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‘This place looks like — you know on cop shows when a detective is trying to piece together a case and they attach a load of photos to the wall with bits of string running between them?’
‘Yes, I’m familiar with that particular trope.’ Uh oh, she was being snappy. She didn’t want to be snappy. She looked around at her workspace. She kind of knew what Wolf was talking about, but there was method to her madness. ‘No, no, it all makes sense,’ she said, pointing at the bears. ‘Over here is the de-seaming station. Then, we have Mount Cleanliness. Past the mountain is what I’ve taken to calling the “de-lousing house” and the—’
‘There aren’t any actual lice, right?’
‘Of course not, it’s just a charming nickname I’ve been repeating to myself as I—’ It was only then they she realized that a tear was falling down her cheek. ‘—Slowly lose my grip on reality.’
A moment later, Wolf was there, holding her tight. ‘Baby,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I should never have let it get this bad. Let me fix it.’
She pushed her face against his chest, sobbing. ‘Thank you for checking on me.’
‘It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.’
‘And this is going tosaveme time?’ Sophia was struggling with her anxiety.
Sophia had barely left the bathroom in the past few days, and the main space of the bar was now unrecognizable.
It was the windows. That was the biggest change. Now that they weren’t all boarded up and had been cleaned, a crazy amount of light was bathing the room. She noticed stuff she’d never really seen before — tiny details like patches of graffiti and stains from cups which had lain under a thick layer of dust for who knows how long.
Sitting in the daylight, in the plain view of passing New Yorkers, was a strange feeling for Sophia, who’d been in hiding for so long. That had to be why she felt so anxious, so vulnerable.
Now that she was looking down at a schedule, things were even worse. At first, she’d been hopeful. Wolf had explained that he had a system that would help save her time, and it would also restore some of the mental balance that she was so desperately in need of right now.
‘You bet it’s gonna help.’
She’d just spent the better part of an hour working through a schedule that Wolf had proposed to her. They’d adjusted it together, taking into account how long each part of the restoration process took. She had to admit, it was the first fun she’d had since arriving back at the bar. Who doesn’t love getting out a load of colored pens and filling in little boxes as neatly as possible?
The trouble was that in between the red-colored ‘work’ boxes were lots of other activities. Things like ‘playtime’ and ‘lunchtime’ and ‘meditation’. There were other boxes, too. ‘Yoga’. ‘Cardio’. Even — god forbid — ‘weight training’.
‘I appreciate you taking the time to do this with me,’ Sophia said, ‘but I just don’t get how spending time on other things can possibly help me.’
Wolf breathed in deep. ‘Look, do you think you’ve been working with perfect focus these past few days?’
‘Perfect focus? What does that even mean?’
‘What I mean is, have your jobs been taking longer than normal?’
Hmmm. Now that she thought about it, things were taking her a little more time than usual. It’s hard to sew when you’ve stabbed your finger. And if you accidentally pour too much detergent into a bowl of water, obviously that needs to be redone. And obviously, when you accidentally remove too much stitching from a bear, it has to be put back in.
‘I guess… there have been a few more mistakes than normal.’
‘That’s what I’m talking about. Hard work is fine, but there comes a point when you’re doing so much that the quality of the work suffers. And I’m willing to bet that’s not what Clever Monsters were hoping for when they hired you.’
Huh. He’d remembered the name of the company who’d hired her. That was sweet.
‘I guess you’re right.’
‘I promise you,’ he said sincerely, ‘that if you take these breaks, spend some time in Little Space,andlook after your body, you’ll end up finishing more quickly.’
I want you to look after my body.
‘I’ll try it,’ she said, pouting. ‘But if it slows me down then I’ll have to go back to running around like a headless chicken. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Wolf echoed. ‘But I want you to commit for two weeks.’
‘Two weeks!?’ Her voice rose in pitch and volume. ‘That’s practically the deadline!’
‘Yep.’ He crossed his arms resolutely. ‘Two weeks. Otherwise, you won’t see the benefits.’
