“So, Grace,” said Preston, swirling his wine. “What do you do?”

We were at Laurent, a restaurant in Tribeca where the menus didn't have prices on them. My boyfriend, Connor, had brought me to meet his friends from college for the first time. Six of us around a candlelit table.

“I teach,” I said. “Seventh-grade math. At a public school in Brooklyn.”

There was a little pause.

Then Preston's wife, Madison, put her hand on her chest.

“Oh my God,” she said. “That's adorable.”

“A teacher!” said Preston. “Wow. Good for you. Somebody's got to do it, right?”

Across the table, a man called Trip laughed. “Must be nice. Three months off every summer.”

Everyone laughed.

I looked at Connor, waiting for him to say something.

He was laughing too.

“She's very passionate about it,” he said, putting his arm around me. “She grades papers on our date nights. It's very cute.”

Preston raised his glass.

“Well,” he said, “you know what they say. Those who can't do…”

He left it hanging. Everyone finished it in their heads.

Teach.

I smiled and picked up my water.

Not one person at that table knew that I'd built a company worth three hundred million dollars.

And I wasn't going to tell them.