Chapter 3
Missing CEO
Day two of orientation, Nicole was back in The Greenhouse.
Katrina Whittle appeared on the screen at the front of the room. Her hair was pulled back immaculately, her blouse a neutral color that didn’t compete with the Bloomwell logo hovering in the corner. The pre-recorded video talked about the importance of team bonding and how proud she was of everyone for choosing to be here.
Nicole watched from her seat, her notebook open and mostly full. Katrina was the reason she’d chosen Bloomwell. She’d grown up rural, like Nicole had, in Iowa. The story went that Katrina had clawed her way out of it, piece by piece, building something of her own after struggling with her body following a pregnancy. Supplements first, then a company. Discipline became philosophy, and hard work became branding.
On the screen, TV Katrina thanked them for their time, then the video went dark. People shifted in their chairs as the lights flickered on.
As they stood for a break, Nicole caught herself looking back at the blank screen, half-expecting Katrina to reappear and wave again, maybe say something unscripted.
She didn’t.
Nicole found herself near the coffee urn with Mara and two others from yoga class. Someone mentioned the video and how reassuring it was to hear from leadership directly.
“I like her,” one of the women said. “She feels… present.”
Nicole nodded. “Do you know where she’s based?” she asked. “Is she in the office today?”
There was a pause.
“She travels a lot with her wife,” Mara said. “But I think she’s in New York.”
“Yeah,” the other woman added. “She works remotely mostly. So she’s everywhere and nowhere.”
The pair laughed at that; Nicole did too.
The question slid away, absorbed into the larger conversation about schedules and team assignments.
Present or not, Katrina was everywhere in the Iowa office. In the elevator. By the stairwells. Along the glass walkways connecting buildings. Always the same photo, slightly retouched, Katrina’s face frozen in approachable confidence on each poster. The captions under her photo always used the same phrase: Leading with purpose. The company slogan.
The words started to feel less like statements and more like the weather, always present, easy to step through.
At lunch, Nicole sat outside with a woman she met in Quad 4. Lila. She had long, wavy red hair and a way of smiling that suggested she found most things mildly amusing.
They ate salads from compostable bowls, perched on a low concrete wall overlooking a strip of manicured green space.
“Adjusting okay?” Lila asked. She’d already been working at Bloomwell for four years.
“Yeah,” Nicole said. “It’s… a lot. But in a good way.”
Lila hummed in agreement. “It’s intense at first. They really want you to feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“Bloomwell,” Lila said, lifting her fork. “The whole thing.”
Nicole smiled. “Have you ever met Katrina?”
“The CEO?”
“Yeah.”
Lila nodded. “The last time she visited was two years ago.”
Two years?
“But…” Lila said. “I’ve heard she pops in sometimes. Unannounced.”
“Really?”
“Allegedly,” Lila added. “I think it adds to the mystique.” She squinted her eyes and pointed her fork at Nicole. “So always be on your best behavior.”
They both laughed. It felt conspiratorial without being serious, the way people joke about celebrities they have never met.
“She seems… busy.”
“Well,” Lila said, “that tracks.”
“Does it?”
Lila shrugged. “I mean, she’s running a big company like this. She has a family. I don’t expect her to sit at a desk all day.”
“Yeah,” Nicole said, shrugging. “Makes sense. I was hoping to meet her. Another Iowa native.”
“It’s funny,” Lila said after a while. “She feels very close for someone who’s never around.”
Nicole forked through her salad. “That’s a good way of putting it.”
Lila added quickly, like she was correcting herself. “I just mean… the branding.”
“Right,” Nicole said.
They ate in companionable silence for a moment, watching people pass by with their lanyards swinging. Peter waved at Nicole from across the green. Nicole waved back.
Lila followed her line of sight. “You know him?”
“Kind of,” Nicole said. “I mean, I met him yesterday. He’s one of the orientation leads.”
Lila hummed, picking at the edge of her container. “Just… be careful with him.”
Nicole glanced at her. “Why?”
Lila shrugged and made a face. “He’s a little weird.”
“Weird how?”
Someone laughed nearby. Peter had already turned back to whoever he was with.
“He came from somewhere bigger, I think. Acts like he’s slumming it here,” Lila said. “Like this place is beneath him.”
“Oh?”
“And all this orientation stuff,” Lila said. “I honestly think he just wants the promotion. It’s starting to feel obvious.”
Nicole watched Peter disappear into Quad 4 with a cluster of orientation trainees, then kept her eyes on the entrance a second longer before looking away.
“Anyway,” Lila said, already shrugging it off. “Ready to head back?”
After lunch, Lila and Nicole walked back to Quad 4 together, matching their pace without thinking. The afternoon passed in a blur of screens, introductions, and new systems to learn. Every so often, Katrina’s face appeared again, embedded in a slide deck or looping silently on a monitor in the hallway.
By the time Nicole left for the day, her head felt pleasantly full; she’d learned a lot about Bloomwell and was officially given her placement. Quad 2. Section A12.
Tomorrow, she would start on-the-job training and shadowing.
But Nicole couldn’t help but think about Katrina Whittle. Two years was a long time to go without visiting a company.
At home that night, she kicked off her shoes and sat on the edge of her bed, phone in hand. She considered searching the woman’s social profiles, then didn’t. Everything she needed to know seemed to already be at Bloomwell, printed, projected, and repeated ad nauseam. Besides, there wouldn’t be anything there she hadn’t seen before.
Still, as she brushed her teeth, the question returned, quieter this time. Where is she?
The answer, when it came, sounded like all the others. Somewhere. Everywhere. Doing important work.
Nicole grabbed the Bloomwell welcome bag she’d dropped by her bedroom door, its weight more than she remembered.
She dumped it on her bed and watched the contents spill. A notebook. A water bottle made of recycled bamboo. Stickers. A folded T-shirt sealed in plastic. Typical new hire gear.
At the bottom of the bag was a small box of supplements.
She picked it up, turned it over in her hands. Magnesium. Bloomwell’s blend.
She’d mentioned magnesium the night before, but only to the other girls at boozy yoga. All new hires. No one who would’ve been handling welcome kits today.
Maybe everyone got the same thing.
She lay back and stared at the ceiling, the room quiet except for the hum of the air conditioner, the day settling into her body, and fell asleep.
The next day, Nicole found herself sitting with Lila again, this time in a small meeting room with glass walls in Quad 2. They shared a look when the CEO’s video appeared at the start of the session.
“She’s really committed to consistency,” Lila murmured.
It felt like a small thing, the comment. A simple observation, and nothing more. They both turned their attention back to the screen as the woman began to speak again, her voice warm and steady, as if she were just down the hallway.