Free By the Book by Mary Kay McComas Page A

it—and she was simply too nice, too kind to instill false hopes where they didn’t belong.
    “I did say you should. And I still want you to. I just can’t promise I’ll always agree with you.”

CHAPTER FOUR
STEP FOUR
Say no ... and mean it.
    —Nora Roberts
    Though it’s easy to spell and one of the shortest words in the English language, no is extremely hard to say and even more difficult to enforce. But it’s not impossible. No is a complete sentence in and of itself. No explanations are needed. No excuses required. If you mean to say no, say it. Then say it again. And again ...
    “N O. NO. NO,” SHE told her mother over the phone. “Do not touch your savings or even think of cashing in one of your bonds to pay his gambling debts, Mom. You need that money to live on.” It was midmorning and already her stomach was growling for lunch. Hungry and now angry she could hear her own voice puncturing the ceiling of the requisite noise level inside the bank. She glanced about, saw heads turning, and lowered it. “Listen to me, Mom. Just giving him the money isn’t going to help. He’ll do it again and again until you’re broke.” She listened. “No, I can’t get him a loan here. He has no collateral and I know he won’t pay it back. No. No. I haven’t abandoned him. I told him this morning I’d help him think of something, and I will. But you have to promise me not to give him another dime.” She waited. “Promise me. Okay. Now try to relax. Remember your blood pressure. We’ll think of something. I love you too.”
    She hung up the phone and pressed her eyes closed with her fingers. This lesson in saying no was getting a real workout. She’d told Felix, “No. No. No,” earlier that morning when he’d suggested she loan him the money.
    “I won’t,” she’d said, recalling that the counselor she and Jane and her mother had gone to see about Felix’s drinking problem had said it would only make his drinking easier for him, loaning him money, solving his problems for him. “I couldn’t anyway. I don’t have that kind of money just sitting around.”
    “It doesn’t have to be the whole ten thousand. Five would keep them off my back for a while,” he said, nursing a cup of black coffee. He actually looked better drunk than sober these days. To see what he’d become was heart wrenching.
    “You don’t have anything you could sell? Nothing stashed away?”
    He gave her a flat look. “You mean all the stale air she left me after the divorce? I doubt anyone would be interested in buying the air I breathe. But maybe this old shirt?” His expression brightened falsely. “Think I could sell the shirt off my back?”
    “I’m trying to help you.”
    “Then you’re going to have to come up with more than a buck fifty-two. These guys are serious, Ellen.”
    “I realize that,” she said, getting up from the small kitchen table to put her cup in the sink. She hesitated and frowned over his reference to a buck fifty-two, then let it go. “I have to go to work. You stay here today. Sleep. Don’t drink. Don’t go out to drink. I need time to think.”
    “Don’t take too long.”
    “Ellen?” She jumped at the sound of her name, turned to find Joleen standing beside her desk, looking concerned. “Is everything all right? Are you all right?”
    “No,” she said automatically. “But I will be. It’s just some personal stuff. Can I do something for you?”
    Joleen looked around them for privacy, then bent low and spoke in a soft voice. “It’s about the loan you’ve applied for at Quincey’s First Savings and Loan.”
    “What loan?”
    She made an awkward noise in her throat. “The loan they called here to get a personal reference for just now. As an employee of First Federal, you should have come here first, dear. I know it isn’t any of my business, but we have special rates for—”
    “I haven’t applied for a loan anywhere. I don’t know what you’re talking about,