Page 12 of About that Fling
“You were there in spirit,” Mia said, giving the older woman a quick hug. “It was important to Mark and me to keep things small and intimate—just the two of us and immediate family. I’m sure you understand.”
“Big weddings are too expensive,” Jenna agreed, trying not to think of her own broken engagement, of the two hundred cream-colored invitations buried somewhere in the back of her closet.
Mia nodded in agreement and slid a hand over her impressively large baby bump. “Exactly. It didn’t seem right to spend any money on a wedding. Not while I’m still digging myself out of the financial pit of divorce.”
Gertie continued flipping through the photos. “I know what you mean. I met with an attorney last week about—well, about a new project I’m working on,” she said, glancing at Jenna. “Lawyers are so expensive!”
“Particularly when you’re divorcing one,” Mia muttered. “Not that I blame him for being bitter. I’m the one who had the affair. I’m the one who screwed up.”
Jenna patted her friend’s hand and looked over Gertie’s shoulder at a picture of Mia and Mark feeding each other cake. They looked so happy, so in love.
“You did not screw up,” Jenna said, surprising herself with the force of her own insistence. She swallowed back an unexpected memory and focused on Mia. “You have an amazing new husband who adores you and a baby on the way. I know we didn’t know each other during your first marriage or when you and Mark began your—” she swallowed back the word affair, searching for a term that wouldn’t send Mia down a path of self-flagellation and guilt. “—your relationship. But I know you had to be terribly unhappy.”
“Unhappiness leads to desperation,” Gertie agreed, holding up a photo of Mia glowing and voluptuous in her maternity wedding gown. “But you’re happy now. That’s what matters.”
“That is what matters,” Jenna echoed and nabbed her best friend’s bacon.
“As you’ll see in just a few minutes, things have gotten very contentious between the nurses’ union and hospital administration,” explained Kendall Freemont—the real Kendall Freemont—as she pushed a pile of paperwork to Adam from across her desk Monday morning.
“I understand,” Adam said, glancing down at the contract. “Organizations don’t usually bring me in when everyone’s sitting around the conference table holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya.’”
“Right,” Kendall said. “I’m sure you see this sort of thing all the time. This is actually my first time dealing with contract negotiations that have taken such a contentious turn.”
“Are you new to Belmont Health System?”
Kendall nodded and folded her hands on the desk. “Not new to human resources, but I’ve only been with Belmont for two weeks. Before this, I worked in HR for a different firm. We had the occasional employee discipline issues and a layoff here and there, but nothing like this.”
Adam nodded and continued flipping through the forms, studying the legal language as carefully as possible for a first pass. “I hear you. Union negotiations can be especially tricky. You’re very smart to bring in outside assistance. Sometimes professional mediation can really turn things around. Once people are armed with compassionate communication techniques and new skills for conflict resolution, I often find it can turn a bad situation into a workable one.”
“Yes, of course,” Kendall said, fidgeting with a gold pen on the corner of her desk. “The touchy-feely approach is something we haven’t tried yet. I look forward to seeing you work your magic.”
Adam laughed and flipped another page. “I wouldn’t call it magic, exactly. I’m just giving people the tools they need to communicate in a respectful, constructive fashion.”
She winced. “As opposed to shouting obscenities at each other and hurling paperclips from across the conference table?”
“Right,” Adam frowned. “How’s the CEO’s eye, by the way?”
“Better. He’ll be joining us today, of course. Here’s an agenda for today’s meeting. The list at the bottom has the names and titles of everyone who’ll be part of today’s discussion.”
She slid the piece of paper across the table toward him, and Adam skimmed over it. Ten minutes for introductions, that was good. He’d try to push for twenty, maybe introduce a brief get-to-know-you exercise to help break the ice. He made a note in the margin beside an item about salary cap negotiations. Better to save that conversation for the next meeting, to wait until they’d established a better sense of safety and security.
His eyes dropped to the names of participants. Phil Gallow, the CFO. Adam hadn’t met the guy yet, but he’d heard good things. Brett Lombard from the Oregon Nurses Association— he’d spoken with him in a phone conference a couple weeks ago. Mia Dawson from the NICU—he didn’t know anything about her. Susan Schrader from?—
“Mr. Thomas?”
Adam looked up from the paper and caught the worried look in Kendall’s eye. “Yes?”
“You’ll be—um, well, discreet about all this, won’t you?”
“Labor negotiations are always confidential.”
“Certainly.” She fidgeted with her pen. “This organization has had problems in the past with the media.”
“Yes, I read about that. The previous CEO’s wife was running an escort service on the side?”
Kendall pressed her lips together and nodded once. “Yes. It was before my time at Belmont, and obviously that particular CEO is no longer with the organization.”
“But the media hasn’t forgotten?”
