Chapter 5: The Rule

On Wednesday at four o'clock, I stood in front of Elias with the park model between us and told him why the fountain had to go.

"The wind off the lake comes from the northeast," I said. "It carries the spray thirty feet across the main path."

"And?"

"The council wants the park open year-round. In January that spray freezes on the boardwalk."

I set a small blue sticker on the path in the model.

"An old woman will walk there on her way to the bus," I said. "She'll go down hard."

Elias looked at the sticker for a long moment.

"Wednesday," he said. "You said Wednesday."

"It's Wednesday."

"So it is." He reached for his phone. "I'm calling the client. You're coming to the meeting."

The meeting took twelve minutes.

The client wanted the fountain until I put a photo of the January boardwalk from another city in front of him.

Afterward, in the elevator, Elias said, "I would have lost that argument."

"You'd have won it. You just had to look at the photo."

"I'd have lost it," he said again. "Eat dinner with me."

I blinked at him.

"You haven't eaten since Monday. I've watched you leave half a sandwich three days running."

"That's not a rule."

"No," he said. "It's an observation."

The restaurant was a small place two streets over, with six tables and a chalkboard menu.

A waiter put the menu in front of me. I stared at it.

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