Imani smiled and asked whether Maya had taught herself that sentence. "A little," Maya replied. "The rest came from experience."
The next morning, Imani arrived shortly before nine with her notebook and leather bag. The building was already busy, and two employees were handling a group of visitors headed to a training session. Kelsey looked up and greeted her by name, then turned to a man who had just come through the doors carrying a briefcase that appeared to have survived a hard journey. She asked whom he was there to see and offered water while she checked the schedule.
The man seemed surprised that anybody had spoken to him so quickly. "I've never been here before," he said. "I thought I'd have to wait until somebody noticed."
Kelsey smiled. "It's your first time, then? Don't worry. Somebody will help you get where you need to go."
Imani passed the pale chair and paused just long enough to watch the exchange. She had kept it exactly where it was, with the same cream upholstery, the same small table, and a fresh arrangement of flowers beside it. Nothing about the furniture announced that a company's leadership had changed. The difference was in the people who no longer allowed a guest to become invisible while sitting there.
Maya emerged from her office with a folder in her hand. "Ms. Brooks," she said, "your nine o'clock is here." Imani looked at the clock, then at the guest who had just been offered water at the desk. "Thank you, Maya," she answered. "Right on time."
She walked toward the conference room with Julian beside her. As they passed the entrance, a facilities worker held the door for a visitor and received an unhurried thank-you in return. Imani heard the ordinary exchange and thought about the first Monday, when she had been told to use the service entrance simply because somebody had decided she did not belong. Forty-five minutes in that chair had taught her more about Sterling Vane than a stack of presentations, and the lesson had cost the company more than its executives ever expected.
But the value of the lesson would not be measured by Preston's dismissal, the canceled invoices, or the footage that had traveled through thousands of phones. It would be measured on mornings when nobody famous entered the lobby, when the visitors carried ordinary bags and wore ordinary clothes, when the employees at the desk were tired or busy or afraid of disappointing someone with a better title. Those were the mornings on which a company's promises became real or proved to be another decoration on the wall.
Imani reached the conference-room door and looked once more toward the lobby. The chair was still there, and a visitor was sitting in it with a glass of water and a clear understanding of when his meeting would begin. Nobody was laughing. Nobody was deciding whether he deserved the good glasses. He was simply a guest, and the people working there knew what to do.
She opened her notebook to a fresh page. Before the meeting began, she wrote a single reminder at the top, a sentence she intended to keep asking long after the audit reports were filed and the next chief executive was chosen. Never forget what a chair can tell you.