Page 46 of Cava with My Colleague

The audience gives a small laugh—uncertain, but warming. I translate, and without thinking, add my own comment. “Mais c’est bien mieux que de commencer par un énoncé de mission.”

The laugh is bigger this time, more genuine. Jade glances at me, eyebrows raised in question. I lean toward her. “But it’s much better than starting with a mission statement.”

Her smile becomes real, reaching her eyes, and some of the tightness leaves her shoulders. She turns back to the audience. “He’s not wrong.”

And just like that, we’re in sync. She speaks, I translate. She pauses, I fill the space. The earlier fear in her eyes has receded, replaced by focus and determination.

But I’m also watching every word, every gesture, through a completely different lens now.

When she talks about the importance of helping children maintain their identity during treatment, I’m thinking about a nine-year-old girl learning she was sick. Learning that her body, which should have been safe, was fighting against itself.

When she clicks to the next slide showing the initial product mockups and says, “So let’s change that,” her voice is a little shaky but passionate, and I find myself translating not just her words but her conviction.

She moves into the technical portion of the presentation—the portion I’ve heard so many times, the portion that was competent but cold. But now it’s different. Now every data point, every efficacy rate, every clinical trial result is grounded in that opening image. This isn’t just science. This is personal.

I translate methodically while part of my brain catalogs what she’s doing right. It’s not perfect—she’s still nervous. But she opened up. She shared. She hooked the audience.

There’s an authenticity in her delivery that Mercedes, for all her polish, never quite achieved. When Jade says, “We know how important this is because we’ve lived it,” it’s not a royal we. It’s not a corporate we. It’s personal.

A pharmaceutical rep in the third row is taking notes frantically. A woman in a headscarf in the back is leaning forward, completely engaged. Even the journalists—who usually look bored until the Q&A—are paying attention.

Even though it’s not perfect, it’s better than Mercedes ever was.

The realization should probably bother me more than it does. Mercedes was a colleague, a friend. But watching Jade command this room, watching her transform data into hope, I can’t muster any loyalty to the old way of doing things.

We’re twenty minutes in when Jade shifts to the patient testimonial section. She shows a photo of a young boy, maybe ten, running his hands through his hair and grinning at the camera.

“That’s what this is about,” Jade says quietly. “Helping people hold on to their sense of self. Stay recognizable to themselves, even through treatment.”

I translate as I’m thinking about Jade at nine years old, sick and scared, trying to hold on to any piece of herself she could. Trying to be something other than “the sick girl.”

No wonder she wanted this position. No wonder she fought for it even when she clearly hated the public speaking component.

This isn’t about career advancement or travel opportunities or impressing Rebecca.

This is personal.

The presentation is winding down now. Jade clicking through the final slides with contact information, research partner acknowledgments, funding sources, patient advocacy events. All the standard closing material. But before we get there, she pauses on a slide that simply shows our company logo.

“I want to thank you all for your time today,” she says, and her voice has become softer, more intimate. “For those of you who are patients, or who love someone who’s a patient—we see you. We’re working for you. And we won’t stop until every person going through treatment has the support and dignity they deserve.”

I translate it and something in my throat goes tight. Because I’m looking out at the audience and seeing their faces, seeing the woman in the headscarf blinking back tears, seeing a man reach over to squeeze his wife’s hand, and I know that Jade has done something I’ve never quite managed in five years of giving these presentations.

She’s made them feel seen.

The presentation ends. Applause fills the room, and it’s not the polite appreciative applause of Vienna or the scattered response from Berlin. This is sustained, enthusiastic, genuine.

Jade steps back from the podium, and I can see her hands shaking slightly as she sets down the remote. But she’s smiling, and it’s not the fake smile from the photograph or the professional smile she wears in the office. It’s real.

People are standing now, moving toward the front for the Q&A session. A pharmaceutical rep wants to know about clinical trial timelines. A researcher asks about the mechanism of action. Jade fields each question with confidence, and I translate as needed mechanically, my mind still processing what just happened.

She trusted me with this. With her story. She stood up there and made herself vulnerable in front of hundreds of strangers, knowing I would translate every word, knowing I would be the bridge between her truth and their understanding.

That’s not a small thing.

A journalist asks about future product development. A patient asks about access and affordability. Jade answers each one thoughtfully, and I notice she’s leaning slightly forward when patients speak, giving them her complete attention in a way that’s different from how she engages with the pharmaceutical reps.

The Q&A runs long—fifteen minutes past our scheduled end time. The room coordinator is making subtle “wrap it up” gestures from the back, but Jade keeps taking questions. She wants to talk to these people. She wants to hear their stories.