Kellie and Brad Ch. 09

Sandra let her opening words settle in. She addressed each of her teammates and good friends in turn.

"Heather," she said, "I know you feel you're ready to be a full-time player instead of just an alternate who plays only some of the time. Amber, I know you're worried that you'll have to be the one who has to give up her spot on the team to accommodate Heather. Jennifer, you're in an impossible position because no matter what happens, either your partner or your sister, or both, will be unhappy. And Kellie, you're caught in the middle trying to keep this thing from flying apart at the seams. Does that about cover it?"

Everyone nodded. "Yeah," Kellie spoke on their behalf. "I'd say you've nailed it."

With a determined and confident nod of her own, Sandra said, "I believe I have the solution to everyone's problems."

Sandra briefly noted the looks of confusion on everyone's faces. She took off her glove to reveal a stunning diamond engagement ring.

The other four women gasped in surprise. Sandra had obviously kept her secret very well. They did not see this coming at all.

"Oh my god!" Jennifer exclaimed. "When did this happen?"

Sandra smiled. "Last weekend. Marc surprised me and showed up for a visit."

"Why didn't we hear about this before?" Heather asked.

"You were all away or busy for the weekend, I didn't really have a chance to say anything until now," Sandra replied. "Besides, this is the kind of news that should be told face to face, not over the phone! Anyway, Marc took me to that expensive new restaurant downtown, and he got down on one knee and proposed right there with everyone watching!"

All the women started babbling excitedly. They congratulated and hugged Sandra. She and Amber compared rings; both were beautiful with little to choose between them.

At first, even amidst the din, Kellie had no idea why Sandra brought up this moment to tell them her good news. It didn't seem to have any connection to their team problem at all.

Then the penny dropped. To Kellie, the emotional impact felt like a punch to the stomach. Jennifer, Heather and Amber noted the quick change in their skip's demeanour.

"Kellie? What's wrong?" Jennifer asked.

"I just figured it out," Kellie answered. "I just figured out what Sandra meant when she said she had the solution to our team's problem." She looked directly at Sandra and said quietly, "You're moving to Edmonton with Marc. Aren't you?"

Sandra bowed her head and nodded. "Girls," she said, "you have to believe me when I say it was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. You're the best friends I could ever have, and you mean the world to me. But I love Marc so much, and being so far apart from him has been killing me."

Sandra's friends nodded in sympathy. She may not have talked much about it, but they knew she was telling the truth.

"And it's just not possible for him to move anywhere else right now," Sandra continued.

"Because of his career and his place on Kevin's team?" Amber asked.

"Yes, but that's only part of it. If all things were equal, we would have a hell of a tough time deciding where to live. He's talked about leaving where he is and moving with me if he could, just as much as I did with him. But I have to be the one to move. You see, Marc's father is very ill. He and his family don't know how much longer he has left. He's too sick to travel. Marc hopes he can stick around long enough to watch us have a proper marriage ceremony, and his dad is fighting with all he has, but... it's difficult. Plus, when he does pass away, and unfortunately it is a matter of when, not if, his mother is going to need all the help and support she can get. It will be hard for him to provide that if he's here instead of there."

The room grew very, very quiet. Despite recounting her and Marc's concerns about the health of his father, not to mention knowing how much it would hurt to have all her best friends live so far away, Sandra was happy to be engaged with Marc, and she wanted to share her happiness with her friends. When she saw the glum looks on their faces, she knew she had to chase them away.

"Come on, girls," she chirped. "I know things are changing with us and it's scary, but it's not like it's goodbye forever! Maybe Marc and I will be able to move back here one day. In the meantime, I'm sure we'll still talk all the time, we'll all be burning through those minutes on our phone plans!" That got a laugh from everyone. "Plus, we might be competitive rivals sooner than you think!"

"Oh, really?" asked Kellie.

"That's right! A friend of a friend of Marc's is putting together a new team. He's told her about me and she thinks I'll be a great addition."

"Well, it's true. They have no idea what a great curler and great person they're going to get. They'll be so lucky to have you."

Sandra blushed at Kellie's words of praise, and the others chimed in with full agreement.

"One other thing," Sandra added, "I KNOW you are all coming out to Edmonton to celebrate with me! I won't take no for an answer!"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world!" Kellie exclaimed.

"We'll drive all night if we have to," Jennifer said. Heather readily agreed, especially about the driving part.

"Of course!" Amber added. "But... have you set a date yet?"

"We're thinking Labour Day weekend, at least for the reception. What we do for the ceremony itself will depend on Marc's father and his health. In any case, holding our reception and celebration that weekend will be perfect for us, and I know it won't conflict with your and Jamie's big day. That's another reason Marc and I chose that date."

"Phew!" Amber said with great relief. Her wedding was scheduled for two weeks before Labour Day weekend. "I hope you and Marc can still make it."

"Oh yes, Amber. Marc and I will be there! Don't worry about that."

Jennifer looked around the room and smiled. "Looks like next summer will be the year of the wedding!" she spoke up. She reached into her purse and pulled out a small velvet-covered box. "And I'll be damned if I'm going to miss out on the fun!"

She got down on one knee in front of Heather, who just now realized what was happening. She was shaking with elation. Jennifer opened the box. Inside was another diamond engagement ring; it was easily the equal of Amber's and Sandra's in its splendour.

Their friends watched wide-eyed as Jennifer said, as calmly as she could, "I was going to wait until this weekend to do this, but forget that. I can't think of a more perfect time and place than right here and now. Heather Nelson, my love, will you marry me?"

"Yes, yes, YES!!" Heather shouted. She jumped up and down, ecstatic that her long-held dream would finally come true. Jennifer and Heather embraced tightly and engaged in a long, romantic, adoring kiss. They looked at each other with love in their eyes, grateful to have each other in their lives, and also grateful to live in a country where same-sex marriages were both legal and more or less accepted in society.

They were soon joined in their group hug by Sandra, Amber and Kellie. Those three women felt very privileged to be able to share in their friends' happiness.

As Kellie joined the group hug, she knew things would be different. In a perfect world, Sandra wouldn't move so far away. The world wasn't perfect, of course. She knew that. But this had a chance of being the next best thing to perfect. Sandra, Amber, Jennifer and Heather would all have their dream weddings. Sandra would be happy and fulfilled in all aspects of her life, even with having to relocate. Although they would be without Sandra's presence, Kellie believed her team would move forward and be stronger than ever, because the roles would be defined and that stability would allow all their considerable natural talent to shine through. More importantly, her friendships with all four would remain very, very strong. She had Brad and the rest of her own family with whom she could share the news, both the wonderful and the bittersweet. Everyone would, she hoped, be happy in the end.

And Kellie knew that was as good as it could possibly get.

********

He never saw it coming.

Brad had taken some time to assess his crew at the Blue Granite and found he had a strong, stable and reliable core of employees at his disposal. He was, however, a little short in overall numbers. He spoke with Glenn and, as per his earlier request, gave him a full status update. Glenn was impressed by Brad's thorough understanding of the situation and how quick he had been to come to that understanding. He was learning to value and trust Brad's contributions as much as the man Brad replaced.

For his part Brad was happy to hear Glenn say there was room in the budget to address the numerical shortcomings in personnel. He was thankful for Glenn's trust in him, and he took the responsibility of living up to that trust very seriously. Even though he had a very different management style than his brother Russ, Brad felt that over time he and Glenn would develop just as strong a working relationship as he used to have with his best friend.

Brad was busy the next couple of weeks, not only with his normal duties but also interviewing job candidates on top of that. He found the process to be very mentally taxing. He felt as much pressure to assess each candidate's strengths and weaknesses and ultimately make the right choice as most of the candidates obviously did in trying to land a job they really wanted.

As Brad finished the last round of interviews, he was ready to make some decisions. Glenn showed up in his office just as Brad was laying out pros and cons on a sheet of paper for each candidate. After some initial small talk, Glenn laid a surprise on him.

"About the hiring process..." he started.

"Yeah, Glenn, I think I have a handle on it," Brad interrupted. "Just going through the list again here, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to pick two good ones out of the bunch."

"Uh... yeah, but here's the thing," Glenn said nervously. "I only want you to choose one."

Brad looked up in surprise, his eyes narrowing. "What?! Why?"

"I promised one of the two open positions to someone else."

Brad was shocked. With one decision, he felt like the trust he was building was about to disappear and they'd have to start back at square one.

"Come on, man!" he protested. "You said making these hires would be my decision all the way. What changed? What's going on here?!"

"I'm sorry, Brad. I know what I said, and you're right. I don't blame you for being upset. But circumstances have changed."

"And what circumstances would those be?"

Glenn sighed. "A key supporter of this club called in a favour that we owed her. I had no choice but to accept the proposal."

"So, this person calls and says jump, you don't question it except to ask how high, and now we're going to have some total unknown, who may screw things up really badly, take one of these two important positions."

"Yeah, that's pretty much it, to be honest."

"Well, who is this mystery figure?!"

"I'll introduce this person to you tomorrow."

Brad shook his head, his face showing a combination of disbelief and disgust. "What the hell?! You're not even gonna give me a hint?!"

"No can do," Glenn said with some embarrassment. Unlike his brother Russ, who planned things well in advance, Glenn often managed by instinct and by feel, and sometimes his improvised decisions went completely off the board. Most of the time they had worked, but this time he had a feeling he was really backing himself into a corner.

"And why not?!" Brad asked impatiently, getting more than a little tired at the vague, evasive answers Glenn was giving him.

"I don't even know who it is yet."

Stone-cold silence greeted Glenn's words. "Bullshit!" Brad finally said. "This had better be nothing more than a dumb joke!"

"Swear to god, Brad, I'm telling the truth. I'll meet this person first thing tomorrow, we'll have a chat and then I'll have you two meet. Until then, this supporter who is calling in this favour, she's sworn me to secrecy."

Brad slumped back in his chair. "Unbelievable. I thought we were working towards something really good. Thought we were going to make a great team. But now you have to go and do something crazy like this! It sucks, Glenn, bottom line!"

Glenn was unhappy that it had come to this but he had to remain resolute. "Brad, you're upset, I get it. You have to understand, though, this thing is bigger than both of us. This person who called in the favour is part of a family that have made numerous contributions to the Blue Granite, both financial and otherwise, right from the beginning. If not for this family, this club probably doesn't even exist. And they are good people. They've never lorded their money and status over anyone here. They simply have a love for curling and a generous desire to give back to the game and the place which they built and learned the game. They don't ask for favours much, so when they do, we have to pay attention."

Brad took Glenn's speech in without saying a word, an impassive look on his face.

"Fine," he grunted as he abruptly stood. "I hope you know what you're doing." He turned, walked out of his office and headed for home without so much as a second glance towards Glenn. He felt a little guilty for brushing his supervisor off so rudely but he was still too angry to think straight.

He calmed down somewhat by the time he got home but he was distracted all night. When in bed together just before going to sleep, Kellie asked him about his mood.

"Something happened at work today," Brad said.

"Talk to me about it, baby. Is it serious?" Kellie asked.

"I don't know," he replied. "Could be a big deal. Or, it could be nothing."

"Can't you at least give me a hint?"

"Sorry, honey. I'm not sure what to say. I can't explain it well enough right now. Hell, I'm not even really sure what to make of it yet. I think I need to sleep on it first. And, whatever it is, I think it might be resolved by tomorrow, anyway."

"OK," Kellie said, resigning herself to accept Brad's word on this situation, for now. "Talk to me about it tomorrow, then. Promise?"

"Promise," Brad whispered, sealing it with a kiss.

The next day Brad felt a little better about things. He decided his reaction to Glenn and his proposal yesterday was petty, and he intended to apologize to him as soon as he saw him.

Glenn did indeed show up a few moments later, poking his head into Brad's office.

"Hey man," Glenn said.

"Hey," Brad said. "Listen, I wanted to apologize for yesterday..."

Glenn waved Brad's words away. "No need to apologize. I screwed up. We would have to take the proposal anyway, to be honest, but I should have discussed it with you first. I promise I won't make that mistake again."

A series of electronic beeps went off, and Glenn checked his cell phone to see it was ringing. He answered, spoke for a moment and then hung up.

"New person's here," he announced. "Time for the meet and greet."

"Good luck," Brad said. He returned to his task from last night and tried to make the difficult decision of choosing only one candidate to hire out of the list of good qualified people.

He was so wrapped up in his work he didn't hear Glenn knock at the door the first time he tried. At the second knock he looked up. He saw the clock on his wall and was very surprised to see it read 11:00, nearly three hours after Glenn and he first spoke this morning. Then he saw the nervous hesitation on Glenn's face. Immediately Brad began to worry.

"What?!" he asked.

"Come with me," Glenn answered.

Glenn led Brad around the corner to a point just outside a meeting room, where they could see inside but someone in the room couldn't see them. Brad froze in his tracks just as he got to that point. The view hit him like a sledgehammer to his gut.

Anita Morriss was seated at the table.

Brad felt the bile rise in his throat. He spun on his heels and marched back to his office. He heard Glenn trailing behind him. He stopped at his office door and waited for Glenn to enter his room. Then he stepped inside and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the walls.

"Talk," he ordered to Glenn. That was all Brad trusted himself to say. Despite the show of bravado and the anger coursing through him, there was a strong undercurrent of fear as well.

"I'm guessing this won't be the most popular decision I've ever made," Glenn said, trying to inject some levity into the discussion.

Brad ignored the attempt completely. He yelled "DO YOU..." before realizing his voice would carry loud enough to attract unwanted attention. He calmed himself just enough to speak his mind.

"Do you have any idea what kind of person she is?" he asked. "Any idea at all of what kind of a cancer you're bringing in here? Do you KNOW what kind of shit she's done to Kellie and me?!"

"I sort of knew something had happened," Glenn admitted, "but I had no idea how deep it ran until this morning. That's part of the reason it took me so long to get back to you. Once I saw her walk in, I called Russ because I figured he had more of the story. And he did. He told me what he knew, and he said I'd be making a huge mistake if we hired her."

"So, you're going to listen to his advice, right?!"

"I can't do that."

Brad ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "And why the hell not?!"

"Because the woman who called in this favour?"

"What about her?!"

"It's Anita's mother."

Brad literally had no idea how to react. He ended up laughing ruefully. It was either that, or feel his sanity snap violently like a frayed metal cable.

"Well, of course," he muttered to himself. "Of fucking course she is!"

Brad turned his attention back to his supervisor. He stared intensely at Glenn. Glenn stared intensely right back at him. As Brad's frustration grew, so did his realization of the situation. He broke the stressful moment by sighing and shaking his head.

"I'm not going to win this argument, am I?" he asked.

"No," Glenn replied patiently. "No, you're not."

"So what am I supposed to do, Glenn? You've put me in a real bind here! This will be impossible for me to deal with! How am I supposed to look this woman in the eye, much less work with her? And how the hell do you propose I explain this to Kellie?!"

"Brad, so far I've found that the best way to manage you is to tell you what I need the end result to be, and then get out of your way and let you figure out how to get the job done. I'm going to do the exact same thing in this case. I trust you two will be adult enough to look past your differences and find a way to work together."

"Look past our differences, huh? Easy for you to say! She never tried to break up your relationship with the love of your life! You try working with someone who tries to fuck you over like that, see how that goes!"

Glenn flinched but accepted the verbal abuse, like he knew he had to. He hoped he hadn't lost Brad forever, as he valued and respected him. In fact he raised this very point to Colleen Morriss when he spoke with her earlier today. She may have been sympathetic to his dilemma, but her loyalty to her daughter trumped all, so she was unmoved. As a result he had to try to be as well.

"I never said it would be easy," he told Brad. "But it has to be done."

"Fine!" Brad barked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "What if she doesn't work out? Surely Anita's mother won't force us to keep her if she can't do her job properly!"

"Ms. Morriss is a fair woman. She's not asking us to do the impossible. She understands Anita may not be the best fit. All she's asked is for her daughter to get a chance. We're going to give her that, and in return she's promised not to interfere further with our operations. If after a few months we both see Anita's not going to work out, we'll have the freedom to end the working relationship."