“Good,” Louise approved. She smiled at her granddaughter. “You’re a good kiddo.”
Bree gave a snort. “Sometimes.”
“And we love you all the time,” said Louise, which birthed a baby smile on Bree’s face.
She nodded and went to the kitchen to dump the water from her pail.
“She is a good kid,” Louise said to Zona.
Zona nodded. “Good but unhappy.”
“She’ll get over it. She’s young.”
Just because you were young it didn’t mean you got over things. Zona still remembered getting tormented in middle school by a mean girl who taunted her over her flat chest.
“Nobody’s gonna want you,” Cindy Mathews had taunted.
Well, she’d gone and proved Cindy wrong. She got boobs and she got married young.
And got cheated on and got desperate and then got messed over again. And now look at her. She’d never admit it to her mother, hated to admit it to herself, but she was almost as cynical and untrusting as her daughter. Maybe she needed therapy.
Or just chocolate. She’d stock up before she started work. It would be good to have an emergency supply in the car.
Both Bree and Martin stayed for lunch and Zona made them a shrimp pasta salad.
“How’s your book coming, Gram?” Bree asked.
Louise’s cheeks turned pink. “I’m taking a break.”
“How come?”
“I’m waiting for the muse to return,” Louise said. “And I’ve been busy.”
“Busy doing what?” Bree persisted.
Reenacting old Hitchcock movies, thought Zona, but she kept her mouth shut.
So did Martin.
“I’ve had a lot of company,” said Louise. “I’ll get back to it when inspiration strikes again.”
If you asked Zona, inspiration had already struck enough.
AN HOUR BEFOREZona left for her side hustle, Louise, who was at the dining room table working a puzzle, announced, “She’s back.”
Zona set a glass of iced tea in front of her. “Who’s back?”
“The woman next door.”
“We are done spying on the neighbor,” Zona said, and peered out the window.
Sure enough. The woman was back, out of her car and walking to the front door.
But maybe not to stay. “She doesn’t appear to have any luggage with her,” said Zona.
“Well, I don’t think she had any clothes left behind,” said Louise. “Not after what I saw. Why would she come back?”
“Svengallow?”
