Page 24 of IRL: In Real Life
I was the senior director of partnerships and brand strategy, which sounded elegant and still did not cover half of what I did. I managed client relationships, sponsorship decks, cultural activations, campaign rollouts, hotel partnerships, nonprofit collaborations, and the delicate art of making wealthy people, creative people, and anxious people believe they were all speaking the same language.
I had not planned on staying this long.
I started at Monarch Row five years ago after leaving an agency where I had been good enough to carry accounts and still invisible enough to watch other people present my ideas in better shoes. Monarch Row had been smaller then, ambitious and beautifully chaotic, with more taste than structure. I came in to build strategy around the pretty. To make the work hold. To turn instinct into systems without killing the soul of it.
Somewhere along the way, the founder started trusting me with more. Then more turned into most. And most, if you weren’t careful, could become your whole life with better lighting.
Our floor opened into a polished workspace lined with glass-front offices around the perimeter, all of it bright, expensive, and a little too eager to impress until you got to mine.
My office sat near the windows with a wide slice of the city behind it, enough skyline to remind me I had earned my way into that room and every square inch of what it held.
The desk was a dark walnut beauty by BDI, wide enough for the real work and pretty enough that I never let too much mess disrespect it for long. In front of it sat two cream leather guest chairs with slim brass legs, soft enough to take the edge off a hard conversation without making anybody forget why they were there.
A low bookshelf against the wall held pitch decks, binders, and campaign books lined up straighter than they probably needed to be, along with a few art and branding titles I actually loved. Over it hung a framed print by Tiffanie Anderson, all Black woman elegance, color, and command, the kind of piece that made the room feel like mine before I ever opened my mouth in it.
There was a fiddle-leaf fig in the corner I kept alive out of spite and good lighting, a candle I only lit after hours when the office went quiet, and just enough gold and glass in the styling to let people know I liked beautiful things and had no intention of pretending otherwise.
The whole office said the same thing I did without getting loud about it.
I did serious work in here, and I liked my seriousness dressed well.
By the time I stepped off the elevator, my inbox had already started trying to disrespect me.
Mariah looked up from the open workspace as I crossed toward my office, one brow lifting before I even made it to the glass door.
Mariah was the office manager in title and the keeper of everybody’s business in practice. She knew which invoices were late, which conference room had a bad HDMI cord, which client needed sparkling water to feel important, and which staff member was two emails away from acting out. She handled calendars, vendors, supply orders, travel changes, office fires, and the thousand tiny problems nobody noticed unless she stopped solving them.
She was all smooth brown skin, long honey-blonde braids pulled over one shoulder, and the kind of brilliance that let you know she missed very little and enjoyed most of what she caught. Her blouses were always pressed, her nails always done,and her desk always looked like she could run a department from it if somebody got sick or stupid.
By the time I reached my door, the look on her face said she had already clocked something worth asking about.
“There she goes.”
I kept walking. “Good morning to you too.”
“Mmhmmmmn.” Her eyes tracked me shamelessly from blouse to heels to face. “You look rested in a way that offends me personally.”
“I hate when people start lying before nine.”
She laughed and turned in her chair to keep up with me. I paused in my doorway, my purse still on my shoulder.
“No, for real,” she said. “You went to that mixer, right?”
“I did.”
“And?”
I gave her the look she earned. “And what?”
“And don’t do that with me. You either had a terrible time, a great time, or a man made eye contact long enough to rearrange your blood pressure.”
I stopped with one hand still on the glass door.
Mariah’s smile widened.
“Exactly.”
“You are very annoying.”
