Vance's editorial office gives Tessa Young a demanding professional life alongside college, and its manuscripts alternately absorb her and expose how little she can escape her private troubles. The office is more than an internship setting: as Tessa tries to imagine a future with Hardin Scott and later endures their separation, the workday becomes a measure of her changing ability to concentrate, connect, and carry on.

Work and the Double Life

The day after a night that leaves Hardin asleep and grumpy, Tessa arrives at Vance in pleasant weather, with little snow and only minimal slush beside the road. Kimberly is at her desk; Tessa takes her usual donut and coffee and learns that Kimberly had not known she came by the previous night, since she and Smith had both fallen asleep. The familiar routine anchors the office in ordinary daily life.

Yet the workplace feels strange after Tessa has spent the previous day on campus. She thinks of herself as living a double life: one half college student, the other a full adult with an apartment shared with her boyfriend and a paid internship that feels more like a job. She loves both halves, but if forced to choose, she would choose adult life with Hardin. That preference makes the office a setting for imagining a future, even as Hardin’s stated unwillingness to marry or have children makes that future feel uncertain.

Manuscripts as Refuge and Disruption

Tessa throws herself into her work, and lunchtime arrives quickly. After several disappointing manuscripts, she finds one compelling enough to hurry through her meal so she can return to it. She hopes its main character will recover from an illness; when the manuscript ends sadly, she leaves the office with tears on her cheeks. Work has temporarily absorbed her attention, but the story’s ending releases an emotion that follows her out of the building.

On the way home, Tessa realizes she has not heard from Hardin since leaving him in bed. She cannot stop thinking about what he said and about the possibility that they have no future together. The contrast is sharp: she can become wholly enveloped in a manuscript, yet private uncertainty resumes its hold as soon as the workday ends.

The Office During Separation

Later, during the days after Tessa and Hardin separate, returning to Vance does not immediately restore her earlier concentration. On the sixth day, Kimberly initially cannot meet Tessa’s eyes, then tries to start a conversation. Tessa cannot bring herself to take part, and although Kimberly mentions a dinner, Tessa can only remind herself to ask about it again when she can think clearly.

Her work stalls at the first page of a manuscript. She reads it repeatedly without absorbing it, a reversal of the earlier day when a story had pulled her entirely into its world. The office remains part of Tessa’s adult routine, but her distress now interrupts both its social exchanges and its central task. Across these visits, Vance marks the distance between the capable worker Tessa hopes to be and the private pain she cannot simply leave at the door.