Page 7 of The Man Next Door
“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 hastoo 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 beOne earthquake at a time.
After work, she stopped by the store to purchase the wine Louise had requested, along with some chocolate chips. Louise may have wanted wine, but Zona needed a sugar fix, and she hadn’t had chocolate chip cookies in ages.
She hadn’t had much of anything other than dark chocolateand coffee and soup, which was easy to make, thanks to a sinking appetite. All the foods she loved—pizza, Pad Thai, even fruit salads—had turned to ash in her mouth when she tried to eat them. The divorce diet. It had taken off twenty pounds, ten of which her worried mother insisted she didn’t need to lose.
But the cookie craving was a sign that Zona’s taste buds were slowly coming back to life. Louise had a Mrs. Fields knock-off recipe, and she was already anticipating how one of those cookies would taste, warm from the oven. With milk. Cookies and milk.
Good grief, she was so reverting to childhood. Living with Mom, cookies and milk—what next, a curfew?Snort.No need for one of those. Zona no longer had a life.
She parked her new used car in the driveway—between Louise’s car and Zona’s boxes and the mattress and bed frame stacked against the wall in the garage there was no room for Zona’s car—grabbed her grocery bag and got out. Her mother’s modern Spanish-style home with its arched windows and covered front porch beckoned her like the proverbial port in a storm. Which was exactly what it had become.
She couldn’t help but notice that the new neighbor her mother had mentioned had just pulled his truck into his driveway. That was where it stopped. His garage was probably full of boxes, too.
She half raised her hand to wave hello to him as he got out and then realized he wouldn’t see her. That was just as well. The better to ogle that broad-shouldered, Jack Reacher body, though she had learned the hard way that male bodies, no matter how sturdy they looked, always housed trouble.
He was marching up his front walk, busy talking on his cell phone. More like growling, really.
She understood the growling into the phone thing. She’d done her share of that with Gary. Who was making this chunk of hunk growl?
Who cared? She had enough problems on her own plate. She didn’t need to be looking over at anyone else’s.
“Good. You’re home,” Louise greeted her when she walked into the kitchen.
Her mother looked none the worse for wear, not a strand out of place on her carefully dyed California-blond bobbed hair. If there’d been any crying and carrying on, there was no sign of it as the black eyeliner and mascara that Louise favored were still intact. Wearing a stylish sleeveless top and hip-hugging jeans, Louise Hartman looked like the kind of social influencer who would inspire seniors and garner insults from younger women insisting she dress her age and give up those jeans and that cute little top.
“You’re only as old as you think you are,” she liked to say. Which kept her firmly in her forties right along with Zona—instead of her sixties. And that was fine with Zona. Louise had had her share of earthquakes, but she’d never let them keep her down. She was Zona’s hero.
“I’ve got dinner almost ready,” she said from where she stood at the counter, tossing sprouts into a large red Fiestaware bowl. “Asian chicken salad and leftover muffins from yesterday.”
“Sounds great,” said Zona. “And I got chocolate chips for cookies.”
“Cookies. That sounds like a good idea. Maybe we can take some to our new neighbor,” Louise suggested.
Zona knew an ulterior motive when she heard one. “Mom, I don’t need to start getting friendly with the next-door neighbor.”
“He doesn’t appear to be married. And he is gorgeous.”
