Lena and I had met nearly five years ago, when I first moved to New York. I was a barely functioning twenty-four-year-old who expertly maneuvered her way into a job at Brit & Ash with exactly one thing in mind: meeting people like Lena so I could become someone like Lena. It’s times like this—seeing her sitting there like a painting, light grazing cheekbones so pronounced they don’t need contouring, the red lip she sports every day without ever smudging, smiling slightly once she sees me—that I realize I did it. I became one of her.

“Hi, gorgeous,” I say when I reach our table.

She turns toward me slowly, taking her time. “I ordered a bottle of the sauv blanc.” She flicks her wrist toward one of the empty chairs across from her.

“You know I’m not drinking until the wedding,” I say, lowering onto the seat. I attach my purse to the horned edge of the chair—Goyard bucket bags never touch the floor—and pull the napkin off the silver charger plate, gently covering my lap.

“You have to put on a show, hun. No one wants to write about another bride on another wedding diet.”

“I guess I can nurse one glass,” I say, instinctively, looking toward the back of the restaurant, where a dark hallway inevitably leads to a dimly lit bathroom. I always find the bathroom. Knowing its proximity eases me while I eat. Not that I’d ever do that in such a public place.

The waiter appears then, silently presenting a sweating bottle to Lena, who offers a nearly imperceptible nod of approval. All her movements are like that: nearly imperceptible, highly calculated. That’s where I learned it.

“Should we wait for Sarah?” I ask, as the waiter performatively opens the bottle, twisting it this way and that in his arm like a kid showing off how much he just learned to bench.

“You’re probably right,” she says, a hint of disappointment in her tone, before turning to the waiter. “We have someone else coming,” she explains with a squint, like she’s unsure he understands. He nods and corks the bottle, gently fitting it into the silver ice bucket adjacent to our oversized two-top. Another thing I learned from Lena? Don’t apologize.

After a month at Brit & Ash, I was waiting at my desk for my direct report at the time to leave; she was a mousy woman named Hilary whose hair was just as thin as the veil around her “well-intentioned” insults and she never left before 8:00 p.m., which meant I never left before 8:05. Being busy is something only New Yorkers and liberal arts students think is cool. Busy translates into important and in a city of eight million you hold tight to things that make you feel like you matter.