A Broom With a View Read Online Free PDF Page B

Liza square in the middle of the forehead.
    Damn her third eye.
    “You had the locks changed,” she accused him, unable to keep the high pitch of anger from creeping into her voice. “Well I’ll be damned.”
    Mode coughed nervously and through the line she could see the tips of his ears, rosy from the anxiety he was feeling. Soon he’d be unbuttoning the top of his shirt. Good . “It’s just that there’s been a lot of thefts in the neighborhood recently and–“
    Enjoying his discomfort more than any decent person should, Liza allowed him to ramble while she closed her eyes and let herself drift hundreds of miles away and back in time.
    On the movie screen behind her eyelids she could see them a few days ago, the catalyst for the current conversation.
    There was Mode, with his stubby beard, tweed jacket he’d picked up at Goodwill, and red suspenders that she’d always thought looked ridiculous but kept quiet about because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
    And then there was Jennifer, pacing around the living room like a caged cat in her black tights and deep orange tunic sweeping her knees. Her voice was controlled but her skinny little shoulders were hunched forward and her eyes were bright with blue-tinted rage. “I don’t want that woman to have a key to my house Mode.”
    “She’s not ‘that woman’ Jen. Liza’s a great girl. She’d never do anything to hurt you or us!” Mode, who abhorred conflict, looked crushed. His eyes were lowered to the travertine tile Eliza had installed two years earlier and his mouth dropped at the corners–the way it got when he thought the world was stacked against him.
    “She’s vindictive and mean-spirited and I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her,” Jennifer spat. “Change the locks!”
    Liza chuckled at the scene playing out before her eyes on her own private movie screen.
    She was the vindictive one who couldn’t be trusted? She hadn’t been the one to make it her goal to sleep with a married man on a twelve-city tour and document the affair in Instagram posts.
    Liza still couldn’t believe they’d carried on that affair as long as they had without her knowing. When he’d told her about the Starbucks girl and that he was moving out, she’d thought he’d gone insane. Insanity she could fix. But when she learned he was actually leaving her for someone he worked with, that was different. That was serious. That’s when she knew she’d lost him.
    Mode was still babbling some nonsense when she interrupted him. “Sorry, I’ve got something on the stove. I’d better go.”
    “What? You’re cooking! That’s great. I am so glad that you’re–“
    She’d never know which part of her cooking made him “glad” because she hung up before he finished.
    Eh well , she shrugged as she stared at the blue light on her phone’s screen.
    Perhaps she was a little vindictive. After all, she hadn’t made an entirely innocent exit from their house. With Bryar at her side, begging Liza to let her curse something or put out a good hex, she’d loosened some things in all the toilets so that they’d overflow and run for the entire two weeks that the happy couple was on vacation, removed the new thermostat which effectively left them without air or heat until they could call someone in to replace it, and then removed all the towel racks and light bulbs and taken them with her.
    Just for the fun of it.
     

***
     
    T he last of her boxes were unpacked.
    Liza’s meager personal belongings were either neatly stowed away in closets or arranged on bookshelves and credenzas throughout her grandparents’ house.
    Her house.
    She wasn’t sure it would ever completely be hers , but she knew she belonged there. 
    Liza didn’t bring much with her. The few items she’d deemed important enough to transport from Boston were sentimental and random. In fact, from the looks of some of the things she packed, Liza was now worried she might have unknowingly suffered