I held the cup out so both of them could see it. I've learned you have to make these things visible. Otherwise they'll optimize around whatever detail you didn't specify.
"Both hands sometimes," I said. "One hand other times. If it's warm, handle toward you. If someone else is handing it to you, handle toward them."
I turned the cup once, slowly. It felt like overexplaining. It probably wasn't.
"The important thing isn't the grip itself," I added. "It's that the cup should look like something you plan to drink from eventually. Even if you don't. People notice the relationship between a guest and a cup."
I paused, just long enough to let that sit.
"It tells them whether the guest feels like they belong in the room. Or whether they're conducting some kind of assessment of the cup."
I set it down on the counter.
The Walker picked up the cup.
It used both hands. From the first morning I'd put a cup in front of it, it had held them like that.
It looked right.
