Lena’s voice cracked on the first word.
She swallowed.
“The prevailing wind comes off the river at fourteen miles an hour from November through March,” Lena said.
She did not look at her notes.
“If you put a flat facade on that corner, you create a wind tunnel right where the school bus drops off the kids from Saint Jude’s elementary.”
Eleanor watched her.
“Go on,” Eleanor said.
“I spent three afternoons at the corner diner last month,” Lena told her.
Julian stayed standing by the screen.
He didn’t interrupt.
He didn’t move.
“The mothers sit on the low brick retaining wall by the pharmacy,” Lena continued.
“They wait forty minutes in the sleet because there is nowhere dry to stand while keeping a clear line of sight to the playground.”
Eleanor tapped one manicured finger on the table.
“A canopy would solve that.”
“A canopy traps exhaust and shadows the sidewalk,” Lena countered.
The sentence came out faster than Lena intended.
Julian’s jaw tightened.
Lena noticed it, but she didn’t back down.
“A cantilevered curve deflects the draft upward,” Lena said.
She pushed her sketchbook two inches across the walnut wood.
“And it lets the southern sun reach the benches between two and five in the afternoon.”
Eleanor looked down at the hand-drawn section.
Lena’s lines were pencil on heavy tooth paper.
No computer rendering.
No glossy blue sky added in Photoshop.
Just sightlines drawn in faint red graphite, connecting the shaded bench to the playground swing sets across the avenue.
Eleanor studied the page for twenty seconds.
Nobody spoke.
Julian’s fingers brushed against his watch strap.
“Why wasn’t this in the preliminary brief?” Eleanor asked.
She looked directly at Julian.
“Because I took it out,” Julian said.
Lena’s eyes widened.
Eleanor raised one eyebrow.
“You took it out?”
“Yes,” Julian said.
“Why?”
“Because engineering estimated the curved poured-concrete formwork at an additional four hundred and eighty thousand dollars,” Julian said calmly.
“And your RFP stated strict budget caps.”
Eleanor looked back at the screen.
“Then why is it on the screen today, Mr. Vance?”
“Because at midnight, Lena showed me the thermal modeling,” Julian said.
He pointed at the base of the tower.
“The overhang reduces winter heat loss through the ground-floor retail glass by eleven percent.”
“Twelve point four,” Lena murmured.
Julian glanced at her.
“Twelve point four percent,” Julian corrected himself.
“Which recoups the formwork costs within six winters of operation.”
Eleanor closed her leather folder with a soft thud.
She stood up.
Julian’s pulse jumped against his collar.
Eleanor smoothed the lapels of her blazer.
She picked up her phone.
“My board meets at four,” Eleanor said.
She turned toward the door.
“They expect me to bring them a spreadsheet that makes sense.”
Julian moved to open the glass door for her.
Eleanor paused beside Lena’s chair.
“Leave the notebook,” Eleanor said.
Lena looked up, surprised.
“The sketches?” Lena asked.
“The page with the red lines,” Eleanor replied.
Eleanor looked at Julian.
“You’re an idiot for taking it out, Julian.”
Julian gave a faint, tired smile.
“I know.”
“And you’re decent for giving her the floor,” Eleanor added.
She walked through the glass doors and down the corridor toward the elevators.
Her heels clicked against the terrazzo until the ding of the elevator chime cut the sound short.
Julian let the door swing shut.
He stood against the wood frame and exhaled.
Lena was still sitting rigid in her chair.
Her hands lay flat on the paper.
“Did we lose it?” Lena asked.
Her voice was tiny.
Julian pulled his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“She took your drawing,” he said.
“That means she’s going to use it against the city planning committee.”
Lena looked down at the empty space on her sketchpad where the red lines had been.
“You told her you took it out,” Lena said.
“You could have let her think we planned it together from day one.”
Julian put his glasses back on.
He walked over and picked up the remote from the walnut table.
“Eleanor Cross ran the city transit authority for sixteen years,” Julian said.
“She can smell corporate choreography from three miles away.”
He shut down the projector.
The screen turned black.
“If I lied to her about who drew that curve, she would have found out during the first site audit,” Julian said.
“And then she would have fired us both.”
Julian looked down at her.
“Besides. You spent forty hours on that draft while I was arguing with the structural engineers.”
Lena gathered her pencils into her tin case.
Her hands still trembled slightly, but the tension in her shoulders had vanished.
“What happens now?” she asked.
Julian’s phone vibrated against the table surface.
A single sharp buzz.
He picked it up.
The screen showed an email notification from Cross Holdings Legal.
Subject: Letter of Intent – Project Saint Jude.
Julian opened the message.
He read the three lines on the screen twice.
Lena watched his face.
“Julian?”
Julian locked the screen and slid the phone into his pocket.
“She approved Phase One,” he said.
A breath rushed out of Lena’s chest.
“We won?”
“We won,” Julian said.
He walked over to the glass wall looking down over the city grid.
“On one condition.”
Lena paused, her hand hovering over her canvas tote bag.
“What condition?”
Julian turned around to face her.
“Eleanor wants the lead design signatory on all public ground-floor permits to be you.”
Lena stared at him.
“I’m not licensed yet,” she whispered.
“You have four months until the state board exam,” Julian said.
He picked up her roll of tracing paper and handed it to her.
“Which means you have four months to pass it, or we lose the contract anyway.”