9 Hell on Wheels by Sue Ann Jaffarian

retirement home in New Hampshire. Afraid of the heavy traffic in Southern California, she hadn’t even been tempted to drive once she’d moved here. Now I was glad because if she did have wheels, she’d get herself into all kinds of trouble—something she did without driving.
    “No, Mom,” I said with a calmer voice. “Steele’s a bit embarrassed by how he looks right now. He’s not only obsessive but very vain.” I scooped another helping of veggie fried rice onto my plate. “We got him some groceries, and Cruz will take care of the rest. He was going to see if she would come in a little extra this week.”
    Cruz was the same Cruz Valenz who also cleans my house. I hired her more than ten years ago to clean my townhouse every other week when I was single. When I married Greg, she moved her duties up the highway to our home in Seal Beach. She’s now a weekly fixture in our lives, along with her husband, who takes care of our yard work. Since my mother moved here, Cruz also helps her out once in a while. The two women get along great, and I suspect Cruz, who is in her sixties, keeps Mom company as well as cleans.
    Steele’s history with housekeepers was about the same as his history with secretaries until I hired Jill—and about the same as his history with girlfriends, but he’s on his own there. He went through them all like a whirling dervish, leaving anger and obscenities in his wake. Since I’d done so well in hiring Jill, when his last housekeeper left in a huff several months ago, Steele had asked me to find him a housekeeper, specifically putting mine at the top of his wish list. I’d flat-out told him no. I didn’t want Cruz tossing me and Greg aside when Steele pissed her off, as he would definitely do with his fussiness and demands. But when he became obnoxious about it, I caved and approached Cruz. Much to my surprise, she wanted to try it out. She’d lost a couple of clients when the economy tanked and was looking for a good steady gig. She was also thrilled to learn that Steele required her services twice a week, not once every other week like most condo clients. Also, Cruz reminded me, she’d met Steele several times over the years, so it wasn’t like she was buying a pig in a poke. Even though she’d said the last part in partial Spanish, I think it meant the same thing. So far, so good. As with Jill, Steele adores Cruz. She cleans and does laundry, mending, grocery shopping, assorted errands, and some cooking for him. She also doesn’t take any crap from him. I also think she negotiated top dollar for her time because now she only works for me and Steele, and sometimes for my mother.
    “Well, if you’re sure.” Mom pushed her food around on her plate with her fork.
    “You have a good heart, Grace,” Greg said to her with a smile. “Why don’t you send him a get-well card? I’m sure he’d like that. You can give it to Odelia, and she’ll make sure he gets it when she sends him his work.”
    “Okay, I’ll do that. But I still wish we had a murder to work on. It’s been kind of dull around here lately. My blog is suffering.” Mom resumed eating with gusto. My mother is in her early eighties, taller than me, and a bit slender. The amount of sweet and sour and moo shu she could pack away would put a smile on a truck driver’s face. While I had her appetite, I had inherited my father’s short, squatty build and penchant for putting on pounds. Mom also writes a blog called An Old Broad’s Perspective. It’s a homey, chatty monologue about life in general and her adventures as a senior New England transplant in Southern California. It has a surprising amount of regular readers, and Mom even gets fan mail. Who knew?
    Shortly after dinner, Greg took Mom home while I unpacked from our trip and settled in for the night. It had been a busy and emotionally exhausting weekend. As soon as Greg returned, we tucked ourselves in bed with books. Muffin was curled up between us, and