Chapter 3 | Joint Meeting

The email arrived at 9:12 a.m.

“Subject: Interdepartmental Meeting - Concavenator Room”

I read it three times before understanding that I was really invited.

Well… summoned.

The exact word was invited, but when a finance director writes to you, it is never an invitation in the warm sense of the term. It’s more like a polite summons.

I looked around me, as if someone was going to raise a hand and say it was a mistake.

No one.

Clara was typing on her keyboard while chewing gum with the concentration of a surgeon. Mister Delmas was talking on the phone behind the glass partition of his office. In the open space, the sound of keyboards was like steady rain.

No one seemed to wonder why a work-study student who didn’t even know where the coffee machine was yet had to attend an interdepartmental meeting.

I leaned toward Clara.

“Uh… excuse me.”

She looked up.

“Yes, little new guy?”

“Is it normal that I’m… invited to this?”

I showed her the email.

She narrowed her eyes, then shrugged.

“Yes. Well, I think so. Let’s say Pascal likes people to understand how everything works.”

She chewed her gum for two more seconds.

“And it’s good experience. You’ll see some interesting people, and others much less so.”

I couldn’t tell if that was supposed to reassure me.

I went to the meeting room. It had that strange shape that made it feel like you were entering something alive, or at least a place designed for something other than me.

A large rectangular table took up almost the whole length, and the chairs arranged on each side formed two neat, parallel rows.

It was the kind of place where every word seemed like it had to cost something.

When I walked in, I immediately had that familiar sensation: being one too many, as if the room worked perfectly well without me.

I pulled out a chair at the end of the table. The wood creaked louder than expected.

Perfect.

I had just announced my presence to the entire world.

I placed my notebook in front of me so I’d have something to look at if panic decided to come back.

And it didn’t take long.

Mister Delmas came in just after.

“Ah, Eliott. Good.”

He settled at the head of the table with the ease of someone who had already done this kind of meeting about a thousand times.

“You okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Perfect.”

He opened his computer.

“Today, we’ll keep it simple. Quick presentation of the quarter’s figures and coordination with the other departments.”

Simple.

Of course.

The words presentation and coordination made me want to evaporate into the floor.

The door opened again. The heels came before the person. A sharp sound, steady, sure of itself.

When I looked up, I understood.

Lyralda.

I didn’t know much about her yet. Just what I had caught from passing her in the corridor: straight posture, direct gaze, and a way of walking that gave the impression she knew exactly where she was going.

Today, she was wearing a dark suit and a light shirt. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail, perfectly smooth.

She stopped near the table.

Her eyes swept the room for one second.

When they passed over me, they stopped for barely a heartbeat.

No more.

“Hello.”

Her voice was calm, clear.

She sat down two seats away.

And suddenly, the room seemed a little smaller.

The third arrival was… different.

“Ooh! We have an audience today?”

The voice was soft, almost amused.

I turned my head.

Jade.

I had seen her once in the corridor, but up close, it was… something else.

Wavy hair, flawless makeup, fitted dress, sweet perfume floating lightly in the air. She sat down across from me with a half-smile that looked like a permanent question.

Then she looked at me. Not meanly.

But as if she were trying to understand what kind of object I was.

“That’s your new work-study student?” she asked Mister Delmas.

“Yes.”

She crossed her arms before fixing her eyes on me.

A little longer than necessary.

Not meanly.

More like she was waiting to see what I was going to do.

The door opened a fourth time.

“So then, who has already decided to ruin my day?”

The man who came in seemed to carry the energy of an entire evening inside a three-piece suit. Tall, elegant, easy smile.

He gave the table a quick look.

“Pascal.”

“Mehdi.”

They shook hands.

Then his gaze landed on me.

“Wow.”

He tilted his head.

“And this? What’s this?”

I straightened up.

“Eliott… Bellamy.”

“Nice to meet you, Eliott!”

He shook my hand with surprising warmth.

“Mehdi Khellaf. Sales director for eight years. Also, the person supposed to explain why salespeople are always doing whatever they want.”

Jade rolled her eyes.

“Is that your official speech now?”

“No, my official speech is much more… dramatic.”

He sat down.

“But I save it for when the numbers are really bad.”

The meeting began. Mister Delmas projected an Excel table onto the screen. Columns. Numbers. Percentages.

I tried to follow.

Really.

But very quickly, the lines started mixing together in my head.

Mister Delmas talked about margins. Mehdi mentioned contracts. Jade commented on certain sales. Lyralda sometimes intervened about legal clauses. Everyone seemed to understand.

I was looking at my notebook as if I hoped the figures would eventually translate themselves into French.

I wrote down words.

“variation”

“budget”

“anomaly”

“failure”

No idea what they meant in that precise context.

I could feel heat rising in my neck. It was exactly the kind of moment where my brain decides to remind me that I am probably an administrative mistake.

And then Jade spoke.

She was looking at the screen.

Then she looked at Mister Delmas.

Then she looked at… me.

Her smile changed slightly.

“Honestly…”

Pause.

“Isn’t it a little early to entrust that to an intern?”

The word fell into the room like a glass dropped on tiles.

Intern? Me??

I froze.

No one spoke for one second.

A very long second.

My first reflex was to look at my notebook, as if I had suddenly become passionate about the word “variation.”

I felt her gaze stay on me.

Not insistent, just… present.

And then another voice spoke.

Calm, but clear.

“Better someone who is learning…”

I looked up.

Lyralda.

She was looking at Jade.

Then, very briefly… me.

As if to check something.

“… than a salesperson who doesn’t know how to read.”

Ah.

Silence.

Total.

Even the screen fans seemed to have stopped.

Jade blinked.

“Excuse me??”

Lyralda didn’t move.

“Last week’s contract. You signed it before checking the clauses.”

Jade opened her mouth.

“That was…”

“A mistake.”

Her voice hadn’t changed.

“It happens. But avoid giving lessons while you’re still making them.”

The tension in the room had become… almost solid.

I thought that if someone put a match on the table, everything could explode.

I looked at my reflection in the window behind Mister Delmas. I looked exactly like someone who wanted to disappear under the table.

And then Mehdi raised his hands.

“Right.”

He sighed theatrically.

“If you’re already starting, I’m warning you: I’m buying a ticket to Thailand.”

Everyone turned toward him.

“Seriously, I’m opening a coconut stand on the beach and sending you postcards.”

He turned toward me.

“Eliott, you want to come? We’re looking for someone to handle the cash register.”

“Uh… I don’t like cash registers.”

“No problem, given the atmosphere here, it’s clearly the healthiest option. We’ll have a great time.”

A nervous laugh crossed the room.

Even Mister Delmas sketched a smile.

The tension dropped a notch.

I breathed. Just a little.

The silence after Mehdi’s joke was more breathable. Not really relaxed, but breathable. Like when a window opens in a room that’s too hot.

Jade let out a small laugh.

Not a real laugh. More the laugh of someone deciding to put the conversation back in her pocket.

“Very funny, Mehdi.”

She adjusted a strand of hair behind her ear.

“But I stand by it. Entrusting this kind of data to someone who just arrived… it’s a bit optimistic.”

She tapped the table with the tip of her nail.

“No offense to the… intern.”

I focused very hard on my pen.

A pen was fascinating.

Simple object. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t make mistakes. Doesn’t sweat when people look at it.

I would have liked to be a pen.

Mister Delmas closed his computer with a calm movement.

“Eliott is here to learn.”

His voice wasn’t harsh.

But it had that very particular tone of people who don’t negotiate.

“And he’ll learn faster by seeing how things work.”

Jade lifted one shoulder.

“If you say so.”

She leaned back in her chair.

Her gaze slid toward me for one second.

Not hostile.

But… curious?

As if she were testing the solidity of a fragile object.

I suddenly became very aware of my size, of my shoulders too narrow, of my hands resting too obediently on the notebook.

The meeting resumed. The numbers started scrolling across the screen again.

I wrote down pieces. Isolated words. Things I half understood. Lyralda spoke little, but when she spoke, the room reorganized itself around her voice, even though it wasn’t louder than anyone else’s.

She corrected a phrasing, reminded someone of a clause, asked a simple question that forced everyone to check.

I tried to follow.

Really.

But sometimes, I got lost.

So I looked at my notes, or at the table.

Lyralda barely moved. She stayed straight, hands resting on the table, eyes fixed on whoever was speaking.

She looked… solid.

And I had this strange impression… that she had noticed I wasn’t.

I don’t know how else to explain it.

Solid, like a person who isn’t afraid to exist in a room.

I looked blurry, as if the light didn’t quite know what to do with me.

“Eliott?”

I jumped. Everyone was looking at me.

My brain took one second to restart.

“Yes?”

It was Mister Delmas.

“Did you follow the part about reconciliations?”

I felt my heart do a small somersault.

“Obviously.”

It wasn’t a total lie.

I had followed… the words. Not necessarily their exact meaning. But I had followed.

Mister Delmas nodded.

“Good.”

He turned toward Mehdi.

“So, to summarize…”

The conversation started again.

But the heat in my neck stayed.

Toward the end of the meeting, Jade started again. Not directly. More subtly.

“Anyway, we’ll see.”

She crossed her arms.

“If the intern can handle it.”

She looked at me with that half-smile.

“Accounting isn’t always very… gentle.”

I didn’t know what to answer.

Luckily, someone else spoke before me.

“Jade…”

Lyralda’s voice was calm.

But different from earlier.

“Can you stop for two minutes, please?”

Jade raised an eyebrow.

“Stop what?”

“Testing the new guy.”

Silence.

Mehdi was watching the scene with far too much visible interest to be innocent.

“He’s a work-study student and he just arrived. Not a punching bag. And not an intern.”

Jade held her gaze.

One second.

Two.

Then she sighed.

“Very well, ma’am.”

She raised her hands.

“I’ll be quiet.”

Mehdi murmured, loud enough to be heard:

“Economic miracle.”

I think Mister Delmas almost laughed.

The meeting ended ten minutes later. Computers closed. Chairs slid across the floor. The strange electricity in the room slowly dissipated.

Mehdi stood up.

“Right.”

He looked at the table.

“No one died. That’s already a success.”

He tapped Mister Delmas on the shoulder.

“We’ll have lunch one of these days.”

Then he turned toward me.

“Eliott.”

I looked up.

“If one day you really want to leave accounting to sell coconuts, call me.”

“Okay.”

“I’m very serious.”

He winked at me, then left.

Jade stood up in turn, then picked up her phone.

Before leaving, she stopped behind my chair.

“Don’t take it badly, Eliott.”

Her voice was softer.

She pronounced my first name with a little too much visible care.

“It’s just that here… you need to have a bit of character, okay?”

She leaned slightly.

Her perfume was sweet.

“We’ll talk again later today, Eliott.”

She didn’t wait for an answer.

Then she left. Her heels disappeared down the corridor.

Only Mister Delmas, Lyralda, and I were left.

I packed away my notebook slowly, as if that might make me invisible.

Lyralda stood up before throwing one last look at the table.

Then at me.

Her eyes were hard to read.

“Have a good day, Eliott.”

The same tone as earlier.

Calm. Clean. Almost too careful.

“Have a good day, Lyralda.”

She left.

The door closed behind her.

Mister Delmas waited one second, then sighed.

“Right.”

He closed his computer.

“You survived.”

I think I smiled.

“Yes.”

“First meeting?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“It showed.”

He stood up.

“Don’t worry too much.”

He placed a quick hand on my shoulder.

“They’re like cat and dog. It’s been going on for five years.”

“Are they always like that?”

Mister Delmas thought for a second.

Then he smiled.

“No.”

Pause.

“Sometimes it’s worse.”

I think I laughed.

A real laugh, this time.

“Go on, get back to work.”

He opened the door.

“And don’t pay too much attention to the jabs.”

He looked at me one second longer.

“You’ll see. They both have quite a character.”

Then he left.

I stayed alone in the room for a few seconds before taking out my phone.

I looked at myself.

Still that same face, a little too serious.

But something had changed. Not much. Just a detail.

In the reflection, I looked… a little more anchored than I wanted to admit.

Jade was annoying. Really.

And yet… I wasn’t completely sure I wanted her to stop.

Lyralda was cold. Clear. Almost sharp.

And yet… she was the one I had looked at when the room had become too heavy.

I didn’t really know what that said about me.

But I could already feel it was going to be complicated.