Focused by Julie B Cosgrove

Author:Julie B Cosgrove
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: CrossWords Press
Published: 2012-01-20T05:00:00+00:00

When the study was over, Christina scooted into the driver’s side of her car and noticed the clock on the dash said 9:23. She sped home and dashed in the door and dropped her stuff on the bar between the kitchen and the den. Jeff watched a Star Trek rerun on TV through the evening paper held up to his face, a feat only men knew how to do.

“Sorry I’m late. Were you worried?”

“Why would I worry? I know hen sessions can drag on and on. You carry the cell phone I got you. Josh did program in your ICE, right?”

“My what? Ice?”

“I-C-E. In case of emergency numbers. The ones highlighted in red.”

She hated his condescending tone of voice. She had a fleeting, impish inspiration of deleting his cell phone number from the list. Then she chided herself for the thought. She wasn’t sure she knew how, anyway. Instead, she apologized to Jeff for the past few days for her harried state of mind.

“The day after I got back to work Angela’s grandson had to have a tonsillectomy. He can’t go back to daycare for a few more days. She’ll be out for a week.”

“Why?” Jeff snapped the newspaper and peered over at her. As usual he was holding court from the recliner.

“Her daughter’s already used all of her sick leave on his frequent sore throats. Then this afternoon, Mary’s aunt passed away and she dashed out of town.”

“So that leaves who to handle both the account payables and receivables for the rest of the week? Let me guess. You, right?”

“Well, Angela did print and send out the statements. But that’s left me to handle all the phone calls of customers who just got their bill in the mail and of course have oodles of questions.”

“Of course. You take on too much at that place.”

“It’s a small office, Jeff. We depend on each other. Mr. Caruthers does, too. He did give me a hefty bonus last Christmas.” she shrugged off the added stress. “Besides, I can’t fault Angela. She tried to help out instead of leaving us in the lurch.” Christina parroted what she told the receptionist Sandy earlier that day. “Sandy’s solution was to make a recording on Angela’s voice mail.”

“But you couldn’t do that could you?” Jeff responded.

Worry and hurt stabbed her as she misinterpreted his comment. But she didn’t ask for clarification. She just assumed . . . Instead, she picked up a magazine and blinked away the tears. Welcome back to normal. Why would I think it would change?

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.