Beige Is a State of Mind

Morgan Vale arrived at Brightway Solutions at 8:47 a.m., which was early enough to look responsible and late enough to avoid anyone saying, “Wow, eager!” with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested a trap.

The building was called The Meridian Center, though it was neither centered nor impressive. It sat between a dentist’s office and a lunch place named Wrapture, all smoked glass and potted grasses that looked as if they had lost an argument with a drought. In the lobby, an enormous canvas read INNOVATE TODAY FOR TOMORROW’S SOLUTIONS, and beneath it, someone had placed a bowl of peppermints as though the slogan required a palate cleanser.

Morgan paused at the elevator bank and checked her reflection in the brushed steel doors.

Black lipstick: clean.

Winged eyeliner: sharp enough to open mail.

Blazer: velvet, structured, unapologetic.

Boots: four-inch platforms that made every step sound like a tiny declaration of war.

She gave herself a nod. “Corporate,” she said softly. “But make it haunted.”

The elevator opened with a cheerful ding. Inside stood a man in a blue quarter-zip pullover, khakis, and the expression of someone who had once apologized to a printer.

He blinked at Morgan. Morgan blinked back.

“Brightway?” he asked.

“Unless there’s another aggressively optimistic marketing firm on the fourth floor.”

He laughed too quickly, then stopped too suddenly. “Greg Palmer. I’m your manager. Well—direct manager. Team lead. Brand strategy. I don’t love hierarchy language, but we can circle back on that.”

Morgan stepped in beside him. “Morgan Vale. I answer to Morgan, Vale, or ‘the new one’ for the first two weeks.”

“Great. Great.” Greg pressed the button for four, though it was already lit. “We’re really excited to have you. Your portfolio was, uh, fantastic. The Finch Coffee repositioning? Really smart. Dark roast campaign. Very cohesive.”

“Thank you.”

“And the crow motif was… memorable.”

“It tested well.”

“I bet.” Greg looked at her boots, then very carefully looked at the elevator numbers instead. “Just so you know, Brightway has a pretty flexible culture.”

Morgan’s reflection raised one eyebrow.

“Flexible,” Greg repeated, as if trying to convince the elevator. “Collaborative. Open. People-first. There is technically a dress code, but it’s more of a vibe guide.”

“A vibe guide.”

“Business casual, but approachable.”

Morgan looked down at her velvet blazer, black trousers, silver bat necklace, and boots. “I am approachable by those with courage.”

Greg made a sound that might have been a laugh or a small internal software error.

The elevator dinged again.

The doors opened onto Brightway Solutions.

Beige.

Morgan had expected beige, because the company website had featured eleven photos of smiling people pointing at sticky notes, and all of them had been wearing oatmeal. But nothing could have prepared her for the totality of it. Beige carpet. Beige walls. Beige desks with pale wood veneer. Beige rolling chairs. Beige acoustic panels. Even the reception flowers were white lilies in a tan vase, as if color itself had been gently escorted from the premises.

A motivational poster by the entrance showed a golden retriever in sunglasses and read TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK.

Morgan stopped walking.

Greg stopped too. “Everything okay?”

“I’m just absorbing the dream.”

“Right. Yes.” Greg cleared his throat. “This way.”

They passed a glass conference room labeled Synergy Suite, where three people were silently eating muffins around a speakerphone. A whiteboard inside read Q4 ENERGY PUSH!!! in orange marker. The third exclamation point had been underlined twice.

At the center of the office, a woman with coppery locs, green glasses, and a cardigan the color of fresh mint was attacking a jammed copier with the serene fury of an ancient warrior.

“Not today, Bradley,” she said to the machine.

Greg brightened. “Tasha! Perfect timing. This is Morgan.”

The woman turned. Her eyes landed on Morgan’s lipstick, then her boots, then the bat necklace. A slow, delighted smile spread across her face.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said.

Morgan smiled back. “Is Bradley the copier?”

“Bradley is the copier, the scanner, the source of my migraines, and technically company property, which is the only reason he still exists.” She held out a hand. “Tasha Green. Office manager, facilities wrangler, keeper of emergency granola bars. If you need a badge, chair adjustment, password reset, or tiny screwdriver, I’m your woman.”

Morgan shook her hand. “Morgan Vale. Brand strategist, recovering freelancer, owner of several tiny screwdrivers.”

Tasha’s eyes lit up. “We’re going to get along.”

Greg nodded with visible relief, as if two office objects had clicked into place. “Great. Great. Tasha, could you maybe help Morgan get settled? I have a nine o’clock prep sync for the ten o’clock touch-base before the eleven o’clock alignment huddle.”

Morgan stared at him.

Tasha said, “Greg’s calendar was built by a haunted Roomba.”

“I prefer to think of it as dynamic,” Greg said.

A voice called from across the cubicles, “Greg! Are we still circling back on the beverage vertical?”

Greg flinched. “Yes, Bryce. Absolutely. Loop me in.” He looked at Morgan. “That’s Bryce. Sales. Good energy.”

Tasha leaned closer to Morgan and murmured, “He owns three vests and calls coffee ‘rocket fuel.’ Brace yourself.”

Greg hurried away, apologizing to a chair he bumped with his hip.

Tasha watched him go. “He’s nice. Terrified of conflict. Once mediated a dispute between two interns over a stapler by buying them both staplers with his own money.”

“That’s either sweet or a cry for help.”

“Both can be true.” Tasha tucked a stack of papers under one arm. “Come on. Let’s get your lair assigned.”

Morgan’s desk sat near a window overlooking the parking lot, which was mostly silver SUVs and one minivan with a faded sticker that read I BRAKE FOR BLAST BEATS.

Morgan pointed. “Yours?”

Tasha froze for half a second, then narrowed her eyes. “Maybe.”

“Nice.”

“It’s practical.”

“I respect practical darkness.”

Tasha gave her a look of deep appraisal. “You know, most people ask if that sticker means I’m into podcasts.”

“Most people are wrong.”

Tasha leaned in. “You listen to metal?”

“I listen to goth, post-punk, darkwave, deathrock, some metal, some industrial, and one embarrassing synthpop playlist I will deny under oath.”

Tasha placed a hand over her heart. “Finally. Someone who understands that double kick drums belong in a healthy work-life balance.”

Morgan looked at the beige desk, beige partition, beige phone, and beige file tray. “I see why you hid.”

Tasha nodded solemnly. “This place changes people. Last quarter I bought taupe flats. Taupe, Morgan. I was tired.”

“We can rebuild.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

Morgan unpacked with the efficiency of someone who had moved apartments, cities, and emotional states many times. Laptop stand. Black notebook. Pens. A small framed print of a moonlit cemetery. A mug shaped like a cauldron.

Last, she unwrapped the tiny skull.

It was ceramic, about the size of a clementine, glossy black, with a minuscule gold crown painted on top.

Tasha gasped. “Is that your desk familiar?”

“His name is Milton. He’s in charge of morale.”

“Milton is already doing better than the Fun Committee.”

“The what?”

Tasha’s mouth twisted. “Mandatory Fun Committee. I’ll let you experience it organically. Like food poisoning.”

Before Morgan could ask a follow-up question, a man appeared over the cubicle wall with the suddenness of a prairie dog in athletic wear.

“New hire!” he said.

Morgan looked up.

He had perfect hair, a white grin, and a fleece vest embroidered with the Brightway logo. His watch looked expensive in the way things did when their main feature was being expensive.

“Bryce Calloway,” he said. “Sales development. Revenue acceleration. Client vibes.”

Morgan waited a beat. “Morgan Vale. Sentences.”

Tasha coughed into her hand.

Bryce laughed, pointing at her like she had made a sports play. “Nice. Dry. I like it. So, wow, are you, like, full-time goth?”

Morgan set Milton beside her monitor. “As opposed to seasonal?”

“No, I mean—cool, cool. Commitment. My cousin did that in college. Black nails, sad poetry, the whole thing. Total phase.”

Morgan swiveled her chair toward him. The boots made a satisfying creak.

“Bryce,” she said, “I am twenty-nine years old. I have a dental plan, a favorite brand of lint roller, and a spreadsheet for boot maintenance. This is no longer a phase. This is infrastructure.”

Tasha made a tiny choking sound.

Bryce’s smile faltered, then returned at half wattage. “Right. For sure. Infrastructure. Love that. Anyway, welcome to Brightway. If you need the lay of the land, I’m your guy. Best snacks are on floor three, worst coffee is here, and nobody knows what legal does.”

“Noted.”

He pointed at Milton. “Sick Halloween decoration.”

Morgan’s eyes flicked to the calendar on her monitor: August.

Tasha whispered, “Walk away, Bryce.”

Bryce gave two finger guns. “Catch you in the pipeline.”

He vanished.

Morgan turned slowly to Tasha. “Catch you in the pipeline?”

“He says that instead of goodbye.”

“Has anyone stopped him?”

“We tried. It evolved.”

By ten o’clock, Morgan had been added to nine Slack channels, introduced to twenty-three people, and invited to something called Bagelstorm Wednesday. She learned the kitchen had four kinds of non-dairy milk but only one knife, which was chained to a drawer after “the hummus incident.” She learned that Brightway’s biggest client sold ergonomic office furniture with names like Flo and Perch. She learned that the company’s internal newsletter was called The Brightside, which felt less like a title and more like a threat.

She also learned that Greg’s office contained a secret.

It happened during their first one-on-one. Greg had invited her in with the careful cheer of a man welcoming a cat into a room full of glassware. His office had the same beige walls, but with two degrees more personality: a fake fern, a framed certificate, and a bookshelf holding business books with titles like Lead With Spark and Permission to Pivot.

Morgan sat across from him, notebook open.

Greg folded his hands. “So. First day. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been swallowed by a motivational marshmallow.”

Greg stared at his desk. His shoulders shook.

Morgan tilted her head. “Are you laughing?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I’m being managerial.”

“You’re being managerially amused.”

He gave up and laughed, quietly but fully, then immediately looked toward the door. “Sorry. That was—don’t put that in any feedback forms.”

“Your secret is safe.”

“Great. Great.” He adjusted a pen until it was parallel to another pen. “Listen, Morgan, I want you to bring your whole self to work.”

Morgan waited.

“Within reason,” he added.

“There it is.”

“No, I mean, not—” Greg rubbed his forehead. “Brightway is in a transitional brand moment. We’re doing a refresh. Big client-facing push. Beige is part of the existing identity, but we are exploring… less beige.”

“Dangerous.”

“Incrementally less beige.”

“Ah. Safe rebellion.”

“Exactly. The executive team wants ‘warm clarity.’ Also ‘human brightness.’ Also one person said ‘spreadable trust,’ and none of us knew how to respond.”

Morgan wrote that down. “Spreadable trust sounds like a haunted condiment.”

Greg made another forbidden laugh and turned it into a cough. “This is why we hired you. Your work has edge, but it’s strategic edge. We need that.”

“Then you’ll have it.”

“Great. Great. Also, small heads-up.”

Morgan’s pen stopped.

“The People Operations team may schedule a quick dress code meeting next week. Not about you. Not specifically about you. It was already a topic.”

Morgan looked down at her black-on-black outfit, then back at Greg.

“Already a topic,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“Before I was hired.”

“Conceptually.”

“About what? Excessive velvet?”

Greg opened his mouth. Closed it. Then sighed. “There was a debate over whether graphic tees with skeletons counted as business casual.”

“And?”

“We tabled it.”

“Cowards.”

“I know.”

The honesty surprised them both. Greg blinked. Morgan narrowed her eyes.

From somewhere beneath his desk came a faint buzz. Greg moved too quickly, knocking a folder sideways. His phone had lit up on the floor, face-up, where it must have slipped from his pocket.

Morgan saw the notification before he grabbed it.

Alt Chat — The Hangout: nightdrive83 replied: Favorite Depeche Mode deep cut?

Greg shoved the phone into his drawer as if it had tried to bite him.

Silence landed.

Morgan clicked her pen once.

Greg’s face turned a shade that could only be called PowerPoint Salmon.

“Interesting app,” Morgan said.

“Banking,” Greg replied instantly.

“Your bank asks about Depeche Mode deep cuts?”

“It’s a security question.”

“Bold institution.”

Greg stared at her. Morgan stared back. Somewhere outside the office, Bryce yelled, “Pipeline!” at what sounded like a closing elevator.

Greg lowered his voice. “Please do not mention that.”

“That you have taste?”

“That I’m on Alt Chat.”

“Greg, half the internet is on Alt Chat.”

“Not half of Brightway.”

“Fair.” Morgan leaned back. “For what it’s worth, Depeche Mode is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I know that,” Greg said, sounding like a man who did not know that in any useful way. “It’s just—people have ideas.”

“People always have ideas. Most of them are badly kerned.”

Greg considered this with the seriousness of a quarterly forecast. “That is… weirdly comforting.”

Morgan stood. “Your secret identity is safe, nightdrive83.”

Greg closed his eyes. “Oh no.”

At noon, Tasha appeared beside Morgan’s desk holding two granola bars and a look of purpose.

“Lunch,” she said. “You’re coming with me.”

“Is this a normal invitation or a hostage situation?”

“Yes.”

They took the elevator down, crossed the parking lot, and sat in Tasha’s minivan with the windows cracked. The dashboard held a tiny plastic raven wearing sunglasses. From the speakers came a low, churning metal riff at a very polite volume.

Tasha handed Morgan a foil-wrapped sandwich. “I make extras. Don’t make it weird.”

“I would never disrespect a sandwich with feelings.”

They ate in companionable quiet for almost a minute.

Then Tasha said, “So. You saw it.”

“The beige?”

“The beige.”

“It’s worse than I feared.”

“It gets in your pores.”

“I noticed a poster that said ‘Choose Joy’ above the shredder.”

“That poster has seen things.”

Morgan looked through the windshield at the office building. People streamed in and out carrying salads, laptop bags, and the brittle hope of adults with afternoon meetings.

“Tasha,” she said, “how many of us are there?”

“In the building?”

“In hiding.”

Tasha took a careful bite of her sandwich. “Depends what counts. There’s me. You. Greg, apparently, though he thinks he’s invisible because he owns brown shoes. There’s a designer on floor two with a Sisters of Mercy tattoo he keeps under long sleeves. Legal has someone who goes to noise shows. And Eleanor in accounting…”

Morgan turned. “What about Eleanor in accounting?”

Tasha’s expression became reverent. “Nobody knows for sure. But once, during a fire drill, someone mentioned the Batcave in London, and Eleanor corrected their timeline without looking up from her Sudoku.”

Morgan sat back. “We need a lunch club.”

Tasha’s eyes widened. “No.”

“Yes.”

“If we organize anything, the Fun Committee will find it. They’ll add an icebreaker. They’ll make us wear stickers.”

“Then we don’t organize it. We simply… appear.”

“Where?”

Morgan glanced at the office, then the parking lot, then the sad landscaping.

Tasha followed her gaze. “The picnic table behind the building?”

“The one by the dumpster?”

“It has shade after one.”

“Perfect.”

Tasha smiled slowly. “Secret goth lunch club.”

“Working title.”

“First rule?”

“No beige food.”

Tasha looked at her sandwich.

Morgan looked at it too.

“It’s turkey on sourdough,” Tasha said defensively.

“It can receive a probationary exemption.”

They clinked granola bars like champagne flutes.

By two-thirty, Morgan had her first assignment: develop three concept directions for the Brightway rebrand by Friday. The brief was titled BRIGHTWAY 2.0: A BOLDER BEIGE? which Morgan read three times just to be sure it wasn’t satire.

She opened a fresh document and typed:

Option 1: Less Beige, More Backbone

Then she deleted it.

She typed:

Option 1: Warm Clarity, Sharper Confidence

Better. Corporate translation was half the job.

She was building a moodboard with deep slate, ivory, and a surprisingly elegant marigold when someone paused behind her.

Not Bryce. Not Tasha. The presence was quieter, cooler.

Morgan turned.

An older woman stood there in a charcoal blouse, silver bob perfectly cut, glasses on a beaded chain. She carried a stack of folders and wore black flats with tiny buckles. Her expression was unreadable, but not unfriendly.

“I’m Eleanor,” she said. “Accounting.”

“Morgan. Brand.”

“I know.” Eleanor looked at Milton. “Excellent skull.”

“Thank you. He handles morale.”

“Good. Morale needs handling.”

Morgan sat a little straighter.

Eleanor’s eyes moved to the moodboard. “That slate is better than the taupe.”

“That’s what I said,” Morgan replied.

“No one listens the first time.” Eleanor adjusted the folders against her hip. “Also, if anyone tells you the dress code used to be stricter, they’re correct. In 2011, they tried to ban black nail polish. It lasted nine days.”

“What happened?”

Eleanor’s mouth curved at the corner. “Payroll wore gloves.”

Morgan smiled. “That was you.”

“I have never confirmed that.”

“Of course.”

Eleanor glanced left, then right, then lowered her voice by a fraction. “Tasha says you may be forming a lunch club.”

Morgan blinked. “Tasha has a fast network.”

“Tasha knows where the bodies are because she assigned storage for them.”

“It’s informal,” Morgan said. “No agenda. No stickers.”

“Good.” Eleanor placed a small black business card on Morgan’s desk. It had no name, only a white line drawing of a bat and a time: 1:07.

Morgan picked it up. “Is this a threat or an invitation?”

“Yes,” Eleanor said.

Then she walked away.

Morgan stared after her, delighted.

At four o’clock, the office lights seemed to grow brighter in an apparent attempt to finish everyone off. The afternoon slump hit Brightway like a soft beige wave. Keyboards slowed. Someone microwaved fish in the kitchen and created a crisis that brought Tasha running with lemon spray and the thousand-yard stare of a woman who had warned them in writing.

Greg appeared at Morgan’s cubicle holding a mug that read LET’S MAKE MAGIC MEASURABLE.

“How’s the rebrand exploration?” he asked.

“I have three directions.”

“Already?”

“One is responsible. One is interesting. One will frighten leadership but improve them as people.”

Greg nodded. “Let’s maybe lead with responsible.”

“Cowardice noted.”

“Appreciated.” He lowered his voice. “Also, unrelated, if one wanted to make a playlist for concentration that was office appropriate but not spiritually beige…”

Morgan opened a new browser tab. “Instrumental darkwave. Low vocals. Nothing with screaming before three p.m. Tasha handles that department.”

Greg nodded gravely. “Great. Great.”

“Want me to send you a few artists?”

“Yes, but maybe not in Slack.”

“Because?”

“Because Bryce reacts to every music link with a fire emoji and the word ‘banger,’ and I don’t have the bandwidth.”

Morgan considered him. “You’re not as beige as you look, Greg.”

Greg’s face did something complicated: embarrassment, pride, and panic all trying to exit through the same door. “Please don’t put that in my performance review.”

“No promises.”

Just then, Bryce rolled up in a chair as if propelled by sales momentum alone.

“Team,” he said, despite being one person. “Question. Fun Committee is brainstorming Halloween. We’re thinking ‘Frightway Solutions.’ Pretty sick, right?”

Morgan slowly turned.

Tasha appeared from nowhere, holding lemon spray like a weapon. “Bryce.”

“What? It’s wordplay.”

“It is wordplay with cargo shorts.”

Bryce ignored this. “Anyway, Morgan, since you’re, like, the office Halloween expert—”

Morgan’s smile became extremely calm.

Greg whispered, “Bryce.”

“—we thought maybe you could help. But also, Hannah from People Ops said we should keep it accessible and not too intense. You know. Tone it down. For the party.”

The beige office seemed to hold its breath.

Morgan folded her hands on the desk beside Milton.

“Tasha,” she said, “please define ‘too intense’ for me in a corporate Halloween context.”

Tasha’s eyes gleamed. “Last year someone brought dry ice and Finance had feelings.”

“It set off the smoke alarm,” Greg said.

“Feelings,” Tasha repeated.

Bryce looked between them. “So, like, fun spooky. Not scary spooky.”

Morgan nodded thoughtfully. “You want Halloween without fear.”

“Exactly.”

“Costumes without transformation.”

“Sure.”

“Darkness without shadow.”

Bryce hesitated. “Maybe?”

“A pumpkin spice team-building exercise.”

Greg’s mug hovered near his mouth, forgotten.

Bryce snapped his fingers. “Actually, that’s not bad.”

Tasha closed her eyes. “Morgan, what have you done?”

Morgan leaned back. “I’ll help.”

Greg looked alarmed. “You will?”

“Of course. I believe in teamwork making the dream work.”

Everyone looked at the golden retriever poster across the room.

Morgan continued, “But if I am helping with Halloween, I am not toning anything down. I am translating.”

Bryce brightened. “Great. Translation is huge in sales.”

“That’s not what she means,” Tasha said.

“It’s close enough,” Morgan said.

Bryce stood, already typing on his phone. “Awesome. I’ll tell Fun Committee you’re in. Catch you in the pipeline.”

He rolled away.

Greg watched him go with the expression of a man seeing a kayak drift toward a waterfall.

“Morgan,” he said carefully, “what does translating Halloween mean?”

Morgan picked up Milton and angled his crowned skull toward the office.

“It means,” she said, “that Brightway Solutions is about to learn the difference between decoration and atmosphere.”

Tasha grinned. “I just got chills.”

“That might be the air-conditioning,” Greg said.

“No,” Eleanor said from behind them.

All three jumped.

She stood with another stack of folders, serene as a ghost in sensible shoes.

“That,” Eleanor said, “was atmosphere.”

Then the office printer shrieked, jammed, and spat one perfect sheet onto the floor.

Tasha picked it up.

Her eyebrows rose.

“What is it?” Morgan asked.

Tasha turned the page around.

At the top, in cheerful orange header text, were the words:

MANDATORY DRESS CODE REFRESH MEETING — ALL STAFF — MONDAY 9:00 A.M.

Underneath, someone had added a bullet point.

Agenda item: Clarifying acceptable use of black.

Morgan looked at the page. Then at Greg. Then at Tasha. Then at Eleanor.

Slowly, she set Milton back on her monitor.

“Well,” she said, “I know what I’m wearing Monday.”