She greeted them in the tone she used for every table, warm and level and free of the deference that rich men sometimes mistook for their due, and she introduced herself by name because she always did.
Preston looked at her name tag, then at her, then back at the name tag, with the slow appraisal of a man reading a label he suspected of being misprinted.
He said her name as a question, though it was not one, and when she confirmed it with a smile he made a sound that was not quite a laugh and turned to Wei Zhang as if a joke had already begun.
Wei Zhang did not smile at the sound, which Amara noticed and filed away, the way she filed away which guest was left-handed and which one took still water rather than sparkling.
She poured the water, described the evening's fish and the chef's preparation without rushing, and asked whether anyone at the table had allergies or restrictions she should pass to the kitchen before they ordered.
It was a standard question, asked at every table, asked because lives depended on the boring accuracy of such questions, and she asked it looking at each guest in turn so no one had to announce a private matter to the whole party.
Preston answered for the table before anyone else could speak, saying they were all fine, that they were not delicate, and that in his experience people had survived dinner for centuries without an interview first.
The younger partner shifted slightly in his chair, and the woman beside Wei Zhang glanced down at her menu with an expression that revealed nothing and therefore revealed a great deal.
Amara kept her smile exactly where it was, because she had been insulted by experts in hospital corridors and government offices, and a rich man at dinner was, comparatively, a low-difficulty exercise.
She said of course, and that she would give them a few minutes with the menus, and she noted, without writing it down yet, that the woman had quietly turned the page to the section listing ingredients in smaller print.
As she walked away she heard Preston resume, louder now, a story about a warehouse acquisition and a mayor and a dinner in Singapore, a story in which every other person seemed to exist mainly to misunderstand him and then be corrected.
She delivered drink orders for another table, checked on the couple by the window, and felt the evening narrowing, the way it sometimes did, toward the corner by the glass where the candles burned in their polished holders.
Daniel caught her at the service station and asked, under the cover of the kitchen noise, whether the table was behaving itself, and she told him it was behaving exactly as expected, which made him exhale through his nose.
He told her the party had asked for the sommelier and the chef at some point in the evening, that the investors were considering a logistics venture with Preston's company, and that the dinner was business wearing the costume of pleasure.
That explained the folder, the careful seating, the way Wei Zhang listened more than he spoke, and the way his partners watched Preston the way translators watch a speaker whose words and meanings have begun to separate.
Amara returned to the corner table with the wine list presented to Preston, who had requested it, and she stood at the correct distance while he performed his knowledge of vintages for an audience too polite to interrupt him.
He mispronounced the name of a French region with total confidence, and neither of Wei Zhang's partners corrected him, and Amara, who knew the pronunciation because the sommelier had drilled the staff for a month, said nothing at all.
Service, she had learned, was often the discipline of knowing more than you said, and she let the moment pass and took the order for a bottle expensive enough to require Daniel's quiet approval at the bar.
When the wine came she presented it, poured a taste for Preston, and watched him swirl and pronounce it acceptable with the gravity of a judge sparing a defendant, while Wei Zhang thanked her with a nod that was somehow more courteous than the entire performance.
By the time the appetizers were ordered, Amara had learned the table the way she learned every table, by listening for what people said when they believed the server had become furniture.
Wei Zhang was addressed by his partners with a respect that was not fearful, and he spoke quietly, asking questions about the lake, the neighborhood, and whether the restaurant sourced its fish locally, as if place mattered to him before profit did.
The woman was Liu Fang, precise in her English and economical with it, who asked intelligent questions about preparation and thanked Amara each time something was set before her, without exception.
The younger man was Chen Bo, who smiled more readily than the others and who seemed to carry the role of bridge at the table, laughing at Preston's remarks a fraction before anyone else so the silence would not show.
Preston dominated the space between courses the way he had dominated the doorway, ordering for the table at one point without consulting it, waving away Liu Fang's attempt to choose her own second course with a genial tyranny he clearly mistook for hosting.
Amara intervened the way good servers do, invisibly, by returning her gaze to Liu Fang and asking, with pleasant directness, whether she would prefer the preparation she had been considering, and Liu Fang, after a pause, said yes with quiet gratitude.