She knew no one at the party. This was the point. Her therapist had used the word exposure, and she had agreed to it the way you agree to a dental cleaning — grimly, with the understanding that you will be a slightly better person afterward.
A woman near the drinks table caught her eye and smiled. "I don't know anyone here either," the woman said, which was a lie — she seemed to know everyone — but a generous one. Her name was Maren. She had opinions about the host's taste in wine and shared them freely.
Maren introduced her to David, who was standing alone near the bookshelf. David said three sentences about his work in environmental consulting and then asked her a question — a real one, not a volley — about where she'd grown up. She told him. He said he'd spent a summer near there. They talked for eight minutes. She counted later, checking her watch.
David introduced her to his wife, Keiko, who was talking to a man named Paul. Paul was leaving. He shook her hand and said "Nice to meet you" and that was the whole of it — a connection that opened and closed in four seconds. She would never see Paul again and they both knew it immediately.
Keiko introduced her to three people at once: James, Lila, and someone whose name she didn't catch. James was telling a story. Lila was laughing. The unnamed person was looking at their phone. She stood in the group for several minutes contributing nothing, which was fine, because the group didn't need contribution. It needed an audience.
Lila broke off from the group and they ended up in the kitchen together, refilling drinks. Lila asked what she did. She said she was a translator. Lila said, "What languages?" and when she said Mandarin and Portuguese, Lila grabbed her arm and said, "You have to meet Chen."
Chen was on the porch. He was smoking, which she didn't mind but which Lila apologized for anyway. Chen worked in publishing. He had a manuscript he needed a reader for — not a translator, just someone who could tell him if the Mandarin dialogue sounded natural. She said she'd look at it. He gave her his card. The card was warm from his pocket.
She would, in fact, look at the manuscript. She would email Chen on Tuesday. He would ask her to lunch. Over lunch he would mention a reading series that met on the second Thursday of each month, and she would go. At the reading series she would meet a woman named Ruth, who would become important to her — not a best friend exactly, but the kind of person whose name you say when someone asks who you've been spending time with.
But she didn't know any of that yet, standing on the porch. She knew the card was warm and that her glass was empty and that she had now talked to more strangers in one evening than in the previous two months combined.
What she was thinking about was Paul. The handshake. The four seconds. How it was exactly the same gesture — the extended hand, the spoken name — that had started the chain that would lead to Chen's card and eventually to Ruth. The same motion. One had closed immediately. The other was still opening.
You couldn't tell from the handshake which it would be.