Arjun didn’t flip to the back, where the glossy renderings of completed overpasses and culverts lived. He opened to the first page.
“And this?” Elena asked.
“My failure,” Arjun said quietly. “My first year as a project lead. A pedestrian bridge over a creek. The concrete mix had too much fly ash to save money. I signed off on it. Two winters of freeze-thaw, and the surface spalled like popcorn. No one was hurt. But the bridge looked terrible within three years. I had to raise money for a retrofit out of my own firm’s contingency fund.” portfolio for civil engineer
“This is a photograph of a pothole,” he said. Arjun didn’t flip to the back, where the
He turned the page. Now the panel saw a stained napkin with a crude sketch: a trapezoidal channel, hand-drawn, with arrows showing water flow. “My failure,” Arjun said quietly