He put the chefs in one group, housekeeping in another, and Kathy with Glen. Lucas paired himself with Riley. Manager and assistant manager.
Why was he doing this? What manner of woe awaited her? Well, whatever it was, she wasn’t going to just meekly take it.
Lucas made a sweeping motion toward his consultant. “Now I’ll turn the time over to Mrs. Cisneros. Let’s give her a big hand.”
The hand everyone gave her wasn’t that big. It was unenthusiastic at best.
Mrs. Cisneros smiled enthusiastically anyway. She made the members of each group sit together and passed around papers and pencils. “I have some prizes for the winners of our games today,” she said in the same cheerful tone one used when talking to children at a birthday party. “We’ll start with a game you may be familiar with: Two Truths and a Lie. Everybody writes three things about themselves on their paper. Your goal will be to figure out your partner’s lie.”
Riley raised her hand. “I think they’re all lies.”
Lucas gave her a hard stare. “I haven’t written anything yet.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Riley smiled at Mrs. Cisneros. “What do I win?”
Mrs. Cisneros gawked at Riley with a frozen expression. Apparently, she didn’t usually encounter problem participants.
JoAnn wrote something on her paper and in a sing-song voice said, “This is why we’re stuck doing this today when I should be ordering food for next week’s menu.”
“I can’t fire my assistant manager,” Lucas fake-whispered to Mrs. Cisneros. “It’s in her contract. I’m hoping you can fix her.”
Riley huffed and stared at her paper, trying to think of things she’d never told Lucas. It proved harder than she’d imagined. She wrote one statement, then erased it.
Lucas seemed to be having the same problem. He wrote a list, then ripped his paper in half, folded up the half he’d written on, and put it in his shirt pocket.
He returned his attention to the paper that was left and wrote the number one on it.
“Why did you just do that?” Riley asked.
“I decided I didn’t want to tell you those things after all.”
This pronouncement shouldn’t have bothered her but did. He’d either said things that would hurt her and thought better ofit, or he’d said meaningful things and had decided not to tell her after all. Both options stung.
She wrote three sentences, tore her paper in half, folded the list, and put it in her pocket.
From across the room, she heard Rusty say, “Looks like there’s still problems in trust land.”
Whatever. None of them had a boss who was their ex.
“Is everyone done?” Mrs. Cisneros asked.
“I need another minute,” Riley said.
She wrote
1.I know that you know.
2.I don’t regret it.
3.You don’t have a say in my life anymore, so it shouldn’t matter.
Done. Number two was the lie.
She waited for Mrs. Cisneros to tell them it was time to switch papers.
Instead Mrs. Cisneros strode over to Riley and in her too-enthusiastic voice said, “My rule is that the last one finished with their list is the first one I read.”
Ugh.She was reading these out loud? She might have mentioned that beforehand.