I look behind her, out my glass wall toward the conference room across the floor where the girls she’s referring to—one who couldn’t wear higher cut shirts if she tried and one whose mother really should have given her a lesson on waxing her Italian upper lip—sit and stare admiringly at our blushing mom-to-be.

“You really have to stop calling them that,” I tell her.

“I’d never say it to their faces.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“Doesn’t it, though?” She shrugs, apparently deciding her nails are as perfect as she expected them to be, and drops her hands into her lap, looking up at me. “We’ve got everything for all your pitches and all your press releases and all your clients. We’ve got you covered. You have nothing to worry about.”

I check in like I care, but I don’t, and Lena knows that.

“I should just quit, and you can take over all of my clients,” I threaten. “Why am I even here?”

She stands, her colorful midi-skirt falling into place around her, and begins walking out the door. “You’re about to marry a man richer than God. I have no idea why you’re here. I ask myself that every day.” She stops in the glass threshold and looks at me in a way I could only describe as fondly. “I’d love to drink on the New York Times’s dime. See you there.”

She waves me off as she makes her way to the office next door, leaving me with only my thoughts and the earsplitting sounds of adult recess happening across the way.

The only personal item I have in my office is a picture of Graham and me, in a simple silver frame. His sister-in-law, Veronica, took it when we were in Vermont for Christmas two years ago. Veronica loves photos. Especially the ones that make her high school boyfriends jealous. The ones where she’s cradling her son in their coordinating outfits. The ones where she’s drinking colorful cocktails on a rooftop with her hot and botoxed girlfriends. The ones where she’s laughing, leaning into her charming husband, Reed. The Brother.

For this photo, we were all sitting around the firepit after dinner, under blankets and heat lamps, drinking mulled wine. We were newly engaged; Veronica and Reed carried Henry’s baby monitor around like it was their only lifeline to mankind. Even though everyone knew their nanny, Rose, would be the first (and only) person to settle a sound from Henry’s crib, Veronica and Reed jumped with each coo for show. They’re such great parents. See? See!

My future mother-in-law was, again, telling the story of the night she met my future father-in-law, as she does any time she has one too many vodka martinis.