LENA

The table arrangement was where I spent most of my energy.

Diana had done a standard round table configuration, ten tables, ten guests each, the conventional geometry of every formal dinner in the city. It was fine. It worked. It meant that at some point during the evening, every guest would have their back to every speaker, and the room would feel like a restaurant that happened to have a stage.

I stood in the middle of the empty floor with Diana's layout diagram in my hand and looked at the room.

Thought about what Nate had said when he first described the concept to me: We want donors...