Gia’s desk, ten feet away, was a riot of color: a pink iMac, a framed photo of her rescue greyhound, and a half-finished macrame plant holder dangling from a lamp arm. She owned Dibella Designs , a small studio that hand-painted custom sneakers for athletes and influencers. She believed in intuition. Intuition was a muscle you had to stretch. And she definitely left dirty coffee mugs in the sink.
“The tea,” Nicole said.
A new Post-it was stuck to her monitor: “You looked like you needed to unclench. —G.” nicole doshi and gia dibella
Nicole stared at the tea. Then she stared at Gia, who was across the room, tongue poking out of her mouth as she airbrushed a flame onto a high-top sneaker. Gia didn’t look up, but the corner of her mouth twitched.
“Yeah?”
Nicole looked back at the shark mug. Silence is the real scare.
For six months, they had maintained a fragile, frosty coexistence. Their only interactions were clipped emails about the air conditioning settings or passive-aggressive Post-it notes on the communal fridge. Nicole’s note read: “Whose hummus is this? It’s from last month.” Gia’s reply: “It’s a science experiment. Let it learn.” Gia’s desk, ten feet away, was a riot
“I’m rigid,” Nicole admitted. “I use data to control things because the alternative is admitting I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.”