Page 66 of About that Fling
In the right corner of the room, the CEO yawned. Adam stifled the urge to clock the guy in the head. It was always the ones who needed it the most who tuned out first.
“John, would you help me out with a little demonstration?”
The CEO looked up, his brow creasing in an expression Adam recognized as the reluctance of a man who would rather stick a hot fork in his eye and twist.
“Absolutely,” John said. “Always happy to participate in anything that can help facilitate this valuable process.”
Bullshit, Adam thought, which was precisely the judgmental language he needed the group to avoid.
He slid back onto the table with his feet on a chair, bracing his arms across his knees. “Okay, let’s start off with a personal example, shall we? Tell us about something in your home life that routinely causes friction between you and another member of your household. It can be anything.”
The CEO frowned, clearly trying to decide how much personal information he wished to reveal. Adam half expected him to report that his life was devoid of personal conflict, but John surprised him.
“My wife is a neat freak,” he said. “Always straightening pillows and snapping at me if I leave a bowl on the kitchen counter. We’ve been married twenty-seven years, but we keep having the same fight over and over.”
Adam nodded, intrigued by this human side of the man who, just last week, had called members of the nurses’ union “whiny little crybabies.”
“Most couples have fights like that,” Adam agreed, trying not to let his eyes stray to his ex-wife. In his peripheral vision, he saw her shift in her seat. Discomfort, probably, though Adam couldn’t say if it was the pregnancy or the fact that the subject hit too close to home. How many times had they had their same arguments until they could have tape recorded their lines and just played them at each other?
You’re always working late. It’s like you don’t want to spend time with me.
My job is very challenging, and I don’t need the added stress of you micromanaging how I spend my?—
Adam cleared his throat and wiped away the memory of those bitter arguments.
“Okay,” he said, slapping his palms on his knees to focus his attention on the CEO. “Let’s do a quick demonstration of how the argument usually unfolds. Would you like to play yourself or your wife?”
John scowled, clearly displeased at the thought that he might empathize with Mrs. Conway to that degree. “I’ll be me.”
“And I’ll be Mrs. Conway.”
“Archibald,” John grunted. “Sharon Archibald. She kept her maiden name.”
“Great to know,” Adam supplied, trying to sound more positive about it than John had. “Okay then, I’m Ms. Archibald. Ready?” Adam cleared his throat, and raised the inflection of his voice just a little. “John, you left the bread out on the counter again. You know I hate that, and it’s so disrespectful when I have to pick up after you.”
“She doesn’t allow bread in the house. Gluten intolerant.”
“Okay then, milk.”
“Dairy free.”
“Work with me here, John,” Adam said, trying not to let his exasperation show. “What’s a food item we’d find in the Conway-Archibald residence that might occasionally be left on the counter?”
“Squash.”
“As in zucchini?”
“Yes.” The CEO frowned. “I say it can be left on the counter; she says it goes in the crisper.”
“Good, that’s good.” Adam cleared his throat and tried his Sharon Archibald voice again. “John, I keep telling you the zucchini goes in the crisper drawer, not on the counter. I feel like you never listen to me, and it’s so disrespectful when you leave things lying around the house that I have to pick up.”
John scowled and sat up straighter in his chair. “Stop nagging me. I just worked a twelve-hour day while you sat around fluffing the pillows in the living room. You want to talk about disrespectful, I?—”
“Good,” Adam said, cutting him off before he could take it too far. A blue vein bulged on the CEO’s forehead, and Adam wondered if he’d picked the wrong guy for this exercise.
“What you just demonstrated so well for the audience,” Adam began, careful to stroke the guy’s ego, “is the sort of defensiveness that results from using judgmental language. Nice work, John.”
John nodded, and Adam looked around the room. “Can anyone here identify the parts of what I said that were especially judgmental?”
