Condo Conflict Ch. 04: Arm's Length

Story recap:

Chapter 01: Architect Barry Warrington struggles to produce a winning design for a very difficult client, at the same time pursuing his workgroup's beguiling secretary.

Chapter 02: An attractive architect assisting Barry with his condo design turns his head, while a suspicious fire consumes the developer's old apartment building.

Chapter 03: Despite nurturing 'pro-development' support on city council, Emilio's design comes back to the architects; meanwhile, Barry struggles with his feelings.

Arm's Length

Carole Langmere held everyone's attention as she headed toward my office, her impressive rack keeping time with those swaying hips. It was all in the way she walked, thrusting one leg out in front of the other, cross-stepping like a model as she moved . She strode forward with her head a bit in the air and confidence written all over her smiling face.

Each firm downward step sent a pronounced jiggle through her whole torso, while the swivel of her hip for the next step shifted her ample breasts across to the other side of her tall body. It was fluid, poetry for the male soul. I'd studied it enough times like this to understand how all the moving parts added up to one irresistible spectacle.

My secretary-girlfriend, Monica called her 'The Body', and for good reason. I had no doubt that my boss Frank Smythe was watching through his big office window right now, following the one-woman, traffic-stopping parade as she came my way this morning.

"Carole is here to see you," Monica called from her desk out front, as if I somehow hadn't noticed ever since she entered our area. "Can you meet her now? Or are you busy."

Never too busy for Carole, I thought. "Thanks. Have her come in."

"Good morning, Carole. Are you ready to take another run at Emilio Santamundi's condo project? He's a chastened man since City Council chewed up his application and spit it back at him."

"It couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy. He's had it coming for several years now and I'm glad I was around to watch it. A real kick in the nuts, and a lot of people would like to see him take a few more."

"Ah, Carole. Is that any way to treat one of the city's outstanding developers?" I mocked.

"Don't get me started, Barry. You know that I've had enough of his touching and sexual innuendo to last a lifetime."

"Carol, have you stood sideways and looked at yourself in a full-length mirror lately? You must know how you affect the opposite sex."

"Really! And I always thought you were a gentleman, Barry!"

"Yes, but I also have eyesight, cojones, and a pulse."

"Cojones? Haven't heard that one before but I can guess what you mean."

"The limit of my Spanish vocabulary, but I've got 'em."

"At least you aren't a pig like him. I've had my fill of men like that!"

"I guess. I'm just saying that you are... well... provocative, and most of us are mere mortals."

"Think of me only as an architect- a good one- and the two of us will get along just fine."

"OK. I've been warned."

"You have. Now let's get to work on another design for that condominium."

Another pleasant day at the office was about to get underway. But damn! Did Carole look hot and sexy today! It would be tough to concentrate, especially with Monica watching our every move through my office window.

****

It's funny the things that come up when you're talking to somebody about another subject. Carole and I were examining my original design for Santamundi's condo, seeing what we might be able to salvage this third time around. I had previously drawn up plans to integrate a six or seven story structure into the century-old streetscape of apartments, public buildings and churches beside a popular downtown park.

As Carole studied the proposed frontal elevation, she began to reminisce, eventually opening a window into her past.

"You know, Barry, we used to live in this area when I was growing up. I can remember how often we'd go to the park as a family for walks and even picnics when it was hot outside. The church off the corner of the park was where they held my father's funeral after the accident...." and her voice trailed off.

"How old were you then? What happened?" I asked sympathetically.

"Fourteen. Just the age when I needed a father around. Traffic accident. He wasn't wearing a seat belt when he went off the road. Probably drinking because he had a little problem with that."

"That's too bad. Did you stay here or move away?"

"Mom couldn't stand being in the house anymore. Too many memories, so we moved to another part of the city. It wasn't a good neighbourhood compared to this one, but there wasn't much money after he died."

"How did you manage to get through university?"

"I went after scholarships, and I got them. You know how few women there were in architecture back then. I had to be better than the guys before anybody recognized what I could do. They always wrote me off as some broad using her body to get ahead. I hated that so much, and I still do today."

"Carole, you're a great architect! It's a pleasure to work with you."

"Not just because everything moves when I walk, Barry?" she chuckled.

I didn't know what to say at first. Did she include me among all the men in the office who followed her every wiggle and bounce when she walked past? I had to be discreet.

"Well... that's true too, but I wouldn't want to work with you if you weren't so smart on the job. The rest is... a bonus."

"OK, you're being honest with me, and I can accept that. I've said before that you're a gentleman, and you are. But it doesn't mean anything more than that."

"What are you saying, Carole?" I was confused.

"I mean that I can't think of you as anything more than an architect and a friend. There's no time for anybody else. My mother lives with me, and she needs a lot of help. She would have to be part of any arrangement I make with a man. That would be nice, but I don't know if it's ever going to happen."

"That's so good of you to take her in. Commendable. You just went up another notch in my view. Is your mother in poor health?"

"For her age, yes. She worked so hard to bring us up, and I'm the one most able to support her now. She's good company in the evenings.... But enough of this talk. Maybe tomorrow you can tell me some of your secrets," she joked.

"I guess I owe you that. Thanks for telling me about your other life. Maybe I'll tell you about mine sometime."

"Now that would be interesting! I know you were married before, but nothing else."

I didn't want to trot out the awful stories about my oft-cheating ex-wife Cherise, so I focused on the papers spread across the big drafting table.

"About these original blueprints now. Do you see anything we can use again?" I asked.

I was glad that we had talked about more than the current job. Now I knew there'd be no point in thinking about Carole as anything more than an architect and a good friend. I had no interest in sharing her mother. I already had one of my own.

I realized that what I needed to do was to work harder on my relationship with Monica instead of daydreaming about somebody else. Couldn't I find some more common ground, a zone between our different interests? Sex was always a great place to start, but it would need to go deeper than that, of course. Carole brought me back to the blueprints.

"I see that you had granite facing on the lower two levels and brick above that, Barry. I think the two textures would complement each other, especially if the stone has a light reddish hue. We need to somehow integrate that old brick building front from the standing apartment into the new frontal elevation. But how?"

"Could we flip my original plan and put three stories of old brick across the whole bottom half of the condo facing the park street and the side street?" I suggested.

"And use stone facing above that?" Carole picked up. "The old brick can be done in the same style as the existing apartment front, with that heritage herringbone pattern between each level. I think it would look good like that!"

"What about the other two sides of the condo, the end close to the adjoining building and the back wall?" I asked.

"I say we go with new brick the full height, something neutral to complement the old colour. Santamundi will complain like Hell if we put expensive stone facing around back where nobody will see it. He's a cheap bastard."

"You'd know it, Carole. You had to work with him on his Riverside Condo a few years back...."

"Hate the man! For a lot of reasons, but mostly for the way he leers at me all the time. I feel like he's trying to look right through me the way he stares."

It was a good morning of work because we got so much accomplished. We were in sync on this project, so much better than wrangling with another architect, each one trying to assert themselves, to the detriment of the whole.

With Carole it wasn't like that. I respected her abilities, but to my surprise I could see that she thought well of mine too because she liked my original plan. We were better together than if we had worked separately.

I couldn't help thinking that it was too bad about her mother living with her, but I knew that was selfish of me. I had applied that label to my girlfriend Monica, and now I realized that I wasn't any better myself.

****

Frank called us in to his big office on Friday to see how the project was moving along. We bounced our preliminary ideas off him, using some sketches to describe the proposed elevation. I'd learned that Carole was a very good artist, who could quickly render an idea on paper in three dimensions. Her work let Frank easily grasp what the building might look like.

"How's it going? Are you finding your way through integrating that old building front into the design? That's going to be the hardest part of this whole thing."

"Old brick below and new material above, on the back and the inward end is our basic thought. The half of the building where the first apartment burned down would be done to look like the existing old apartment front."

"So, you'll need to stick with the original window openings in the brick, right? OK. There was a driveway between the two buildings, about twenty feet wide or so, I believe. I see you've built across it and added another vertical row of windows in the brick."

"Yes, and they'll carry right up to the top so there's a symmetry to the building."

"But where's the main entrance to the elevators? I think it should be in the centre where the driveway used to be. Maybe even two levels high to make it more impressive? It'll cost two small apartment units, but we can't have all the foot traffic going down the main floor hallway, past all those units to the elevators."

"That's true, Frank! Much better than entering from the end of the building. But I'm sure Santamundi will complain about a couple of lost units," Carole added.

"He'll charge more for the other ones to make up for it. The bling at the front entry will more than cover the loss of units. Put in some long, suspended lights overhead, something that sparkles like crystal. That'll sell him on it."

Frank's ideas made a lot of sense and sent us back to modify our first sketches. Things were starting to come together now.

I was excited about the new condo. Architecture is creative, like painting or writing, so it is very easy to let some new endeavour literally take over the brain. An architect finds it very hard to leave a new project back at the office when its time to go home. It follows along continually nagging for attention, like a little kid on a shopping trip. I knew that I'd have to plan other things for the weekend to take my mind off the project. It was time to collect on a promise.

"Monica, I want to take you to a jazz club tomorrow evening. But first, let's go to a nice little place downtown for supper. You choose where, OK?"

"OK, I'll try it. Better than forcing you to go with your friends instead," a veiled reference to her visit to The Roadhouse country and western bar with a girlfriend a while back.

"Great. So where would you like to eat before?"

"I like barbeque. There's a place we can go on the edge of downtown."

On Friday night I put some music on to show her some of the different types of jazz music. She had the impression that it was all just depressed singing about love lost, or a raucous, blasting trumpet line. To my surprise, Monica thought that contemporary 'smooth jazz' was sexy, and she rather liked it. I hoped that we'd hear some of that genre on Saturday night.

It must have been the exotic sounds of the sax, but the way Monica dressed that night was a smooth as the music. Her 'little black dress' clung to her body like a lover, her fine figure on display, long legs and all. She'd done her hair differently too and wore glittering bangles on her wrists. Big heels put her almost to eye level- and what a sight!

Supper was not really to my taste at the pit barbeque restaurant, so heavily smoked that the flavour reminded me of chewing cigarette butts! I hoped the music would be better, and it was. The setting was perfect- a dark hide-away with a piano, a few instruments and a singer.

The sounds were as smoky as the food we'd eaten, but this time in a good way. Smooth and a bit 'bluesy', Monica liked what she heard, so we got up to shuffle around the crowded little dancefloor- close, very close.

Later that night we literally brought the dance into bed with us. Our naked bodies moved together beneath the sheets, a man and woman feeling the heat of love. Her long fingernails slowly traced my skin all the way down from my neck. My mouth sampled her lips for a long time before lowering my head to taste her soft skin. Glancing up, I could see Monica's eyes closed, her head tilted back a bit, softly moaning.

When I brought my hand down across her stomach our hearts beat even harder. We briefly lost all sense of time or place. We could have been on a bed in the backroom of some out-of-the-way club or right here in the apartment. Our bodies had a mind of their own, bringing us together more and more firmly as we clutched each other tightly. Our breath came in spasms... and then we were over the top, in another world for a while.

I think that was the night I became fully aware of how much I wanted this woman. Yes, sometimes the fifteen-year age difference led me to think of her as a girl, but the one I was loving was definitely all woman!

By coming to the jazz club and sharing my interest, she had stepped out of her own comfort zone. By eating that awful food at her favourite restaurant without much complaint, I had gone out of mine. The reward of compromise was some of the best sex we had ever enjoyed.

Afterward we slept contentedly, and in the morning lingered over coffee, chatting. All thoughts of Carole were gone now. There was no place I'd rather be than here with Monica.

****

At the office the next few weeks, Carole and I worked closely as we moved from concept to working sketches to plan. This was a major project, so Frank was close to it, conferring with us almost daily. I saw how much he trusted Carole's judgement, listening intently whenever she had something to say.

There seemed to be a certain synergy between them and I chalked it up to her many years with the firm. One day Frank drew our attention to a really significant issue.

"I think we'll be able to get by with one parking level because it looks as though there'll only be about fifty units, with the city's height restriction. Still, a massive hole will be dug right behind the free-standing front wall that we're supposed to preserve. It could easily be undermined and collapse. What a shit-storm that would cause!"

"You're right! Jeez. It didn't occur to me. Any ideas?" I asked.

There being none, we agreed to set it aside and come back with some ideas the next day. I spent half the night thinking about it but only came up with a rather flimsy idea for tomorrow.

"We could carefully dismantle the wall, numbering all the pieces. Then it'd be rebuilt after the concrete basement level was poured and the steel framework in place."

"Safe, but it might be very expensive and time consuming," Carole suggested, before Frank spoke.

"Could we save some of the side walls of the old apartment too? Back far enough to help prevent collapse. We could put strong supports inside during excavation. But the basement for that area would need to be dug farther back, of course, reducing the size of the parking garage and the condo itself."

"How much would the old building project out from the rest of the structure?" I asked.

"Say about six feet, two metres. The apartments right above it would use the top as terraces instead of balconies."

"Yes," Carol observed. "And we could design the rest of the condo right out to the same setback as the preserved front."

"Give us a quick sketch of what you mean."

It looked good, presenting the old heritage-designated front as more than a free-standing wall. And it drew attention to the front entranceway. Wide glass-fronted balconies could cross the building above the old section and the front entry too.

Carole's sketch jumped out at us. This was the perfect solution, a very attractive structure that wouldn't be out of place in the old neighbourhood! Frank told us to go ahead with that plan, and to consider a co-ordinating brick right to the top too, in case the developer balked at the high cost of stone facing slabs. He would cost it out both ways.

All this time Emilio Santamundi kept pressing Frank to push ahead faster with the design. We all had a lot of pressure on us, but things were falling into place. A milestone was getting the boss' final approval before it was all turned over to the technicians to produce computer assisted drawings for lot and floor plans, elevations and some sections. When these were ready, Santamundi would finally get to see his proposed building.

When the day came, we were all on edge, knowing how difficult the man could be. Right away he complained about the reduced floor space on half the upper floors caused by setting back part of the building. But Frank reminded him that the parking garage would only be on one level because the height restriction limited the building to fifty units.

When Santamundi went ballistic about so few apartments in the building, the boss was back in his face, angry like I'd never seen him before. Carole appeared shocked too, but I knew she was glad to see Frank lay into him.

"Face it, Emilio, you can't get anymore than fifty units in that footprint at that height. Or did you want us to design you hotel rooms instead?"

"This is no fuckin' good! How's a guy supposed to make any money with so few apartments to sell?"

"That's your goddam problem! We're offering you a place that people will want to pay big money to live in. A class building in the best location in the city. Build it and they will come. Heard that before?"

"No. Not enough units and too much cost!"

"Well, you bugger! You have the best lot in the city and you're too goddam cheap to put up a high-end condo that people will be climbing over each other to buy into. The problem is that you're just not charging enough for your units!"

"Well... what the Hell! OK, I'll look at that again." Santamundi seemed deflated now. "But can't you save some money here and there? That lobby is expensive. That stone front and end is expensive. Give me a break, eh!"

"Sure. I estimated the upper front and street end in the same co-ordinating brick as the rest of the building. You'd save about thirty, maybe thirty-five thousand over the stone. It won't be quite as glam- no reflection of light- but it would still look fine. But, I'm not going to change the lobby. People will be sold when they walk into it."