Chapter 6

The process of terminating the contract was mercilessly smooth. The procedure was as cold and perfunctory as writing off a bad debt. It was apparent that, as far as Moore Architects' finance department was concerned, their return on investment had already peaked.

Mr. Morrison sat behind his enormous mahogany table while he addressed me. He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses before announcing as if he were delivering a closing statement in a courthouse.

“Arya, you may have talent, but to make it in this industry, you need a killer instinct. You’re too soft.”

He shrugged indifferently before offering a rather insulting piece of advice.

“But you do have a very solid foundation in design theory. Maybe you could consider applying for a part-time lecturer position at Parsons or Pratt? As they say, if you can’t do, you can at least teach.”

I signed my name on a document and wrote a check for the “termination of contract fee” to reimburse the firm for the so-called training they had invested in me. With a stroke of the pen, all of my savings originally intended for a down payment on a studio apartment were all but gone.

By the time I walked out of the office building in the city center, it was dusk. The December wind in New York cut through me like a blade. The avenue was adorned with festive Christmas decorations. There was even an ongoing light show outside a large department store. The light installation projected giant snowflake patterns onto glittering chandeliers, dazzling a cohort of tourists.

Amidst the wondrous landscape, I felt empty inside. Then, my phone vibrated. It was a text from my grandfather.

“My dear granddaughter, you’ve done a wonderful job! I saw your name printed on the World News Journal again!”

I felt tears pooling in my eyes when I read the message.

Grandpa was a first-generation immigrant who spent a large part of his life doing hard labor under the California sun. He hardly knew anything about the Pritzker Architecture Prize, nor did he know what a partnership contract was.

When I was in architecture school, he would don his reading glasses and help me with memorizing a variety of architectural terminologies. He would mispronounce “Sustainability” as “Sustain-a-bubble” or “Architecture” as “Art-lecture.”

Over the years, I had to tell him countless lies, saying that I’d visit him after the project was wrapped up, that I was very valued by my boss, or that I was doing great in New York.

I chased after fame, prestige, and Ethan for six years… just to end up empty-handed. The entire time, Grandpa was watching over me in the small town of Sunnyvale in California. I was his only source of pride.

I stood bracing the cold wind on Fifth Avenue and took a large drag of the frosty air containing a faint scent of the aroma of roasted chestnuts and car exhaust. Then, I reached for my phone to buy a one-way flight ticket on the airline's application, from JFK to SFO at six o'clock tomorrow morning.