"Is there an agenda?"
"No."
"Then dinner sounds fine."
They chose a small Italian restaurant several blocks from the office, neutral territory where nobody knew Claire as the CEO or Ryan as the man from the Christmas story employees still whispered about.
The first twenty minutes were awkward because both had become accustomed to talking through work as a safe structure. Without an agenda, the empty space between sentences felt unusually large.
Claire solved it by asking about Emily.
Ryan's expression changed, not closing but becoming more careful. "What do you want to know?"
"Whatever you want Sophie to remember about her."
Ryan sat back.
He told Claire that Emily sang badly and confidently. That she loved mystery novels but always guessed the killer too early and ruined them for herself. That she could walk into a room full of nervous patients and make them feel as though time had slowed down.
He told her Emily hated being described as brave during her illness because, as she once said, being sick was not a performance review.
Claire listened.
"She sounds difficult," she said finally.
Ryan laughed. "You would have liked her."
"That does not contradict what I said."
He smiled.
Then Ryan asked about Thomas.
Claire described her father as exacting, brilliant, impatient with excuses, unexpectedly sentimental about old tools, and incapable of throwing away a coat even after both elbows wore thin.
"He sounds difficult," Ryan said.
Claire lifted her glass. "Now you understand."
They talked until the restaurant staff began stacking chairs on tables around them.
At the door, Ryan said, "I enjoyed that."
Claire looked almost surprised by how much the sentence mattered. "So did I."
Neither called it a date.
Sophie did.
"You went to dinner with Claire?"
Ryan hung his coat by the door. "Yes."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"That is a date."
"It can also be dinner."