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“But as you say,” Ray said, “we have a home to design. Shall we get back on topic?”

Martin’s face blackened. He walked out to the bluff and his pants whipped in the wind as he took out a cigar and tried to light it. Ray followed him with the plans and set them on a flat rock with a stone to keep them down. “I need to get back,” he said. “Say what you want to say.”

“Have you talked to Antoniou about these ideas you sketched out and threw at me this morning?”

“No.”

“Did you even consider what he wanted before you spent hours spinning these webs?”

“I heard what you both had to say about what he wants. Denise and I came up with these preliminary ideas. About what he needs.”

“There isn’t a fucking white column in sight on those sketches,” Martin said. “I would describe this, Ray, as Tokyo postindustrial crossed with Italian Futuristic. What makes you dream, or suspect, or imagine in your most outrageous fantasy, you might convince this client to build this crazy shit? Because, Ray, he’s an old, conservative Greek dude with strong opinions.”

“He signed. He paid. He’ll love it. I’m the architect.”

Martin’s fingers drummed the rock that held Ray’s plans. A breeze picked them up. His hand came down to hold them in place momentarily, then released them to the wind. They blew away, toward the edge. Ray went after them.

“He signed because I talked him into it, Ray, and we’re giving the man what he wants. Might as well toss that dreamy crap you’ve drawn here because these look to me like plans for someone else’s dream house. Oh, it’ll make a lovely spread in some magazine. I know that means something to you. Unfortunately, your design bears no resemblance whatsoever to a home for a family.”

Ray plunked down a few rocks to weight his plans down, then peered at them, putting his hands in his pockets. The new sketches were changed very little from the old sketches. In his mind, fully realized, sat a fabulous, innovative three-story building that traveled beyond Herzog & de Meuron and Fong & Chan. Featuring a tower encased in steel mesh, it made boxiness sexy, and was a unique home ideally suited to this client and his family. “I wouldn’t expect you to recognize-”

“What? Your genius?” Martin laughed, then shook his head. “We meet, we discuss, then you go do whatever the hell you want.” He pulled out a folder full of cuttings from architectural and travel magazines from a briefcase he had propped behind him. “Antoniou specifically mentioned Santorini, correct? Where his parents had a villa. Where he grew up.”

“You of all people know clients have ideas that are fetal, unformed. They ask for columns. They request turrets. They despise the modern. They rail against all kinds of things in advance, but your job is to believe in your vision for their very special, unusual, inimitable home, so you must convince them to let you build. Then they comprehend your design and love what you’ve done.”

“We’re not talking about stucco walls versus sheetrock or walnut paneling.” Martin pointed at one plan. “We’re talking radical contemporary architecture that someone has to live with for many, many years. Immutable, unless you’ve got millions more to burn through in renovations.”

Ray tried not to show his impatience. “He’s a wealthy man, and not stupid. I promise you, he’ll see the virtue in this design ultimately.” He held up a hand. “Wait. Let’s calm down. Martin, here’s why I agreed to meet you here today. I’m asking you a favor. This is a last-ditch effort on my part to salvage our professional relationship, okay?”

“What favor?”

“I want you to put aside your”-he longed to say cowardice but didn’t want to alienate him further-“doubts about my ability. I want you to be a real partner in every sense of the word and back me up on this project. We can do something great here, or we can give him what he thinks he wants and settle for mediocre.”

“I took one look at that first set, ‘A.’ You call for a ‘Flying Carpet’ roof.”

“It’s a proven design. This one would suggest the one at Lo Scrigno. It softens the-”

“Yeah, I bet that’s a huge hit in Italy, but first of all that’s an art gallery, not someone’s home.”

“Private. Family owned.”

“Nobody lives there. Secondly, it’s the opposite of a simple white structure overlooking the sea. It’s an expensive indulgence.”

“You know what I hate?” Ray said. “I hate artists who analyze their own work. I hate writers who explicate their own poems. I loathe musicians who attempt to describe their music. Martin, listen. Put our differences aside for one second and understand that there’s an ineffable quality to design, and that’s what makes it rise above what’s out there doing the basic job. And you like what I do. We’ve done some good things in the past.”

Martin stared at him as if observing a meteor landing in a field. “When we started out, we were such good friends. I wanted you to be brilliant. I supported your brilliance.”

“We’re still in business,” Ray pointed out. “We’ve had good press.”

“This man’s my friend, too. I want him happy.”

“He will be happy. He’ll adjust. Give him time. Give him the opportunity to look at these designs, and put your own heart behind them.”

“You mean, let him pour another million bucks into a design he hates?”

“Talk him into it, Martin, like you’ve talked people into things they didn’t want to do your whole life!”

“I see now why Leigh ran, if that’s what she did,” Martin said. “Talking to you is like talking to a rock.”

“Damn you, Martin.”

Martin sighed and took one more flip through the plans. “Antoniou wants a family gathering space, curving, welcoming spaces. Light in spirit, but warm and friendly. Rooms to remind him of his past, of a white house hanging over the Mediterranean Sea, with soft seating where his immense family can drink retsina and recall warmer days.”

Ray pointed at the ocean. A wave, suitably dramatic, rushed up the shoreline and flew through the rock-sculpted air. They both watched and listened, waiting for it to quiet. “What about the plush sofas, wall-hangings, curving half-walls? Are you looking at the whole thing? And please. This isn’t the Mediterranean. We’re talking the Pacific Ocean at Laguna,” Ray said. “What’s grand in architecture is how an old story gets told a new way, in a new language. I can promise him a warm home, a showplace, a gathering place for his family.”

“You loved Kahn for a while, Wright, then I. M. Pei. That house in Agoura? You channeled Neutra, building all in glass. Those people ended up having to put mini blinds on all the windows. I mean, come on. They had neighbors twenty feet away on each side.”

“Martin, my ideas have changed over time. I was a young kid, and overstepped sometimes. I finally know what I’m doing. Why can’t you trust me?”

“Why can’t we give Antoniou what he wants? A California dream? A home for his family that recalls his roots?”

Ray thought about that. “ Los Angeles has a shallow past. Most of the people living here, and that includes Achilles Antoniou, have no ownership over the land, the climate, nothing. They don’t know what fits their new neighborhood because there is no neighborhood. Everyone around here arrived five minutes ago. Our job is to give the client a home that’s right for this setting. Something with roots they can’t possibly feel, a place that goes beyond their dead past.”

“Minimalism with fresh horseshit scattered around to gussy it up,” Martin said. He grabbed the plans, rolled them up, and stuck a thick rubber band around them. “Don’t show these to Antoniou.”

“I guess that means you won’t be watching my back, Martin.”

“Get us plans that meet our client’s requirements. And oh, when that happens, run them by me.”