She left them to their murder and went off to do a shift in her car.
It felt like a sick coincidence when the next evening she was at the Ontario airport, dropping off a traveler, and saw Gary pull up in front of the rideshare pickup curb to meet someone. She unloaded her passenger, then drove past him, keeping her eyes looking straight ahead. She could almost feel him knocking at the back of her mind, asking to come in and stir up her anger.
Sorry, no headspace available.
Chapter27
ZONA’S FRIDAY NIGHT AS A RIDESHAREdriver turned out to be uneventful. But it did give her a ringside seat into relationships, both troubled and happy. She dropped off a trio of girlfriends, perfumed and giggly and ready for a fun night out.
“We’re going gunting,” one explained.
Guy hunting. That was a distant memory for Zona, but she could still almost recapture the excitement of going out with friends, looking forward to dancing and flirting and laughing the night away.
The mother in her couldn’t help cautioning, “You all be careful.”
“Oh, we are,” said one of them as she shut her designer purse. “We’ve got each other’s backs. We’re the three muskrats.”
“Musketeers, Mimi,” one of her friends corrected. “Sheesh.”
“Sorry,” Mimi said, sounding far from it.
“We’ve got you, anyway,” said her other friend, obviously the peacemaker. “Thanks,” she chirped as they slid out of the car.
“Have fun,” Zona said.
They hadn’t heard. They were already in party mode, chattering excitedly.
Zona couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit jealous. It was great to be young, with no worries, no problems.
Although youth was no guarantee of a carefree life. Her own daughter was a shining example of that.
Another ride request came on her app and she accepted it. Where the girls had been happy and bubbly, this thirty-something couple were tense and silent. Angry vibes got into the car along with them and swirled up to where Zona sat behind the wheel.
She couldn’t help taking a spying peek in her rearview mirror. Both had their lips pressed into angry lines. His jaw was clenched as he faced the window, determined not to look the woman’s direction.
“You better have this figured out before we get to your mom’s,” the woman hissed.
He said nothing. Just clamped his molars down harder.
Zona pulled up in front of a modest house in City of Hope and they both got out opposite sides of the car. He shut his door, she slammed hers.
“Have a good night,” Zona muttered as she drove away.
If it weren’t for men like Martin, Zona would be tempted to believe her daughter’s claim that all men were jerks.And Alec, she added. He was looking more and more like the kind of solid man a woman could count on. A heart healer and not a heartbreaker. She was so ready to be healed.
He’d taken her for an early dinner before she started work, and the kiss they’d shared had gone a long way toward cauterizing her emotional wounds. Snugged up against that hard, muscled body, she’d felt like she was in a fortress. And yet she feared to get her hopes up.
Her next ride was another couple, this one middle-aged. The woman talked all the way to the restaurant that was their destination. The husband, like the man before him, said nothing, preferring to look out the window rather than engage with his wife.
Zona wondered if what she’d witnessed between those couples was a normal occurrence or if she’d caught them in a moment where they simply weren’t at their best. She’d have likedto think it was the latter but suspected it was the former. She could almost hear her daughter saying, “See? This is why you don’t want to get involved with anyone ever again.”
But then she picked up the sweet older couple. He was wearing a suit, and she had a gardenia corsage on the dressy jacket over her cocktail dress that filled the car with fragrance. He had only a few strands of hair left on his head, and she looked like a walking bed pillow. Both of them were beaming, and the minute they got in the car they held hands. They were adorable.
Their destination, The Penthouse in the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica. Gary had taken Zona there once. The view from the eighteenth floor had been breathtaking, with the Pacific Ocean stretching out forever, and the food had been delicious. The whole evening had been romantic.
“It’s our fifty-second anniversary,” the woman informed Zona.
“Wow, congratulations,” Zona replied.
