Chapter 137 Chapter 137

Chapter 137 Chapter 137
Sofía found me at the east side acai bowl place on Friday morning at seven-thirty.

I was at the counter waiting for my order when she came through the door with her coat and her phone and the expression she wore when she had something to say that was not urgent but was specific.

She said: I read the third line.

I said: how did you read the third line.

She said: you put it in the notebook. The notebook was open on the table at dinner last night.

I said: I was eating dinner.

She said: the notebook was open.

I said: I was reviewing the lines.

She said: the notebook was open and I was sitting across from you.

I said: you read my open notebook.

She said: the lines were there.

I said: they were my lines.

She said: on an open page.

I said: that's not an invitation to read.

She said: it's not a closed page.

I said: Sofía.

She said: the third line is the best of the three.

I looked at her.

She said: the first two set it up. The third one lands it.

I said: like the Lutz.

She said: yes. The first two are the approach. The third is the jump.

I said: and the fourth.

She said: I didn't see the fourth.

I said: it's not written yet.

She said: where is it.

I said: somewhere in today.

She said: the third lap.

I said: maybe.

She said: or Yuen's lecture.

I said: maybe.

She said: or here. The east side acai bowl place has good energy.

I said: you've been saying the east side has good energy since January.

She said: I've been saying the east side acai bowl is better quality since January.

I said: same thing.

She said: it's not the same thing.

I said: better quality produces better energy.

She said: that's actually correct.

I said: I know.

My order arrived.

I took it.

We sat at the small table near the window which was the east side's equivalent of the corner table which was to say it was the table Sofía had walked directly to without consultation because she had a system for tables.

She said: the reform committee.

I said: yesterday's session.

She said: how did it go.

I said: slowly. We're in the resistance phase. Two programs on the committee want to modify the donor framework rather than replace it.

She said: modify meaning.

I said: meaning keep some version of the conditional structure but with more disclosure requirements. Transparency rather than elimination.

She said: and you think.

I said: I think transparency in a broken structure is still a broken structure. I think telling athletes their scholarships are conditional and why doesn't make the conditioning acceptable. It just makes it visible.

She said: you're pushing for elimination.

I said: yes.

She said: Dr. Park.

I said: she's with me. The two dissenting programs are going to need more time.

She said: how much time.

I said: I don't know. That's the slow part.

She said: unlike the investigation which moved fast.

I said: the investigation moved fast because it had to. The reform is different.

She said: because reform requires the institution to choose.

I said: yes. And institutions choose slowly.

She said: you're patient.

I said: I'm learning to be.

She said: from October.

I said: from the program.

She said: the Lutz.

I said: yes. The Lutz didn't happen in one session. It happened in eighty-eight.

She said: and the eighty-eighth was the competition.

I said: and the first eighty-seven were the building.

She said: the reform committee is in the building phase.

I said: yes.

She said: and you don't know when the competition is.

I said: no. But I'm building anyway.

She said: yes.

She ate her acai bowl.

I ate mine.

The east side place was smaller than the dining hall and had better light and the specific quality of a space that had been doing one thing well for a long time and was comfortable with the evidence.

She said: the seating chart.

I said: which one.

She said: the one I'm planning.

I said: for what.

She said: Before First publication. Six weeks.

I said: there's no event for Before First publication.

She said: there's a dinner.

I said: is there.

She said: I've planned it.

I said: you've planned a dinner for a publication I haven't agreed to celebrate.

She said: you're going to celebrate it.

I said: I might not want a dinner.

She said: you'll want the dinner when you see who's coming.

I said: who's coming.

She said: I've invited Anna Lehmann.

I stared at her.

She said: video call. She can't fly here obviously. But she'll be on the screen at the end of the table.

I said: you've invited a German figure skater to a video dinner.

She said: she said yes immediately.

I said: when did you ask her.

She said: Tuesday.

I said: you asked Anna Lehmann to a video dinner on Tuesday.

She said: and Rika van den Berg for the toast.

I said: Rika.

She said: she's sixty-eight and she said and I quote: I have been waiting thirty years to celebrate something. A video dinner is insufficient but it is a start.

I said: Rika is coming to the video dinner.

She said: and Patricia Cole.

I said: Patricia.

She said: she's back on the ice apparently. She called me.

I said: Patricia Cole called you.

She said: she found my number through Priya.

I said: and you invited her to a video dinner.

She said: she said yes before I finished the sentence.

I said: Sofía.

She said: yes.

I said: you've organized a video dinner across three time zones with people connected to a thirty-three-year investigation for a publication of an eighteen-hundred-word personal essay.

She said: it's more than an essay.

I said: I know.

She said: Before First is the piece that reaches the people the essay couldn't.

I said: I know.

She said: the eleven-year-old in Japan.

I said: yes.

She said: the Clara-adjacent people.

I said: yes.

She said: the ones who haven't been found yet.

I said: yes.

She said: that deserves a dinner.

I said: with video guests across three time zones.

She said: Lily is designing the seating chart.

I said: Lily is designing the seating chart for a video dinner.

She said: she's very invested in the spatial arrangement even given the screen format.

I said: she's made spatial accommodation for a screen in a physical seating chart.

She said: she said the screen goes at the head of the table because it holds the most people.

I said: the screen is at the head of the table.

She said: with Anna in the center and Rika and Patricia on either side.

I said: Lily organized the video guests within the screen.

She said: she sent me six layout options.

I said: six.

She said: with a recommendation and supporting rationale.

I said: she wrote a rationale for the video dinner seating.

She said: two pages.

I said: she's twelve.

She said: she's extraordinary.

I said: she already is.

We ate in the good light of the east side place.