She didn’t look convinced. “Is that your answer—we’re all trapped in an inescapable web?” Dorsey smirked and shook his head. Liza lived in a world of fair-trade coffee and museum gift shop scarves sewn by women’s collectives in Sudan. He had been where she was. Ten years ago, he’d thought like Liza; he’d built awareness campaigns and read Karl Marx. But going around the world and witnessing such miserable conditions confirmed one thing: that money, and only money, was power. It was a Swiss Army knife. To change the world, ideas alone wouldn’t do a thing. As the CEO of Pemberley, he’d allowed a hard, protective crust to form over him. Liza would do a lot better if she didn’t always walk around with her heart and politics on her sleeve. But that wasn’t an argument he expected to win tonight.

He had managed to get her to agree to drinks. Now all he had to do was not fuck it up.

BULL VS. COW

Dorsey was surprised that the Hotel Washington was only two blocks from the White House and that the building was more than two hundred years old. He marveled at the architecture, a blend of 1930s federal and old British Empire styles. The ornate lobby had dramatic marble columns wrapped with holly and lights in preparation for Christmas. He turned to look at Liza, whose eyes were up on the detailed tray ceilings with intricate paintings representing each state in the country. She reached out and touched the lush greenery, and her boots swooshed lightly on the detailed tiled mosaics on the floor.

“This is next level,” was all she said. Liza didn’t put on airs. If she thought something was cool, she let herself like it. While he was constantly gauging what others thought to determine his level of enthusiasm. The way she had clapped in delight unselfconsciously about his car—he would give anything to feel so comfortable in his skin. She moved toward the enormous tree in the middle of the lobby and took a big dramatic breath. “Do you smell that natural pine smell? Isn’t it gorgeous?”

“It smells like Christmas.”

“Is that what Christmas smells like? We’ve never had an actual tree. Granny would just take the plastic tree out of storage and we’d put it up together. There were still awesome memories, but what I wouldn’t give for a real tree one day.”

Dorsey found them a table. The sun was setting and the light at such a slant made little rainbows dance out of Liza’s earrings and onto her face. Miles Davis’s “My Funny Valentine” played, and this whole evening felt like a woozy dream. He ordered something bland; she ordered something on fire. They drank, and no matter where he looked, he crashed into her eyes. He stuttered out a comment on the architecture, on the weather.