Free Operation: Normal by Linda V. Palmer Page B

hanging with this morning.
He's picking us up in thirty minutes." For some reason I didn't feel like explaining Zach's real
relationship, even to Adele, who would actually get it.
    Esme nodded absently. "That's nice. How's your mom, dear?"
    "She called last night and said the tour was going well."
    "And which tour is that?"
    "The overseas tour she's on right now, remember? I told you about it Sunday." I didn't
mention Blak Magyk on the remote chance Esme knew who they were. She watched a lot of
television.
    "Hmm," she said, an answer that told me she'd forgotten.
    "Are you and Kayly doing okay on your own?" asked Adele.
    "Sure," I said, wondering if she somehow knew the nanny news. "But there is something
I'd like to talk to you about later if you've got time."
    "Call me. Better yet, you and Kayly drop by."
    "We will." I turned to Esme. "Do you have some kind of receipt or something for your
PC?"
    She did, which told me she and Roy must have had a face-to-face at some point. Or
maybe he'd mailed it to her. I knew some of the other seniors in the building, the ones who still
got around okay, sometimes checked Esme's post office box for her, too. Anyway, we rode up to
three, and I got it. Then Kayly and I went to our apartment and began to scan the real estate ads
while we waited for Zach.
    He got there about five minutes after nine. We loaded Kayly and her bag into the
stroller, and were quickly on our way to the park, about six blocks away.
    The sky stretched over us like a blue umbrella with one fiery golden polka dot as we
spread a quilt on the ground under a shade tree and settled Kayly on it. I handed her a toy. Zach
sat so he could lean against the treetrunk. I sat a couple of feet away and handed him that day's
classifieds.
    "We'll circle the ones that sound promising, then we'll check them out on the
internet."
    "My laptop's in my car," said Zach.
    "Or we can just use Mom's."
    "Okay. What do you have in mind after that?"
    "Calling the realtors. I want to walk through the houses."
    He frowned. "You really think they'll let us take a look?"
    "Why wouldn't they?"
    "Because we don't have any money."
    "They won't know that, and if they guess, I'll explain how I want to present mom with a
list of possibilities when she gets home."
    Though Zach clearly wasn't as sure about everything as I was, we talked about the sort
of house I wanted: three bedrooms, at least two baths, family room, nice yard, good school zone.
I had a reasonable idea of what kind of payment Mom could handle, based on the amount of rent
we currently paid, so tried to stay in our price range, too.
    Zach clearly had some doubts about the realtors, but his matter-of-fact attitude about
everything else really pleased me. I mean, how many eighteen-year-old girls want to look at real
estate? But he not only accepted that I did, he wanted to help.
    In about forty-five minutes, we'd picked out enough houses to make a trip to the
apartment worthwhile. We ran into Adele again on the way into the building. She gave Zach an
obvious and thorough once over, then gave me a thumbs up behind his back. That flustered me
for some reason.
    The realtor's web sites were helpful, but I definitely wanted to see the places in person.
If a picture was worth a thousand words, then an actual visit might be worth a million, right?
    I used my cell to call the numbers listed in the paper, but hit my first snag almost
immediately. Apparently I sounded as young as I looked. The agent didn't take me seriously,
which really ticked me off. She actually asked to speak to my mom or dad three different times. I
finally hung up on her and looked at Zach in complete frustration.
    "She thinks I'm ten years old."
    He nodded as if that didn't surprise him at all. "Let me try."
    I handed him my cell. He called the next realtor with much better results, probably
because of his deep voice. Or maybe it was the fib he told about being a newly married college
student, transferring to UT from UCLA. He said