I was sitting at a posh bar the other night, dining alone, half-listening to the band, when a woman walked over, ordered a drink, and sat beside me. Slim and alluring in an exotic way, she wore a shimmery gold gown meant to impress.
Olive skin and bright eyes. Crazy-long eyelashes. Manicured baby-blue nails matched her eyeshadow and lip gloss. A tattoo snaked across a bare shoulder before disappearing into depths unknown. Cascading down her back was an outrageous blonde mane, which I assumed was a wig. Beautiful and beautifully strange, she and I locked gazes before I forced my attention back to my wedge salad and Guinness.
They were supposed to meet me here to celebrate. I called them twice. Celeste obviously wanted to talk, but I tried to think. Two faculty discussants were suspended, and investigations into alleged mentor-mentee exploitation started.
In the modern world, the faster that construction documents can be produced, the more profit a client stands to make. To an architect, keeping the customer satisfied is good business. Is this symbiosis adaptable to a better work-life relationship? Or so they implied. When I sat down for dinner, my question was: What to make of this controversy? I considered punching out early to find somewhere else to contemplate my navel alone.
Would they take a credit card? Preferably not, given the exit line I saw coming in. I took out my wallet and asked the bartender if he could break a hundred. Celeste lit up when I pulled out a Benjamin. I love dessert! Yankees and daydreamed about June It was just like architecture school, I remember thinking. Back then, no one told me to return to the studio night after night after dinner to finish a project. It was understood. Sometimes, pizza would be delivered at wee hours of the morning.
