungalow, and the unpaid medical debts from their dad’s six-month battle with cancer had formed an anchor dragging them both beneath the surface.
This job at Bennett Industries paid eighty-five thousand dollars a year—nearly double her miserable salary as a temporary administrative clerk at an auto parts warehouse. It would have meant breathing room. It would have meant Daniel wouldn't have to choose between buying his engineering textbooks or paying for his asthma medication.
“Get it together, Carter,” she whispered aloud, slapping her cheeks lightly with cold hands. “Crying doesn't pay the electric bill.”
She started the car, listening to the familiar rattle of the Honda’s worn exhaust manifold, and made the forty-minute drive back to the south suburbs. She spent the rest of the afternoon sitting at her small kitchen table, staring at her laptop screen, sending out twenty-four resumes to logistics firms, freight forwarders, and distribution hubs across northern Illinois. Most automated hiring portals gave the same generic response: Thank you for your interest. We will review your qualifications.
By 9:00 PM, Daniel came home, his jacket smelling of cedar sawdust and motor grease—the same scent that had clung to their father for three decades.
“They canceled the slot,” Stella lied gently, setting down a bowl of steamed rice and stir-fried vegetables in front of him. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she had sacrificed their financial salvation to play hero on the shoulder of I-94. “The hiring director was an arrogant jerk anyway. We’ll find something better, Dan. I promise.”
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Daniel looked at her, his eyes carrying that mature, sorrowful understanding that children develop when they lose their parents too soon. He reached across the laminate tabletop and squeezed her hand. “I believe you, Stell. Dad always said you were the smartest person in any room you walked into. They’re the ones who lost out.”
Stella smiled, but as she lay in bed staring at the ceiling water stains later that night, the fear returned. She had twelve days of savings left. If a miracle didn't happen by next week, the bank would begin foreclosure proceedings on the house her father had built with his own two hands.
