Chapter 11
ZONA ARRIVED HOME FROM WORK TO find Louise and Gilda settled in the living room with iced tea and popcorn, streaming an old episode of Deathline. Future besties.
“You home already?” Louise greeted Zona.
“The workday is over,” Zona said.
“That means my workday is over,” said Gilda, rising from her chair.
“Stay and watch the end of the show,” Louise urged.
“I have to walk Darling, so I’d love it if you’d stay a little longer,” Zona said to her.
“It’s almost over anyway. You don’t want to leave now,” Louise added.
“All right. Just a few more minutes,” Gilda agreed. She sat back down and dug into what was left of her popcorn.
“Thank you for sending Gilda our way. She and Mom are sisters from another mister,” Zona told Gracie when she called to chat while she was walking Darling.
“I’m glad it’s working out,” Gracie said. “That takes a load of worry off you.”
True. And she’d been lugging a large enough load for the last couple of years.
“What’s the latest with the neighbor?” asked Gracie. “Any more neighborly chats?”
“Not since he brought Darling back from pooping on his property.”
“There’s a conversation starter.”
“It wasn’t much of one. He’s got someone anyway. Although it doesn’t look like they get along,” Zona added.
“Were you over there eavesdropping?” teased Gracie.
“Actually, I was over there to apologize for Darling and wound up hearing a major fight. Obviously, I decided it wasn’t a good time.”
“Is she still there?” Gracie asked.
“She left, but it looks like she returned, so I guess they made up. Anyway, who wants a man who yells?”
“Someone who yells back?”
“There was plenty of that going on. I can’t judge though. I did my share of yelling at Gary. And Luke.”
“Who both deserved it. Too bad about this guy though,” Gracie said. “That whole boy-next-door thing could have been fun.”
“Fun and men have not exactly gone hand in hand in my life,” Zona said.
“I know. But don’t give up.”
“Too late.”
“Don’t talk like that. You have half your life left. You don’t want to live it alone.”
“Alone is emotionally and financially safer,” said Zona as she and Darling rounded a corner and started down a new block.
Mr. Eggerton was out watering his lawn and waved at her. She said goodbye to Gracie and stopped to chat about his roses. He was such an innocuous old guy. Why couldn’t a nice little Mr. Eggerton live next door to them? Why did they have to end up with trouble in blue jeans?
She and Darling were just coming back up their front walk when the truck with the Better Builders logo pulled into his driveway next to the red PT Cruiser.
She was determined to keep her distance, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be polite.
She started to give him a friendly wave, but Alec James was not looking her direction.
She noted the clenched jaw and the fast stride as he walked to his front door.
The man was in no mood to be friendly. He yanked open the door and disappeared inside, slamming it after him.
Something had put Alec James in a foul mood and he probably wasn’t calling, “Honey, I’m home.” Poor Miss PT Cruiser, having to deal with such a mercurial temperament. It made the man look like a modern-day Jekyll and Hyde.
Now she could be narrating a Deathline episode, for crying out loud. There was something about him, we knew it. It practically buzzed like a downed power line.
There was more to that buzz than anger. She felt the current when she looked at him. The man reeked of pheromones. It was a good thing she was done with men.
Even if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t want to start anything with this one. No one in her right mind reached out and touched a downed power line.
Miss PT Cruiser, the fool, could have him and whatever baggage he brought with him. Zona had dealt with enough baggage to last a lifetime.
An image of Luke, explaining that he couldn’t help falling for another woman, telling her he needed someone who understood him, floated into her mind like a ghost from the past. It put other ghosts on parade.
She saw herself trying to explain to Bree that Daddy wasn’t going to be living with them anymore. Saw her daughter crying.
The parade continued, showing Gary hurrying into another room to take a business call.
Him calling her from the store to say he’d be home late.
“Trouble with the books. I’ve got to straighten things out here.
” There’d been trouble with the books all right.
On those nights he’d come home late, smelling like smoke.
His new accountant smoked. Right. It turned out that so did his poker buddies.
Gary had been a cheater, just like Luke.
The only difference was that Gary had cheated on Zona with Lady Luck instead of a flesh-and-blood woman.
More images drifted past. Her daughter’s shocked expression when she delivered the news that the college money was gone. Her sitting in the divorce lawyer’s office, stoical and numb. Finally, there she was leaving what she’d thought would be her forever home.
She was practically growling as she let herself back in the house.
Stop already, she told herself. She had a home, and even though her savings were gone she still had her job.
And she had good people left in her life, people who would always be there for her and not betray her.
So what if her love life was dead and buried.
She was finally safe, and safety trumped love any day.
And her daughter was right, not scarred.
Once inside, Zona dug out a frozen pizza and put together a tossed salad with the last of the greens and the half tomato left in the fridge. It would be time to go to the grocery store the next day.
“Stay and have pizza,” Louise urged Gilda.
“I should get home,” Gilda said. “See you tomorrow bright and early. We’ll get you all spiffed up. Then I’ve got the DVD for The Woman in the Window. I’ll bring it.”
“Sounds good,” Louise said with a smile.
“It looks like you two are getting along great,” Zona observed after she returned from seeing Gilda out.
“I like her,” said Louise.
Her mother was smiling. That made Zona smile.
They ate their pizza, filling each other in on their days. Zona’s had been uneventful.
“Not much went on here, either,” said Louise. “Except Martin came over and brought doughnuts.”
“You don’t deserve him,” Zona teased.
“Of course I do. I’m a good friend. I’d be doing the same for him if he was laid up.”
“You know what I mean,” Zona said.
“I’m afraid the spark isn’t there.”
“Sparks can blind you,” Zona said. She’d had plenty of sparks when she met both Luke and Gary and look where they’d gotten her.
“I had a happy marriage with your father. He was a wonderful man—fun and loving and so handsome. Why should I settle for less after that?”
Good point. “I guess you shouldn’t. But I’m not sure I’d label Martin as less.”
Louise shrugged. “He’s a little too mellow for my tastes. I need a man with some male energy.”
Zona thought of their next-door neighbor.
He was not lacking in male energy. But she was willing to bet all that male energy drew a lot from the poor woman staying with him.
What had happened to make him come home so angry?
Shouldn’t a man be glad to come home after a hard day’s work?
The way he’d stormed into his house, he had to be taking out his anger on her.
Why didn’t she leave? Couldn’t she see behind the facade?
Ha! Just like Zona had? When it came to love, people could be so stupid.
Thank God she was done being stupid.
After dinner, Louise started reading her murder mystery and Zona pulled out her ancient laptop and checked the bids on her items. Holy moly!
Bidders were going berserk over the purse she’d listed and three people were watching and waiting.
The bidding on the vintage cookie jar she’d found was hot and heavy and that was up to fifty dollars.
At the rate the bidding was going, Zona was going to make a tidy profit.
Maybe she would be visiting some more garage sales.
Her smile faded. Garage sale season wouldn’t last forever. What would she do for a side hustle when that died down? Having her mother home with a broken leg complicated matters. There had to be something though. She’d think of something.
LOUISE WAS READY to face the day, maybe even ready to think about that mystery she wanted to write. She sat stretched out on the couch with her cup of coffee and the notebook Bree had brought her, Gilda sitting in a nearby armchair with the half-finished blanket she was crocheting.
“I think I definitely want to have the murder take place on a cruise ship,” Louise said, “but now that I’m not cruising I have no way to do my research.”
“I’ve been on a cruise. I can help you with some of the details. Just don’t push the person overboard. That’s so cliché.”
“How do I write something that isn’t cliché?” Louise bemoaned. “Everything’s been done.”
“True. But there’s always a new way to tell an old story. One thing we know. Money is a powerful motivator, and if someone is married, it’s almost always the spouse who bumps the poor schlub off for their money,” Gilda said.
“So, a man and woman go on a cruise to celebrate their . . . tenth anniversary. Maybe he has gambling debts she doesn’t know about,” Louise continued, thinking of Zona.
It would be very satisfying to make her daughter’s ex the bad guy in a novel.
Let him get arrested. Or have fate take a hand just when he thought he’d succeeded.
He could accidentally fall overboard. Or fall off his surfboard and knock himself unconscious, then get eaten by sharks.
Maybe he should just get caught and the detective who got him would look exactly like Zona.
“An anniversary, I like that,” Gilda said with a nod.
“Of course, he would look like a loving husband.”
“But have her heavily insured.”
“How can he murder her though?”