her tears.
3
The next Monday at work, Cooper found it difficult not to think about Trish. Like most people, she was aware that a great many people were affected by some form of cancer. She’d noticed the yellow bracelets made popular by Lance Armstrong, pink ribbons pinned to shirt collars, and the amusing Save the Ta-tas T-shirts, but the disease had never touched her personally.
Of course she’d met cancer survivors and friends whose family members had either beaten or succumbed to the disease, but this was the first time someone she cared about was engaged in a battle for her life. In many ways, that’s how Cooper saw Trish—as a soldier—an unsuspecting, preoccupied individual drafted to wage war upon a silent and potentially lethal microscopic enemy.
Cooper had no problem imagining Trish as a warrior. She could envision her red-haired friend hunched in some muddy trench, a rifle clenched against her chest—her violet eyes blazing and unafraid. If anyone had the willpower to overcome adversity, it was Trish. Cooper tried to focus on her friend’s strength instead of the scary what-if questions that kept creeping into her mind.
The workday proved to be another long one and Cooper was grateful to be too busy to brood. All three of the Make It Work! repair staff—Ben, Emilio, and Cooper—spent the day completing the last of the Canon copier manufacture recalls. Just when Cooper thought she must have replaced the millionth faulty drum in Richmond, Angela rushed over to the van and slapped another work order against the glass of the driver’s window.
“I’m sorry, darlin’,” she said when Cooper opened the door to receive the paper. “I know it’s almost five, but a call came in from one of the higher-ups at the Bank of Richmond. He’s fit to be tied. Seems the man came back from vacation in Fiji to find his executive secretary’s copier broken.” Angela rolled her eyes. “Could you imagine what would happen if he ran across a real emergency? Anyway, I had the pleasure of speakin’ to him and he was as rude as a rush-hour driver. If the bank didn’t have such a big account with us, I’d tell him to go stuff himself like a Thanksgiving turkey, but someone has to tend to that machine.” She shook her head. “I feel for the poor woman who’s gotta deal with him day in and day out. There isn’t a salary on this earth worth that kind of misery.”
“We can’t all have bosses as great as Mr. Farmer,” Cooper said, knowing how Angela adored their employer. The two had recently begun dating and now Angela’s desk resembled the inside of a florist’s refrigerator. “I doubt Mr. Bank of Richmond presented his administrative assistant with a bouquet of blue hydrangeas this morning.”
Angela clasped her hands together. “Isn’t Mr. Farmer dreamy?” She fluttered her false eyelashes and sashayed out of the garage, her patent leather heels clicking happily with every step.
“Dreamy?” Cooper asked her image in the rearview mirror, but her reflection was equally nonplussed. “If you’re into middle-aged men who hole up in their offices drooling over Popular Mechanics and can easily double for Danny DeVito, then dreamy’s pretty accurate, I guess.”
Her amusement over the attraction between Angela and their boss didn’t last long. The executive secretary at the bank’s plush investment branch was the antithesis of Angela. A curvaceous platinum blonde favoring tight pencil skirts, snug sweaters with plunging necklines, and dangerously high heels, Angela spoke to everyone with a sincere and cheerful manner. The Bank of Richmond secretary neither smiled nor greeted Cooper, but grunted and tapped her watch the moment Cooper entered the office.
“I’m Felicia Hawkins,” the reedy, thin-lipped woman announced and eyed the name tag on Cooper’s gray uniform shirt with disdain. “Cooper? Is that a person’s name or a brand name?”
“It’s a family name,” Cooper said politely,