Ingrid Dvorak

Ingrid Dvorak is the blunt, exacting head of an architecture studio who gives Bea an opportunity to take on an ambitious building commission. She does not simply pass along a job: she tests Bea, distinguishes her own professional judgment from Diego’s influence, and makes clear that Bea must be valued for her work rather than used to secure a client.

Identity and Professional Role

Ingrid directs an architecture studio and has been hoping for a project with the scale and ambition of a client’s proposed renovation and expansion. The commission matters to her personally as well as professionally: she had wanted to undertake this kind of work for some time. Her account of the project establishes her as someone with her own ambitions for the studio, not merely an intermediary between the client and Bea.

Ingrid contacts Bea after receiving her telephone number from Ángela and asks her to visit the studio. There, she explains that the client has made an unusual request. Although the available exchange does not spell out the request itself, Ingrid’s subsequent decision to involve Bea makes clear that it affects who should undertake the work.

The Commission and Bea’s Test

Ingrid wants Bea to handle the project. When Bea asks whether she has made the same request of Diego, Ingrid insists that she does not plagiarize and that a sketch would not be enough to satisfy the client. She says she has told Diego about Bea, her model, and the possibility that Bea might be the right person to build the house. The distinction is important: Ingrid acknowledges that Diego has entered the conversation, but presents her own decision as grounded in Bea’s work and suitability.

Bea directly asks whether Diego really asked Ingrid to hire her. Ingrid does not give a simple yes-or-no answer in the exchange; instead, she explains what she herself has said to Diego. She then reveals that she has been examining Bea for more than half an hour. When Bea asks what this means, Ingrid tells her that she has passed the test with distinction. Ingrid had not wanted Bea to become the price paid to obtain the project. Her test therefore serves as a safeguard against treating Bea as a convenient bargaining chip, while also making the offer conditional on demonstrated merit rather than personal recommendation alone.

Manner and Relationships

Ingrid’s professional directness is matched by a brusque, teasing manner. In a later exchange, Bea asks her to stop insulting her after Ingrid calls her an idiot; Ingrid replies that she will stop using the insult when Bea is no longer one. The exchange shows a familiar, unsentimental mode of interaction, but it does not establish that Bea welcomes every part of Ingrid’s bluntness: Bea explicitly objects to being insulted.

Bea also asks Ingrid whether Diego wants to see her every day. Ingrid’s response comes in the same sharp register rather than as a gentle reassurance. Across both conversations, she acts as a candid interlocutor who will not soften her language, even when Bea is looking for an answer about Diego. Her role combines professional gatekeeping with personal frankness: she can open a consequential opportunity for Bea while refusing to flatter or reassure her.