Chapter 75 Garden Concept

Chapter 75 Garden Concept
I call Elise in the evenings.

She picks up on the second ring.  

"Tell me you know gist." she says.

"For days. I have been sitting here in California with my face mask and my wine and my complete inability to focus on anything because you keep sending me texts that say things like 'corridor situation' and 'van adjacent' and 'espresso, long story' and then going completely silent for eighteen hours. I need the full version. I need everything. Start from the beginning and do not skip anything because I will know if you skip anything."  

"The beginning of what specifically." I say.  

"Of whatever has been happening since the last time we spoke properly." she says. "Which was the night you told me about Daniel Ashford's sleeve and I told you to drink water and you told me you were not thinking about his sleeve and we both knew you were lying."  

"I was not lying." I say.  

"Sera."  

"I was being selective with the truth." I say. "There is a difference."  

"There genuinely isn't." she says. "Start talking."  

I sit down on the bed.  

I look at the ceiling.  

And I start from the beginning.  

"So Stage 3 results came." I say. "We passed. Group Five is through."  

"Good." she says. "Congratulations. Keep going."  

"The morning of the Stage 4 briefing Callum stood in the corridor outside the conference room and told two architects from another group that the central thread of our Stage 3 submission was his."  

Silence.  

"His?." Elise asks.

"His." I confirm.  

"The garden concept." she says. "That you presented on day one."  

"That I presented on day one." I confirm.  

"That Roe and you developed into the structural logic of the whole submission." she says.  

"Yes." I say.  

"With Callum's one contribution about what the garden means in his personal design process which was, and I am quoting you from a previous conversation, a genuine and useful line." she says.  

"Also yes." I say.  

"And he stood in a corridor." she says. "And called it the central thread."  

"In front of two other architects." I say. "Filled with arrogance."  

Elise makes a sound.  

It is the sound of a woman who has heard many things in her life and has just added this one to the list and the list is not getting shorter.  

"What did you do." she says.  

"I corrected him." I say. "Publicly. At the same volume."  

"In front of the two architects." she says.  

"And approximately twelve others who were in the corridor at the time." I say.  

"Sera Calloway." she says.  

"I know." I say.  

"No, I mean that admiringly." she says. "Sera Calloway. Continue."  

"Dr. Fontaine gave all three of us half a demerit point each for the public incident." I say. "Applicable to our Stage 4 score."  

"All three of you." Elise says. "Including you."  

"Including me." I say.  

"And Roe." she says. "Who was standing in a corridor minding his own business."  

"Also Roe." I say. "He has feelings about the distribution of justice in this situation. He has expressed them. Multiple times."  

"I like Roe." Elise says. "I have never met Roe but I like him. Continue."  

"Then we went to a square to think about the Stage 4 theme." I say. "And Callum refused to contribute ideas because he said we didn't respect him. And I called him a thief. And said he was gaslighting us. And Roe said it's not that deep and I—" I pause.  

"And you what." Elise says. Quietly. The quiet that means she already knows.  

"I broke down." I say. "In the square. In front of both of them. Because those four words have a specific history and I have not fully processed that history and it came out in a Paris square on a Tuesday afternoon in front of Roe who had no idea what he had touched."  

"Oh honey." Elise says.  

"I walked away." I say. "And I almost walked into traffic."  

"You almost WHAT."  

"It was a van." I say. "I was looking at the middle distance. I was not hurt."  

"You almost walked into a van." Elise says. "In Paris. While crying."  

"I was not technically crying at the moment of the almost traffic incident." I say. "The crying came after."  

"After the van." she says.  

"After someone stopped me." I say.  

Silence.  

"Who stopped you." she says.  

I look at the ceiling.  

"Daniel Ashford." I say.  

The silence on Elise's end has a specific texture.  

It is the silence of a woman who has been given a piece of information and is allowing it to settle into the full context of everything she already knows before she responds, because she understands that responding immediately would mean responding to the surface of it rather than to what it actually is.  

"Daniel Ashford stopped you from walking into a van." she says finally.  

"Yes." I say.  

"In Paris." she says.  

"In Paris." I say.  

"The man who hit you with his car in California stopped you from walking into a van in Paris." she says.  

"When you put it that way it sounds like a pattern." I say.  

"It is a pattern Sera." she says. "It is a very clear and specific pattern. What happened after he stopped you."  

"He asked what I was thinking about." I say. "And I started crying. Properly. In the street. In front of him."  

"In front of Daniel Ashford." she says.  

"In front of Daniel Ashford." I say. "And then he took me to a café and bought me an espresso."  

Another silence.  

This one has a different texture.  

Warmer.  

"He bought you an espresso." she says.  

"A very good one." I say. "Strong. Small cup. The kind that knows exactly what it is."  

"The espresso or the man." she says.  

"Elise." I say.  

"I'm asking a genuine question." she says.  

"Both." I say. Before I have decided to say it.  

Elise is quiet for a moment.  

"And then." she says.  

"And then Callum walked in and accused Daniel of a conflict of interest for buying me coffee." I say. "Because Callum saw us through the window and came in and made a formal accusation in a café."  

"Of course he did." Elise says. In the voice of a woman who is not surprised.  

"And Daniel told him the conduct guidelines do not prohibit judges from sitting in cafes and directed him to Dr. Fontaine's office and told him she has a meeting at five fifteen on Tuesdays that runs long and went back to his espresso without looking at him again."  

Elise makes a sound that is somewhere between a laugh and an exhale and something else that does not have a name.  

"He directed him to Dr. Fontaine's office." she says.  

"With the specific time of her Tuesday meeting." I say.  

"Without looking at him." she says.  

"He looked at his cup." I say. "Not at Callum."  

"Sera." Elise says.  

"What." I say.  

"That man." she says.  

"Do not." I say.  

"I am simply observing." she says. "What happened after the café."  

"I went back to the working room. I built the entire Stage 4 concept by myself, Roe loved it, Callum arrived and contributed one useful thing about acoustic panels, we submitted last night, and then after Roe left Callum cornered me in the working room and apologised for the square."  

"He apologised." Elise says.  

"For the square specifically, and then used the apology to ask me why I was playing hard to get."  

The silence this time is sharp.  

"Playing." Elise says.