Page 9 of Not My Friend
I’d made the unfortunate discovery that not only was I still attracted to Kimberly, I still had feelings for her too. I’d thought of her almost non-stop since I first walked into this conference room and saw her sitting at the table.
“Yeah. We’ll likely need to add another day,” Kimberly sighed. “Listen, uh, what’s your schedule like today?”
My heart picked up before I reminded myself that she likely was not asking me on a date. No doubt her question had something to do with the audit.
“It’s clear, I saved the whole week in case you guys needed me to answer questions.”
She gave me a long look, and I had the feeling like I was being inspected. I was dressed a little more casually today, havingrun through my two ‘dressy’ outfits, but I still was dressed professionally enough in a modest sundress with a jean jacket and nice sandals.
“I have to be honest with you Gina, I usually audit other types of programs, mostly IDD programs.”
At my blank look she clarified, “Programs for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Group homes. Supported employment. That kind of thing.”
I nodded, unsure where she was going with this.
“It would be helpful if we could review the files together and you could explain to me how each case plan matches the logic model, how the goals were set, how the outcomes compare, etc.”
“Like a verbal audit?” I clarified. “You want me to present each case instead of you reviewing the files?”
“I’d like to do both if we could. I know it’s going to take a lot of time, but Mary was really the expert in this area and we’re super short-staffed in our office so there’s no one to send to help me.”
Oh god, an entire day sitting in this conference room with the only woman I’d ever loved? The woman who now understandably hated my guts? That was going to be torture. But what else could I do?
“Sure. Let me get my water bottle and my laptop.”
We spent the rest of the morning going through files. Rochelle from QA stopped in to check on how things were going, but other than that, we worked uninterrupted. We developed a system that worked. Kimberly would take some time to read through the file, then I would review the assessments, case plans, and progress notes and explain what happened, why it happened, and how it related to the both the funding contract and the logic model we’d submitted with our application.
It was slow work, and by lunch time we’d only gotten through three files, so we ordered a pizza and worked through lunch. It was mid-afternoon when Kimberly asked me a question she’d already asked a few minutes before, realizing it halfway through my repeated answer. She dropped her head to the table and groaned.
“This is so time-consuming, I’m sorry. I’m starting to space out.”
“We need a break,” I said. “Come on, I have an idea.”
She hesitated. “We should…”
“Come on, just fifteen minutes and you’ll feel like a new woman.”
I led her outside and three blocks over to this hole-in-the-wall artisanal ice cream shop that always had a line up the block in the summer. Fortunately it was three o’clock on a Thursday and the temperatures had been hovering in the low eighties, so the line was short.
“This is the best ice cream in the city,” I told her. “I guarantee it.”
After perusing the options we both chose double cones. Mine was one scoop of salted caramel and one scoop of strawberry bourbon. Kimberly went with a scoop of lavender and a scoop of mint chocolate chip. We settled on a bench outside the shop, enjoying the sunshine while we ate our ice cream treats.
“You were right, this is delicious.”
As the day went on, she’d lost some of that icy reserve that she’d held onto all week, and as we sat talking and eating ice cream on a bench, I saw glimpses of the woman I fell in love with.
“Can I ask you a question that’s none of my business?”
At my nod Kimberly continued, “What happened with the youth program? You said you lost your job and I know you loved working with those kids.”
I knew she was asking if I’d gotten myself fired by acting crazy. As much as I loved that job, I’d struggled with it. The stress of working with that population had been enormous, and I complained about work a lot when we were together.
“A few days after we, uh, split up we got news that we’d lost a big grant that funded like eighty percent of the program. Without additional funding, they closed down the program, and everyone got laid off.”
“Oh wow.”
“In retrospect, it was instant karma after how I’d treated you,” I said lightly. “But it all worked out for the best, because I used my time unemployed to work on my personal issues. When I got this opportunity I was ready for something bigger and better. I love my job here and being able to start this program from scratch has been a dream come true.”
