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From the surprise on his face, I was pretty sure he hadn’t known I would be on the project at all. I couldn’t look at him,but thankfully, the guy who had helped me turned to hold out his hand as soon as my fragile burden was safe.
“I’m Henry. I PA for Lukas. You must be Kit.”
I lifted an eyebrow, not sure how he knew who I was.
“You’re one of the only people I haven’t met yet. Sarai said that you’ve been here for a few days.”
Although I nodded and shook his hand, I also finally glanced toward Lukas. He was still staring at me and looked like he had seen a ghost. I gulped.
“Kit, I need you to come over here and help me. You’re the exact person to tell me what you think about these options.” Sarai reached out her hand toward me as if she hadn’t noticed a thing wrong.
I went over to her without thinking. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were busy.”
“Nonsense, nonsense. Come and have a drink, and let us tell you everything. I know you’ve met Lukas, and George here, so no more introductions needed.”
Sarai launched into a long, detailed description of her dilemma, and I tried to focus on it and listen. Now and then, George and Lukas added information, but every time Lukas talked, I was aware he would no longer look at me, and he seemed uncomfortable.
The whole situation was a nightmare, and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to cry, but I knew I had to focus and work. Sarai was asking for my input on something that was clearly partially an aesthetics problem. When Henry showed me the numbers for the costs of the three options, I tried not to choke.
All of them cost more than I was being paid over the original budget, and it was hard to help choose any of them. This was the kind of money I couldn’t suggest anyone spend at all.
“What does the alternative material look like?” I asked, mostly to buy time.
Henry was quick to show me some pictures on his phone of the final effect when it was used. I frowned, knowing it would ruin the aesthetic of some of the huts if we used it for the inside walls. It couldn’t be used for some of them. But how did I tell Sarai that when it meant waiting or spending a lot more money?
“It’s…a solution in some cases. But...” I trailed off, still not sure how to put it.
“You don’t think it will work?” Sarai asked me as if she trusted my opinion, and I hesitated some more. Everyone was looking at me as if I had the answers, and I didn’t want to be under that much pressure to decide.
“I think it will make it really difficult to get the authentic feel in some huts if the walls all look like that. For some, it will work just fine and make little difference, but for others, it will look wrong.” I blurted the words in a hurry, glancing out of the corner of my eye at Lukas. To my relief, he was nodding.
“Kit has a point that none of us considered. Will it work for multiple different-themed areas?” Lukas looked at Sarai, bringing the decision back to her and taking the pressure off me. I could have hugged him in that moment.
“It is something we overlooked. Thank you, Kit. We should consider which huts it will work with one way and which the other.” Sarai sighed, and I grimaced. I knew I had just made her decision a lot more difficult, but I had told her my opinion, and she appeared to be taking it well.
However, the foreman leaned closer, looking at the site map and architects’ drawings on the table.
“Depending on the huts, it might solve our problem for us. If the huts we want to do next can use this second option, we could still have the original material for the huts that need it by the time we’re building them.”
Sarai lit up, looking at me again to help her work it out. I looked at the drawings, too, and we got to work figuring outwhich huts needed the original product and which could be modified. There were even a few that would benefit from the new design, and I was quick to point those out.
“I think we could alter our plans for the next few days and work on those huts sooner, then shift back to the others. As long as we’re careful where we put a few things, it shouldn’t change much.” The foreman nodded.
I sat back and let the experts do their parts, determining what could be done, when, and how so it cost the least, delayed the project the least, and still had a result that would fit the original vision.
After a few hours, the rest of them sat back, Sarai grinning from ear to ear. They’d found a solution that cost a fraction of the previous estimates, and it only delayed everything by a day or two. It changed the order the huts would be built and finished, but not as much as anyone had feared it might, and it allowed them to wait on the original manufacturer for some of the orders.
“Nice work, everyone. Let’s get this fed out where it needs to be and get this show back on the road.”
I got up, even though there was nothing for me to do after this. The others did the same, and the foreman hurried off to tell his people what was going to happen next.
“I should go, too, and see how everything is going before I make those tweaks to the designs.” Lukas scrambled to his feet. Henry hastily followed, gathering all the scraps of paper they needed.
“It was good to get you all together,” Sarai said before Lukas could leave. “Stick around, and we’ll all go for dinner later. My treat. I owe you all for fixing this mess.”
I frowned as Lukas hesitated, opening and closing his mouth a few times while looking between Sarai and me.
“I’m not taking no for an answer,” Sarai added.
