The company dinner was at a restaurant that cost more per head than most people's weekly grocery bill. Forty people, long table, the specific performance of corporate socializing that Adrian did effortlessly and that Mara watched from her seat three places down with the quiet attention she brought to everything.

She was seated between the head of legal and someone from the Singapore office whose name she had already learned and whose wine preference she had already noted because that was what she did. She was good at this — the professional performance of a dinner like this, the conversation and the wine and the knowing which fork to use...