The Layout

The email came to Frank, because Frank's name was on every list at City Hall now: the petition, the hearing, the consent letter, the Christmas card from Hannah.

Subject: Riverbend Community Space — Layout Options — Community Input Requested.

The construction of the new building was halfway done. From the street you could see six storeys of concrete and steel, and at ground level, behind a fence covered in posters, the big empty shell of the community space: two hundred and ten square metres, the old retail unit that Dolores had asked for in the newspaper eighteen months earlier.

Now the city's architects needed to know how to divide it. They had prepared three options. The groups that would use the space, the seniors' lunch, the youth program, the newcomer classes, were invited to review the drawings and send their preferred option, with comments, by June 30.

Frank forwarded the email to Grace with one line: You read it. You'll see things I won't.