Then somehow returned to active stock without reversal.
Nia looked toward the city outside.
This was no longer one thing.
It rarely was.
Prejudice.
VIP entitlement.
Weak controls.
Management shortcuts.
Possibly fraud.
All feeding one another.
Systems liked to hide behind complexity.
Complexity made accountability exhausting.
Nia was tired already.
She stood.
“Call outside counsel.”
Anthony nodded.
“Which firm?”
“Not our usual retail counsel.”
“Why?”
“Daniel plays golf with them.”
Anthony almost smiled.
“Got it.”
Maya asked:
“What should I do?”
Nia looked at her.
“Go back to work if you feel able.”
Maya nodded.
Then hesitated.
“Can I say something?”
“Yes.”
“You asked Ms. Harmon why I looked at her before answering.”
Nia waited.
Maya continued:
“She fired someone last year.”
“For what?”
“A sales associate named Priya.”
“Officially performance.”
“But…”
“She complained that VIP returns were wrong.”
Nia’s stomach tightened.
“Do you have her contact?”
“Yes.”
“Do not contact her.”
Maya looked surprised.
“Why?”
“Because I don't want anyone later claiming we coordinated testimony.”
Nia took Maya’s phone number with consent.
“Outside investigator will contact you.”
“Okay.”
“Keep your messages.”
“I will.”
“And Maya?”
“Yes?”
“You did well downstairs.”
The young woman swallowed.
“I was scared.”
“That is not the opposite of doing well.”
Maya looked as though she might cry again.
Instead she nodded.
Then returned to floor.
Nia remained in conference room alone for several minutes.
On the table sat her sunglasses.
She turned them over once.
Her mother would have hated them.
Too big.
Too expensive.
Nia smiled despite herself.
Loretta Caldwell had been a seamstress in Queens.
Not fashion.
Not glamour.
Alterations.
Wedding hems.
Choir robes.
School uniforms.
Zippers.
Sleeves.
The uncelebrated repair work that kept other people’s clothes wearable.
Nia grew up under cutting tables.
She learned fabric before arithmetic.
At sixteen, she could identify cheap interfacing by touch.
At twenty-three, she opened a custom tailoring studio with eleven thousand dollars borrowed from an aunt.
At twenty-eight, she launched a small capsule line.
At thirty-five, she sold a minority stake.
At forty, she bought one.
Not a garment company.
A luxury retailer.
Aurelian House had been founded before Nia’s grandmother was born.
Its original flagship refused to employ Black sales associates until the 1960s.
That fact lived in corporate history as an awkward paragraph nobody liked discussing.
Nia had acquired control eighteen months earlier after years of gradual investment.
People called it historic.
First Black woman to control the group.
She disliked the headline.
Not because it was untrue.
Because it suggested arrival was the interesting part.
Ownership was easy compared with stewardship.
She thought she had changed the right things.
Board composition.
Supplier diversity.
Employee-pay bands.
Promotion reviews.
Complaint channels.
Apparently she had changed policies without changing enough incentives.
Nia looked toward the dresses.
Her mother used to say:
A bad seam hides until somebody pulls on it.
Then the whole garment tells the truth.
Someone had pulled.
The garment was opening.