Page 3 of Not My Friend
There was something different about her. Even though she was obviously as shocked as I was by this impromptu meeting, her energy was different. Calmer. More confident. Even her posture was different.
“I take it you two know each other?” Allison, their executive director, was looking between us with undisguised curiosity.
We both nodded.
“Allison, may I see you in the hallway for a minute?” Gina whispered.
She looked like she was about to puke. I felt the same.
“Let’s take five and reconvene,” my coworker Mary said. “I think Kim and I need to check in as well.”
The Sunrise team filed out, leaving us alone. Ignoring Mary’s curious look, I picked up my cell, dialing my boss and putting him on speaker.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you at the audit?” David asked in lieu of saying hello.
“Yes. I’ve got you on speaker with me and Mary,” I told him. “I need to report something to you.”
“What?” he asked impatiently.
He was a good boss, just overworked and the kind of person who had zero tolerance for things like small talk.
“The program director of Sunrise is, uh, my ex-girlfriend.”
I’d never come out at work, but we didn’t have the kind of office where people talked about their private lives either. It was all very professional. Mary’s eyebrows rose as she started to understand what was going on.
“When did you break up?” my boss asked.
I did a quick calculation in my head. “A little over three years ago.”
He made a scoffing noise. “That’s a long time ago. You can be professional, right Hernandez?”
“Of course,” I said quickly. “But it was a pretty serious relationship. We lived together for a while and it was, uh, a hard breakup.”
“Have you ever had an easy breakup?” he asked sardonically.
Mary rolled her eyes at our boss’s question.
“Well, no.”
“Are you telling me you’re too compromised by a break-up that happened three damned years ago to do your job and be professional?”
I winced at his harsh tone.
“Well no, I can do what I need to do,” I assured him. “I can be professional. But their ED might request someone else if they’re worried about a conflict of interest, that’s why I wanted to let you know what was happening.”
“Tell them we don’t have any other auditors available right now, so they’ll have to suck it up,” he said impatiently. “Explain how there’s always two people auditing, and your findings are reviewed by the director to make sure there’s no bias. Plus if they want to dispute the findings, they’ll have a right to do so after they receive your report. If they contact me, that’s exactly what I’ll tell them.”
I suppressed a sigh. This was going to be a difficult few days, there was no way around it.
“Okay, I’ll do that. Thank you, David.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
“Just let me know what you need,” Mary said. “I’m here to support you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I just didn’t want it to come up later and for him to ask me why I didn’t say anything.”
I could tell she wanted to ask more, but just then the Sunrise team returned. Gina still looked a little nauseous, and I had to remind myself that I hated her and was not going to be concerned. I raised an eyebrow, silently asking if she’d told her boss. She nodded. Back when we were dating, before everything had gone to hell, we’d driven our other friends crazy with our ability to have a conversation without talking.
