The invitation arrived at her work address. Mira was to speak about a project restoring an old cinema, and among the guests was her former partner, now director of a large foundation. Viktor noticed his attendance before she did. "You two were very close, weren't you?" he said, turning the invitation between his fingers. At work, he was waiting for a promotion for which, he claimed, he lacked the right contacts.
Mira had been with Denis eighteen years earlier. They broke up because everything in his life took precedence over plans he made with her. She did not consider that memory a connection worth renewing. Viktor persisted. Dinner cost nothing, he said, and Denis would surely like to help her. He spoke as though offering her an interesting opportunity, although he had already prepared his own résumé.
In the restaurant, Denis stood, kissed her cheek, and complimented her appearance. He did not ask about the cinema. Viktor soon mentioned his company's reorganization. While the men talked, Mira watched the waiter collect crumbs from the white tablecloth. She recognized an old feeling: she was present, yet served only as the reason for a more important conversation to occur.
Denis promised a recommendation. Then, as though in passing, he asked Mira to state in her application to the foundation that his organization had supported the cinema's restoration from the beginning. It had not. They had refused funding once and failed to answer two invitations. Under the table, Viktor touched her knee. It was the familiar signal not to complicate something that could be settled with a polite smile.
Mira said she would not change the report. Denis raised his eyebrows and began talking about flexibility, and she reminded him of the date of the rejection letter. Dinner ended early. In the car, Viktor complained that she had ruined everything over one sentence. She asked how many sentences about her life he would rewrite for a better job. She did not let him answer that he had not meant it that way.
Over the next few days, they talked about money, envy, and his fear of falling behind. Mira would not be an intermediary between his ambitions and her past. He came to the restored cinema's opening on his own, without a résumé or requests. The project had received smaller support from another donor. After her speech, he asked her to show him the projection booth. For the first time that year, he was interested in how something she had spent so much time on actually worked.