Leslie Kelly - Slow Hands

O H , MY G OD , I CANT DO THIS , its hopeless! Were not going to be able to pull it off.

Penny Rausch heard the panic in her partners voice and struggled to keep her own alarm under control. One of them had to stay calm. Otherwise they were both going to lose their mindsnot to mention their fledgling graphic design business.

Calm down. Were almost there.

Janice, her partner and more-than-slightly ditzy younger sister, thrust her hand into her spiked blond hair, sending it into even more crazy directions than it had been before. A highly sought-after graphic designer, Janice had no head for business, but wow, was the girl creativeand not just with her hair. Her graphics were incredible. Her drawings collectible. Her fashion sense wildly imaginative.

Too bad she was pretty helpless in nearly every other aspect of her life.

I dropped the file. The last six photos went everywhere. Just shoot me now.

She looked utterly exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes and a haggard hollowness in her cheeks. Janice was usually very precise about her appearance, but right now her yellow T-shirt was stained with something that was either ketchup from todays fries or tomato sauce from last nights pizza.

They hadnt left their office in thirty-six hours. Not since Janices expensive, nearly brand-new computer had crashed, taking most of the files for the high-end, glossy brochure they were producing down with it. And almost taking down their company, too.

Because if they lost this jobcreating the programs for a ritzy charity bachelor auction scheduled for next weekthey were finished. They wouldnt make the already-late rent, or keep the power on, or cover the printing bill. Theyd be out of business overnight, after only being in it for eight months.

We can handle this, Penny insisted. Weve come this far, were almost there.

Maybe we could contact Mrs. Baxter

No. Absolutely impossible. They could not let the snooty Junior League socialite know theyd had yet another mishap in the design job. No way. They were already on probation, thanks to a few hiccupslike Janices case of the flu and a flood in the office. If they admitted to the computer crash, the woman would kick them to the curb for good.

I cant even tell them apart anymore, Janice wailed, waving toward the table laden with photographs and copy. Looking at one gorgeous man after another, hour after hour

Tough job.

Its not funny. I thought we were in the clear when we found the backup set of hard copies. Why didnt we put the bachelors info on the back when we made them?

The biographies of the bachelors being auctioned off to support Chicagos needy children had been on the backs of the originals. But the originals had gone back to the penny-pinching auction organizer, Mrs. Baxter, once theyd been copied and scanned. Now they had the scans on disc, and they had the hard duplicates. They even had the printed biographies.

They just didnt have any of those things together. And they had no way of knowing who was who.