Any Minute (11 page)

“Maybe we could go away together. Leave the kids with your mom and Harold. Or maybe Mrs. Pavik would stay overnight.”

He waited a long time for an answer that didn’t come.

“Couldn’t you make time for that?”

“I’m making time for Mitchell. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? I’m taking him to the city.”

“Won’t you just
stop
?”

“You’re changing the rules on me,” she said blandly. “Every time I start to do something right, you raise the bar a little farther.”

“No I’m not. I’m not raising anything. I’m not changing anything.”

When she pivoted toward him in the chair, her eyes accused him. Other than that, they were as void of emotion as two stones.

“I don’t understand where you’re coming from anymore, Sarah. I thought the fast pace would eventually end. I thought we’d work hard together, pushing forward together for a while, and then we’d both be able to slow down and enjoy life together. I didn’t know you wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“You told me you wanted me to make time for the kids,” she persisted, her voice thick with injury. “I get so tired of you blaming me. Don’t you see how hard I’m trying?”

“I’m not blaming you for anything,” he said. “It’s you blaming yourself. It’s like you’re trying to earn membership in the human race or something.”

She glared at him.

“Why do you feel you have to push yourself so hard? What are you afraid of?”

To which she didn’t respond. She returned to the computer as if they’d never spoken.

After a horrible length of silence he said, “Guess I’m going to bed now.”

Her fingers were on the keys, the only things moving in the room. He didn’t think she’d heard him.

“Sarah?” he pressed the point. “When are you coming to bed?”

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap.
Her fingers never left the keyboard.

“I’m not coming to bed,” she said at last. Sarah knew she and Joe had serious problems, but for right now it just seemed easier to blame them on him rather than try to understand their inability to get along. She already had one of her headaches.

And Joe couldn’t have felt more like a loser if a Wrigley Field umpire had been counting strikes against him and then signaled with a hammered fist in front of thousands of people, “You’re
out
.” He could never remember feeling more defeated than he did right at that moment.

Pete practically stood on his head at the repair shop to peruse the car’s racing header. He must’ve forgotten all about their discussion of the feminine mystique.

“What do you think?”

“Hmmmm. About what? About women? Or about this baby that’s going to blow the roof off when you hit the ignition?”

“About this.” And Joe laid a hand over the fender and patted it in a gentle motion that he never would have dared risk with Sarah lately.

Pete said, “I think she’s something.”

“I think so too.”

“I think she’s going to go so fast, she’ll leave her paint behind.”

Joe had to smile at that one. “I think so too.” He figured he might as well talk about the car because talking about Sarah didn’t help anything, and Pete didn’t seem to understand anyway.

The two men stepped back and stood shoulder-to-shoulder. They crossed their arms over their broad chests, surveying this great feat of Joe’s.

“You’re going to hang around here, aren’t you, until you can see what she’ll do?”

Even though Pete shrugged nonchalantly, his eyes had gone bright with anticipation. “Guess I wouldn’t want to miss the big moment.”

“Guess you wouldn’t, at that.”

Opening the gigantic shop bay and checking the carburetor one last time should have been such a celebration. Hearing the engine spring to life after all those days of trial and error and tinkering should have brought Joe so much satisfaction.

But Joe’s happiness was dampened by his unfulfilled desire for things to be different with Sarah.

Joe climbed into the front seat, shot his friend a dull A-OK signal, and flicked the key in the ignition.

The chassis shook. The engine gave a low growl. Pistons thundered to life.

“Yes!” Pete shouted. “Oh my word. Just listen to it!”

“You think she sounds good?”

Horsepower roared under the hood. But in the driver’s seat, Joe didn’t sense the excitement he thought he would. His feet didn’t tingle to the vibration as usual. His fingers didn’t rest on the steering wheel in reverent wonder. He was just too preoccupied with thoughts of Sarah, the kids, and where their life was headed.

“Do I think she sounds good? Are you kidding me?” For several beats, Pete just listened to the car in awestruck stupor. “Whoa.” The man finally whistled. “Oh,
man
.”

There’d been a time when Joe would have felt over-the-top pride at his friend’s reaction. Pete’s words would’ve made him feel he’d made the greatest accomplishment since Chennault created the Flying Tigers.

But Joe already knew he’d be heading home tonight to a house that felt more empty than an abandoned tenement. He and Sarah would exchange meaningless words when the kids were in the room, pretending everything was all right. Sarah wouldn’t spend time with him or talk to him when they were alone. She would manage to stay busy all night on office work.

He’d be heading home to a life that had become unbearable. He should be celebrating and looking forward to telling Sarah about his accomplishment today. Sadness filled him because he knew it wouldn’t happen.

Joe didn’t know where to start to make things better between them. He didn’t believe anything would ever change. He needed to come up with a plan.

When Leo found Mitchell Harper still waiting in his mother’s office, he couldn’t believe a kid could stay patient so long. The kid, who sat dwarfed inside the big swivel chair, must have used up a whole tree’s worth of paper on the copy machine. Surreal black-and-white copies of faces and hands, or at least pieces of those things, a smashed nose, a knobby wrist, fingers in a V, an eye, lay spread across the entire width of the huge executive desk. The pictures stretched from one end to the other. Another good stack of them rested beneath Mitchell’s elbow. “What?” Leo asked, trying to make this unexpected schedule change seem like it was all in good fun. “Looks like you ran the machine out of paper.”

“I did.”

“I’m sure we could get you another ream. That’s a good five hundred more pages. You could use those up too.”

“Nah,” Mitchell said. “It’s okay.”

The entertainment had obviously gone downhill since then. After all the excitement, Mitchell had been reduced to making a chain of paper clips and dangling the chain over a magnetic cup.

“What, then? No computer games?”

“All Mom has is solitaire.”

Which didn’t need comment from either of them. “I’m sure your mom just can’t get away up there. She never knows when she’ll get called up to Roscoe’s office.”

Mitchell shrugged noncommittally. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

But it did. Leo could tell the kid was disappointed and hurt. “I’m sure she’ll be back any minute. Your mom’s got quite the reputation,” he said. “She’s very determined, always busy. She never stops.”

“My mom’s really important here, isn’t she?”

“Yes. She is.”

“She must be because that’s what she always tells my dad.” Mitchell’s voice stayed level. “That she can’t always walk away from things here when we need her.”

“She tries really hard. I know she made a big deal out of getting to the ball game on time,” Leo said, not knowing any better. “I know how excited she was about that.”

Mitchell diverted his eyes. He twisted another paper clip open and added to the string.

“She
did
make it to the game the other night, didn’t she?”

Mitchell finally put the paper clips down and met Leo’s eyes. “Leo? Do you believe there’s such a thing as angels?”

“Well, I…” What had brought this question on? He couldn’t imagine. “No. Guess not. But, you know, I haven’t thought about it much.”

“The other night I thought I saw one. Inside the scoreboard at Wrigley.” Mitchell stood tall. “At first I thought it was a man, but now I think it might have been an angel.”

“Oh really?”

“What do you think, Leo?”

“Hmmmm.” Leo didn’t know exactly what to say. Angels were outside his area of expertise these days. He just wanted to change the subject.

He hoped Mitchell hadn’t noticed how many times he’d checked his watch. He didn’t know how long his boss intended to leave him responsible for her son, but he hoped it would not be much longer.

“Hey, Mitchell, are you going to take those paper clips apart again? It’s always a bummer when you go to pick up one of them and get the whole string.”

Leo left Mitchell plying paper clips apart and going around in circles in the executive chair. And when Leo made the call he dreaded, “You’re still there?” the girl on the other end of the line asked, dumbfounded. “That woman walks all over you, did you know that?”

“She’s my boss. She’s given me the opportunity of a lifetime, working here. What I want doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, come on, Leo. She lectured you about taking an extra ten minutes off at lunch to get a haircut last week.”

“So? I should have scheduled the haircut on my own time.”

“She lectured you about having to get stitches in the emergency room. What were you supposed to do? Stop your bleeding on your own time too?”

“You don’t know what it’s like.” Leo shook his head with profound blind loyalty. “She’s the ticket to my career. I owe her a lot.”

Tom Roscoe gave Sarah a big buy order he wanted her to execute for a client. He explained that he wanted her to buy the same list of commodities for him first, even though the order might drive the price up for the customer. Sarah knew what would happen. When the order went in for the client, it would further raise the price. Then Roscoe would sell his own contract at a profit.

Sarah said, “I thought you wanted me working solely on the other account. I don’t—”

He stopped her. “I know I promised exclusivity. But sometimes there isn’t any choice but to be flexible.” His eyes burned with purpose. “We both know I need someone with a head like yours, especially in a market that’s this unpredictable.”