Part 2 : Her eyes lit up. She loved being invited to perform.

“Senior strategy consultant,” she said. “Practically executive tier. They’re building out a new growth advisory group after some huge merger, so it’s a perfect fit for my Columbia MBA and international strategy background.”

“She just wrapped up Columbia,” Mom announced, even though everyone in the yard already knew. She had found a way to mention it before the appetizers came out. “And she’s been interviewing with real powerhouses. Amazon. Bain. Tesla. Now Crestview Analytics. Can you believe it?”

Uncle Dennis, who was better read than the rest of them and less committed to family mythology, lifted his eyebrows. “Crestview? That’s impressive. I just read a profile about their founder. Brilliant woman. Completely self-made. Keeps a low profile, though. They called her one of the most influential minds in applied data strategy.”

Mom beamed as though Uncle Dennis had complimented Felicia directly. “Well, that sounds exactly like the kind of place our girl belongs.”

“Our girl,” I murmured.

Nobody heard me except maybe Aunt Cheryl’s terrier, who was hiding under the picnic table from the children.

Dad turned a slab of brisket, smoke rising around him. “That firm’s no joke. They only hire the best. Real selective.”

I nearly laughed.

Thirteen years earlier, when I started Crestview Analytics from a cramped apartment near Government Street, my “firm” consisted of a used laptop with three missing keys, a secondhand coffee pot that burned everything after noon, and a folding chair I bought from a closing church sale. I had no investors, no prestigious network, no MBA, no family cheering me on from the backyard. I had a statistics degree no one at home understood, a habit of noticing patterns other people missed, and a deep, private rage that my family kept mistaking for quietness.

I built dashboards at first, yes. Dad had not been entirely wrong. Little dashboards for local logistics companies that did not know what to do with their own data. Inventory forecasts. Risk models. Customer churn analyses. Then I built better systems. Then I hired two contractors. Then one of those contractors became my first full-time engineer. Then a regional healthcare network signed a contract. Then a national retailer. Then banks. Then manufacturers. Then government-adjacent clients who required security clearances and attorneys and rooms full of people who suddenly cared very much what I thought.

By the time my family decided I was still “figuring it out,” I had fifty employees.

At our family Labor Day cookout in Baton Rouge, my mother was once again praising my younger sister’s Columbia MBA and glossy job prospects while my father laughed about my “little tech thing,” and I stood there with sweet tea in my hand letting them treat me like the directionless daughter who never quite made it, even as my sister bragged that she had a final interview the next morning with Crestview Analytics, one of the most selective firms in the country, and promised she might help me land an admin job there someday—never realizing that by this time tomorrow she’d walk into a glass-walled executive office, look up at the CEO interview panel, and see me…

The day before my sister begged to join the company I had built from nothing, she offered to help me get an administrative job there.

She did it with a smile, of course. Felicia always smiled when she cut. It was one of her most polished talents, right up there with turning borrowed achievements into personal mythology and making our mother cry with pride on command. She stood under the sagging string lights in our parents’ backyard in Baton Rouge, wearing a canary yellow wrap dress that made her look like sunlight had chosen favorites, one hand wrapped around a sweating glass of mimosa, the other resting on her hip like she had practiced the pose in front of a mirror.

“If I get the job,” she said, loud enough for the cousins near the folding table to hear, “maybe I can put in a word for you, Monica. I’m sure Crestview has admin openings you could grow into.”

The words floated across the humid evening, sweet and poisonous.

Around us, the annual Tran family Labor Day cookout roared on in full Louisiana glory. Hickory smoke rolled from Dad’s smoker in thick blue ribbons. Sausage snapped and sizzled over the fire. Kids ran barefoot through the grass, shrieking whenever the sprinkler caught them. Plastic plates sagged under brisket, cornbread, coleslaw, and grilled corn dusted with chili powder. My uncles argued about LSU football with the intensity of constitutional lawyers. The bug zapper near the shed cracked and flashed every few minutes like punctuation.

I leaned against the magnolia tree at the edge of the yard and took a slow sip of sweet tea.

At thirty-eight, I had become an expert at looking harmless.

It was not an accident. I dressed down for family functions on purpose. Soft linen pants. Plain blouse. Minimal jewelry. A nondescript gray SUV parked two houses down instead of the white Mercedes-AMG GT that stayed locked in my downtown garage. I had learned years ago that if I arrived as the woman I truly was, they would not celebrate me. They would measure me, question me, borrow from me, resent me, or try to rewrite themselves into the story. So I let them keep their version of me: Monica, the vague one. Monica, the remote-work mystery. Monica, the daughter who “did something with data,” which my father said the way other people said she sells candles online.

“Admin openings,” I repeated, tasting the words.

Felicia tilted her head, pretending kindness. “I’m serious. You’re organized. You’ve always been good at little details.”

Aunt Cheryl made a sympathetic sound, as if my tragic little details had finally found their purpose.

My mother raised her wine glass with an approving smile. “That’s sweet of you, honey. Lord knows your sister could use a nudge in the right direction.”

There it was. The family hymn, sung in a thousand keys over thirty-eight years. Felicia was brilliant. Felicia was destined. Felicia was the one with promise, polish, ambition, sparkle. Monica was capable but confusing. Useful, but not impressive. Reliable, but not remarkable. The child who paid attention, remembered birthdays, fixed broken laptops, helped file insurance forms, booked flights for relatives, and somehow still inspired sighs when careers came up.

Dad stood at the smoker with a beer in one hand and tongs in the other, his apron stretched over his stomach. The apron read LICENSED TO GRILL, a gift from me three Father’s Days ago. He loved it and had never once remembered I gave it to him.

“Still messing around with that tech thing?” he asked, not unkindly. That was the worst part. He was not trying to be cruel. He simply did not take me seriously enough to sharpen the blade. “Data dashboards or something?”

“Something like that,” I said.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket.

I glanced down.

Jade: Delta Metrics final docs are ready. Board packets uploaded. Also—your sister checked in with HR to confirm tomorrow’s interview. Twice.

I locked the screen and slid the phone away before anyone could see my expression.

Tomorrow at ten o’clock, I would sit at the head of the Crescent Room on the twenty-seventh floor of Crestview Tower while our board gave final approval on the Delta Metrics merger, a deal that would expand our predictive analytics platform into three new international markets. At noon, we would roll out the executive suite restructuring that had kept half the tech press guessing for weeks. By three, if everything went according to plan, I would be on a call with two Fortune 100 clients and a European regulatory consultant who charged more per hour than my first apartment cost in rent.

And at nine, my younger sister Felicia would walk into my building for the final interview round of a senior strategy consultant role at Crestview Analytics.

My company.

The company she had just offered to help me join as an assistant.

I looked at her over the rim of my glass.

“What role are you interviewing for?” I asked…

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