Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
JOSH
Just as I walk into my office after another very productive meeting with Carl Conrad at CPR, who is a font of good ideas, my phone rings. Thinking it might be Avery, since I somehow missed her at the rec center, I snatch up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hello to you too, Josh. So glad to have caught you.”
I have to stifle my groan when I recognize Martina Diaz’s voice. “Yes, it’s been hectic around here. What can I do for you, Mayor?”
“You can attend the public-private partnership conference I told you about.”
“I tried,” I say, “but registration was closed.”
“Lucky for you, I pulled a string or two and got two tickets. One for Trede and one for CPR. The focus is community center development, so it’s perfect.”
Pulling out my cell, I open my calendar app. I had checked out the conference when she told me about it weeks ago, but when we couldn’t get in, I deleted it from my memory cache. “When was that again?”
When she reminds me, I slump into my desk chair. Naturally, the conference is the one weekend Avery and I have planned to leave town. “Which stakeholders did you tell them would attend?”
“Ideally, it’d be you and Leia Blake. Unless there’s someone else from either organization involved in the current collaboration.”
“And when do you need confirmation?”
“There are grant opportunities specifically targeted to attendees of this conference. It’d be a shame to miss out on them.” Before I can figure out a decent excuse for why I can’t go, she adds, “Especially since I went to the trouble to get you in.”
“Right. I do appreciate it.”
“I’ll get on the horn with Leia and tell her you’ll be there, then,” she says.
Just as I’m about to give in, Eli appears in my doorway. “Mayor, give me an hour to figure this out. I’ll talk to Leia and get back to you.”
“As long as someone shows up.”
“I’ll confirm with you by the end of the day.”
Eli sits down as I’m hanging up. “What’s this you have to figure out with the mayor and Leia?”
“I thought we were meeting at four.”
Reaching across my desk, he picks up the CPR plan that has my notes written in the margins. The notes I planned to work into the final version before our meeting.
“We were, but I saw you in here, and honestly, it’d be better for me if we meet now. Then I could catch an earlier flight to New York.”
“What’s happening in New York?”
“Venture capital crap.” Eyes on the document in his hands, he asks, “You can do this now, right?”
“Well, I’m not really finished prepari?—”
He frowns. “Josh, it’s just me.”
“Yeah, and you’re my boss.”
“We’re still friends.”
I suppress a sigh. He was friends with Lisa. Until I moved to Climax, she was always part of the equation. He likely doesn’t get that there’s a power dynamic between us, either. The same way Lisa never got the difference between parents who paid for every little thing at Yale versus parents who could barely scrape together the money for state school tuition.
I blow out a breath. “Yes, we’re friends. But I’d like to make sure the plan is clear, so that?—”
“So let’s break it down. Pretend I’m not your boss.” He jumps up, circling his hands between us. “No bad ideas. Let’s whiteboard it.”
I press my lips together and count to five before speaking to calm my mind. If I count to ten, he’ll keep talking. “We’re past that, Eli. We’ve got plans in place. Plans the mayor has signed off on.”
His brow furrows. “Since when?”
“Since Tuesday? When I met with her?”
He looks up and to the left. “When I was in San Francisco?”
I shrug. “Possibly.”
“Damn it, Josh. You can’t sneak in meetings behind my back.”
“Eli. It is my job to shepherd this project. From conceptualization to fruition. You can’t be there for every little meeting. You have your own job. You’re the CEO, remember? I’m just one of your many VPs.”
He rests a hip on the table and flips through the plan, muttering, “But this is more fun.”
Speaking the truth, as in, because it’s the latest thing and you’ll get bored and move on soon enough, would not be a wise move. Instead, I shift gears. “Do you not trust me?”
Frowning, he crosses his arms over his chest. “All right. Show me what you’ve decided.”
When the last word lands with complete derision, I tell myself that I knew it’d be like this. Eli has mood swings and if you want the good, you have to accept the asshole every once in a while. This time I do count to ten as I open my laptop and sync it with the smartboard. Then I remind myself why I took this job. So my kids and I could live in a place that was more down to earth than Manhattan.
A slideshow of images flashes through my head, making me realize that it’s no longer just a job to me. Reconnecting with Sam, bonding with Travis and the parents at Playgroup, every moment I’ve spent with Avery… These moments make it clear that I’m part of this town.
“Okay,” I begin, clicking through the first slides. “This should all look familiar. Same open design. However, we’ve decided to shift some of the space usage and some of the programming.”
As I go over the plans, I skim quickly past the inclusion of Playgroup, hoping he won’t notice the fancy footwork I’ve done to keep it there. Instead, I focus on the multipurpose room and makerspace, neither of which were in our original plans.
“Multipurpose room? Isn’t that what they have now? That horrible combination of stage and basketball court?”
“This would be much more adaptive than the current gymnatorium.”
“And where’s the Pilates room? The barre studio? The cycling suite?”
“There are already private gyms in Climax. And we have those specialty rooms here at Trede.”
“But we have to have places for employees’ family members to work out. And appropriate activities to keep their progeny occupied while they do so.”
“But the spouses of Trede’s employees are a minority of the population.”
“So far.”
“Do you plan to repopulate the entire county?” Only half kidding, I wonder if that is what he’s thinking.
“I need to give the town a makeover if I want to have a chance at attracting the best talent. That’s what I brought you here to do.”
“You brought me in to connect with the community. It was your idea that I start with the Parks and Rec department. Which serves everyone in the town.”
“And it will be open to all of Climax.”
“But if it’s filled with programs and spaces that aren’t welcoming to all, then it’ll only serve an elite few.”
“What are you saying? I need a damn Walmart greeter at the door?”
Surprised that he even knows such a thing exists, I close the computer and meet Eli’s gaze. “Throwing down money to build a shiny new thing will actually cause problems, Eli. Replacing Zumba with Pilates will just alienate people.”
“But I’m giving this to the town.”
“Gifts that come with strings attached are a double-edged sword. If you don’t wield that sword carefully, it’ll be destructive. But if you use your money to make people’s lives better?—”
“Doing CrossFit and barre and Soul cycle classes would fix the diabetes problems, I’d bet.”
“Only if people showed up to the classes. We have an opportunity to solve actual problems here, to fill real gaps in the town infrastructure.”
“I’m not building a church, Josh.”
“It’d be better than a church, because it won’t be based on a patriarchal structure. Imagine a center designed to build community. With spaces where people can have fun, learn things, exercise, and meet people outside of their jobs and families and social strata. That’s not just a way for Trede to get tax breaks from the local government.”
I take one big breath, because if this doesn’t land, I’m fucked. “Eli, a place that centers community isn’t just a building. It’s a legacy.”
He just stares at me for so long, I’m not even sure that my words register. But I hang in there, hoping that they’ll reach the kind heart I suspect lies deep inside my prickly boss.
“Fine,” he finally says. “But if there’s no Pilates, I’m not paying for everything.”
Sending up thanks to whatever gods are in charge of recreation, I smile. “Funny you should mention that.”
I don’t know if it’s because he’s eager to get out of town or what, but Eli signs off on Trede’s participation at the public-private partnership retreat without a fight. “You get Leia Blake there, and I’ll be there,” he says before heading out back to a waiting helicopter.
My high doesn’t last long, unfortunately, because Leia Blake does put up a fight.
“Hmm,” is all the Parks and Rec director has to say in response to my excellent pitch selling her on the advantages of attending the PPP workshop as a means of garnering additional funding for the CPR redevelopment. “I thought this was your job.”
“Community development is my job. But input like this—financial, educational, and institutional—can be invaluable when you’re setting a new course. I’ve gained so much from conferences like these. I really don’t think it’s an opportunity you want to turn down.”
“I still don’t get why you aren’t going.”
Because I want to get out of town for a sex-fest with your best friend?
“Because it can be most advantageous for the top stakeholders to participate. Really get the juices flowing. Shake things up.”
“Top stakeholders? So if not you, who would be going from Trede?”
I shut my eyes, trying to figure out if I can stretch the truth enough to get her there without outright lying.
“Elijah’s going, isn’t he?”
Fuck. I bite back the curse and force a smile. “He’s invested in the success of the partnership, after all.”
“Well, if he’s going, I’m not going.”
Double fuck.
“Why don’t you sleep on it, and we can talk about it more tomorrow?”
“Sleeping on it will not change my mind. We had a deal. I work with you. Not Eli. You renege on that deal, you lose my support. All of it.”
I’m left with the dial tone echoing in my ear and my dick not speaking to me.