Finding Far Away by Lisa Wade

Author:Lisa Wade
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Publish on Demand Global LLC

CHAPTER 29

02/11/01

Tuesday, Alex phoned me in the office while Joe Blake was lurking about. I tried not to show any outwards signs of the stomach fluttering that occurred during the call. On the ride home, Joe Blake and I got into an argument about hiring this guy from the Ministry who Joe Blake and the GM were still trying to convince me would be good for us.

“You know, you’re fucking impossible to argue with! I just as well drop the damn subject because I can’t win!” I threw up my arms in the passenger seat and exclaimed at him.

He looked at me totally calmly, and then a very slow smile spread across his face, “Well I’m going to take that as an extreme compliment from you, as you’re quite bullheaded yourself.”

I was speechless for a second and then I exclaimed, “I am not!” Then, in spite of everything, we both laughed at this, and the tension passed. I swear I would give anything to be as cool as this guy always seemed to be.

Wednesday morning, I went to another meeting about water quality. Russ Hanson came in, then one of our long-time consultants, followed by an extremely young looking engineer called Billy. We learned that Billy grew up on a hog farm in Indiana. He must’ve been barely out of college; just to look at his adorable face was to see innocence. I worried that he would be eaten alive by the industry. During the meeting, we all hammered out the details for containment of runoff from one of the cells we were planning for the new waste dump. The waste dump was designed to preclude any acid rock drainage; however, contingencies for this were always included in the design for all new mines. We had to capture and treat the storm water runoff from it before it could be discharged from the site.

Later that day, I hooked up with Hanson and the consultants in the field, and we cruised the Project’s construction areas. I pointed out to Russ all the disturbance areas that I thought he should include in his reclamation plan.

“We all know the GM doesn’t like getting those nasty letters complaining about the sediment from our friends downstream,” I said.

Russ was agreeable, Russ is almost always agreeable. He then sneaks around when you’re not looking, and does something else. But when you bust him, he looks properly sheepish and admits it was all his fault. And then he runs off and fixes it right. It is impossible to maintain being mad with Hanson.

A full-blown confrontation between us is rare; it is also scares me. He yells, then I yell, and he’s always the best and last to yell. He is far superior to me in the ways of yelling confrontations. We are always friends just the same afterward, which kind of scares me too. This is how men fight, and I am learning. However, my preference is to hold a lifelong grudge. Men do not have the energy to hold a lifelong grudge.

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