Chapter 68

Grounded.

Sent to my room like a two-year-old.

I couldn't believe it as I paced back and forth.

For the record: the bedrooms in mobile homes are not designed for pacing. Not when you have furniture in them anyway.

It had been a good week until this morning. Last Saturday, we'd had girls in every event. Miranda had surprised herself by making the finals on beam, then surprised herself again by finishing forth. Stephy took second on floor and Kelly fourth on bars. But the big news was that Traci made the finals on vault. She finished twelfth, but she made the finals. That may not sound impressive, but when you consider where we started...

One of the best things about the week was, I had nothing to do. I mean, other than school. Gymnastics was over and baseball didn't start till the twenty-eighth. I could come home and do nothing. Not that I came home, cause I was mobile.

After school, Zoe and I would jump in the truck and explore our little corner of the world in a way we never could before. It was like... freedom.

Then Wednesday, Dad got his job back. Actually, he got a new job. His old boss, Bill Miller, hadn't been able to replace him, so the state personnel department gave him the authority to hire an outside consultant. Bill hired Dad.

They set it up so that he would tele-commute, working from home most of the time, with his computer tied into the state's network. A couple of times a month, he'd have to go to Olympia, but the state would pay for his hotel, his meals, and everything. He wasn't getting the benefits he had as an employee, but Dad figured with the extra pay, after paying his own insurance and pension, he was still making twenty per cent more than he had before. And the best part was, he had a five-year contract, which got Traci almost through graduation.

Dad decided he'd get a small office in town. When he was looking for work, he'd found several small companies that could have used a strategic planner, but couldn't afford a full time one. Now that Dad was going to be a consultant, he figured he could do deals with them too. Besides, the office would be tax-deductible.

Thursday, the world got even brighter for my main man. The Unemployment Department had their hearing and decided that Dad qualified for benefits, since his job left him. They told him he'd be getting a check for all those months within ten days.

Then Friday, I got to see Mom in action. We'd had the insurance on the mortgage and the Porsche that was supposed to make the payments if Dad lost his job. But when the Employment Department denied him, the insurance companies did too. I got to watch Mom on the phone as she explained that the Employment Department had reversed themselves and that if didn't have a check in her hands within five days, she'd be filing complaints with the state insurance commission. And if the checks weren't there in ten days, we'd see them in court where they could pay costs and additional for the inconvenience. If lawyer wasn't a dirty word in our family, Mom would have made a good one.

All-in-all, a great week. Until I got up this morning about ten, stuck my head in the living room, and was told to go back to my room. I was grounded.

There was a knock.

"Come in."

Zoe opened the door. "Your mom said I could have two minutes."

"That's something," I muttered.

She closed the door behind her, and I pulled her close and kissed her.

"Mmmmm that was nice," she said. "What did you do?"

"Not a clue," I said, shaking my head.

"No, really."

I shrugged. "I don't know why I've been banished."

Zoe looked over her shoulder at the closed door, nervously. "You don't think it's about us?"

I smiled, hopefully, reassuringly. "I doubt it. You wouldn't be in here if it was."