And she had a particular gift for making people feel that the 30 seconds she was giving them was the full measure of her attention, which in Ethan's observation was the rarest professional skill in any field. The first test came about 15 minutes into their circulation from a man named Callum Bryce, a board member who had the careful eyes of someone who had been given specific things to pay attention to. Callum shook Ethan's hand with measured enthusiasm and said, "Serena's kept you something of a secret. She likes keeping things to herself until she's sure about them." Ethan said, "You probably know that."
Callum's mouth curved. " I do. Yes. 15 years I've been on her board." He looked at Ethan with the particular assessment of a man running a calibration.
And how did the two of you? She ordered a bookshelf, Ethan said. Custom piece for her study. Had very specific opinions about the wood type. I can imagine.
Callum said. We went back and forth about it for 2 weeks over email before she finally agreed to come to the workshop and look at the material in person. Ethan said, which she did. And then she stood in my workshop for 45 minutes arguing with me about the difference between walnut and cherry grain while my daughter sat in the corner eating a sandwich and listening to the whole thing with great interest. Callum looked at Serena.
That sounds exactly right, he said. Serena's expression had the very specific quality of a person who was genuinely fighting back amusement. Maisie did provide an opinion. She said she was strongly in favor of the walnut. Smart kid, Callum said, and his assessment of Ethan visibly shifted one degree in a direction that felt like something real rather than performed.
How old? Eight, Ethan said, going on 43. Callum laughed, an actual laugh rather than a social one. Mine were the same, he said. You blink and they're arguing with you about things you haven't figured out yet.
They talked for another 6 or 7 minutes and then Callum drifted and Serena and Ethan moved on. And when they were far enough from his earshot, Serena said very quietly, "Where did the story about the workshop and Maisie come from?" " It's more or less true," Ethan said. " The bookshelf is fictional. Everything else could have happened."
She was quiet for a moment. " It was good," she said. " The way you told it. You didn't exactly hurt yourself in the telling either," he said. Maisie providing an opinion. "
Quick, I have fast instincts. I've noticed." They stopped near a table with drinks, and Ethan picked up a club soda. He'd had half a glass of wine with dinner and that was the limit when he was operating outside his normal context. He needed his head clear.
Who else? He asked. The man by the pillar, Serena said. Gray suit, silver watch. That's Richard Howell.
He's the investor Victor has been working hardest. He's cautious he won't commit easily, but if Victor convinces him tonight, he's a significant problem. Ethan looked at Richard Howell without appearing to. The man had the posture of someone who spent a great deal of time in rooms like this one and had learned to make himself unremarkable in them, which was its own kind of intelligence. He'll want to see something real, Ethan said.
Something that doesn't look managed. What do you mean? He's not going to be impressed by Polished. Ethan said he's been watching Polished all night. If we go over there and perform, he'll see it.
He thought for a moment. Tell me something true about the last year. Something difficult. Serena looked at him. What?
Something that didn't go right. Something that cost you sleep. A real thing, not a professional thing. If we need him to see something genuine, we need to be genuinely somewhere. She looked at him for a long moment and he could see the familiar process, the evaluation, the calculation, the instinctive caution.
And then something moved in her face. A small decision. My father died in March, she said 8 months ago. It was fast 6 weeks from diagnosis. We weren't.
We had a complicated relationship for a long time. I spent the last year of his life trying to fix something we'd broken when I was 28 and I ran out of time. She paused. He never saw any of this, any of what I built. We talked about it in the last weeks.
He said he was proud. I've spent 8 months trying to decide if I believed him. Ethan was quiet. You asked for something real, she said with a control in her voice that was working harder than it looked. I did, he said.
I'm sorry about your father. He was 81, she said. That doesn't mean you get less time to grieve, Ethan said. It doesn't work that way. She looked at him for a moment.
Then she looked away toward the middle distance of the ballroom. And when she looked back, there was something slightly different in her expression. Not softer exactly, but less guarded. " My wife died four years ago," he said, keeping his voice even. " Maisie was four.
aneurysm, no warning, just not there. I went from being one half of something to being the whole thing overnight. He paused. I'm not I'm not saying it's the same. It's not.
But I understand the part where you keep running the math on what you said and what you didn't and whether the last thing that mattered was enough. Serena was quiet for long enough that he wondered if he'd said too much. Do you come to a conclusion? She asked eventually. Not a clean one, he said.
But you stopped needing a clean one. Somewhere around year three, maybe. You just learn to hold it without the weight changing every time you pick it up. She nodded slowly, not as acknowledgement of something she already knew, but as someone filing something away for a time when they'd be in a position to use it. They moved toward Richard Howell, and Ethan let the previous few minutes sit in his chest without reaching for anything to cover it.