Free From Now On by Louise Brooks

into the room, gesturing over his shoulder with an awkward smile. “He said he had something he needed to do on the second floor. He sent me to help you out.”
                  Jo knew what that meant. Mark would rather lie and make excuses than be forced to be alone with her again.              
     
    The next morning, Jo walked into a meeting that was already in progress and unobtrusively slipped into a chair at the back of the room. Kathleen nodded in her direction before turning her attention to a presentation Becca was giving. Jo looked down at her notepad, doodling stick figures absently as she listened to the discussion of budget cuts the CFO had recently announced. Everyone was tightening their belts these days. It brought to mind another request for more funds Jo’s mother had made just the night before. How she was going to pay her own rent and her mother’s expenses this month Jo had no way of knowing. As if she didn’t have enough on her mind at the moment.
                  Jo glanced up as the meeting came to an end. Becca was looking in her direction before she turned to Kathleen, laughing at something the director said. Then, as though stepping straight out of her thoughts, Mark came into the room. He walked straight to Kathleen and Becca’s little group. Jo tried to catch his eye, even lifted her hand in the beginnings of a wave when his eyes landed briefly on her face. His expression darkened and he turned away, moving closer to Kathleen.
                  Jo’s stomach dropped to her feet. Clearly nothing had changed. In fact, she had the sense that things had only gotten worse. She regretted trying to force him to talk to her the day before. He must think she was stalking him, or something. Poor pathetic Jo, can’t seem to get the message even when his actions make it loud and clear.
    Jo stood. She could feel eyes on her, but she couldn’t see anything but Mark’s hand on the small of Kathleen’s back as he guided her out of the room.
     
     
    “Have dinner with me.”
                  Jo sighed into her cell phone. It was three days later, and Jo still couldn’t get Mark out of her mind. She had not seen him again, but somehow she didn’t really expect to. She wanted to talk to him, but what could she say? It seemed there was nothing adequate to say.
                  “I’m really not in the mood,” Jo said.
                  “Come on, Jo. I haven’t seen you since we set the date. I really need to talk to my big sister.”
                  It was the “Please, please, pretty please,” that finally got to Jo.
                  They met at Sfuzzi. Neither had ever been there before, but all Emily had to do was flirt with the middle-aged maître‘d and they got a prime table in the middle of the dining room, perfect for Emily to see and be seen. For the first fifteen minutes they were there Jo found herself studying the menu alone while Emily held court.
                  “Sorry,” Emily finally said as she took her seat. “I haven’t seen her for over a year. Can you believe we picked the same night to have dinner out?”
                  “Amazing,” Jo mumbled.
                  Emily missed the sarcasm in Jo’s voice and quickly launched into a recital of everything she and their mother had done to prepare for the wedding in the past week. Jo only caught part of it, the part where her mother had promised to pay for the flowers and the caterer, which meant that Jo would be paying for it. Great. Another debt to add to her growing financial instability. That promotion sure would have come in handy right about then.
                  Jo picked at her food, not really in the mood for the veal parmesan she had ordered. Emily happily chattered on. Jo looked across the table at her and had a sudden memory of a time when she was eight and Emily was