I know. I know. It’s been a minute.

Any of you who follow me understand I’ve been busy with multiple other projects, and that these projects (just as in my everyday life) always involve negotiation. I live and breathe the stuff. I have more posts on the topic, but I can assure you of something since I last showed up here:

Humans negotiate better than AI.

I always include negotiation scenes in my fiction writing, including the internationally acclaimed dual timeline San Francisco family saga, The Covert Buccaneer, and its sequel (coming 2027), Bitter & Sweet: The Houses of Torani & Trieste.

So here’s one of those scenes—the opening negotiation from The Covert Buccaneer. Following the scene, we’ll break it down using the tell-all negotiation theory and strategy I’ve shared here.

This is a clean, high-functioning negotiation scene because the tension isn’t just distributive (“how much?”) — it’s structural, temporal, and moral. I’ve embedded multiple negotiation dynamics simultaneously, which makes it more than just didactic.

Ready?

The Scene

January 10, 2019. San Francisco, CA.

A quarter past three, and the fog swaggered in, taunted into a rematch by the Golden Gate’s bratty undertow. Although born and raised just outside Chicago, where she had stoically braved real winters, the wet, windy San Francisco fog chilled Ellie down to the bone.

Ellie pulled a pashmina around her shoulders and slid past her clunky desk to shut the drafty window. Turning back, she studied her client, Fernanda Salinas. They had just spent the past two hours in deposition in a conference room down the hall, facing down the attorney for Assurance Underwriters of California. Fernanda, a refugee from western Mexico, had been fired from her hotel housekeeping job after catching her hand in a fire door, which had been pushed open by a frazzled banquet manager.

Instead of filing a workers’ compensation report and covering the hospital bill for X-rays, surgery, and physical therapy, the hotel management had sent Fernanda her pink slip, firing her from the job and cutting off her meager income. The result was the eviction of Fernanda and her three children from their small, cockroach-infested apartment, as she’d struggled to pay her medical bills. No rent, no mercy.

When she had come to Elizabeth House, a women’s shelter in Oakland, for help, they had a waitlist for housing women with children, but an outreach worker had put Fernanda in touch with the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative, where Ellie had started working just two months ago. The offices at 4 Embarcadero Center were a departure from the sleek marbled suites at Hutton & Fetterer, where she’d previously worked; here, the surfaces were firmly chipboard, but she had been buoyed by the work and felt a sense of worth. Now, she saw Fernanda’s face, eyes shining, tears trickling down her cheeks.

Moments earlier, the attorney for Assurance had paused the testimony and pulled Ellie aside with an offer. A settlement — today, if her client would sign now. Ellie had known exactly what that meant. They saw the same thing she did in the medical records. The damaged finger wasn’t healing well, and there was a real risk of amputation. They wanted to cut their losses and close the case before that certainty.

The case was worth much more. But she also knew Fernanda’s situation — no home, no income, no time left to wait.

“How long?” asked Fernanda. “How long for the money?”

“Oh,” said Ellie. “Well, there’ll be a bit of paperwork, but it’ll come through in a couple of weeks. They tend to want to tie these things up and close them off.”

Fernanda nodded.

“Yes, yes, I’ll sign; can I sign now?” Fernanda clasped her hands on the table, supporting her still-recovering right hand with her left.

Ellie’s stomach tightened. Fifteen grand was a fortune to Fernanda — but waiting a few months could mean twice that. Maybe more. Today’s offer was a pittance to Assurance; their reputation of denying and delaying claims, wringing people to the point of desperation, was legendary. Ellie had trained in a shark tank. If only Fernanda would let her circle a little longer.

Ellie hesitated. “Yes, we can draw up the paperwork today. But Fernanda … you’re sure? Just a few months more and —”

How could she put it to Fernanda? How could she persuade this woman to wait even a day longer in this horrendous situation?

“Escucha, Fernanda. Podría ser mejor ...