Introduce yourself

You take a breath. The corset makes it a shallow one.

"Actually, Margot—I should tell you something." You turn from the rack, the wrap dress still between your fingers. "I applied for the sales associate position. Online, yesterday. But I want to be honest with you—I don't have retail experience. Not really. I've never worked in clothing. I don't know fabrics the way you do, I can't name silhouettes or tell you why something works on one body and not another."

You pause. Margot is watching you with those grey-green eyes, reading glasses still perched on her nose, expression unreadable.

"What I mean is—if you're even considering my application—I'd need training. On-the-job training. I learn fast, and I think I have good instincts, but I'm starting from basically zero."

That was honest. Painfully honest. You just told a potential employer you're unqualified. Smart move, Bennett.

But Margot doesn't look disappointed. She tilts her head, removes her glasses, and folds them deliberately.

"Let me ask you something, Riley." She leans against the counter, arms crossing loosely. "Why did you apply here? Not to the café down the street, not to the accounting firm—here."

The question catches you off guard. You think about it—really think, not just the surface answer.

"Because I walked in and felt... drawn. To the way things are arranged. To how you talked about that dress just now—where it draws the eye, what it emphasizes. It felt like understanding people, and I studied psychology. I'm good at reading what someone needs before they can articulate it."

Margot's mouth curves—not quite a smile, something more considered.

"I review applications on Fridays," she says. "I've already seen yours. Riley Bennett, psychology degree, no retail experience listed." She picks up a tablet from behind the counter, swipes it awake. "Most people who apply here either have retail experience and no taste, or taste and no work ethic. You have neither experience nor a track record, but you walked in wearing that—" she gestures at your outfit, "—and you stopped to feel the hand of that wrap dress instead of grabbing it off the rack."

She sets the tablet down.

"I'll be honest with you in return. I've been running this shop alone for three months since my last associate moved to Portland. I'm exhausted. I need someone who shows up, who pays attention, who treats customers like people instead of transactions. I can teach you fabrics. I can teach you fit. I cannot teach someone to care."

She fixes you with a direct look.

"Come back Friday morning at nine. We'll do a trial shift—four hours, see how you handle the floor. If it works, we'll discuss terms."

Your heart is doing something complicated. Gratitude and terror and excitement all tangled together.

"Thank you," you say, and your voice comes out softer than you intended. "I won't waste your time."

"See that you don't." But there's warmth beneath the briskness. She extends her hand again. "And Riley? Wear something you can move in. You'll be on your feet, steaming garments, climbing a ladder for stock. That outfit is gorgeous but you'd last twenty minutes in it."

She's right. Your calves are still throbbing from the walk here.

"One more thing." Margot slides a business card across the counter. "If you want to learn fabrics before Friday, there's a book I keep in the back—The Language of Cloth by Simone Moreau. I'll lend it to you. Consider it homework."**

She disappears behind the curtain of scarves and returns with a slim hardcover, its cover a muted watercolor of draped silk. She places it in your hands. The paper is heavy, the spine barely cracked.

"Chapter three is the most useful. Chapter seven will put you to sleep, so skip it."

You clutch the book against your chest, the structured handbag hanging from your arm, and feel something you haven't felt since graduation: the specific, terrifying hope of a real opportunity.