Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Iris walked into the office of Candela, the boutique architectural lighting firm that had employed her for nearly a decade.
Iris loved her job and her boss and mentor, Frank Morro, and she put up with the pirate band of male colleagues that comprised their ten-person company.
Iris was one of only two women, the other being their unseen, off-site accountant.
Architecture had a sophisticated reputation, but it was a boys’ club like most building-related fields, and Candela was too small to afford the HR department it so desperately needed.
Still, Iris had enjoyed remarkable job security at Candela, unlike so many of her friends who had been forced to change jobs and even careers, and Iris valued stability.
She was extra loaded down today, carrying her laptop bag over her shoulder, a cardboard tray with two large coffees, and a box of a dozen Magnolia cupcakes.
Ana, a member of the building’s janitorial staff, spotted Iris as soon as she got off the elevators and rushed over to help her.
“Just take both coffees for a minute while I set these cupcakes down.” Iris had gotten in the habit of picking up a coffee for Ana at Dunkin along with her own, as Ana was typically the only employee who got in as early as Iris.
Iris liked to get to the office early on the days she didn’t work from home.
It gave her a chance to focus and start her day while the office was still quiet, before her coworkers arrived.
“ Gracias, amor . Who has birthday this time?”
“Me.”
“Ay! Happy birthday! I should bring you something instead of you me. Why you no remind me?”
“Please, I’m thirty-five, I hardly want to remember it myself. How’s your coffee?”
“Perfect. Light and sweet like me.” Ana chuckled.
“I don’t know how you drink hot coffee in this weather. You have to let me get it iced for you at least once.” Iris had a cold brew addiction, black.
“Coffee is supposed to be hot.” Ana took a grateful sip even as sweat beaded on her brow.
“Let me drop these in the breakroom.” Iris took the cupcakes into the breakroom and refilled the Keurig with water while she was there, although she rarely used it. It was a habit from her early days, and she had come to notice that if she didn’t fill it, it never got filled.
—
Iris was settled in her usual seat in their open plan workspace, reviewing her models for an upcoming design pitch, when the rest of her co-workers trickled in.
She thought of the core group as “the frat”: Jesse, Theo, Max, and Lawrence.
They were tolerable individually, but together they became a pack of dogs.
They spoke crassly about the women they dated, took clients to strip joints “ironically,” and prided themselves on an ethic of “work hard, play hard” long past the age when such a catchphrase was sufferable.
Most days, Iris felt like their beleaguered homeroom teacher.
“Yo, Iris. Are you on your period?” Max asked, loud enough for the room to hear.
“Excuse me?”
“Bruh.” Lawrence gave him an admonishing look. Lawrence was Black and at least occasionally on Iris’s side.
“No, it’s not what you think.” Max rubbed both hands over his face. “I’m only asking because I need Advil. I’m hung over, my head is splitting. Girls always have Advil in their purses when they’re on their period.”
“I don’t have any Advil,” Iris replied.
“Dude, that’s Midol,” Jesse said.
“Midol, Advil, it’s the same thing.”
“You’ve taken Midol?” Theo snickered.
“It’s the same ! I have sisters.”
Iris sighed. “Check the first aid cabinet in the breakroom.”
“Will you look for me? The lights in there are too bright,” he mewled.
“No, I’m working.” You should try it sometime, she thought.
“Who designed these lights to be so fucking bright?” Max groaned.
“You needed better light last night so you could see who you were taking home!” Lawrence teased.
“She was all right.”
“You sure she was a she?” Jesse quipped.
“I mean, she gave birth to you, so…”
The boys erupted in laughter.
“ Guys . C’mon,” Iris chided.
“Yeah, guys. You’re disturbing Iris,” Theo said in her mock defense.
“Uh-oh, Mom’s mad,” Jesse sniggered.
Iris tried to breathe slowly through her nose. She didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of her frustration.
Another colleague, Nate Childers, emerged from the break room with a cupcake and landed by Iris’s desk.
He set down the red velvet and clapped his hands once like a coach to catch Jesse’s attention.
“Yo, my email. I need that price sheet before I can get back to the client, and they’re up my ass. Don’t let me get fucked on this one.”
“I got you.” Jesse wheeled his chair back to his desk.
Iris looked up at Nate. “Why do they listen to you?”
“Because I speak idiot.” Nate smiled.
If Iris was the office Mom, Nate was Dad. He wasn’t much older than the others, around forty, but he was more mature, married with a daughter, and he took his job seriously. He and Iris had hit it off right away when he first started working there, and she considered him her friend and ally.
“I should be used to the frat by now.” Iris rolled her eyes. “I just need one of those paddles to whack ’em.”
“They should be embarrassed, but that would require self-awareness. But I lived in a frat house in college, and trust me, this place smells a lot better.” Nate gestured to her laptop. “How’s it going? Are those your designs for the Wolff pitch?”
The Wolff Dev building was going up at 270 Eleventh Ave in Hudson Yards.
It was expected to be the latest jewel in the crown of Wolff Development, continuing Jonathan Wolff’s reign as the It Boy of New York real estate.
Wolff was hoping to repeat the success of his Tribeca glamazon tower known as the Pebble Stack for its tiered stories and rounded edges.
But the Hudson Yards project hadn’t been as smooth; it was a gamble to bet so much capital on the rising but not yet coveted neighborhood, then Covid hit, halting construction and spooking initial investors.
The project had recently found new funding, but only after an ambitious redesign and major internal shake-up.
Wolff Dev was now seeking a new lighting designer, and Candela was among the many lighting firms eager to make a bid for it.
“Yes, I feel like I’ve been designing it in my head before I even knew we’d have a crack at it. I was just talking with Frank about it, landing this would be huge for Candela.”
“And for the lead designer, a career-making gig. That’s why everyone and their mother wants it.”
Iris sighed. It was a long shot, especially for a boutique firm like theirs. Still, Jonathan Wolff had a reputation for being guided by instinct, valuing passion over blue chip legacy firms; it was part of what made him the most exciting developer in New York.
Nate gestured to her laptop. “May I?”
“Sure.” She swiveled it toward him and Nate peered down at the screen, clicking through the three-dimensional REVIT model.
“Nice, really soft and organic. I like how the underlighting directs your awareness upward.”
“Thanks, the airiness of the lobby height and the lines were my favorite part. And since the building is all about the river view, I wanted to bring that reflective quality of the sun on the Hudson inside.”
“You achieved it. It looks…tranquil.” Nate nodded. “I’d live there.”
“Thank you.”
“But I thought Frank said they only needed the lighting redone for the hallways and residences, the amenities spaces were going to stay as is.”
“I know, but I have this idea for a whole reconceptualization of the building via the lighting. Their post-Covid remodel has an emphasis on privacy and private outdoor space, with all these sections and dividers. But it totally changed the vibe, it’s almost brutalist now.
And the interiors are stuck in that 2019 sleek luxury hotel look—the whole thing is too cold.
I think they have to bring life back into it, and the common spaces are a huge part of that.
What I’ve come up with would let them rebrand as a ‘wellness residence,’ not just compliant with health standards but redefining them. ”
“A ‘wellness residence’? Sounds very Goopy.”
“Gwyneth Paltrow gets hate, but Goop is far from a flop. I mean, wellness has become a multi-billion-dollar space.”
“I guess, my wife loves it. But you know Wolff’s going to be selling these apartments to tech bros, right? Facebook is moving in next door.”
“I try not to take design advice from anyone in a gray vest and a lanyard.”
Nate laughed. “Touché.”
Iris continued to justify herself. “I don’t know, I’m into this human-centric lighting, where we can create light that mimics natural circadian rhythms. And I’ve been researching ‘indigo clean’ 405 nanometer light that actually disinfects the air.
The sanitizing effect is undetectable, but we can direct it above the sight lines anyway, and it disinfects the air as it circulates. ”
“Feels a little gimmicky.”
“You think? I mean, maybe a little. But I think I can pitch it as high tech, you know? It fits in with the Silicon Valley transplants and appeals to the luxury market. Their old plans emphasize the ‘hospital grade HVAC,’ which is a negligible filtration improvement for a high cost, and who wants to live in a hospital? Wolff can redirect the money into what I’m proposing and still save. ”
Iris thought she had him convinced when Nate titled his head. “But you’re stepping out of the lighting lane. And that chilly hotel look is Wolff’s whole thing.”
“He set the bar, but now there are copycats all over, so it doesn’t feel new anymore.”
“You want to tell Jonathan Wolff his brand is stale?”
“Well, no. I would say it differently.” Iris felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “It’s a bigger piece of the budget for lighting but a lower cost overall. It would save them money.”
“But would it save them face?”
Iris deflated. “You’re probably right.”