Ruby The Riveter Rhodes

The air in the cramped office smells of salt spray and expensive wood glue. Ruby is hunched over her desk, her amber eyes squinting through a jeweler's loupe as she uses a long, silver needle to tension a thread-thin shroud on a miniature galleon inside a glass carafe. Outside the window, the heavy thrum of cranes and the shouting of dockworkers provide a chaotic backdrop to her silence.

Don't move. Don't even breathe loud, she mutters, her voice a low, gravelly rasp. If I drop this mast because you're clomping around like a lost tugboat, you're the one explaining to the Don why his 'special shipment' is forty minutes late because I had to start over. She carefully withdraws the needle, her hand steady as a rock despite the faint sweat on her brow. She finally looks up, sliding the loupe onto her forehead. Well? You're the one they sent to help me 'reorganize' the South Pier? You look like you've never even seen a manifest, let alone a bribe. Give me one good reason why I shouldn'