BACK AT HER desk, Deena withdrew pen and paper and went to work. She printed ‘Skylife’ at the top of a legal pad in large, neat letters and stared at it. What did she know about the project? She numbered the lines of the page and began to list facts as they came to her. A multi-use facility—residential and commercial. Wealthy residents. Advantageous ocean access. Impressive views of the bay.
Deena sighed. She was young, and had graduated just four years ago. How could she create a design so impressive that people would fork over millions of dollars for a sliver of her vision? How could she create a standard of luxury that made a unique contribution to the world when she had spent most of her life in poverty?
She groaned. This line of thought was counterproductive. So she turned to the function of the building. It was, as she’d already noted, a multi-use structure with commercial and residential units under the same roof. It was a community. Deena began to scribble down everything that came to mind about communities. A group interacting in a shared environment. Shared resources, preferences, needs, risks.
What else could her building do for this community, aside from the obvious task of providing shelter? Many architects tried to impose a sense of community cohesion through common space. It was a good notion, but she wanted to take it further. Could she, through her designs, create this same sense of cohesion not just with the residents of her building, but with those in the surrounding area too? Could Skylife, in essence, draw the outward in?
Deena chewed on her pen in thought. She envisioned outdoor common spaces, a gym and sauna open to the community and an outdoor café for the business tycoons who worked steps away. Skylife would not be a world unto itself, but rather a seamless part of a larger existence.
Deena frowned. The idea was good, but it was just a start. People would not pay millions to inhabit squares, no matter how many coffee shops were nearby. Spacious lofts came to mind, with 180-degree views of the bay and floor-to-ceiling windows like the ones in Daichi’s office. Still, she needed more.
She wanted people to rush home, breathless in anticipation, to fawn over their million-dollar lofts, dashing from one corner to the other as they proclaimed their love not just for the panoramic views but for everything. Each apartment should be alluring, enchanting, intoxicating. Each apartment should be loved.
Deena tore off a fresh sheet of paper. Love. It was the very thing that had eluded her for so long. And yet, even she had uncovered it. Love. How could she look at it pragmatically?
She thought of Tak, jotting down words as they came to her. Beauty. Pleasure. Bonding. Familiarity. Intimacy. Reciprocity. Could she recreate these same attributes in her design, and, by proxy, manufacture love?
It sounded outrageous. But outrageous wasn’t the same as impossible.
KENJI TANAKA LAY on his back, the door before him closed. He was in his weekend bedroom at Tak’s house. On his nightstand was a stack of graphic novels and on the television, The Sopranos, turned low. Briefly, he considered a romp with one of the half-dozen adrenaline-rushing video games he owned, but a glance at the clock on his nightstand made him decide against it. He had a baseball game the next day and it was nearly ten all ready. Late nights playing NFL Madden wouldn’t get him a starting position at UCLA. So he flipped off the TV and the lamp, pulled the Marlins comforter up and snuggled in.
Even before Kenji heard the faint squeaking of bedrails and the occasional lusty moan from his brother’s room, he knew things had changed for Tak and Deena. It was no one thing that had convinced him, but instead, a bunch of little ones. They suddenly had this endless need to touch for starters, subtle but ever present. A question with a hand on the arm, a suggestion with a hand on the back, it never seemed to stop. And what was with the double talk? Everything Tak said made her blush, as if it all had a second, more seductive meaning.
Kenji sat up. Their headboards were facing each other, and the pounding coming through the walls was not conducive to sleep. With a frown, he flipped on his lamp, and snatched one of the graphic novels off his nightstand.
They were not comic books, as the ill-informed tried to call them. There were distinct differences between the two. Important differences. For starters, they were novels and not serials that required you to return to them again and again for short fixes. Secondly, and more importantly, they were gritty, mature, and more reflective of the real world.
Take the one in his hand, for example. It was from Frank Miller’s Sin City series. In it were pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, mobsters and a corrupt police force, all realistically conveyed in the film-noir style. What could be better than moral ambiguity and sex? He grinned each time he imagined the timid Peter Parker tangling with Frank Miller’s Girls of Old Town, a clan of prostitutes steeped deep in vigilante justice. Those Spidey webs would do no good in Sin City.
He was guessing, of course, about whether Frank Miller’s take on criminal life was realistic. Despite being raised in Miami, a city with a murder rate higher than New York and Los Angeles combined, Kenji had never so much as seen a purse snatched. He lived in a house so posh it had been on the cover of design magazines, and even then, was called an ‘estate’. It was surrounded on three sides by the bay and had two pools, a tennis court, fitness center, movie theater and a private dock for the two boats his father kept. There wasn’t even a semblance of normalcy at the public school he attended. Shuffled there by zip code, it was home only to the extremely well off, and, to Kenji, had all the trappings for an episode of 90210.
There was a knock at his door and Kenji set aside his graphic novel.
When Tak stepped into the room, he was wearing only a pair of white cotton pajama pants and an awkward expression. He cleared his throat before he spoke.
“Hey little bro, have you got a minute?”
Kenji nodded, and reached for the Rawlins baseball he kept near his stack of graphic novels. “Yeah, sure, come on. I’m not going anywhere.”
Tak took a seat on the edge of the bed, watching as Kenji stretched out and began a one-man game of catch.
“We should talk. There’s something I need to tell you.”
Kenji glanced at him, yet still managed to catch his ball. “No need. I already know.”
Tak hesitated. “And…you’re okay? I mean, I know you like Deena, and I know she hangs out with us a lot already, but I don’t want you to feel like this thing is going to come between us.”
“No, it’s cool.”
“She’ll be over here some weekends though.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“Well, I know this is probably a surprise but—”
“No, it’s not.”
Tak grinned. “Okay then. Enough with the awkwardness. Tell me what I missed while I was gone.”
Kenji shrugged mid-toss. “A lot. I mean, you were gone for twenty-four days.”
Tak lowered his gaze. “Yeah. About that, I won’t do that to you again, okay.”
“You’re a grown man. You want to leave for a month, who am I to say something?”
“Still, I won’t do it again. Not for that long, at least.” He paused. “So, how was it?”
“You know how it was. Dad was in Asia or Africa or some other continent we’re not in and Mom was in a bottle.”
“And you? What were you doing?”
“Reading, practicing music, baseball. Made the six o’clock news one night.”
“You what?”
“I made the six o’clock news last. Triple play, bottom of the ninth.”
“And you didn’t call me?”
Kenji grinned. “Figured you were busy.”
Tak laughed. “Then you had more faith in me then I did.”
“Come on, Tak. You’ve never met a girl you couldn’t have.”
Tak reached over and messed his hair. “Spoken like a true little brother.”
He stood on his exit and looked down at the younger version of himself. Tak smiled with quiet admiration. “Bases loaded and you’re sending ‘em home, huh? Well, I’ll be damned.”
AFTER AN AFTERNOON of rooting Kenji on to victory, Tak stood over Deena in the place where he’d left her four hours ago. She was in his living room, frowning over a legal pad that had become her constant companion. She scribbled, scratched, and scribbled again, before lifting one of the half dozen or so thick books from the coffee table. Next to them, there were stacks of loose leaf, newspaper and magazine clippings, and post-it notes, many stapled together in thick, helter-skelter wads. Tak picked up one such stack and examined it. He lifted the glossy magazine clipping of a fuzzy-faced man to read the fact sheet beneath.
Aamir Mahmoud, 52.
Electrical Engineer
Birthplace: Beirut, Lebanon
Current Residency: Los Angeles, CA
Ph.D. Harvard University
M.S. & B.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Major Projects: Waldorf Astoria, United Arab Emirates; Bank of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA; Leaguer Fields Stadium, Nashville, Tennessee
Pluses: Renowned for meticulousness. Recently published a book on risks in architectural design
Minuses: No major residential projects to date.
Tak set aside Mahmoud’s profile and picked up another. This one had a passport-size photo of a fat-faced Asian woman alongside a stack of notes. He turned to the fact sheet.
Margaret Lee. 63. Electrical Engineer
Birthplace: New York, NY, Current Residency West Palm Beach, FL
Ph. D. Northwestern University M.S. Columbia University. B.S. NYU
Major Projects: Miami School of Design, Miami, FL; West Palm Beach School of Arts, W. Palm Beach, FL; Bennett Regional Hospital, Children’s Wing, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Tak frowned at Margaret Lee’s fact sheet and he thought back to Mahmoud. He had a state capitol and an NFL football field while Ms. Lee here had a wing in a hospital.
“What’s up with the drastic departure?”
She looked up. “What?”
“The drastic departure between Mahmoud and Lee. What’s up with it?”
In the kitchen, Kenji nuked a fresh round of popcorn, snack food before he returned to his job of clipping and sorting for Deena. He’d taken to his job of assisting her with gusto, as if helping her succeed would be the equivalent of thumbing his nose at his father.
“Mahmoud’s a huge deal, Tak. And I have to be realistic.” She returned to her legal pad. “Besides, I probably won’t even contact him.”
Tak sat down next to her. “Why in the world would you say that? Of course, you’ll contact him.” He picked up Mahmoud’s sheet again. “Where’s this picture from?”
“Architectural Digest,” Kenji said, returning with his popcorn. “Found it myself. There was a feature in there talking about his new book on fault tolerance.”
Tak stared at his brother. “On what?”
“Fault tolerance,” Kenji said. He shoved a fist full of popcorn into his mouth. “It’s a fail-safe mechanism for when some part of an electrical system hits the skids. Keeps it operating.”
Tak blinked at his brother and then turned to Deena. “Margaret Lee seems okay. Better than okay, even. But you shouldn’t let Mahmoud’s credentials intimidate you. Let him tell you no.”
Deena shook her head, not bothering to look up. “Tak, you just don’t get it. I’m a kid to these people. A nobody.”
“So what?” Tak sighed. “Listen to me. You’re brilliant. Anyone who saw your design,” he reached for a roll of paper on the table, “who saw this, would want to work with you.”
Deena blinked.
“Call Mahmoud. And don’t take no for an answer.”
TWO HUNDRED PAGES bound and color-coded. Six graphs with corresponding appendices. Three flow charts, a budget, and one sleep-deprived architect. Deena’s moment of reckoning was less than ninety minutes away.
In those moments of near-neurotic nervousness, she flipped through her proposal in an effort to calm herself. Her work was good. But good wasn’t necessarily good enough.
It was an ode to organic architecture, and as such, a contradiction. Who’d ever heard of a skyscraper that mimicked nature? A jutting bolt of man-molded steel claiming to be a compliment to God’s natural order?
But life was contradiction.
Deena turned to the profiles in the rear of her proposal. Mahmoud was there, and other prominent names like Michael Hudson, Professor of Landscape Architecture at Yale and a consultant for the ‘96 Olympics. Steve Marshall, a civil engineer and professor at the University of Southern California, whose books on coastal engineering were architectural gospel. And there was Claudia Oppenheimer, a designer whose name was outside the sphere of their world, but akin to that of Armani and Vuitton.
Of the three, Oppenheimer had been added to the team in a stroke of madness, brought on by Tak’s contagiously naïve encouragement. Now, as Deena stared at the potential design team, a veritable rock group in the world of architecture, her naivety and presumptuousness, her recklessness even, stared back at her in horror.
She could practically hear Daichi as he flipped through the proposal. “Mahmoud, Hudson, Oppenheimer. Impressive. While we’re at it, we’ll have the Beatles in the lounge and Julia Child in the kitchen. Next on the agenda: digging up Walt Disney, so he can sprinkle the fairy dust necessary for all this to come true.”
Deena closed her proposal and stood. Her design was a good one. And she was a good architect. She would succeed. She repeated the mantra silently as she made the trek from her office to the conference room. And when she entered, she found Daichi already seated at the head of the table with four junior partners in tow, two on each side. Daichi glanced at his watch and nodded. The clock was ticking.
With shaky hands, Deena set up the PowerPoint presentation she’d spent half the night fussing over, her pulse reiterating the importance of the moment. She slid a copy of her proposal to each of the senior personnel present and waited. Deena stared at Daichi and Daichi stared back.
“Well?”
She closed her eyes and heaved a prayer towards the heavens. When she opened them, her heart raced. It was win or go home.