Free Any Minute by Meyer Joyce Bedford Deborah Page B

she’d just scolded for being friendly with a good-for-nothing stranger in the street and for whom she’d planned a day that she’d hoped would rival a major-league all-star game.
    All she could think of was the pounding panic in her heart and the possibility that with one slip of her tongue, one wrong word or one misplaced idea, the same thing could happen to her.
    She could get fired too. And then where would she be?
    Ashamed.
    Afraid.
    Worth nothing.
    I don’t care how hard I have to work—Tom Roscoe will never have a reason to fire me.
    I don’t care how tired and confused I feel—I’m going to do whatever I have to do to protect my position.
    One by one, Leo began crumpling the pink message slips and making arcing free-throw shots into the trash can, returning Sarah’s attention to the matter at hand. “Leo?”
    “Yes?”
    Sarah glimpsed a reflection of herself across the way in the mirror on the wall, and the woman she saw was someone she didn’t recognize. Yes, even though she was one of the lucky few to keep her job in the financial market, she looked older than her years—and frantic. The more stressful the choices she had to make on the trading floor, the more she worked to prove her worth to people around her, the more it seemed these people expected more and more. Everyone was in control but her, she thought. Yet it was more than just the job or her relationship with her husband or the things Mitchell and Kate needed from her. Sarah felt this deep dissatisfaction but couldn’t quite put her finger on the cause.
    She felt alone even though she was surrounded by people all the time.
    “Keep Mitchell entertained as long as you have to, would you?”
    Sarah’s weariness went way beyond the hours of work and the challenge of managing a family and of being a good wife. It went way beyond the guilt she felt for missing Mitchell’s classroom parties even though she always sent snacks, way beyond worrying about getting the schnauzer to the dog park or managing a drive schedule so Mitchell got to the field house for his Scout meeting, way beyond the nuisance of people trying to ply her for trading tips whenever they wanted.
    Even now, her life seemed to be dangling on a thin string, and she feared it could break at any moment. Sarah didn’t know how to make herself or the people around her happy anymore. And wasn’t that what being alive was all about, about being
happy
?
    She opened her office door a crack and called to Mitchell.
    “I’m headed upstairs, kiddo. I’ll be back any minute.”
    Then, to Leo, “Text Tom again for me, would you? Let him know I’m on my way?”
    Leo raised his chin as if to say,
Go ahead. I got you.
Then he nodded broadly. “You don’t even have to ask.”

Chapter Seven
     
    T he red convertible stood angled in the middle of Joe’s repair shop with its hood yawning open. From beneath the hood came a series of thuds and grunts. After a bit, a wrench fell to the ground with a resounding clatter.
    “Hey. Anybody in here?” Joe’s best friend, Pete, knocked on the doorjamb with the same solid strokes he would use to pound a post into the ground. “You working hard or hardly working?”
    Joe muttered something unintelligible, untangled his excessive height from under the hinged cover, and swabbed his forehead with the greasy chamois from his rear pocket. “A little of both.”
    Which was all the invitation Pete needed. He joined his friend beside the front fender and examined the workings of the car.
    “Need help with that?” Pete surveyed the gleaming pistons and the polished valve covers with reverent awe. “How could a blockhead like you make a performance engine fit into this heap?”
    With a satisfied humph, Joe slid beneath the car’s chassis, fished for the wrench he’d lost, and located it beside the front tire. “Just wait until you hear this thing start up. Then you call me a blockhead.” He handed Pete the wrench, making it clear that his best buddy