I was not nervous about the workshop. I was calm in the way that is sometimes misidentified as confidence; it is more accurate to call it familiarity. This was my work, and I knew how to do my work.
I was a little nervous about the part that came after.
## The Training Room at Northbridge
Northbridge Services operates out of a two-story building on the east side of Hartfield, Ohio, the kind of functional commercial building that was built in the late 1990s and has been updated in patches ever since. There is a drop ceiling in the lobby. The carpet is a dark gray that was probably chosen specifically to hide dirt. The training room is on the second floor: forty chairs, a projection setup, a table with coffee and pastries that was still being organized when I arrived.
The training coordinator was Linda Cho, thirty-something, efficient and friendly in the way of someone who runs events for a living and is good at it. She greeted me in the lobby, took me upstairs, showed me the A/V setup, confirmed the Wi-Fi password, asked if I needed anything.
I asked her, as I set up my slides, whether Daniel Foster was usually in these training sessions.
She checked her attendance list. “Yep, he’s on here. Account managers have the full morning.”
“He’s my husband,” I said. “I wanted to flag it in case there’s anything awkward about the introduction.”
She looked up. “Oh.” A pause. “Is it going to be a problem?”