Chapter 2
FEN CLARKE SHOWED UP AT THE Starbucks where Zona’s daughter Bree was working just as she was about to end her shift. Fen had a habit of doing that.
“Guess who’s here again,” said her work buddy and roomie Gaylyn.
“I saw,” she said. She’d also seen Gaylyn flirting with him.
Who could blame her? Fen was a legitimate hottie, ultra cute with shoulder-length hair as blond as Bree’s and a tanned six-pack. He was easygoing and solid, and he had a nice family. Unlike Bree, he was already halfway through college.
Sometimes she wondered why she’d broken up with him. Then she’d remember. He’d been getting too serious, and they’d been too young.
Yet, here he was, back in her life again. And he looked good. But they were still so young. This wouldn’t end in something permanent, and they would both wind up hurt. It was stupid to hang out with him. And yet she was doing exactly that.
“Hey, if you don’t want him, I’ll take him. That man’s got aura,” said Gaylyn.
Gaylyn was a man pig. She wanted every man she met.
And with her glossy dark hair and perky boobs, she usually got every man she met.
And then got tired and dumped the poor fool.
Even though Bree was never going to let things get serious with Fen, she sure wasn’t going to let him get gobbled up and spat out by Gaylyn.
“He’s not your type,” she said.
“Cute is my type,” Gaylyn insisted. “Anyway, I’m bored with being alone.”
“You’ve been alone for what, two weeks?”
Gaylyn shrugged.
“That’s the trouble with people,” Bree informed her. “They rush into relationships and then when everything blows up, they’re miserable.”
Who did that remind her of? Her mother had changed her last name three times already—once with each marriage and now she was back to her original one.
Bree Knox wasn’t going to do any name swapping ever.
Yeah, Knox was her dad’s last name, a lifetime reminder that most people never really lived up to their promises.
But it was a cool one, so she was keeping it.
And she was keeping her dad. Sort of. She hung out with him once in a while, even though he had a whole new family that he claimed was keeping him too broke to help her much with tuition.
At least he’d paid child support when Bree was growing up. That was something.
She was sure glad Gary had never gotten around to adopting her. The last thing she wanted was any reminder of that loser.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you or your mother,” he’d said tearfully after she’d confronted him about depleting the savings that had been set aside for her college tuition.
“Gee, I’d hate to think what you could do if you ever meant to,” she’d shot back.
Of course, he’d looked at her like she’d stabbed him in the heart with a steak knife.
That had really made her mad. “And to think my mom thought you were so great. I thought you were so great. But really, you’re as ungreat as a human being could be. ”
That had been the last conversation they ever had.
“You’re scarred. You need therapy,” Gaylyn informed her.
“Why do I need therapy? That’s just talking to someone. I have you for that.”
Gaylyn rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but you never listen to me.”
“Truth.” Bree had concluded that, of all the people in her life, the best person to listen to was herself. And the multitude of women on social media who testified that they were much better off alone than with a man. That many women couldn’t be wrong.
Fen was waiting for her at the order counter. “Hi, coffee queen,” he greeted her.
“Hey there. Did Gaylyn take your order?”
“I was waiting for you,” he said with his thousand-watt smile.
“What can I get you?” she asked.
“Caramel frappe, Grande,” he said, and she scanned his phone. “You want to hit the beach? I got your favorite drink in a thermos in the Jeep.”
It had been a typical busy barista day with a nonstop flow of customers. Flopping on a blanket on the beach with a big thermos of lemonade mixed with 7-Up sounded great. They’d surf, play beach volleyball, and chill.
Santa Monica would be the beach of choice. On the weekends it was so packed with both tourists and locals you could barely find a square foot to park your butt, but this being a Tuesday, the beach wouldn’t be as crowded.
Bree didn’t have a problem with having people around them. The last thing she wanted was to find a nice, deserted stretch of sand like Escondido, which lay farther up the coast. She didn’t need Fen getting inspired by any romantic settings.
He’d resurfaced in her life a few weeks earlier, wandering into the coffee shop and discovering her working there.
They’d broken up early in their senior year of high school but had vowed to at least remain friends, promised to keep in touch after graduation, and then he’d gone off to Pomona and she’d gone nowhere.
Now he was already half done with school, back for the summer and throwing out get-together vibes.
There would be no getting together. Not with Fen, not with anyone.
She’d applied to the nursing program at Citrus College and been accepted, but instead of college she’d wound up taking a Life 201 course from her mother.
She’d come away with a graduate degree in mistrust. No way was she ever getting serious with a man, not even Fen.
Sharing a bed when inspiration hit? Maybe. Sharing a bank account? Never.
Anyway, she didn’t have time for romance. She had to stack up cash, so she could go to nursing school.
“Don’t worry about school. We’ve got the money saved for you,” Mom had assured her during her junior year in high school.
Then, in spring of her senior year, right after she’d gotten her welcome letter from the college, it was “Sit down, sweetie. I have something to tell you.” This was followed by another “I have something to tell you,” which wound up with divorce and saying goodbye to their house.
And now here she was. Instead of learning how to give people shots, she was making espresso shots. So wrong.
But she’d get her life back on track. And at least sharing an apartment with Gaylyn and Gaylyn’s bestie, Monique, was saving her a ton of rent money.
She could have stayed with Gram and Mom and saved even more, piled up college money faster, but, much as she loved them both, that would have made her feel like she was back in high school. She preferred to be adulting.
Poor Mom. No adulting for her. That had to suck, moving back in with your mom when you were old.
Pathetic. And all because of Gary. One man had managed to mess up both their lives.
Mom should have seen what a loser he was.
If she’d just kept tabs on their finances instead of trusting a man to take care of things, she would have figured out what was going on long before their world fell apart.
But the sun was out, and the beach was calling. She wasn’t going to waste a perfectly good afternoon thinking about what her mom should have done and what her stepfather had done. He was history, blocked from her phone, and maybe, eventually, blocked from her memory.
It was hard to block out the good memories though—trips to Disneyland, Sunday afternoons playing Monopoly (Gary always lost. That should have given him a clue that he shouldn’t gamble), teaching her how to play poker. She would never pick up a deck of cards again.
And she would never talk to Gary again.
“Let’s do it,” she said to Fen. The beach, that was.
“I’m gone,” she said to Gaylyn after she’d finished up.
“Guess you don’t need a ride home.”
“Nope. We’re going to the beach.”
“Whoa, we just had a quake, girl.”
“It’s over. We’ll be fine.”
“I guess,” Gaylyn said dubiously.
Bree wasn’t worried. After she and her mom had survived what Gary had done to them? Bring on the tidal wave.
ZONA HAD RETURNED to work after her unsettling lunch and the day had fallen back into the usual routine that came with being a licensing service rep.
(Translation: worker bee at the department of licensing.) No more earthquakes.
She administered half a dozen written tests and had to deny renewing an octogenarian’s driver’s license when he failed the eye test.
“I was driving before you were born,” he informed her.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t renew your license when you can’t see where you’re driving,” she said.
“This is not right,” he informed her. “The government has too much control over our lives. I’m writing my congressman. And then I’ll be back.”
Just like the Terminator. What to say to all that? “I hope the rest of your day goes better.”
“It won’t,” he snarled. “And neither will the rest of my life.” He turned and wobbled off, leaning heavily on his cane.
The woman who had come in with him, probably a daughter, mouthed, “Thank you,” before following him out.
Zona couldn’t help feeling sorry for the man. Aging was hard enough, but to give up driving had to be right up there near the top of the yuck list. To give that up was to sacrifice your independence.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she waited for the next person in the crowd seated in the room to come up to her. It was on days like this that she didn’t like her job.
But it paid the bills.
It would pay them a lot better now that she was on her own and wasn’t dragging around the financial ball and chain that was Gary.
Renewing a driver’s license was much more pleasant than refusing one. The woman smiled at Zona when they were finished. “Have a good day.”
“Thank you,” Zona said, and thought, One day at a time.
Then she remembered the earthquake and the usual unsettling feeling that had accompanied that moment when everything under her had shaken.
She almost allowed herself a crazy-woman laugh.
How symbolic that had been of her life. Maybe her motto should be One earthquake at a time.