Any Minute: A Novel

by Deborah Bedford

  “Yeah.”

  Mitchell figured he was in deep trouble for not obeying his mom. “If you do not come with me this minute, young man,” she said, covering her mouthpiece with her hand because she’d answered her phone again, “you will be grounded from Cubs games for as long as I’m alive.”

  He was just turning to follow her when the man in the wingtip shoes called, “Hey, kid.” He pointed to the collection bin. “You want me to dig you something out of here?”

  Mitchell shrugged and called back, “Don’t need anything much.” But then he brightened. “I’d take it if you found a Cubs shirt.”

  “Plenty of Cubs shirts in here,” he said. “You stop back by, I’ll have you one. Folks throw those out all the time. Now take White Sox shirts. Those are a whole lot harder to come by. Folks hang on to those.”

  Mitchell did a double take as he got a closer look. Behind his glass lenses, his eyes went round as hickory nuts. “I saw you from the bleachers, didn’t I?”

  It all started to make sense. The way the man leaned on the open bin and propped his arms into a wide D against the door. The way what was left of his hair sprang from his ears like the feathers of a half-plucked turkey.

  Mitchell felt the awesome thrum of his pulse. His heart felt like it might thump clear out of his chest. “You were at the game, weren’t you? In the scoreboard?”

  In spite of his disheveled appearance, the gentleman snapped to attention with military precision. “You recognize me, don’t you? Yes, I was there.” His gaze popped right, to his left, to his right again, hoping no one would overhear. “But maybe now’s not the best time to tell everybody about it.”

  “Mom!” Mitchell called. “This man is our friend. I saw him at the Cubs game. He was keeping score. He was watching me and Dad!” Sarah kept getting phone calls and taking them; otherwise, they would have been long gone. She certainly wasn’t paying any attention to what he was saying right now; she just looked frustrated that she had a plan, and for some reason it kept being thwarted.

  The fellow raised his bristly eyebrows and clamped his mouth shut tighter than a varmint trap.

  Mitchell was unsettled now, but for completely different reasons than his mom. He fished inside his pocket. He had almost a dollar in there if you counted all the dimes he’d made carrying groceries for Mrs. Fogelman down the street. “If I had time and I was lost, you could show me the ‘L’ stop. Here’s all the money I got.”

  “That’s not why I’m here, Mitchell.”

  The little boy held out a sweaty palm with every coin to his name in it. “Here. Take it.”

  “Mitchell,” his mom said, interrupting her latest cell-phone call and anticipating his move. “You may not do that.”

  “How come you know my name?” Mitchell whispered, marveling and somewhat confused. “Until now, my mom never said it in front of you.”

  His mom took his hand and pulled him after her. “Come away from him now. Please.”

  “But, Mom.”

  “I said now!”

  For the entire length of the block, Mitchell couldn’t stop craning his neck, peering behind him.

  Chapter Six

  Tom Roscoe had just crumpled a cup and pitched it inside the wastebasket when Lauren Davis appeared beside him. “Tom,” she said. “We have to talk.”

  He noted the dark concern in her eyes. “What about?”

  “I’ve made a decision, and I need to speak with you right away.”

  Tom led her to his office and closed the door. He braided his fingers atop his desk and waited. Lauren seemed nervous. She wasn’t saying anything yet. Finally he could stand the silence no longer. He blurted, “I didn’t think you needed reminding. It’s your duty to present strong numbers for us. That’s why I hired you.” Tom was a bit nervous himself. He figured Lauren was getting squeamish about the proposal he wanted her to offer Nielsen. Tom was willing to do anything in an attempt to punish his old clients for their defection.

  “Which I will do.” Lauren leaned forward in the massive leather armchair, matching Roscoe’s predatory body language limb for limb. “I’ll put together the strongest portfolio possible and present it to a prospective client,” she said in her measured voice. “But I won’t help you manipulate those prices. It’s revenge.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll only do my job by honorable means.”

  “Honorable means?” Roscoe asked. “Will you let the Nielsens decide what’s honorable or not? They’re the ones who broke the contract. They’re the ones who pulled out first.”

  She said, “I’m afraid I have to turn it down. I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look so stricken, Mr. Roscoe. I’m sure you can find someone else who will do this for you. It doesn’t have to be me.”

  Tom wasn’t one to mince words. He had one goal and one alone—to keep this company going. He wanted to continue to live his life in the manner to which he was accustomed. He wanted to leave an inheritance for his sons that would allow them to do the same.

  He wanted them to have dugout seats in the club section at Wrigley Field. He wanted them to be able to live in Lincoln Park and play golf at the country club and send their children to the finest schools. He wanted to give them everything he’d struggled through the years to build. He wanted them never to have to live as he had, with a father who was an alcoholic and who had left his mother to feed a family of six on money she made doing other people’s ironing. Like Sarah, Tom failed to realize that money and things were not what his children needed. It was him they wanted.

  “Look,” he said. “All I asked you to do was have a look at the list.”

  “Which I did. I looked at the list.”

  “And?”

  “It was quite the lineup.” Then she reiterated her position, her words controlled. “Tom, I’ll put together the best managed-futures fund I can for the Nielsen family. I’d be happy to rely on my own intuition and expertise to bring them back into the fold. But I won’t resort to manipulating prices under the table as you’ve suggested. I won’t resort to paybacks.”

  Tom hadn’t built this company by being indecisive or under-handed, and he convinced himself that he wasn’t being dishonest now. He was simply taking advantage of the same creative options that other successful commodities traders knew to employ. If he was willing to be somewhat more inventive than others, well, just chalk that up to his experience and his commitment to his sons and to his single-minded focus on leaving a legacy for them.

  Lauren Davis had made one mistake and one mistake alone. She had confronted Tom Roscoe. That was something nobody did and stayed around to talk about.

  “If you won’t do everything under your power to pursue your career here, Lauren,” he told the woman sitting across the desk while her eyes blazed at him, “I’ll have to hire someone else who will.”

  Sarah punched the button on the elevator in the Roscoe Building. The brass door slid shut and, above it, the numbers started to climb.

  She leaned against the wall and stared at the ceiling, discouragement a leaden weight in her chest.

  Sarah had planned a special day for Mitchell to make up for missing the Cubs game. To her disappointment, it hadn’t worked that way at all.

  Where she’d hoped Mitchell would be interested in the ticker numbers streaming across the boards, he’d spent his time spinning round and round in the pit, getting tangled up in about a thousand Ethernet cables instead.

  When she’d wanted to introduce him to the ninth-floor guys who called her “Andretti,” Mitchell had conveniently gone missing in a sea of legs.

  When she’d tried to teach him how to buy and sell with hand signals, Mitchell had turned so timid and scared that he’d cried, “Mom, this isn’t for kids,” at which she’d lost her patience with a horrible snap. “What’s the difference? If you can get excited for Zambrano and Edmonds at the ball game, then at least try to do it for me!”

  She berated herself. What is it with you
, Sarah? Can’t you do anything right for them anymore? Her job might be strenuous, and maybe she struggled putting in long hours down in The Loop, but Mitchell and Kate meant everything to her. Why was she always losing her temper with the kids?

  Sarah loved them both so much she couldn’t catch her breath when she thought of it. If anything ever happened to one of them… she couldn’t imagine how she would keep going. Imagine someone who could talk a cookie right out of the hands of a little boy! Imagine someone who could convince a child in one minute, one minute, that he could be a trusted friend! The very thought filled her with terror when she remembered how fast Mitchell opened up to a complete stranger. And a street bum at that!

  I saw him at the Cubs game. Mitchell had seen more than forty thousand people at the Cubs game. He was watching me and Dad. Those words sent chills up her spine.

  She’d scolded Mitchell soundly about it the minute she’d gotten him away. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk to strangers?” she’d asked, gripping his shoulders. “Didn’t I tell you to ask an adult before talking to anyone like that? Didn’t I tell you to always check with me first?”

  He’d scuffed the curb with his toe and hadn’t raised his eyes.

  “Don’t you remember talking about stranger danger?”

  He’d nodded so hard, his bangs flopped and his glasses slid sideways.

  “Have you really seen this man before? Do you think he could be following you?”

  Mitchell shrugged, apparently deciding it best to be vague.

  “Have you?” she pressed.

  “I’m not sure,” he said, on the verge of tears.

  “You don’t talk to adults who ask for help from children. That’s not the way it works.”

  Mitchell jammed his hands so deep inside his pockets that he might have been reaching for China. But she couldn’t let up on him, not about something as crucial as this. “Mitchell, it’s one of the most important rules you’ll ever learn. There’s danger everywhere.”

  They stood all alone in the elevator with Mitchell gripping her hand, and just thinking about it made Sarah want to reprimand him again. But before she had the chance to start up, the brass doors slid open to reveal the Roscoe lobby.

  Together they stepped out. Sarah knew immediately that something was wrong.

  A hushed gloom had fallen over the office. No one smiled in the foyer. Discussions, usually punctuated with laughter, were being carried on in low, serious voices.

  What happened? she mouthed to Leo over Mitchell’s head. What’s going on?

  He shook his head. Don’t ask.

  She raised her brows, questioning him.

  “Ah, nice trading jacket,” Leo diverted, pumping Mitchell’s hand with vigor. “Very cool.

  “How was the game the other night? Was it the best?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was so jealous, thinking of you guys. Man, Mitch, I would have given anything to be there.”

  Sarah interrupted. She certainly didn’t want the conversation to go in this direction. “Leo?” She held out a hand. “Messages?”

  But for the moment, Leo ignored her. He focused on Mitchell. “So, what else is going on in your life, kid?”

  Mitchell brightened under Leo’s attention. “After we’re done here, I’m showing Mom how I can throw down one-wheelers at the skate park.”

  Sarah had made this promise on the trading floor, a last-ditch effort to put a smile on his face. “We can?” he’d asked. “Yes.” “You sure?” “You have your board with you, don’t you?” “It’s in the car.” “Then we’ll do it.” Even then, she’d hated how his brow furrowed with skepticism. “I promise,” she’d told him.

  “That rocks,” Leo said now. “Very cool.”

  “And I’m in a Math Counts competition tomorrow. There’s kids coming from different schools, and Mrs. Georges, my teacher, picked me. Mom’s getting me Cubs pencils for good luck.”

  Oh my word. Sarah was horrified. She’d totally forgotten about the Cubs pencils. She’d intended to pick them up from a souvenir booth at the game. “Mitchell. I’ ve—”

  But Leo didn’t let her finish. “That is so great, Mitchell. You must be brilliant in math. A real genius.”

  “Mitchell,” Sarah was trying to tell him. “I don’t have the—”

  But Leo shot her a look. “Hey, what can you find to do in your mother’s office?” he asked Mitchell. “Set up a Facebook page? Copy your nose on the printer? You know how to do that? I need to assist your mother for a minute.”

  Mitchell’s glasses magnified his rounded eyes. “Really? You don’t mind if I make faces on the copier?”

  “Just don’t look at the light. Don’t blind yourself. Your mother will blame me.”

  Leo pointed to the leather swivel chair, herded him inside, and closed the door behind him. Sarah cupped her hand over her mouth and sucked in a huge gasp of air through her fingers. “What am I going to do? I don’t have those pencils.”

  Leo slid his drawer open and, with a flourish, handed her a good half dozen of them. “Now you do.”

  She stared at the pencils in her hand. They were white with blue Cs, and CUBS written in red.

  “These are yours? You just keep these around?”

  “Of course I do. You don’t think Mitchell’s the only Cubs fan on the North Side, do you?”

  “You just… keep Cubs pencils in your desk?”

  He grinned.

  Sarah closed her fingers over them. “Do you know how many times you’ve saved my life?”

  “No. But I think I’ll start counting. And when it comes time for me to apply to this firm for a real job—”

  “You’ll have my glowing letter of recommendation,” she finished for him. “Just say the word.”

  To get them past this pleasing yet awkward subject, Leo sorted through the message slips again. “Your nanny called to say it was applesauce, not peanut butter.”

  “Tell her to text me. I want that in writing.”

  “Rothman wants to know what you think about the price direction on silver.”

  “You can tell Rothman I think he needs to do his own research.”

  “You’ll get back to him with an answer. This afternoon.” Leo made another note. “Oh, and your stepfather called. Something about a missed appointment. He sent you a text, but you never showed up.”

  She’d totally forgotten. “When? Yesterday?” She couldn’t even remember when she’d been scheduled to meet him. “Oh, Leo. Can you get back to him for me?”

  Ever since she could remember, Harold had been like a true father to her. She felt like a traitor for having forgotten him. Her life was reeling out of control, and she felt powerless to make it stop. Forgetting appointments and not even being able to remember making them, snapping at Mitchell, hurrying all the time, trying to please everyone and not even being able to please her own husband. Her head was hurting again, and she was so tired. Sarah felt trapped. She didn’t know how she could go on like this. Yet at the same time, she didn’t know how to stop.

  “Maybe I could give him some sort of estimate? When you’ll call him back? He sounded kind of forlorn.”

  But she couldn’t answer that. “Tell him I’ll call him when my schedule isn’t nuts. When things get better. When I haven’t made promises to Mitchell. You know what to say.” It was just too much. Every time another person demanded something of her, Sarah felt even more depleted. She didn’t have anything to give anyone else. She was just plain worn out. And yet everyone kept asking for more. It was endless. It took all the self-control she could manage not to scream.

  Leo didn’t dial right away. “Guess who’s been asking for you ever since the floor closed.”

  “Oh no. Really?” She pointed to the stack of files on Leo’s desk. “Are those Tom’s notes?”

  “Afraid so. I’ll let him know you’ll be right up.”

  “Thanks.”

  But Leo kept looking at her like he wanted to warn her of something. “Tread lightl
y.”

  “Why?”

  “Lauren Davis just got canned.”

  Sarah’s hand froze on the file folder. “What?”

  “Not kidding you.”

  She felt the color drain from her face. She just stood there in shock. So this was the reason everyone kept tiptoeing around like they might step on a land mine, meeting each other’s eyes with grim, knowing glances.

  “Why?”

  He shook his head, at a loss. “He told her to clean out her office. She left with everything packed in a cardboard box.”

  Sarah couldn’t explain the jolt of terror she felt, the sudden, improbable grief she felt for Lauren, who, just this morning, had been comfortably sipping coffee and making comments about Mitchell’s trading jacket and hadn’t any idea that, like a plunging stock price, she would be worth nothing by the end of the day.

  “Rumor has it that Lauren wouldn’t deal with an account because she didn’t want to do it his way.”

  “Oh.” Sarah forgot everyone around her. She forgot Leo, who had asked if he could leave on time tonight because he had something planned with his sister. She forgot Joe, who didn’t approve of her anymore, who’d said, “I don’t know how much longer I can stand by and watch you disappoint him,” and who didn’t see how hard she was trying. She forgot Mitchell, whom 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?”