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“Let’s start with Coach Gray,” Isaiah said and took Bridget over to where Coach was talking with some of the parents.
CHAPTER 10
I’m Isaiah’s girlfriend.
“Nope, not this morning,” Angela mumbled to herself and hurried from the car into the office ten minutes late the next morning.
She tugged on the waistband of her skirt and grunted because no amount of tugging would make the skirt any looser. She swore everything in her closet had shrunk overnight. That’s what she got for eating half a tub of ice cream and a bag of potato chips before going to bed. Cory decided to move slower than a sloth on sleeping pills this morning, which certainly contributed to her being late and exhausted, though really it was that she’d been tossing and turning all night.
Learning the vibe she’d felt between her and Isaiah was all in her imagination hadn’t set her up for a good night’s sleep. He’d only been messing with her while he dated some tall, beautiful, I’m-so-polished-you-might-as-well-call-me-spit-shine woman. She was such an idiot for kissing him.
She rushed through the front door and speed-walked down to her office. No one stopped her to say good morning. Good. She wasn’t in the mood to talk. She put her stuff up and turned on her computer to go through emails.
The office was quiet. Unusual for first thing in the morning. There was always at least ten to fifteen minutes of people chitchatting before they got to work. She checked her calendar. Nothing scheduled.
Footsteps sounded outside her door before her supervisor, Tamara, poked her head in. “Angela, what are you doing in here?”
Tamara’s light brown eyes widened and she came farther into Angela’s office. Four-inch heels added additional height to her small curvy frame. She had a fondness for animal print, often throwing in a zebra-or leopard-print scarf or shoes, like the ones she wore today with tan slacks and a black button-up.
“I was running a little late.”
Tamara waved her hand, indicating Angela needed to move. “Come on. Mr. Cooper called a meeting. The director from the Columbia office is here to talk about our cross-training with his team. We’re gathering in the conference room.”
Angela cringed but jumped from the chair. “I thought they weren’t coming until next week.” She grabbed her notebook and a pen before popping up from her desk.
“So did I, but you know how Mr. Cooper likes to spring things on us.”
Angela followed her supervisor down the hall to the conference room. A man she didn’t recognize paused in the middle of speaking and watched as she and Tamara entered. He was tall, midthirties with mahogany skin, and was dressed business-casual in a green polo and dark gray slacks. He paused long enough to bring attention to their late entrance before he continued talking.
Mr. Cooper’s angry green gaze could have boiled water in Antarctica. The perfect embodiment of a pious and judgmental person, Mr. Cooper only lost his pinched expression when he was helping kids. For him, relaxed was a cartoon tie instead of a standard blue or red one with his dark brown suits. But he cared about their office and the kids, so Angela excused his uptightness.
There was no seating left, so Angela stood in a corner. She listened as the speaker, Alvin, talked about how his office had increased volunteer participation. The work they’d done was impressive, and Angela’s frazzled feelings from coming to work late slowly faded as excitement grew with the idea of helping to take their office to the same level.
Mr. Cooper stood after Alvin finished his talk. “Thank you, Alvin. You all know why we invited his crew down—to do more with our volunteers and help more kids. So we’re going to require commitment from everyone on the team on this. Starting today.” He stared pointedly at Angela.
Embarrassment burned her cheeks, but she returned his stare with an optimistic one. She was late today, but she would make this work. She wanted to continue working here, hopefully as a case manager once she completed her graduate degree. Coming in late today was not the best start to this project, but she didn’t want Mr. Cooper to doubt her commitment.
“Alvin and his team will meet with each of you individually to go over your volunteer files and get an idea of ways to improve their participation. Because we can’t afford to shut the office down for a day, we’ll have meetings after business hours to compare notes and run training. The first meeting is today at six, so Alvin can go into more detail regarding which of his team members will work with each of you and strategize for the best use of their time while they’re here.”
