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actually been thinking of the parti as learning rectangles . Which somehow seemed ham-handed and far too elementary, now he’d taken his scalpel of a tongue to it.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with rectangles?” She sounded defensive and she knew it. “They’re classrooms. Activity rooms. A rectangle is a perfectly acceptable shape for a classroom.”
    â€œChildren deserve a learning space as open and receptive as their young minds.”
    â€œOh, wait. The great man speaks. I should write that down.”
    â€œYes, you should. You should carry a notebook around with you, and a pen, be ready to jot down every pearl of wisdom that drops from my lips.” He spoke with more irony than egotism.
    And she almost laughed. “You know, you are amusing now and then—in your own totally self-absorbed way.”
    â€œThank you. I agree. And you need to start with some soft sketches. You need to get off the computer and go back to the beginning, start working with charcoal, pastels and crayons.”
    â€œStarting over. Wonderful.”
    â€œTo truly gain control of a design,” he intoned, “one must first accept—even embrace—the feeling that everything is out of control.”
    â€œI’m so looking forward to that.”
    â€œAnd we have to be quick about it. I told the Foundation we’d be ready to bring in the whole team in six weeks.” He meant the builder, the other architects and the engineers.
    â€œDid you just say that we’d be ready?”
    â€œI decided it would be unwise to go into how I won’t be involved past the planning stages.”
    â€œGood thinking. Since you know exactly how that would go over—it wouldn’t. It won’t. They’re counting on you .”
    â€œAnd they will learn to count on you.”
    â€œSo you totally misled them.”
    He looked down his manly blade of a nose at her. “Better that they see the design and the scale model and love it first, meet you at your most self-assured and persuasive.You can give them a full-out oral presentation, really wow them. Make them see that you’re not only confident, you’re completely capable of handling the construction on your own.”
    â€œConfident, capable, self-assured and persuasive. Well. At least I like the sound of all that.”
    He granted her a wry glance. “You have a lot of work to do. Don’t become overly confident.”
    â€œWith you around? Never going to happen.”
    Loftily, he informed her, “March one is the target date for breaking ground.”
    She put up a hand, forefinger extended. “If I might just make one small point.”
    â€œAs if I could stop you.”
    â€œI can’t help but notice that suddenly, you’re all about not wasting time. What’s that old saying? ‘Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.’ ”
    â€œThe tight timeline has nothing to do with my planning, poor or otherwise.”
    â€œPlanned or not, you’re the one who kept us from going ahead months ago.”
    â€œSince you seem to be so fond of clichés, here’s one for you. Can we stop beating the same dead horse? Yes, I put the project on hold. Now I’m ready to get down to work.”
    â€œAnd the timeline is impossibly tight.”
    â€œThat may be so.”
    â€œHow generous of you to admit it.”
    â€œBut in the end, Abilene, there is only one question.”
    â€œEnlighten me.”
    â€œDo you want to make a success of this or not?”
    Okay. He had it right for once. That was the question. “Yes, Donovan. I do.”
    â€œThen go back to your work area, get out your pastels, your charcoal, your fat markers. And stop fooling around.”

Chapter Four
    F rom that moment on, for Abilene, work trumped everything else. From nine—sometimes eight—in the morning, until after seven at night. Donovan supervised. He guided and