Power and Passion (5 page)

"Podcasts?" Joan said with a small laugh as
she brought up her email on the computer. Things sure had changed
since she had started her first job in the nonprofit sector in the
1980s with the American Cancer Society. She had been actively
involved in the first team relay event, the City of Destiny Classic
twenty-four-hour Run Against Cancer. At the time no one had
imagined it would turn into what it is today: every year about
fifty-two hundred Relay for Life events take place across the
United States, and the American Cancer Society has licensed more
than twenty organizations in other countries to hold Relay for Life
events to fight cancer across the world.

Back when Joan had started, everything had
been done through word of mouth, phone calls, and wheat-pasting
flyers around neighborhoods one at a time. There were no electronic
devices to transmit thoughts in milliseconds and to keep track of
where you were every second of the day. And awards—Joan laughed
again just thinking of herself back then, when she had done the
work because she loved the people, because she wanted to improve
lives and seemed to have a knack for motivating others to help her
do it.

Over the years some things had stayed the
same, but so much more was different now. She was just as driven
and determined as ever, but now she gained accolades. Not that she
had started Hearts and Minds in order to gain them. No, those had
just seemed to start coming one day, and they hadn't stopped since.
She had never once asked or in any way applied for one. People had
just taken notice of her organization's work, she supposed, and
decided it was worthy of some lavish praise. She was grateful, of
course, and gracious in accepting them. But mostly she was pleased
to know that with every award she accepted, with every thank-you
speech she delivered, she was making more and more people aware of
what she and her company stood for and the essential life-saving
programs that were available to those who needed them.

Joan was still a rabble-rouser at heart; she
lived for forging new territory, and cancer research and awareness
were relatively new to the people of Dubai. When she had moved
there with her husband five years earlier, the disease had been a
word spoken only in hushed whispers, as if saying it aloud made it
contagious. Then shortly after the move, she had undergone her own
scare when a mammogram had come back with an abnormal reading.
Subsequent tests had come out normal, thank God, but Joan had to be
constantly vigilant, which was not an easy feat in a region where
cancer was still so misunderstood. Now getting the message out was
the most important thing to her so people could find the
information they needed in order to empower themselves in their
fights against cancer.

She sighed and leaned back in her chair.
"And what about the afternoon?"

Mina, who had helped herself to a date, took
a moment to swallow as she consulted her schedule diary once again.
"The usual—all-staff lunch meeting at noon, conference calls with
the Middle East Cancer Consortium and World Health Organization,
meet and greet with the execs from the new hospital wing—"

"All right," Joan interrupted, though Mina
didn't mind. This was their normal banter, a comfortable back and
forth in which they cut off as well as finished each other's
sentences. "I'll do the interviews because I have to." She smirked
at Mina, who held out the gift box of food to her. Joan appraised
it for a moment then delicately pulled out a lemon-filled date,
took a bite, and savored it for a moment. So delicious. "But can we
reschedule the conference calls and maybe schedule more time with
the hospital people? The MECC and WHO are important, but the
hospital is good, old-fashioned, boots-on-the-ground stuff, and
that's what I want to work on today."

Mina nodded as she crossed off items on the
day's to-do list and wrote more notes on the already overcrowded
page. "Not a problem at all. Should I call the hospital folks and
see if we can show up a little earlier? Maybe get a tour of the
place?"

Joan grinned at her again. "Mina, you've
read my mind as usual." She popped the remainder of the date in her
mouth then waved a hand at her assistant. "Now off with you. Take a
break. And here." She pushed the box full of sweet treats back
across the desk. "Please take this with you. Make sure everybody
gets some."

"Yes, ma'am." Mina smiled back and stood up
then with the wooden box under one arm and her planner under the
other, headed out into the bustling outer room of the Hearts and
Minds offices. Joan watched her go and wade her way in among the
cubicles, stopping at each with a warm smile, offering dates and
chocolates to the other employees. Some were at their desks, and
others were running around from one place to another, collaborating
and, in short, making things happen.

Joan watched them all with a surge of pride.
This was a fantastic team, and she thanked God she'd had the good
fortune to be able to assemble them all in the right place at the
right time. She had gradually built a multicultural team around
her, assigning responsibilities according to each individual's
strengths. She remembered how, when she'd first started, she'd had
to micromanage and spend time explaining how she wanted things
done, but now they really were a seamless and perfectly oiled
machine running on its own accord. Perhaps Joan was the mastermind
of the organization—she had been called that in the media more than
once, though she felt uneasy thinking of herself that way—but these
were the people who made the magic happen. She knew it was a team
effort that had gotten her mission off the ground.

"Okay, enough reminiscing," she told herself
then turned back to her computer and the dozens of emails that
awaited her. Some were congratulations for the award she had won,
some requests for interviews, some inquiries into the services
Hearts and Minds offered. These last were what made Joan the
happiest, and she got to answering them right away, telling
everyone who wanted to know about their capabilities, from public
seminars to health-care worker in-services to working with
facilities to offer the most state-of-the-art screening
technologies available. Basically, if there was a need in the area
of cancer awareness or research, Joan found a way for her
organization to fill it no matter what it took. Whatever she could
do to make a difference in even just one person's life, it was
worth it. And that was the mantra by which she tried to live her
professional and personal life every day.

Y
ou look ill, dear. Are you feeling okay?"
Sara's mother asked as her daughter entered the kitchen. Her
parents, seated at the table with cups of coffee in front of them,
both looked at her with concerned expressions.

"Yes, I am fine," Sara replied. "Just
exhausted. I had some trouble sleeping last night. I have all these
ideas about how to raise awareness for the Special Olympics in my
head now, thanks to you two." She poured herself a cup of hot water
from the kettle then sat down with Ali and Soraya.

"So you've given it some thought then," her
father said, putting aside the newspaper he had been reading. "And
what did you come up with?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure. I have to do
some more research, but I think a fundraiser gala might be the best
way to go."

"Oh, a gala," her mother said, sounding
delighted. "What a wonderful idea."

Sara nodded as she sipped her tea. "Yes, it
seems like it will work, but I really have to think it through."
She paused and looked at her wristwatch. "Oh, and I have to go.
Meeting Pierce for breakfast."

She stood up quickly then bent down to hug
her parents, trying to ignore the expressions on their faces—the
same ones they always had when she mentioned Pierce. They really
did try hard to like him, or at least to accept that he was going
to be a permanent fixture in their lives. Sara was engaged to him,
after all. But she knew, even if they didn't say it exactly, that
they were not pleased by her choice of husband. Their doubts had
made her question the relationship more than once; her parents'
opinions were so important to her. But there was one thought she
always came back to: it was her life, and she could marry whomever
she wanted. So she went ahead with the engagement and hoped that in
time her parents would see Pierce the same way she did.

After leaving the apartment, she took the
stairs down to the garage and got into her car then headed out into
the light early-morning traffic. It was not yet rush hour, when the
streets would become jammed with vehicles, though the new Dubai
Metro rail system had done a lot to decongest the roads. Sara was
pleased that even further expansion was planned.

As she approached the Atlantis Hotel on The
Palm, where she was supposed to meet Pierce, she slowed the car to
take in the view. Sara had always been in awe of this structure,
with its sky-high towers and the great, spade-shaped arch that
bridged them together. It was truly a massive place with not just
the hotel but twenty different restaurants and bars, a private
beach, a water park, shops, and who knew what else. Sara had been
there so many times—just to visit, not to stay overnight—but had
barely seen a portion of it.

After parking her car, she crossed the
massive parking lot and made her way into the ornate, high-vaulted
lobby of the hotel featuring a large glass sculpture. Checking her
watch as she strode toward Rostang, the Atlantis's French
restaurant and one of her and Pierce's favorite breakfast spots,
she grinned. She was right on time; he would be so pleased. A
businessman to his core, her fiancé greatly valued things like
punctuality.

Of course he was early. Sara found Pierce at
their usual table, a cozy nook with a booth on one side and a
small, round table. Her heart skipped a beat just at the sight of
him. Pierce was so handsome in his dark suit and tie, the perfect
picture of a CEO, which Sara knew one day he would be. He was
already the top executive at the real-estate firm where he worked;
there was no doubt he would be in charge of things there before he
turned thirty.

"Hi, my love," she said as she approached
the table. Pierce, who had been scrolling through email on his
phone, stood up quickly to greet her with a hug and a kiss on the
cheek then waited for her to be seated.

"How are you?" he asked, turning off his
phone and slipping it into a pocket inside his suit jacket.

Sara put her purse down on the booth's bench
seat. "I'm doing well," she said. "Didn't sleep too great, but one
of those good pastries they have here will certainly pick me
up."

"I already ordered for us," Pierce replied
just a moment before a waiter came over with a tray full of dishes
and cups. There was an array of pastries and small baguettes and
dishes of butter and jam, plus two ceramic cups, a steaming,
aromatic teapot, and two tall glasses of freshly squeezed orange
juice.

"Wow," Sara breathed. "It all looks so
good."

When the waiter was done laying out the
spread on the table, Pierce motioned to Sara to dig in, and she
didn't waste a moment. She helped herself to a cheesy Danish as
Pierce poured them both tea.

"So, tell me, what was that call about last
night?" he asked as he set the teapot back on the table, giving her
a warm smile, the corners of his mouth crinkling up in the way Sara
loved. She finished her bite of pastry and patted her mouth with
her heavy cloth napkin.

"You know me. My brain just never turns off.
I was up half the night Googling and writing notes."

"About what then?"

"About this whole gala idea you put in my
head last night." She reached across the table and poked his arm
playfully. She was happy that he seemed to be in a better mood than
he was the day before. "You've got me thinking I can actually pull
it off."

Pierce shrugged. "Of course you can. Why
wouldn't you? So what did your midnight research session turn
up?"

Sara hesitated. It had turned up plenty—ten
pages' worth of notes, to be exact, with pictures from different
websites pasted in and even a chart. It all seemed a little much
now, a little silly to her in the light of day. But this was Pierce
asking, after all. And if he really wanted to see…

"Well, I wrote down a few things," she said,
opening up her bag and pulling out a folder. She passed it over to
Pierce across the table; he shook off the crumbs from the baguette
he was eating and took it from her. Leaning back in his chair, he
opened the folder and pulled out the document.

While he scanned the pages, brow lowered in
concentration, Sara drank her tea and helped herself to a small
chunk of a baguette. Smearing it with the dark blackberry jam, she
took a bite and closed her eyes. Even such simple food here was
divine, the bread so warm and soft, the jelly so perfectly
sweet.