Page 78 of The Man Next Door
While Louise called around the neighborhood, Zona got busy with her second job, packing up items she’d sold so they’d be ready to take to the post office. She’d made a small amount of money that week, but not as much as she’d hoped. There was the writing on the wall, and it said it was time for Zona to step up her game.
She spent an hour poking around online, looking for potential lucrative side hustles. After an hour, she found something she thought she could make work. Her car was far from new,but she kept it clean. If she became a rideshare driver, she could set her own work hours and still be available whenever her mother needed her. And if she only worked weekends, well, Louise had enough friends to keep her company on a Friday and Saturday night. If not one of them, Gilda could be persuaded to come hang out with her. It might just work, and at least Zona wouldn’t get varicose veins from being on her feet waiting tables. Instead, she’d probably get a big butt from all that sitting.
Oh, well.Into every life a little fat must fall, she told herself.
After some research, she decided to go with a new rideshare company called HopIn.Hop into more money as a driver for us!She was ready for that. She was smiling by the time she finished filling out the very long application form, glad that she was being proactive. Once she’d passed the company’s security check, she would be good to go. She could still find items to sell online, but this side hustle would keep her earning money during the fall and winter months after garage sale season ended.
“Who knows? You might meet a millionaire,” Louise’s friend Carol said when she came over to cheer up Louise and Zona shared her possible new job.
“Or get strangled,” Louise said, frowning. “I’d rather you found a waitress job.”
“This way I won’t get varicose veins,” quipped Zona.
“I don’t like it,” Louise said.
When it came right down to it, neither did Zona. She’d much prefer to spend her weekends relaxing in front of the TV with her mother or reading a good book, but a girl couldn’t always have what she preferred. This was the way it had to be until she could replenish her daughter’s college fund.
It was going to be easier than restoring Bree’s faith in men.
BREE’S SNOTTY JABat her mother was camped out in her brain, roasting her conscience like a marshmallow.
But what she’d said was true. Mom had been stupid and naive. She’d screwed up, gotten screwed over, and then so had Bree.
She was the one depositing money in that account for years, whispered Bree’s conscience.Even Gary had contributed.
Yeah, and then drained it all, and Mom had let him. Why was Gram taking Mom’s side?
Her conscience spoke more loudly.You love your mom.
Of course she did. But she needed a break from her. And Gram.
No, you need to apologize.
“Oh, shut up,” she told her conscience, and smothered it. Then she went back to staring at the movie she was streaming and not watching.
“I DON’T LIKEthe idea of Zona letting strangers in her car,” Louise said to Gilda on Monday morning as they made their way to the shower.
“That’s the problem with grown kids. They don’t listen,” Gilda said.
“Between Zona and Darling, my hair is going to be completely white under this blond,” Louise complained.
“Darn dog. Where could he have gone?” wondered Gilda.
“I wish I knew,” Louise said sadly. “You don’t think he could have wandered as far away as the foothills, do you?” If he had, they’d never see him again.
“Let’s hope not. If he has, a coyote probably got him.”
There was a horrible thought. Louise blinked back sudden tears.
“Don’t give up,” said Gilda. “Remember the movie about the two dogs and the cat who crossed the Canadian wilderness to get home?”
“Yes, my granddaughter already reminded me of it.” But movies were not real life.
“That could be Darling. And at least he doesn’t have to cross a wilderness.”
Louise tried to feel encouraged and failed. “It is what it is, as they say. I’ll have to resign myself to losing him.”
But later that afternoon, it looked like she wouldn’t have to resign herself to such a sad fate after all. Louise was trying to concentrate on committing murder on the high seas and Gilda was crocheting when they heard whining and scratching on the front door.
