I take a deep breath. He needs to know my whole story, and this is the moment that makes the most sense. I feel a flutter in my stomach, an almost embarrassing tickle of nerves.

Our waiter comes over and flips a page in his memo pad. His hair is parted and gelled to perfection, not a strand out of place. He asks if he can start us off with some appetizers.

“We’ll do the ceviche,” Adam says. “You want anything else, Ary?”

“Ceviche is fine.”

Adam still has his menu open.

“Why don’t we just order now too? Do you know what you want?” he asks me.

We order entrées. Our waiter clicks his pen and drops it into his shirt pocket before moving on.

“I’m glad we could make tonight happen,” Adam says. “It’s a lot easier to talk in person than over text. Look, I should have cleared that post with you first, but you wouldn’t believe how many likes it got.”

“Likes,” I repeat.

“It upped my following by forty-five percent. Some people thought you were Latina, which worked out well, given the demographics of the district. And then the health-care piece, that was golden too. Everybody’s got someone affected by cancer. It was really effective.”

I see so clearly now what he is doing. I should have seen it long ago.

“I’m just asking that you consider helping me win some points. It would be a shame not to use what we have, and we can do it without breaking HIPAA or whatever.”

I take a long, slow sip of water and shake my head.

“It’s not just HIPAA. You know I like my boundaries, Adam.”

Adam exhales, his lips form a tight circle.

“All right, all right. Forget I asked,” he says. Our waiter swirls a cocktail glass of ceviche in the space above the table and then sets it gingerly on the table. I take the first bite—lunch left me hungry.

“But I need you to be part of this. There are other ways to help. I’ve been working my contact list so I can show some good fundraising numbers, but I have to widen the circle.”

“This is what you wanted to talk about the other day,” I say, remembering the text about dollars.

“Right. So here’s the thing,” Adam says, with a sheepish grin. “Can you put me in touch with your colleagues? Hospital executives, star surgeons . . . I’ve got to pitch the campaign to them, and I’m sure I can win them over on health-care issues. I’m sure some of them would want to have a future assemblyman as a friend,” Adam offers.

“You want me to ask my colleagues to give you money?” I ask, taken aback. “I can’t ask them to do that.”