California Girls

“Your secrets are safe with me. See you soon.”

Zennie was still smiling when she pulled onto her mother’s street. She parked down several houses to give the shoppers the prime spots, grabbed her smoothie and a twenty-ounce BPA-free water bottle Bernie had given her, then walked the quarter block to her mom’s house.

Lights were on and the garage door was open. Zennie spotted Ali sorting contents of boxes onto tables while Finola rolled out racks of clothes. Both sisters smiled at her.

“What time did you get here?” Zennie asked, hugging Ali, then examining her cast.

“I was here at six,” Ali told her with a smug smile. “I’m better than you.”

“I guess so. Let me put all my stuff in the refrigerator, then I’ll be out to help.”

“You can help me carry the tables,” Finola said, then wrinkled her nose. “Can you help me carry the tables?”

Zennie looked at the folding tables stacked in the garage. “They weigh like ten pounds each. Yes, I can manage that.”

She walked into the house and stored her things. Her mother came into the kitchen just as she was heading back to the garage.

“Good,” Mary Jo said. “You’re here. I want to give you something before the estate sale starts.”

“Sure.” Zennie kept her tone upbeat, even as she imagined old posters that were supposed to be donated, or a membership to Match.com. But instead, her mother handed her a box.

Zennie opened it and saw it was filled with baby clothes. There were onesies and dresses with matching frilly hats, tiny shoes and a beautiful crocheted blanket done in different shades of pink.

Her mother watched her. “Those were yours. I rescued them from the sale because, well, I thought you might want them. For the baby.”

Zennie didn’t know what to say. “Mom, I’m not—”

“Keeping the baby. Yes, I’ve accepted I’m never having grandchildren. Finola’s getting a divorce and you’re having a baby for someone else. Ali’s with Daniel now, so maybe they’ll get busy, but with my luck, I just don’t know.” She glared at Zennie. “You girls are not easy. First Ali and Glen break up, then Finola and Nigel. You refuse to commit to a man. God forbid you should fall in love, but have a baby for a friend? Sure. Why not?”

Zennie impulsively hugged her mother. “I love you, Mom. I’m sorry I’m making things hard for you. That was never my goal.”

Her mother hung on tight for a second. “Yes, well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?”

Zennie touched the baby clothes. “Thank you for these. I’m sure Bernie will love them.”

“I don’t care if she does or not. I’m doing it for you. To say that while I’ll never understand, I’m your mother and I love you, too.”

“Good. Now we should probably go supervise what’s going on.”

Zennie and her mom went out into the garage. They spent the next ninety minutes getting the estate sale set up, and the first shoppers arrived at seven forty-five.

Two cranky-looking old guys blew through wanting to look at jewelry. When they found out that it was all costume, they left.

“As if I would sell my good things like this,” Mary Jo fumed. “How ridiculous. I took every valuable piece of jewelry to the bank last week to store in my safe-deposit box. I’m not an idiot.”

“Mom, you should probably go inside,” Finola told her. “That way you can make sure no one goes where they shouldn’t or takes anything.”

The big pieces of furniture were in the house, along with the displays of Hollywood memorabilia.

“Good idea. People are vultures. All of them.”

When she’d left, Ali grinned. “So she wants to sell her stuff, but she resents anyone who wants to buy it?”

“Don’t look for logic,” Zennie told her. “She means well, though.”

“She does.”

That was the last chance they got to talk for a while. More customers arrived and began looking through things. The furniture went quickly. By the time Clark arrived with doughnuts, the dining room table and hutch were being loaded into the back of a small box truck and two women were arguing over the living room furniture.

Zennie found herself oddly happy to see the curly-haired man in glasses and even as she told herself it was more about the doughnuts than him, she knew she was lying. This Clark who didn’t ask for much and was just a friend was way more to her liking than the one who wanted to date her. Although if truth be told, she wouldn’t object to the occasional kiss or two, which was really strange considering how she hadn’t been upset when they’d broken up before.

But there was no time to think about that. They barely had time to finish their doughnuts and for her to explain to her sisters that while she and Clark weren’t back together, they were friends, before more people arrived, wanting to look through everything.

The clothes went quickly, as did the toys. The artwork sold fast, but the kitchen stuff just sat there. Clark stuck around, helping carry items to people’s cars. Around eleven, a sleek two-seater Mercedes convertible pulled up in front of the house and a handsome older man got out.

“I saw online you had some Hollywood memorabilia,” he said to Zennie. “Can you point me in that direction?”

She stared at the guy, frantically trying to place him. “It’s inside.” She pointed to the open front door. “My mom’s in there. She can show you.”

Finola walked up to them. “You’re Parker Crane.”

That’s who he is, Zennie thought. He’d been in a lot of movies when he’d been younger and now he had a successful detective series on TV.

“I am.” Parker smiled. “I keep an eye out for sales like this. I’m always curious what fans have collected. Sometimes they have things I don’t.”