CHAPTER  1 

     On a normal day Jessica could have sprinted, hopped or even turned cartwheels across this floor.  She could have climbed fingerhold by fingerhold, toehold by toehold, over a boulder if one had been in the way.  She was not normally, could never remember being, sprawled flat on her face with her cheek pressed to cold tile.

     She peered across the gray and white floor glistening with the immaculate shine of a first-rate hospital.  There was nothing to trip or stumble on.  Like one of those large, inflatable lawn Santas after the air pump is turned off, she'd simply failed to stay upright--sagging, wilting, then collapsing in a limp heap.

     A clown's absurd fall.  She giggled at the thought and felt better.  Laughing always distanced her from whatever mess she was in.  Not that she'd call her situation today a mess.  Drunks, overdosed druggies, frail senior citizens and very sick people who fell on the floor were in a mess.  She was just tired, very tired.  Her sprawl was comic, not pathetic, and unlike the addicts and sick people, she could get back on her feet.

     Rolling onto one side, she tried pushing to a squat as if she'd fallen while skiing, putting all her physical and mental energy into the effort.  Nothing happened.  Her arms were useless.  She tried folding her knees under her to gain leverage, but only managed to curl into a fetal position.

     This shouldn't be happening.  At twenty-five, she was in great condition--ate vegetarian, exercised daily, hardly drank any alcohol and never touched drugs.  For her to be spread out like melted jello, even as tired as she was, was crazy and frightening.

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     Could it be that she'd finally gone over the top and completely exhausted herself?  She had to admit, she habitually ignored advice about sleep and rest.  Fernando, for one, had warned her she'd drive herself to exhaustion, but she'd never believed that could really happen.  She tried to picture herself grudgingly acknowledging he was right, that some aerobics workout on top of a ten-hour workday had pushed her over the edge.

     Of course, he would never hear that admission.  To say she was wrong and Fernando was right, especially at a time like this when not listening to him was probably a mistake he wouldn't let her forget, would be impossible.  He always made such a big deal out of it when she didn't take his advice.  So she wouldn't tell him about today's collapse.  And she wouldn't tell her mother, who'd be sure to point out that she had a habit of bringing trouble on herself.  They didn't need to know about this ridiculous, self-inflicted exhaustion, or that over the past few days she'd ignored warning signs.  She hoped she hadn't done herself permanent damage.

     "You okay?" a woman's voice called out.  "Do you need help?" Another woman.

     Jessica felt embarrassed.  People were getting all worked up just because she was on the floor.  "I'll be up in a minute."  Her cheek scraped on the tile each time she moved her mouth.

     "Why don't they call somebody?  She just can't lay there." An old man this time.

     "Hey!  How about listening to me!" Jessica shouted as best she could with throat and mouth feeling as tired as her arms and legs.  "I have the floor here."

     The jabbering stopped.  Someone with a high voice began to giggle.  The man guffawed, and a woman gasped, then tittered.

     That was more like it.  Laughter was a whole lot better than pity or nervous fright.  "Just give me a minute. Okay?"  There'd rarely been a predicament she couldn't relieve with a little humor.  If she could get people to laugh, she didn't have to worry about being smart or stupid, capable or incapable.  It was enough to get a laugh.

     She'd never been so afraid.

     "You don't think I should call the paramedics?"  Jessica was pretty sure the voice belonged to the mid-fortyish receptionist who'd hunched myopically over the forms when checking her in.

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     "No! Please don't." Call the paramedics!  Like she'd had a heart attack or something.  Nearsighted, or not, the woman was in charge of a waiting room in one of Southern California's finest hospitals and should have the insight and experience to recognize a person in basically good health.

     The tappety-tap of high heels approached.  A pair of shiny black pumps appeared in front of her face.  "I'm going to call for help."  It was the receptionist again.  Her shoes twisting against the tile betrayed her nervousness.

     "Just give me a minute and I'll get up. I'm not drunk or anything."  Maybe all she had to do was gather a little strength.  She'd always been able to overcome exhaustion by pushing herself.

     Breathing deeply, she tried channeling all her energy into her arms and legs.

     No use.  She felt as if she weighed as much as an elephant.

     What had she done to herself?

     The receptionist knelt down and put a hand on Jessica's shoulder.  "I'm going to call for a wheelchair."  Jessica heard the shoes retreat, then the sing-song sound of phone buttons being pushed.  "I need a wheelchair up fornt. Stat."

     Jessica shuddered.  A wheelchair.  For her.  This couldn't be.

     From far down a long corridor she saw two black-tired wheels approaching, clicking like a pair of hungry insects.  When they were almost on top of her, she glimpsed a young man in a green orderly's uniform behind the chair.  His worn, low-top sneakers with ragged shoe laces appeared inches from her face.

     "How ya doin'?" His voice was flat and gravelly.

     "Super."

     "Terrific. Can you stand if I help you?" He took her arm.

     "I'm a bit weak.  You'll have to lift me."

     He put his arms under her armpits, clasped his hands under her ribs and easily raised the upper part of her body off the floor.  "This okay?"

     It was humiliating to be hauled around like this, but the sooner it was over the better.  "Let's go."

     He dragged her--she was horrified at how limp and helpless she was--onto the flimsy-looking plastic seat of the wheelchair, picked up her purse and laid it on her lap.  "There you go. Do you need to be taken somewhere?"

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    "No, I'll be fine. Have to wait my turn to be seen."  By the time her turn came, she certainly hoped she wouldn't need a wheelchair.

     He nodded, and Jessica watched him amble off down the hall whistling.

     She tried to brush off the blue wool dress she'd worn to the office, but with little success.  Incredibly, her arms were too weak.  She couldn't even open her purse to get the pack of towelettes she kept for cleaning emergencies.

     As she glanced around the room now, people averted their eyes.  One minute she'd been worrying people were staring at her, the next she was worrying why they wouldn't even look.

     She struggled to swing her head backward against the plastic backrest so it didn't sag to her chest like a drunk's and so she could see the others and correct any wrong impression they might have about her.  She picked out two young women in sweaters and short, tight skirts sitting a few feet away.

     "Normally, I'm a champion slalom skiier," she improvised. "You know, downhill, zigzagging like mad around those little poles."

     One responded with a wan smile.

     Come on, these ladies could do better than that. She wasn't exactly a slalom skiier, although she was pretty good, and her quip wasn't exactly hilarious, although it wasn't terrible either. They might have done her a favor and laughed a little bit.

     She spotted a stiff, flat-footed shoe strapped with Velcro to the foot of the woman who'd smiled. "Been doing some heavy racing yourself?"

     "No." The young woman grimaced. "Stubbed my stupid toe in my own bedroom. But I'm doing fine. This thing's supposed to come off today." Her voice sounded cheerful, but her eyes were almost apologetic as they traveled over Jessica's limp form.

     The verdict in those eyes! Jessica couldn't let it pass. "You think you did a stupid thing? Just look at me. This is what working ten hours a day, seven days a week, can do to you."

     The eyes looked down at the floor.

     Jessica stifled a shriek that she didn't want to be judged by her appear-

ance at this moment.  She was fumbling for a comeback when an old man, no doubt the one who'd spoken out, took a seat close to her.  He had thin, white hair and a cane he tapped lightly along the floor as though he really didn't need it.  He leaned his hands on the head of the cane. "You're such a

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pretty young thing," he said in a voice she sensed he was forcing to sound cheerful. "I'm sure the doctors here will help you." He pulled a little plastic box from a jacket pocket and, eyes gleaming as if displaying priceless treasure, opened it to reveal several round pills nestled in compartments like miniature eggs. "Look what they did for me. Gave me Coumadin. Five years ago I had a stroke and not one since. Saved my life."

     She was glad he was back to enjoying life. "Want to party when I've got my dancing feet back?" She winked at him.

     He gaped at her.

     She could diagnose this guy in a minute--broken funny bone. Same for the other six patients in this room. People were reluctant to laugh in a hospital for fear they'd be thought insensitive to the suffering around them. But they were wrong to be so somber. It was better to be daring, to clear the air of fear and dread. In her view hardly any of life's problems were really awful. Tough as they sometimes seemed, most came and went before any real harm was done. She'd always sailed through the rough waters she ran into on a sea of laughter. It would help to have someone laugh with her, but the people in this room weren't cooperating.

     She could take encouragement from them anyway. The old man was spry and full of life. The lady with red shoes who'd gone back to her knitting didn't look sick. The pink-cheeked pregnant woman across the way, hands folded across a bulging belly, seemed really healthy.

     Everyone here was living evidence that Gebauer doctors knew what they were doing, and Dr. Trumpower, whom she'd seen only once for a sprained ankle since she joined the HMO five years ago, was supposed to be one of the best GPs. He'd probably tell her to quit working such long hours.

     Advice she didn't need. She'd already promised herself to never, never overwork herself this hard again.

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CHAPTER  2

     Only four days ago at work she'd had the first warning she was doing too much.

     Before sitting down at the required Monday morning meeting, she'd stood in the back of the conference room, stalling. Crassly institutional, its beige, paint-chipped, windowless walls bare except for a plastic-rimmed clock, the room was totally cheerless.  This was not a place Rank Aero-

space's customers ever saw. This was a behind-the-scenes sweatshop.

      Up front, in a hand-tailored Italian suit that glimmered with expensive sheen, stood Larry Armor, vice president and leader of the proposal effort she was working on. Eyebrows furrowed, mouth tight and grim, he faced a dozen rows of managers, engineers, bean counters, schedulers and technical writers pressed to the backs of their chairs, braced to withstand the storm they knew was coming. Armor was rumored to believe that without his screaming and yelling to drive his "peons" on, they'd be lazy and unproductive, and his ambitions would remain unrealized.  His current goal was to win this contract, worth almost a billion dollars, for which he'd be rewarded with more power, money and prestige than anyone except the CEO.  Jessica knew there was no use complaining. No one in Rank's top management would fault him for abusing subordinates as long as he won this proposal and brought in the big bucks.

     Besides, she'd developed methods of handling a heavy workload and a killer boss--she was a coper. Stay focused on getting her work done, and she wouldn't be drawn into the energy-sapping, time-consuming anxieties she often saw embroiling others. Keep physically strong with aerobics, and

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she could take the pressure. Most importantly, find something to laugh at in this clown's rants that she could share with Whitney.

     Near the back she spotted her friend's blond head. She'd saved a place beside her.

     Hanging out with Whitney made any day, good or bad, a better day.  Whitney was possibly the most agreeable person she knew. Too agreeable for her own good sometimes. And Whitney was possibly the prettiest person she knew. Her honey-colored hair spread smoothly to her shoulders. Her sea green pantsuit was spotless and flawlessly pressed. As usual, she looked like a million dollars.

     Jessica looked down at her own brown wool slacks. Cat hairs. She'd missed a few this morning. Picking them off as she went, she hurried over to take the saved seat. "Hi, Whit."

     Whitney looked up from the notebook in which she was scribbling and raised an eyebrow.

     Jessica recognized Whitney's "What are we doing in this awful place" look and raised both eyebrows to signal "Beats me."

     Whitney lowered both eyebrows in a scowl, as if to say "I hate being here."

     Jessica raised one eyebrow and simultaneously scowled with the other, a totally confusing message that caused Whitney to have a fit of giggles.

     It made no difference how they felt. Much as she and Whitney despised Armor's Monday morning harangues, there was no cutting them if they wanted to stay on this job. And Jessica did want to stay. Working on this proposal was exciting. The stakes were high, the competition fierce, the race against time a challenge. Everyone put in long hours, working together as a team. No one wanted to let the others down in the effort to win. It was like playing on a baseball team in a pennant race or fighting alongside your buddies in a war.

     And she wanted to prove she could do well in her first real post-college position and go for a pay boost and, if she was really lucky, a promotion.

     Whitney was another story. She hated the way Armor and the rest of her management treated everyone so much she was on the verge of bolting off the job. Whitney was not a coper.

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     Lunatic Larry was strutting up and down, black- and gray-streaked hair tousled, chest out, chin raised. The man never stood still. He looked up at the clock. Seven thirty. Most Rank employees straggled in between eight and eight thirty, but on this proposal Armor demanded a seven-thirty start. Jessica and Whitney believed he thrived on demanding and dominating.

     "Sometimes when I talk to you people, I sense a team, a powerful engine beneath my foot," he began, his voice a deep growl.

     Jessica almost moaned aloud. Under his foot. What an image. She wondered if he ever really looked at any of them and saw the resentment he provoked.

     "But sometimes I feel you working against me. This morning I'm getting bad vibes." Full lower lip protruding, Armor glared at the assemblage.

     Jessica fixed her eyes on the ceiling above his head. She'd once overheard him call his tantrums "keeping the employees out of their comfort zone." Time to blot him out and go into her own zone. There was plenty to think about.

     Like the mess of crudely typed and handwritten rambling thoughts on ground station antennas she'd been given Friday. Engineers, even the most proficient and inventive, were awful writers. Her job was to take their scribbles and make them clear, blend in the company's sales pitch, and see that the artwork and data supported the message. She liked the challenge of quickly grasping new technical concepts and writing them up in words with punch. Even the engineers were often surprised and pleased.

     She heard a crescendo in Armor's already loud voice. "Where's the frequency plan? Five days before the executive review and there's no frequency plan."

     Her stomach became a tight fist. Jim Stone was the manager and she was the technical writer for that section. Stone and his engineers hadn't yet given her anything to work with, saying they'd be lucky to have the design ready by Saturday and the write-ups would have to wait. Fine with her--she had enough other work to do without dealing with some humongous frequency plan. Until now, she hadn't given it a second thought.

     Armor leaned forward and brought his palms down so hard on the back of a front row chair that it shuddered, then glared right at Jessica. "You've had six weeks to get that plan out."

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     She gasped and pressed back into her chair. She should have written something. Just to flake on the whole plan had been dumb. Armor sometimes fired people on the spot when he was really angry.

     "And you've shown me nothing. Shame on you."  Jessica felt her face grow hot and her pulse pound. "Join me, ladies and gentlemen, in saying 'shame on you' to Jim Stone. He has let you down."

     She turned around to see a red-faced Jim Stone sitting right behind her. This was sick. Everyone knew Stone was capable and drove himself and those who worked for him hard. Still, it was a relief to know Armor wasn't attacking her.

     On second thought, she realized she'd overreacted. She was so low down in the pecking order around here that Armor scarcely knew she existed, let alone what work she should have done.

     "We had to rework the crosslinks," Stone answered. "No sense in picking a frequency plan until we know what the links are."

     "Now, Jim." Armor sounded like a teacher addressing a wayward student. "You and I went over that crosslink design two weeks ago. You've had all this time to write that plan up. Get it on the wall."

     Get in on the wall, indeed. Drafts for the proposal didn't go up on the wall until they were ready for review. Jessica would bet that if Stone was reworking the crosslinks they needed reworking.

     As if he'd overheard her thoughts, Armor spoke up. "You people have got to stop improving things that work well enough. We've got cost and schedule to think of, not just performance. Never forget: 'Better is the enemy of good enough.'"

     Jessica leaned toward Whitney amd whispered in  her ear. "Never forget: 'Mottoes are the crutch of the mindless manager.'" Whitney stifled a giggle and whispered "Shush." She was afraid Armor would catch them laughing.

     Jessica felt a finger poke into her back and turned around to face Stone. "Stick around after this is over," he whispered. She nodded and turned forward again, wishing she could find a way to avoid him. She didn't have time to do any of his stuff by Saturday.

     After Armor finished a forty-five minute diatribe and stalked out, Jessica made a lunch date with Whitney for the cafeteria. No time for the Parkview Cafe's spicy cheese quesadillas or sun-dried tomato pasta these days.

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     Before Jessica could scoot out the door, Stone caught up with her. "Come on. Let's go figure out what we're going to do."

     She followed him, enjoying the view from behind. He had a rolling John Wayne swagger that was kind of sexy. Before going to engineering school, Stone had earned his living as sheriff of a small Texas town. Tall and sinewy, he was easy to picture twenty years younger with a gun belt slung below where he now had a pot belly.

     He rated an office with a door and four walls that went to the ceiling, not a tiny cubicle like hers. Plopping himself into the leather chair behind his large wooden desk, he waved her to one of the four guest chairs. Jessica wondered how many Armors he'd had to endure to earn this office. She admired how well he coped with the pressure and made a mental note to observe his technique.

     "I'm sorry, but I just don't know when I can fit your work in," she said. "I'm booked solid with meetings and other write-ups from now until late Friday."

     Stone sat forward with a jerk and pointed a finger at her. "Look, if an old fart like me can keep up with the pace around here, so can you." His voice rose from a growl to a shrill whine. "You're young. You can take it."

     Jessica almost leapt out of her chair. "That's not fair. I pull my own weight. No one can do the impossible just because Armor demands it." Evidently one way he coped was by yelling at people working for him.

     He glowered at her. "He's the boss. He wants the write-up Saturday-- we get it done by Saturday."

     He must have been a sheriff too long. Marching to orders was way too important to him. "I'll have to work late nights on top of the days I've already got filled."

     "You'll be rewarded someday." He gave a wink and a Will Rogers wide-mouthed grin.

     "I certainly hope mine gets here soon and I can spend it. None of this hereafter stuff for me."

     Stone picked up a pile of rumpled papers from his desk. "This is where Armor and I left the plan two weeks ago. See what kind of shape you can put it in."

     She backed out of his office and pulled the door shut. For the foreseeable future, she'd have to work even more than her current ten hours a day. She could just forget about dinners out or relaxing at the piano. It'd be hard to get the laundry and grocery shopping done.  Armor

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would be on Stone's case day and night and he'd be on hers. She mam- boed down the hall to her office cubicle the way they did at aerobics--one, two three--kick Armor and punch Armor, and one, two, three--kick and punch.

     At two thirty, Whitney stopped by Jessica's cubicle. "Got a minute?"

     Jessica spun around and leaned back in her swivel chair--she couldn't lean very far back without bumping into the desk. "Only a minute. I'm trying to finish this write-up so I can start on Stone's work by five or six." She rubbed her tense, aching shoulder, wondering what it would feel like if she was still hunched over her computer at eight or nine tonight.

     "I need to sound off. My boss has me programming an equation for calculating thermal gradients," she said, perching on Jessica's table, legs swinging in the air. "Any high school graduate can do that."

     "Why not tell him that?" Sometimes she couldn't believe how totally incapable Whitney was of working out problems with her bosses. Whitney was sharp, a first-rate spacecraft engineer and deserved better treatment than she got. The problem was she always tried to please everyone. In the face of conflict, she was passive.

     Whitney shrugged. "You know me."

     "Come on, Whit. Don't be a wimp. That's how they get you. They count on you to take whatever they dish out."

     That's me--wimp of the workplace." Whitney grimaced.

     "Write your boss a proposal," Jessica said. Her fingertips and hands had begun to tingle as if they'd fallen asleep. She rubbed her hands together to awaken them. But her arms were getting weak. "Tell him what you feel you're capable of." It seemed as if her throat and jaw wouldn't work right; her speech slowed. What the hell was going on?

     "What's the matter?" Whitney asked.

     "I don't know." Jessica felt her energy factory shutting down fast. She was weak and cold, starting to shiver. She felt like she was going to fly apart. Chilled and clammy, she began to sweat all over. She fell forward onto the table, arms spread out, head pressed flat to the cold surface. She struggled to sit up, but failed. She couldn't imagine what was happening.

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     "No kidding, Jessica." Whitney's voice had gone to a higher pitch. 

"What's wrong?"

     "I don't know. I just don't know. I feel like I'm going to pass out. Don't leave me alone." She'd never felt like this in her life, not even when she'd had the flu and a temperature of 104.

     She could see Curt Simons from down the hall standing in the cubicle entrance and two engineers she didn't even know by name peering over the wall. Feeling like an animal in a zoo, she tried to end the show by sitting up, but couldn't move.

     "It's nothing," she said, the side of her face still pressed to the table.

     "What?" Whitney's face was down near hers. "I can't understand you."

     "No--thing." Jessica tried to say the word clearly. Actually, she felt quite good now--free of her body, as if she were drifting over the flowery alpine meadow in the poster on her wall. Even in her dazed condition, she knew this was strange. But why fight it?

     Jim Stone's voice came from above. "What's the matter, Jess?" He put his hand on her back.

     What was the matter? Something had to be wrong, but a part of her never felt happier. "Lupine." She tried to tell him about the lovely mountain flowers, but couldn't move her tongue and throat to form the words.

     "Maybe you'd better go home," he said.

     That would be nice. "Pretty soon."

     "You're not ready yet?"

     "In a minute," she managed to say. She could see his wristwatch. It was just after three. Now that her hands felt normal--they'd stopped tingling--everything was perfect. Except, for some reason, she was afraid she couldn't move. Maybe she could move a little bit if she found the mental strength to make the effort, but she couldn't find it. "A few minutes."

     "Somebody better stay with her," Stone said. "She seems awfully weak."

     "I will," Whitney replied. "Look, she's shivering."

     Someone laid a heavy man's jacket over Jessica's back and shoulders. That was better, but she was still cold, suddenly chilled through. She wanted to drift off into sleep. A rational voice in her head rejected this idea--people didn't suddenly drift off into rapturous sleep in the middle of the day.

     The next thing she knew, she roused from a stupor to see Whitney sitting in a chair in the cubicle entranceway. Slowly, Jessica sat upright. She looked at her watch--five o'clock. She'd been zonked for hours--a whole afternoon lost.

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     "I almost fell asleep," she said. With a start she realized Jim Stone had seen her sprawled on the table. Everyone had.

     "Whitney eyed her. "How do you feel?"

     "Stronger. Better. But I'm way behind schedule now. I can't believe how tired I got."

     "I never saw anyone sink as low as you did. We almost called the para-

medics, but you said not to."

     "I'm okay." Jessica remembered feeling strangely giddy with happiness and refusing the paramedics as if had happended in a dream. Still a bit weak, she stood up slowly. "I just want to go home. I thought I could handle this job, but it must be getting to me. I guess I need a rest." Tomor-

row she'd figure out how to catch up on her work.

     When she pulled into the underground garage at her apartment building, she remembered Whitney walking her to her car. But the drive up the freeway to the Orange Grove exit and down the winding street to her place was disturbingly blank.

     As soon as she got out of the car and onto her feet, her thighs began to tremble. It was going to be a tough haul from the garage up the steps to the courtyard; her apartment was on the second floor, all the way back. She focused on trudging up the first flight of gritty stone stairs, forcing her leaden feet to move. At the top she was exhausted and leaned against a rough stucco wall, clutching a manila envelope crammed with write-ups. Can't stop. Got to keep going. She crossed the courtyard and dragged herself up the second flight and along the walkway to her door where she fumbled for the key holder in the bottom of her purse.

     After pushing the key into the lock and turning it, all she had to do was to shove the door open. She couldn't do it. She tried to will herself to be strong, but had no more mental than physical vigor. Her calves trembled, her thighs crumpled, and she sank onto the rubbery doormat where she lay down, exhausted.

     A short time later Fernando found her there, still too tired to get up.

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