Given that Lee looks like she would really rather hide behind Michael (preposterous, she is eight inches taller than he is), the dynamic at play here is interesting. Lee is quiet; there is room there for a strong personality to occupy a lot of space. It has never once occurred to Lee that Michael's coworkers wouldn't see him the way she does: passionate, clever, ambitious, honest. Didn't he get promoted to Head Something Something Something?
Lee is starting to panic, her palm sweaty, aware that the long awkward pauses between her actually speaking are making her look weird or slow or something. She's grateful people tend to chalk it up to the language barrier, but 'foreign' and 'stupid' are analogous to a lot of people, and she's hyperconscious of how (she imagines) people see her at all times, even when they're not even looking at her. "Um." Her mind desperately casts about for something to say. Too bad you can't ask your boyfriend's boss things like have you ever noticed gravity suspending itself? or do you think the government is deliberately trying to kill off undesirables? She tries for something safe: "I didn't think there would be so many people here."
Is that polite small talk? Is she doing the thing? Is she passing as a normal human being, beep boop?