Any Minute: A Novel

by Deborah Bedford

  “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

  The 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 could definitely make himself useful.

  “How long’ll it take to get her going?”

  Joe shrugged. “We’ll find out, I guess.” He ducked inside the open maw of the sports car again, found the bolt he’d been tightening, and extended his palm so Pete could hand him the wrench.

  “Actually”—Pete placed the tool in Joe’s hand—“I stopped by to invite you and Sarah over for Gail’s birthday.”

  Joe wiped the wrench against his thigh, then went after the bolt with Herculean effort. If it occurred to him that he’d surely pay for this later, that somewhere along the way he’d certainly have to remove these bolts and mounts and clamps again, he didn’t care.

  “You want to think about it?”

  Joe shook his head. “You may have to count us out.”

  “You kidding me?”

  Joe whaled into another bolt, then another, not wanting to discuss his wife. “You know. Sarah’s got this awful schedule.”

  “Isn’t there time to rearrange it? Gail’s birthday’s still a couple of days away.”

  Joe set the wrench in Pete’s outstretched hand and felt around for the pliers. He knew better than to be honest. She never puts anything but work on her schedule.

  You just get disappointed if you depend on her to be someplace she says she’ll be.

  Something will come up, and I’m not making excuses for her anymore.

  “Well, don’t you even want to talk to her about it?”

  “No.”

  Pete shifted his weight from one boot to the other. “Well, that puts me in a tough place. You’re the only folks Gail wanted for the big day.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What’ll I tell her? You know how a woman gets when her feelings are hurt.”

  With one rotation of his knuckles, Joe crushed the metal clamp and smashed the hose into place. “Guess I do.” He hefted the new air-intake duct, grabbed the gasket, and jammed it into place, as if everything he did to this car might clear his mind of his wife. “I could invite you two over to our place that night, Pete, but I couldn’t promise Sarah would be there either.”

  Joe ducked out from under the innards of the old car and smeared what he could of the grease from his hands. He couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that the cold shoulder Sarah gave him was somehow his fault, that he’d made some mistake, that he’d done something to make her pull away. She had a way of making him feel guilty even when he knew darn well he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “Is everything all right between you two?” Pete shot him a troubled frown.

  Joe swigged from his giant water bottle and backhanded his mouth dry. “Sure,” he lied.

  Pete stood with his hands shoved in his pockets, rocking from his heels to his toes and back again, studying the spotless crankshaft.

  Joe shoved back his dusty cap, scratched his forehead, and studied the new bazooka tailpipe from five different angles.

  Pete started to whistle.

  Joe offered Pete a stick of Juicy Fruit. He unwrapped his own piece, shoved it inside his jaw, and absently folded the empty foil into smaller and smaller squares. “Tell me something,” he said with false nonchalance. “Does Gail fight straight when she’s mad? Does she cry and slam doors and carry on, things like that?”

  Pete looked at his friend like he’d just asked if the sun came up at his house every morning.

  “Does she bang the cabinets and stalk around the house with bird-stiff legs and tell you you’re not being fair?”

  “Sarah’s doing that?”

  “No. Sarah’s not doing that. Sarah used to do that. Now I can hardly get her to look at me.”

  Pete chewed his gum slower and slower.

  “Or when she does look at me, she stands there like she’d just as soon be having a conversation with the Chicago Water Tower.”

  “Well, Gail doesn’t throw any left hooks or anything like that, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Of course she doesn’t. She’s a woman.”

  “Don’t know what to tell you. You asking me to understand a woman?”

  “Nope. Just asking you to try to explain one.”

  “Well, isn’t that the same thing?”

  Joe couldn’t decide which reaction of Sarah’s alarmed him the most, her hotheaded accusations when he tried to make her see what she was doing to Mitchell and Kate or her cold detachment when he tried to get her to tell him what was wrong. Just last night he’d found her sequestered at the computer desk after supper, her bedraggled curls captured in the vise grip of a hair claw, her neck about as stiff and out of joint as a worn-out axle shaft.

  “Sarah. I’ve thought about it a little bit. Well, actually, I’ve thought about it a lot.” He was trying to get her to talk, and he hated himself for struggling with the words. Foolishly he toyed with one of her curls, winding it around a finger. Then his knuckle brushed the hollow of her scalp, and she jerked away from him. He f
elt her go as prickly as a pincushion.

  “Stop, Joe.”

  “What? You don’t want me to touch you?”

  An alarm sounded on the phone by her elbow. She dropped everything to read the text message.

  “No,” Joe said as she flipped open the Nokia. “Will you stop and look at me? Do you see that I’m in the room? Can’t you show me a little respect?”

  He waved his hands between her face and the computer screen. “I’m here, not online. I’m here, not on an instant message or a text or a cell phone.” He waved his arms in the air. “I’m right in front of you.”

  Her dark emotionless eyes reflected the rows of data on the screen. Her cell phone vibrated again. She reached, but he beat her to it. He stuffed it inside his shirt pocket.

  “Maybe we could go away together. Leave the kids with your mom and Harold. Or maybe Mrs. Pavik would stay overnight.”

  He waited a long time for an answer that didn’t come.

  “Couldn’t you make time for that?”

  “I’m making time for Mitchell. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? I’m taking him to the city.”

  “Won’t you just stop?”

  “You’re changing the rules on me,” she said blandly. “Every time I start to do something right, you raise the bar a little farther.”

  “No I’m not. I’m not raising anything. I’m not changing anything.”

  When she pivoted toward him in the chair, her eyes accused him. Other than that, they were as void of emotion as two stones.

  “I don’t understand where you’re coming from anymore, Sarah. I thought the fast pace would eventually end. I thought we’d work hard together, pushing forward together for a while, and then we’d both be able to slow down and enjoy life together. I didn’t know you wouldn’t be able to do that.”

  “You told me you wanted me to make time for the kids,” she persisted, her voice thick with injury. “I get so tired of you blaming me. Don’t you see how hard I’m trying?”

  “I’m not blaming you for anything,” he said. “It’s you blaming yourself. It’s like you’re trying to earn membership in the human race or something.”

  She glared at him.

  “Why do you feel you have to push yourself so hard? What are you afraid of?”

  To which she didn’t respond. She returned to the computer as if they’d never spoken.

  After a horrible length of silence he said, “Guess I’m going to bed now.”

  Her fingers were on the keys, the only things moving in the room. He didn’t think she’d heard him.

  “Sarah?” he pressed the point. “When are you coming to bed?”

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap. Her fingers never left the keyboard.

  “I’m not coming to bed,” she said at last. Sarah knew she and Joe had serious problems, but for right now it just seemed easier to blame them on him rather than try to understand their inability to get along. She already had one of her headaches.

  And Joe couldn’t have felt more like a loser if a Wrigley Field umpire had been counting strikes against him and then signaled with a hammered fist in front of thousands of people, “You’re out.” He could never remember feeling more defeated than he did right at that moment.

  Pete practically stood on his head at the repair shop to peruse the car’s racing header. He must’ve forgotten all about their discussion of the feminine mystique.

  “What do you think?”

  “Hmmmm. About what? About women? Or about this baby that’s going to blow the roof off when you hit the ignition?”

  “About this.” And Joe laid a hand over the fender and patted it in a gentle motion that he never would have dared risk with Sarah lately.

  Pete said, “I think she’s something.”

  “I think so too.”

  “I think she’s going to go so fast, she’ll leave her paint behind.”

  Joe had to smile at that one. “I think so too.” He figured he might as well talk about the car because talking about Sarah didn’t help anything, and Pete didn’t seem to understand anyway.

  The two men stepped back and stood shoulder-to-shoulder. They crossed their arms over their broad chests, surveying this great feat of Joe’s.

  “You’re going to hang around here, aren’t you, until you can see what she’ll do?”

  Even though Pete shrugged nonchalantly, his eyes had gone bright with anticipation. “Guess I wouldn’t want to miss the big moment.”

  “Guess you wouldn’t, at that.”

  Opening the gigantic shop bay and checking the carburetor one last time should have been such a celebration. Hearing the engine spring to life after all those days of trial and error and tinkering should have brought Joe so much satisfaction.

  But Joe’s happiness was dampened by his unfulfilled desire for things to be different with Sarah.

  Joe climbed into the front seat, shot his friend a dull A-OK signal, and flicked the key in the ignition.

  The chassis shook. The engine gave a low growl. Pistons thundered to life.

  “Yes!” Pete shouted. “Oh my word. Just listen to it!”

  “You think she sounds good?”

  Horsepower roared under the hood. But in the driver’s seat, Joe didn’t sense the excitement he thought he would. His feet didn’t tingle to the vibration as usual. His fingers didn’t rest on the steering wheel in reverent wonder. He was just too preoccupied with thoughts of Sarah, the kids, and where their life was headed.

  “Do I think she sounds good? Are you kidding me?” For several beats, Pete just listened to the car in awestruck stupor. “Whoa.” The man finally whistled. “Oh, man.”

  There’d been a time when Joe would have felt over-the-top pride at his friend’s reaction. Pete’s words would’ve made him feel he’d made the greatest accomplishment since Chennault created the Flying Tigers.

  But Joe already knew he’d be heading home tonight to a house that felt more empty than an abandoned tenement. He and Sarah would exchange meaningless words when the kids were in the room, pretending everything was all right. Sarah wouldn’t spend time with him or talk to him when they were alone. She would manage to stay busy all night on office work.

  He’d be heading home to a life that had become unbearable. He should be celebrating and looking forward to telling Sarah about his accomplishment today. Sadness filled him because he knew it wouldn’t happen.

  Joe didn’t know where to start to make things better between them. He didn’t believe anything would ever change. He needed to come up with a plan.

  When Leo found Mitchell Harper still waiting in his mother’s office, he couldn’t believe a kid could stay patient so long. The kid, who sat dwarfed inside the big swivel chair, must have used up a whole tree’s worth of paper on the copy machine. Surreal black-and-white copies of faces and hands, or at least pieces of those things, a smashed nose, a knobby wrist, fingers in a V, an eye, lay spread across the entire width of the huge executive desk. The pictures stretched from one end to the other. Another good stack of them rested beneath Mitchell’s elbow. “What?” Leo asked, trying to make this unexpected schedule change seem like it was all in good fun. “Looks like you ran the machine out of paper.”

  “I did.”

  “I’m sure we could get you another ream. That’s a good five hundred more pages. You could use those up too.”

  “Nah,” Mitchell said. “It’s okay.”

  The entertainment had obviously gone downhill since then. After all the excitement, Mitchell had been reduced to making a chain of paper clips and dangling the chain over a magnetic cup.

  “What, then? No computer games?”

  “All Mom has is solitaire.”

  Which didn’t need comment from either of them. “I’m sure your mom just can’t get away up there. She never knows when she’ll get called up to Roscoe’s office.”

  Mitchell shrugged noncommittally. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

  But it did. Leo could tell the kid was disappointed a
nd hurt. “I’m sure she’ll be back any minute. Your mom’s got quite the reputation,” he said. “She’s very determined, always busy. She never stops.”

  “My mom’s really important here, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. She is.”

  “She must be because that’s what she always tells my dad.” Mitchell’s voice stayed level. “That she can’t always walk away from things here when we need her.”

  “She tries really hard. I know she made a big deal out of getting to the ball game on time,” Leo said, not knowing any better. “I know how excited she was about that.”

  Mitchell diverted his eyes. He twisted another paper clip open and added to the string.

  “She did make it to the game the other night, didn’t she?”

  Mitchell finally put the paper clips down and met Leo’s eyes. “Leo? Do you believe there’s such a thing as angels?”

  “Well, I…” What had brought this question on? He couldn’t imagine. “No. Guess not. But, you know, I haven’t thought about it much.”

  “The other night I thought I saw one. Inside the scoreboard at Wrigley.” Mitchell stood tall. “At first I thought it was a man, but now I think it might have been an angel.”

  “Oh really?”

  “What do you think, Leo?”

  “Hmmmm.” Leo didn’t know exactly what to say. Angels were outside his area of expertise these days. He just wanted to change the subject.

  He hoped Mitchell hadn’t noticed how many times he’d checked his watch. He didn’t know how long his boss intended to leave him responsible for her son, but he hoped it would not be much longer.

  “Hey, Mitchell, are you going to take those paper clips apart again? It’s always a bummer when you go to pick up one of them and get the whole string.”

  Leo left Mitchell plying paper clips apart and going around in circles in the executive chair. And when Leo made the call he dreaded, “You’re still there?” the girl on the other end of the line asked, dumbfounded. “That woman walks all over you, did you know that?”