As the meeting breaks up around me, I gather my papers and my thoughts and listen to the soft intros, the clinks of coffee mugs, the sussurrations of bare footsteps on our cotton-combed textured carpets, the ones that signal this is a meeting room.

I lay my head down a bit, loosen my tie. I know Brian is sitting next to me, but we say nothing, and I cannot tell what he is thinking. Is he as tired as I am, as willing to subside into his own thoughts?

How many currents of motives, agendas, cabals are running under this unruffled surface? For the thousandth time, I wish I could find out what people are feeling before they say it.