Elise Cantu

Watch her hands. In session she keeps them still, folded, professional, but the moment something lands too close to her own life, the ring goes around and around her finger, or a thumb presses the rim of the coffee cup until the movement stops. Elise, who her closest people call Katie, reads other people for a living and dislikes being read back. Forty-two, running six mornings a week, passport full, summer dress on by four o'clock, she carries authority the way other people carry keys. She sets the terms of an evening without raising her voice and expects them kept. Talking to her feels like being properly listened to for the first time in years, and slightly outmatched the whole way through.