Nothing But Trouble by Bettye Griffin Read Free Book Online Page A

ready to mow the lawn. Well, Brittany has to help me push the mower because of my hand.”
    â€œBut Dana, it’s after eight o’clock. It’ll be dark soon.”
    â€œThat’s the best time, when the sun’s gone in and it’s still light. It’s much cooler.”
    Once again Norell found herself at a loss for words. Before Dana cut her hand she had literally worked from sunup to sundown. Even now she spent most of her time assembling a business plan, struggling to peck at the keyboard with only her left hand.
    Norell suddenly felt guilty for the easy life that allowed her to work just part-time, and fill the rest of the days with light housework, books, old movies on the classic movie channel, and gardening. After dinner each night she relaxed with her husband until it was time to go to bed, while poor Dana was outside pushing a lawn mower. Suddenly embarrassed, she changed the subject. “Did you want me to sign something to make your wishes official? Not that anything is going to happen to you, Dana.”
    Dana chuckled. “Thanks for your optimism. Sometimes I feel like I won’t last another five minutes. And yes, it does need to be official. I’ve got a software program that helps complete simple legal documents. I’ll get the form printed out, and we can bring it to the bank and have our signatures notarized. But I mean it when I say think about it, Norell. Vic, too.”
    â€œVic won’t mind. He’s okay with older kids, like his daughters. It’s babies he objects to.” A note of bitterness crept into Norell’s voice.
    â€œUh, do you want to talk about it?”
    â€œNo,” Norell said quickly. Dana had enough problems. She didn’t need to be burdened with someone else’s. “Just a temporary roadblock. We’ll get past it.”

Chapter 5
    D ana ran a comb through her short hair. She’d had it touched up and cut at a beauty school for seventeen dollars, and they hadn’t done a half bad job.
    She had dressed casually in a pale yellow pantsuit and paisley print short-sleeved blouse, her completed loan application and business plan tucked into a pocket of her butterscotch-colored leather portfolio.
    Funny how kids could remind adults of the facts. Brittany’s friend Vanessa was the one who gave her the idea to come here in the first place. Dana had been at the dining-room table poring over the figures Pat Fairfield provided her, as well as her own financial picture, trying to assemble it all into something impressive, when Vanessa, who was spending the night with Brittany, asked what she was doing.
    â€œI’m trying to expand the business I run,” Dana told her. “But it isn’t easy. Expansion takes money.”
    â€œIf you need money you should call my Popi. He runs a bank.”
    Dana remembered then that Vanessa’s father, Gil, managed a branch of the bank where she kept her money. She’d forgotten all about that. She’d rarely seen Gil since he and Vanessa’s mother Irene separated over a year ago and he rented out an apartment at the beach.
    When she reached the bank, Dana gave her name to the receptionist, then sat on a striped sofa and waited. She’d barely had time to read an interesting-looking recipe for a beef stirfry in one of the reception area magazines when the receptionist said, “Mrs. Covington, Mr. Albacete will see you now. It’s the last office on the right.”
    â€œThank you.” Dana turned and carefully tore out the page with the recipe on it, then folded it and tucked it into her portfolio. She mentally defended her defacing of the bank’s magazine by reasoning that it was an old publication and she could no longer buy it.
    â€œGil, thanks so much for seeing me,” she said as she entered a large office with impressive dark wood furnishings. Sunlight from two windows behind his desk kept the room from appearing too somber.
    He rose.