Free L.A. Woman by Cathy Yardley

set career, while I’m still bobbing, but…but I mean, I’ve been working really hellish hours…”
    “That he’s been working all this time,” Judith interjected.
    “Judith, you’re not helping!” Sarah finally burst out.
    “Sarah, I’m trying to. I’m trying to help you put this in perspective.” Her voice had the cold logic of Mr. Spock. Sarah bit back on a pout, feeling like a complete and utter idiot. “He’s been working really hard to try to get down here to be with you. He’s been working crazy hours for years, while you’ve flitted from job to job. You volunteered to help him out by moving down here. Now, are you going to help him out or not?”
    “I thought you’d be on my side, is all,” Sarah finally grumped. “I’m being a complete baby about this, aren’t I?” Strangely, she felt a little better—like she wasn’t dating a loser prick, as Martika was intimating.
    Judith smiled. “You’re just losing perspective a little, that’s all. You’ve become really independent lately, and that’s a big change.”
    Sarah sighed. “Work has really been grating on me.”
    “You’ll get used to it.”
    But I don’t want to get used to it!
    Sarah sipped at her Diet Coke. “Well, does it get any easier?”
    “Yes. After a while, it’s like you’ve been doing it all your life. It’ll be like…brushing your teeth, washing your face. You won’t remember a time when your life wasn’t like this. Here’s a bit of advice from a greeting card I once got…”
    “Judith,” Sarah warned.
    “I like it. It said, ‘Not shelter from the storm, but peace within the storm.’ You just have to look at life like that. Recognize how everything is, and be okay with it.”
    That was depressing enough to send Sarah to the dessert tray with Chocolate Suicide in mind.

Chapter 5
Break on Through
    P eace within the storm, peace within the storm, Sarah thought, as she made copies in the office. It was three in the morning. She was here, alone, with a temp from CompuPros. He was working furiously on one of their stronger graphic design computers, doing some complicated presentation with animation and music and movie clips. He hummed the theme to Star Trek to himself incessantly as he ate Chee•tos and drank Mountain Dew. “Highest caffeine of any regular brand,” he confided in her, producing a two-liter bottle from his knapsack. “I don’t like the taste of Jolt. Those are a hell of a lot of copies,” he noted, as the computer whirred, processing something. “Why don’t you send it out to Kinko’s?”
    Sarah rubbed at her eyes, waiting for the bleary, blurred vision to clear. After a second, it did. “My boss wants me to keep an eye on it. Kinko’s screwed up her last order.”
    “Must’ve been pretty bad.” He shrugged.
    “It wasn’t entirely their fault,” Sarah said, trying not to lose count. At least the conversation was keeping her awake. “But…well, you met my boss.”
    “Briefly.” The man’s tone spoke volumes. “She always like that?”
    “She’s been stressed…” Sarah started to make the excuse, then sighed. “Yes. She’s always like that.” She took a deepbreath as she hit the stapler with a little too much force. She pulled out the crumpled bit of metal and tried again, more carefully. “She threw such a fit that the Kinko’s manager said not only would he not help her, he was going to send her picture out like a Wanted poster to all the other branches in a fifteen-mile radius. I thought Becky was going to have an aneurysm.”
    “So you’re here by yourself.”
    Sarah nodded. She was doing the binders, and revising the spreadsheets, and revising the presentation notes, and making sure that all the arrangements for the team offsite that Becky was planning was going according to schedule. Raquel, their admin, had lost her marbles over the weekend, and had quit by sharpening a pencil to a spike point and driving it through a note on Becky’s desk that said I