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happy hours, no cocktail parties, no ‘hanging out’ with ‘friends’ from work. No partying. If you have to attend a work-related party, drink club soda.”
    “You make it sound like I’m in AA.”
    “Getting drunk is a sign of weakness.”
    “Then I assume smoking’s out of the question.”
    “Wrong,” she said. “It’s a filthy, disgusting habit, and it indicates a lack of self-control, but there are other considerations. Standing around in the smoking area is an excellent way to cross-pollinate, connect with people in different units, obtain useful intelligence. Now, about your handshake.” She shook her head. “You blew it. Hiring decisions are made in the first five seconds—at the handshake. Anyone who tells you anything else is lying to you. You get the job with the handshake, and then the rest of the job interview you fight to keep it, to not lose it. Since I’m a woman, you went easy on me. Don’t. Be firm, do it hard, and hold—”
    I smiled impishly, cut in: “The last woman who told me that . . .” I noticed she’d frozen in midsentence. “Sorry.”
    Now, head cocked kittenishly to one side, she smiled. “Thanks.” A pause. “Hold the shake a second or two longer. Look me in the eye, and smile. Aim your heart at me. Let’s do it again.”
    I stood up, shook Judith Bolton’s hand again.
    “Better,” she said. “You’re a natural. People meet you and think, there’s something about this guy I like, I don’t know what it is. You’ve got the chops.” She looked at me appraisingly. “You broke your nose once?”
    I nodded.
    “Let me guess: playing football.”
    “Hockey, actually.”
    “It’s cute. Are you an athlete, Adam?”
    “I was.” I sat down again.
    She leaned forward toward me, her chin resting in a cupped hand, checking me out. “I can tell. It’s in the way you walk, the way you carry your body. I like it. But you’re not synchronizing.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “You’ve got to synchronize. Mirror. I’m leaning forward, so you do the same. I lean back, you lean back. I cross my legs, you cross your legs. Watch the tilt of my head, and mimic me. Even synchronize your breathing with mine. Just be subtle, don’t be blatant about it. This is how you connect with people on a subconscious level, make them feel comfortable with you. People like people who are like themselves. Are we clear?”
    I grinned disarmingly, or what I thought was disarmingly, anyway.
    “And another thing.” She leaned in even closer until her face was a few inches away from mine. She whispered, “You’re wearing too much aftershave.”
    My face burned with embarrassment.
    “Let me guess: Drakkar Noir.” She didn’t wait for my answer, because she knew she was right. “Very high school stud. Bet it made the cheerleaders weak at the knees.”
    Later, I learned who Judith Bolton was. She was a senior VP who’d been brought into Wyatt Telecom a few years earlier as a powerhouse consultant with McKinsey & Company to advise Nicholas Wyatt personally on sensitive personnel issues, “conflict resolution” in the uppermost echelons of the company, certain psy-ops aspects of deals, negotiations, and acquisitions. She had a Ph.D. in behavioral psychology, so she was called Dr. Bolton. Whether you called her an “executive coach” or a “leadership mastery strategist,” she was kind of like Wyatt’s private Olympic trainer. She advised him on who was executive material and who wasn’t, who should be fired, who was plotting behind his back. She had an x-ray eye for disloyalty. No doubt he’d hired her away from McKinsey at some ridiculous salary. She was powerful enough and secure enough here to contradict him to his face, say shit to him he wouldn’t take from anybody else.
    “Now, our first assignment is to learn how to do a job interview,” she said.
    “I got hired here,” I said, feebly.
    “We’re playing in a whole new league, Adam,” she said, smiling. “You’re a