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Just like that, we have a giant blank check from Locke Worldwide. It’s signed, but there’s no dollar amount or recipient.
“Maybe we should get an armored car for this.”
He doesn’t reply; he’s setting the check aside to dry. He’s careful, even a bit of a nerdy perfectionist. “Come here,” he says.
I straighten. Was it a little sexy, how he said that?
He leads the way to a wide-open space full of architectural models; desks and cubicles line the perimeter. “We have a few exciting projects you should be in on,” he says.
We end up at a table displaying a five-by-five block area covered with tiny buildings and roads and cars and tiny green trees and people.
He puts Smuckers down.
“I thought architects only made these on TV. I mean, don’t you have computers for this nowadays?”
Henry kneels down, getting eye level with the thing. “Building is one of the most tactile things you can do. We’re creating physical environments. Making them tiny first, holding them and situating them, it reveals new things about the buildings and the spatial relationships. You see what feels right on the ground.”
He touches the tallest building.
“Where is this?”
“Nowhere yet. It’s going to be along the Queens waterfront. The Ten—that’s what we call it.”
I figure out the blue is the East River. “Dude, I hate to tell you, but Queens is all built up along the river.”
“There’s a swath of factories there that are moving to a less expensive area. We’ll knock them down and replace it with residential and green space.”
“It looks nice.”
He twists his lips.
“You don’t think it looks nice?” I ask.
“It could be better, but it’s good for what it is.”
“If it could be better, why not make it better?”
“Too deep in the pipeline.”
Smuckers takes this very inopportune opportunity to jump up and grab at a bit of fabric that’s dangling off the side. The entire model jerks, and a soda bottle at one end dumps all over a corner of it.
Henry’s on it instantly, sopping it up.
Another guy rushes over to help.
They both look alarmed that the tiny buildings and tinier trees got wrecked. It’s all very strange, because this is just a model. It’s a train set village, people!
Then I realize Henry’s really upset.
Henry and this guy talk about who’s available to fix it up, and I get the feeling they want to quick-fix it, like there’s an ogre who lives in the closet who will come out and wreck the place if the model is messed up. Honestly, the whole thing is weird. Is Henry not the CEO?
Everybody is on an RFI deadline, whatever that is.
He scowls in his surly way at the wrecked side of town. I’m glad I’m not the person who put the soda bottle there.
“Right. Okay.” Henry’s tone is that kind of fake calm where you know anger is just under the surface.
He gets this cool intensity sometimes. It’s a disturbingly winning combination.
