Chapter 3

3

I sent out over twenty resumes, but only one company called me back. It was a tiny interior design studio with only five employees. It wasn't even in an office building; it was hidden inside a residential complex without a sign on the door.

The interviewer was the owner, a man named Mr. Lawson. He looked decent enough. He flipped through my resume and hesitated. “You studied architectural design in college?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“And then? You’ve been out of the game for five years?”

“I got married. I had a kid.”

He leaned back in his chair. “To be honest, your situation is tough. A five-year gap is huge in this industry. Everything you knew is probably outdated. I can only offer you twenty-five hundred a month. Three-month probation. You’ll be doing chores, filing drawings, and running errands. You in?”

Twenty-five hundred. I used to spend more than that on groceries in a month.

“I’m in.”

On my first day, I realized I didn't even remember how to use the basic design software. The shortcuts were gone from my memory, and the new plugins sounded like a foreign language. I sat in the corner, feeling like a cavewoman who had been teleported into the future.

But I didn't quit. When everyone else left, I stayed. I sat in front of the computer until midnight, watching tutorials and practicing every single command. If I didn't know something, I asked―even if it meant getting eye-rolls from the younger designers.

I had survived shared bathrooms in a ghetto apartment. A few eye-rolls couldn't hurt me.

When the three-month probation ended, I made the cut. It wasn't because of luck; it was pure grit. Mr. Lawson told me he was surprised I learned so fast. I knew why he was surprised. He thought being a housewife meant my brain had turned to mush for five years.

He didn't realize that being a stay-at-home mom meant managing cooking, childcare, elderly care, and a strict budget all at once. That’s high-intensity project management. I just moved those skills to a different office.

To celebrate, I bought myself a greasy burger from a food truck. I sat on the steps outside the office, watching the sunset. The sky was a brilliant orange-red. It was beautiful. That sunset, earned with my own sweat, was worth more than any diamond Logan ever bought me.