Page 1 of No Kind of Hero
Possible Breakdown Destinations
Beth Schaefer wrote the words neatly at the top of a fresh yellow legal pad and underlined them with care. She sat back and looked at what she’d written, then drew a second, defiant underscore beneath the first.
Right. On to brainstorming.
Cabo San Lucas,she wrote. She’d never been to Cabo, but she’d heard it was nice, and it sounded relaxing. She left some space, then wroteBaja Californiabeneath it.
Wait, though. Was Baja safe? Her pen hovered over the name, ready to cross it out.
No. You’re brainstorming. No editorializing.She left Baja sitting boldly on its line, then went on before she could stop herself and wrote
France
England
New Zealand
Canada
down the page.
Canada? Who went to Canada for their breakdown? She started to cross that off, too, then caught herself and left it. She stunk at brainstorming. And this was the most vanilla list of destinations imaginable. Where was Morocco? Thailand? Samoa? Where was Italy, for that matter?
She glanced at the clock on her computer. Seven-thirty. She needed to get to work. She’d gotten up at five as usual, had worked out in the condo’s gym, and had come into the office at her usual seven-fifteen. Now, the silver streaks against the single window in her tiny office told her that Portland was still Rain Central, the four neatly arrayed, overlapping folders on one corner of her desk told her that her day’s work was still waiting, and everything she’d learned since law school told her that arranging your breakdown wasn’t billable.
Too bad.In a burst of recklessness, she clicked on the countdown timer in the top corner of her computer screen and set it for fifteen minutes. A quarter-hour of breakdown planning.Go.
She wroteProson one side of her pad andConson the other, then began to fill them in.
Cabo. Pros: probably cheaper airfare. Presumably affordable accommodation. She went to Google and began to research—her specialty—and quickly realized she should be creating her planning document on the computer. That way, she could copy links into her file for later. On the other hand, how thoroughly did the IT department nose around in the associates’ systems? She’d never known. She’d neverhadto know. She’d never done anything they’d be interested in checking. She’d never done anything they’d be interested in,period.
First time for everything.She opened a document, named itPBDjust to be on the safe side,and got to work. Cabo and Baja: beach. That was a pro. On the other hand: Spanish. She didn’t speak it.
France: expensive. Also: French. England: exchange rate good, English good. Or maybe notgood,because learning a new language would be a more productive use of her time. But then: rain. She already had rain. Her breakdown destination was going to be sunny.
New Zealand. That was sunny. Beach, too. Also: English. Oh, wait. It was winter there. She deleted it.
Whoops. Brainstorming fail.What if her breakdown turned into a ski vacation and then a romance with a manly, capable, Kiwi-accented ski instructor who brought her back to life and actually enjoyed performing oral sex?
“Examine the possibilities,” she muttered aloud. She retyped the name, then defiantly deleted it again. Shedidn’twant winter, and New Zealand men probably weren’t any more convinced that “it was better to give than to receive” than any other guys on the planet. But should she . . .
The timer went off. She stared at her screen, then erased the whole thing, ripped the sheet of paper off the legal pad, and tore it into pieces before dropping it into the wastebasket.
She’d do it tonight, with a glass of wine. She was atwork.You did your breakdowns on your own time.
Except she didn’t. Two hours later, she was still staring at her computer screen, totally blanking.
Focus.
She couldn’t.
She got up, went to the break room, and got herself a tea. Not a coffee, because she was already so jittery that she was about to blow a fuse. She took it back to her office, tapped a file folder back into place, took a sip of tea, and poised her fingers over the keyboard.
Nothing.
This didn’t happen. Never. Not ever. How could she bill for this? She couldn’t. She was going to have a whole day of non-billable hours, and Simon was going to ask her about it, and she was going to burst into tears, and he was going to say . . .
She was hyperventilating.Stop.This was catastrophizing, and it was the definition of unproductive.
