“That was just a...” What was it?
“Freudian slip?” He frowned and set down his glass. “Like mother like daughter, I guess. Thanks for the drink.” He stood up in one fluid movement and then was off walking across her lawn toward his house.
“You forgot your chips,” she called after him, a great substitute for “I’m sorry.” Good grief. She really was almost as good at antagonizing the man as her mother.
“Keep ’em,” he called back, then marched into his house and shut the door behind him.
She gulped down the last of her drink, then picked up the bag of chips and dug one out, chomping viciously down on it. She didn’t have anything to feel bad about. She wasn’t the one scaring the life out of people. And she was glad she’d gotten him off her porch.
Now, if she could find a way to get him out of her mind. But he lingered there, reenacting different encounters,different scenes. The many faces of Alec James. They all made her nervous, and they all fascinated her.
Not good.
Of all the neighborhoods in all the world he had to move in to hers?
Chapter20
IT WAS OFFICIAL. ZONA HAD HERsecurity clearance and was a HopIn driver.
Gilda had agreed to hang out with Louise on weekend nights when Bree or Louise’s friends couldn’t be around.
“Honestly, I don’t need babysitting. I can manage an evening alone,” Louise had protested.
“I just don’t like the idea of you home alone, trying to get around with that big cast,” Zona had said.
“I’ve been doing fine,” Louise had reminded her.
It was true, she was. Louise had gotten creative and started slinging a canvas grocery bag around her neck where she carried a small thermos, her phone, and whatever book she happened to be reading, along with her barely used writing supplies. (After the great bloody bone incident, Louise’s interest in becoming a mystery writer had dwindled.) Still, Zona felt better knowing someone was with her mother.
Gilda had been agreeable to putting in extra hours as long as she wasn’t expected to spend the night. “And don’t stay out all night,” she’d added, making Zona think of the curfews of her youth.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be home by one,” Zona had promised.
“Make it midnight,” Gilda had commanded, and Zona had decided that was fine with her. After midnight she was more likely to end up chauffeuring drunks and that didn’t appeal to her.
Her first Friday night was turning out to be a busy one. So far, she’d picked up one exhausted woman at the Ontario airport who was returning from a business conference, then returned to the same airport with a retired couple who were off to New York, their jumping-off place for a cross-Atlantic cruise. Then it was two women going to a bachelorette party followed by another pickup at the airport, a retired couple returning from visiting family. The couple had been chatty and friendly to the point of nosiness. She was happy to see that they weren’t the norm. The last thing she wanted was people asking her why she’d decided to turn herself into a chauffeur.
By eleven she’d had enough of weaving in and out of traffic and was ready to call it a night when one last request came in from a club in Los Angeles, wanting a ride to Azusa. Her last drop-off had been Irwindale and this rider wanted to go to Azusa, so perfect. She took it.
She pulled up in front of the club to find two women her daughter’s age, both dressed in stylish jeans, shirts, and jackets. Zona recognized that one indigo jacket, and the girl in it. Oh, no. There was her daughter. An angry, make-a-scene version. She blinked in shock as she pulled her car up.
The other woman opened the door and practically shoved Bree in with the concerned parting words of a bestie, “You owe me a monster apology when you sober up.”
This was accompanied by a few other choice words, many of which were the notorious F bomb, and to Zona’s horror, her daughter dropped a few bombs of her own. Zona had been raised to never “speak like a trash mouth,” and she’d raised her daughter the same way. Who was this angry, drunken woman in her car?
“Get me out of here,” Bree muttered.
“Gladly,” said Zona as she pulled away. “Good heavens, Bree, what is wrong with you?”
There was a long moment of silence in the back seat. It was followed by an incredulous, “Mom? What the—?”
Zona cut her off. “Don’t you dare say it. You were raised better.”
“I wasn’t raised. I was tortured!”
And to think Zona could have passed on picking up this last passenger.
“I hate my life,” Bree wailed.
