“Hey, Dad.”
Her father glanced at her from over the top of his reading glasses. “Hey, honey. How was the interview? Did they offer you the manager position?”
She gave him a squeeze across his broad shoulders and a quick kiss to his balding head, where the wispy moss of hair formed into a perfect horseshoe. “Oh, yeah, the interview.”
“You didn’t go?” he asked, his attention split as he read something on the monitor. “What have you been doing all this time?”
“No, I went. It was fine. The girl who interviewed me was really nice. Maybe I can make a new friend while I’m at it.”
Her father shook his head. “I think getting the job might be the more important thing here.”
Mia let out a soft laugh. “Maybe for you. You’re not the one with an extra friendship bracelet kicking around in your purse. But she said she’d get back to me if I had the job.”
She shot him a quick glance before pushing ahead. “Afterward, I ended up at the jewelry store next door.” She chose to omit the other details, such as being persuaded to follow a stranger because of handsomeness and twenty-seven dollar bait. The last thing she needed was a lecture from her overprotective father on something which had turned out to be not a big deal. Plus, a dad lecture was bound to waste the valuable and diminishing time remaining for her detective work.
“Why were you at a jewelry store?”
She picked some lint from her sleeve. “Oh. Uh. It doesn’t matter. Have you been to El Dorado Jewelry before?”
“Do I look like I visit a lot of jewelry stores?”
“I don’t know. I assumed you may have picked up a bauble or two for Mom when you got in trouble for one thing or another.”
Her father harrumphed at the suggestion.
Mia pushed ahead. “Anyway, long story short because who has time for pesky, boring details, I need to figure out the name of the guy who owns the place. I tried looking on Google, and it says it was owned by a guy named Victor Lanza. But he’s dead, and the only other name I can find connected to the business is Luna Lanza.”
“You were there. Why didn’t you just ask?”
She groaned while crossing her arms and using the desk as support. “He won’t tell me. Apparently, he knows who I am, and he said if I could remember who he is, he’d give me a job at the jewelry store.”
With this additional information, her father swiveled his chair, his cool blue eyes searching her as his face turned serious. “What? Who is this guy?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Judge. Don’t you have any connections at the courthouse that can help me? I only have until fivep.m.”
“No. It’s a courthouse, not the police department. Also, I shouldn’t have to tell you how unethical it would be for me to call in a favor like that. And even if it was something I could do, I wouldn’t use connections to get you a job at a jewelry store. Forget this guy. He sounds like a creep. Why would you want to work there, anyway?”
“I don’t exactly want to work in a coffee shop either. At least the jewelry store would be less stressful. Plus, I’d be surrounded by beautiful jewels all day and next door to my future BFF. Why wouldn’t I want that?”
Her father’s focus returned to the computer. “You’re better than this, Mia.”
“Stop it. If you aren’t helping me, then I’ll just investigate on my own. Do you know where my old yearbooks are?”
“If they’re not in your room, maybe check the craft room.”
Mia knew they weren’t in her childhood bedroom. When she’d moved back a month ago, she went through everything to adult-ify the room. She removed the old poster of Einstein sticking out his tongue, the pastel, ruffled curtains, and most of the stuffed animals. Without much ceremony, the items were plunked into cardboard boxes and made to live out their future existence inside the Russo garage.
The craft room became the next logical place to look. But she stopped at the closed door. It wasn’t just a craft room. It was her mother’s craft room. She had died suddenly of a heart attack while Mia was away at college. For the remaining Russo family members, it was easier to keep the door closed. They could pretend her mother was still on the other side of it, forever crafting undisturbed. Mia didn’t want to experience the dull pain of grief today and instead made a beeline for the garage. The distraction of a silly mystery was more welcomed than the harsh reality of unfinished quilts.
After shifting a few items around, she uncovered a box with the wordsMia’s bookswritten in black Sharpie. She broke the tape, scanned its contents, and was excited to find her senior yearbook. The jewelry job would be hers within the hour.
She lugged the heavy box to her room and pulled out the book. It had been a long time since she looked through it—not since she had received it and asked fellow classmates to sign its pages before they parted for the final time. There were more memories of putting the yearbook together than of her fellow Cougars.
In a word, her experience in high school had been…fine. She had friends, and plenty of acquaintances, but never really belonged to any one clique or another. Mia never cared about things like that. She was too busy trying to race to the top of the GPA. The fact she was able to move quite easily between groups, due to her quick wit and diplomatic charm, was another reason why the instructor of her AP government class, Mr. Cleavers, put the bug in her ear that she would do well in the political world.
Even so, high school was a means to an end of getting into a prestigious college and a fantastic career. Being labeled assmartwas a simple byproduct of this arrangement, and one Mia wore as an invisible badge stitched onto her identity.
At the time, this was enough. Mr. Cleavers, along with all Mia’s teachers, was proud of her academic accomplishments. The other smart kids respected her scholarly game. And her mother made scrapbooks to honor her daughter’s achievements.
