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The Dinner Party

Caroline woke at 5:47, thirteen minutes before the alarm.

This happened more often than not. Her body had learned the schedule so
completely that it no longer needed to be told. She lay still in the
gray pre-dawn, listening to Julian's breathing beside her, and reviewed
the day.

The Hendersons at seven. The Okafor-Mays at seven-fifteen---Adaeze was
always precisely late, a power move Caroline privately admired. The
Chens would arrive whenever David finished at the hospital, hopefully by
seven-thirty. And Elias Vance, alone, the evening's wild card. He was
giving a lecture series at Yale on technology and ethics---Margaret
Henderson had attended one and insisted he'd be "a wonderful addition to
the conversation." He'd written a book that kept appearing in Caroline's
recommendations, though she'd never quite gotten around to it.

Eight guests. The caterer was handling the lamb. The florist had
delivered yesterday---white ranunculus, understated, nothing that would
compete with the art. Julian had selected the wines, his single reliable
contribution.

She rose before the alarm could sound, leaving Julian to his extra
minutes of sleep.

The house looked its best in the morning. Caroline had chosen it for the
light---north-facing windows in the living areas, the way the sun moved
through the rooms as the day progressed. It had cost more than the
south-facing alternatives on the same street, and Julian had questioned
the premium. But Julian didn't understand that light was not a luxury.
It was infrastructure.

She made her coffee---the machine knew her preferences, had for years
now---and stood at the kitchen island reviewing her phone. The morning's
briefing: markets, news, the curated selection of articles and updates
that kept her informed without overwhelming her. An article about Elias
Vance's lecture series appeared---she saved it to read later, then
opened her calendar instead.

The day was already arranged. Singapore call at nine. Quarterly review
at eleven. Home by four to oversee the final preparations. The system
had learned her rhythms perfectly---everything flowed, nothing
surprised.

At six-thirty, Eliza appeared in the doorway. Seventeen years old,
already dressed for school, already performing the version of herself
that would get into Princeton. She had Caroline's cheekbones and
Julian's artistic pretensions, and a competence that sometimes felt like
a mirror.

"The lamb?" Eliza asked.

"Handled."

"The Hendersons?"

"Seven."

"Is Dad coming to this one?"

"Of course he's coming. It's his house too."

A ghost of a smile. "I'll be in my room until they leave. Studying."

"That's fine."

Eliza disappeared back upstairs. James, fifteen, wouldn't emerge until
he absolutely had to---he'd learned early that invisibility was the
safest strategy in a house full of expectations.

By seven-fifteen, Caroline was in the car. The navigation had already
adjusted for the morning's traffic patterns. She settled into the seat
and let the day carry her forward.

The call with Singapore went well. The quarterly review went well.
Everything went well, which was not luck but design. Caroline had spent
twenty-three years building a career that looked inevitable from the
outside. Only she knew how many small choices had accumulated into this
life---the mentor who'd believed in her when others hadn't, the client
who'd taken a chance, the moments where she'd been twice as good and it
had mattered.

She left the office at four, as planned. The train to Greenwich was
quiet at this hour, the car half-empty, and she used the forty minutes
to review the guest list one final time.

The Hendersons: old friends, reliable, would anchor the conversation if
it drifted. Margaret was on three boards and had opinions about
everything; Richard would tell his story about meeting Kissinger unless
someone stopped him.

The Okafor-Mays: newer to the circle, interesting. Adaeze ran a
foundation; her husband Tobias did something with sustainable
infrastructure. They were the kind of couple Caroline wanted to know
better, which meant the kind of couple worth investing in.

The Chens: David was chief of surgery at Yale-New Haven, which gave him
automatic status; his wife Mei had left a law career to raise their
children and now sat on the board of the Greenwich Historical Society.
They were comfortable, unflappable, good for table balance.

And Elias Vance. The wild card. A professor of something---she checked
her notes---"technology ethics and society." He'd written a book that
had been well-reviewed. He was in the area for a lecture series. A
friend of the Hendersons had suggested him, and Caroline had learned to
trust these suggestions. The interesting guests were always sourced,
never found.

The caterer's van was in the driveway when she arrived. The lamb was
already in the oven. The house smelled like rosemary and money.

Julian came home at 5:34.

"The new artist?" Caroline asked.

"Derivative." He poured himself a drink. "We'll sell three pieces to
people who want to seem current. The rest will go back to Berlin."

"That's rather cynical."

"That's rather accurate."

He disappeared into his study to change. Caroline checked the table
settings, adjusted a fork, moved a candle two inches to the left. The
florist had done well. The ranunculus looked effortless, which meant
they'd cost a fortune.

Eliza was upstairs, exiled from the main floor until the guests arrived.
James was at a friend's house---a convenient playdate Caroline had
arranged without quite admitting she'd arranged it. The evening would
flow better without children underfoot.

At 6:45 she went upstairs to dress. The closet offered its suggestions:
the navy sheath was appropriate, the emerald was more memorable. She
chose the emerald. Tonight was about making an impression.

She looked at herself in the mirror and saw what she always saw: a woman
who had made it work. The career, the family, the house, the life. Not
without cost---there were always costs---but the ledger balanced. She
was fifty-one years old and she had built something. Not inherited,
whatever people assumed. Built.

The doorbell rang at 6:58. The Hendersons, two minutes early.

The evening began.

By 7:40, everyone had arrived except David Chen, who had texted about an
emergency surgery. Mei apologized on his behalf---he would come if he
could, but they shouldn't wait.

The living room held the guests comfortably. Julian was discussing the
Berlin artist with Tobias, making the derivative sound intentional.
Margaret was telling Adaeze about her foundation work, finding common
ground. Richard was nursing his scotch and waiting for an opening to
mention Kissinger.

Elias Vance stood slightly apart, holding a glass of wine he'd barely
touched. He was younger than Caroline had expected---mid-forties,
maybe---with the kind of face that looked like it was always thinking
about something else. He'd been pleasant during introductions, asked
good questions, but she couldn't quite get a read on him.

She approached with a fresh round of canapés.

"The lamb should be ready in twenty minutes. I hope you're not a
vegetarian---I should have asked."

"Not a vegetarian. And this is a beautiful home."

"Thank you. We've been here twelve years. The light sold me."

"The light?"

"North-facing windows. The way it moves through the rooms." She heard
herself saying the thing she always said and felt, briefly, like a
recording. "Do you own or rent? In New Haven, I mean."

"Rent. I'm not there enough to justify owning." He looked around the
room---at the art, the guests, the careful arrangement of everything.
"You've built something impressive here."

"Built or bought?"

He smiled. "Both, I imagine. Neither happens by accident."

"No. Neither does."

The conversation should have continued---pleasantries, backgrounds, the
usual dance---but something in his expression made her pause. He was
looking at her the way he'd looked at the room. Assessing. Not judging,
exactly. Just seeing more than she'd expected him to.

"Margaret tells me you write about technology," she said. "The effects
on how we live."

"Something like that. The ways we've outsourced our decision-making to
systems we don't understand."

"Outsourced. That's an interesting word."

"Is it wrong?"

"I don't know. I use all the usual things---the apps, the scheduling,
the recommendations. It saves time."

"It does." He sipped his wine. "The question is what you're saving it
for."

"For this." She gestured at the room. "For the things that matter."

"And this is what matters to you."

It wasn't a question, exactly. But it also wasn't agreement. He was
doing something she recognized---asking without asking, the kind of
conversational move that left space for you to tell on yourself.

"My daughter wants to go to Princeton," she said, surprising herself.
"Eliza. She's upstairs, studying. She's been preparing for college since
she was fourteen."

"That's quite a commitment."

"She's ambitious. She knows what she wants."

"Does she?"

Caroline felt something flicker---a small irritation, or maybe something
else. "What do you mean?"

"I mean---and this is just an observation---that knowing what you want
at seventeen often means you've absorbed what other people want for you.
It's hard to tell the difference at that age. At any age, really."

"That sounds like something from your book."

"It might be." He smiled. "I'm not sure I have original thoughts
anymore. Everything just recycles."

Before she could respond, Margaret appeared at her elbow. "Isn't he
marvelous? I told you he'd be a wonderful addition." She squeezed
Caroline's arm. "Richard's about to tell the Kissinger story. Should I
stop him?"

"Let him. The Okafor-Mays haven't heard it."

Margaret drifted away. When Caroline turned back, Elias was looking at
her with something that might have been curiosity or might have been
sympathy.

"The Kissinger story?" he asked.

"Richard met Kissinger once, at a cocktail party in 1987. The story gets
longer every year."

"Does he know that?"

"I doubt it. We don't tend to notice our own loops."

"No," Elias said. "We don't."

Dinner was a success. The lamb was perfect, the conversation flowed,
Richard told the Kissinger story without exceeding his usual time. David
Chen arrived at dessert, apologetic and exhausted, and Mei's face when
she saw him was the truest thing Caroline had seen all evening.

Elias was quiet through most of it---listening, observing, occasionally
offering a comment that shifted the conversation in unexpected
directions. When Tobias mentioned his infrastructure projects in
Nigeria, Elias asked about the cultural implications of Western-designed
systems in non-Western contexts. When Margaret talked about her board
work, he asked what success would look like and whether anyone had
actually defined it.

The questions weren't hostile. They were just---precise. The kind of
questions that exposed how much remained unexamined in the things people
said confidently.

At one point, he mentioned Asimov. A story Caroline hadn't read, about a
computer that knew more about people than they knew about themselves.
"The machine in the story wasn't evil," he said. "It was just efficient.
It gave people what they wanted, and in doing so, it removed the need
for them to want anything at all."

"That sounds rather dark," Margaret said.

"It's a warning, not a prophecy. Or at least that's what Asimov thought.
I'm less sure these days."

"But surely we're still choosing," Caroline said. "The apps suggest, but
we decide."

"Do we?" He looked at her directly. "When was the last time you did
something that wasn't suggested? Truly surprised yourself?"

The table went quiet. Not uncomfortable---they were too well-bred for
that---but attentive. Waiting to see how Caroline would respond.

"I'm surprising myself right now," she said. "Having a philosophical
discussion at my own dinner party."

Everyone laughed. The moment passed. But Caroline felt it---a small
splinter, somewhere beneath the smooth surface of the evening.

The guests left by ten. Julian had another drink and went to bed.
Caroline stood in the kitchen, surveying the aftermath---glasses in the
sink, napkins to be gathered, the pleasant exhaustion of a successful
evening.

She should go to bed. She should check on Eliza. She should do any of
the dozen things the night naturally led to.

Instead, she walked into Julian's study.

The room was cluttered in a way she usually ignored---art catalogs, old
show posters, the detritus of a career that had never quite become what
Julian had imagined. On the shelves, between auction catalogs and
exhibition programs, was a row of books that had been here when they
bought the house. Previous owner, estate sale, whatever. Nobody had ever
bothered to remove them.

She scanned the spines. Stopped at one.

Foundation and Empire. Isaac Asimov.

She pulled it out. A first edition, or something close to it. Worth
money, probably---Julian would know. But she wasn't thinking about that.

She was thinking about what Elias had said. The computer that knew more
about people than they knew about themselves. The machine that gave
people what they wanted and removed the need for wanting.

She opened the book. Read the first page, then the second. The prose was
old-fashioned, the science dated, but there was something underneath---a
question about human agency that felt uncomfortably current.

She read for an hour. Then she put the book back on the shelf, in the
same spot Julian would never notice, and went upstairs to her optimized
sleep.

Two weeks later, Caroline would tell Margaret that Elias had been
"interesting but odd." The phrase would pass into the social record, a
stamp that closed the file on any future invitations.

The Asimov book would stay on the shelf. Caroline would never open it
again.

Eliza would get into Princeton. James would continue to be invisible.
Julian would have an affair with a gallery assistant that Caroline would
discover, address, and manage with the same efficiency she brought to
everything else.

The life would continue. The life would be good. The life would be
exactly what it was supposed to be.

And somewhere, in a study in Greenwich, a first edition Asimov would
gather dust on a shelf, its questions unasked, its warnings unheeded,
its pages as pristine as the day Caroline had almost let herself read
it.

She had everything she'd wanted. She'd just never stopped to wonder who
had decided what that was.

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