by Gwen Hayes
“Mr. Martin—”
He shut her up with a look. “I am giving you one last chance.”
Her heart rate slowed again. Okay. She wasn’t sunk.
He slid two envelopes to them across his desk. “You are going on a mandatory business trip. Tomorrow. For one week.”
“Tomorrow?” Miguel asked while she opened up the envelope. Plane tickets and a packing list for…summer camp? “For a whole week?”
“What is Camp Firefly Falls?” she asked as she scanned the list. Bug spray and flashlights? She’d never been camping in her life.
Mr. Martin smiled. Not a very nice one either.
“It’s a summer camp for adults. They run different themes all summer. You two are going to the team building session. You will come back with whatever certificate they award, and if there are ribbons or awards or competitions, you will work together to win every single one of them as a team. If you don’t come back with proof that you can not only work together, but are the best damned team since Captain and Tennille, don’t come back.”
Who were Captain and Tennille?
Miguel scraped his hands over his jaw. “Team building like…walk across hot coals and fall into each other’s arms stuff?”
Mr. Martin answered with a shrug. “I really don’t know what they do and I don’t really care. All I know is that you will find a way to win and you will find a way to work together or you won’t have jobs to come back to.”
“But our accounts—” They couldn’t just leave for a week.
‘Your first task is to delegate. There isn’t any Wi-Fi at summer camp.”
“What?” they both shouted at the same time.
“The brochure said cell service is spotty also. Good luck. See you in a week.”
They’d been dismissed. They looked at each other and back at Mr. Martin, but he was already rounding the desk and striding out of his own office. Leaving them there.
“This is ridiculous,” Miguel said. “He can’t just send us to summer camp. We’re not twelve.”
“I can’t lose this job.” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She knew better than to show weakness in front of Miguel.
But her mom…she could not lose this job. There was no way she could cover two mortgages while unemployed.
He leaned forward, hands on his knees and stared at the floor. “Nobody is losing their job. If you weren’t so…”
Rage exploded bright red behind her eyes. “Are you kidding me right now? This is not my fault.”
“All I’m saying is that…hell, I don’t know what I’m saying. We don’t have much choice. We’ll go to summer camp and we’ll come back with a bunch of blue ribbons for three-legged races and best s’more makers. We don’t have a choice.”
“Agreed.”
They both blinked at the idea that they could agree on something. Anything. Because for six months, they hadn’t been able to agree on anything as simple as, “What is today’s date?”
Miguel let out a strangled laugh. “See, Ms. Worth? It’s already working.”
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