Page 9 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

It is a literal fire hazard in here. Boxes piled on boxes. Novelty Zippo lighters precariously balanced on top of propane-fueled egg cookers (you know, for camping). The man is addicted to eBay and factory warehouses. When he’s not preparing people’s taxes in the spring, he’s buying bulk overstock sales of the actual dumbest things on earth, and then trying to resell them. That Old Style welcome mat? There are two hundred more in the garage. He always has a scheme. Always some big new thing that’s gonna make them rich.

I spend about ten minutes moving boxes of Vienna Beef hot dog air fresheners (no ketchup!) and determine that half a bed is all I deserve anyway. I’ve just curled up on it pitifully when Mom appears in the doorway.

“I don’t understand,” she says with a frown. “I thought for sure he was going to propose.”

“Well, he did not,” I mumble. “He did the opposite of that.”

“Maybe he was waiting for you? Did you consider proposing tohim? Maybe that’s worth a try?”

“Pretty sure that ship has sailed,” I say miserably.

“Well, what happened? Did you have a fight? What led up to it?”

I decide to leave out the sexy business. “I’d just, um, gotten fired.”

“You what?” Her eyebrows go up.

“I... also got fired today.”

Her lips mash together to form a knife’s edge.

“Mom, I’m handling all of this,” I say, trying to sound like I mean it.

She sits down on the edge of the bed and sighs deeply, and I can already tell I’m going to hate this so much. I wonder if it would be possible to permanently Freaky Friday myself with one of those propane-fueled egg cookers. Live a simple life. Have a purpose: the cooking of eggs.

I have never been so jealous of a useless gadget.

Mom sighs again, like I might have missed it the first go-around. “It’s time to take life seriously, Mo.”

“I didn’ttryto get fired and dumped,” I argue.

“Maybe not, but be honest with yourself, you have no drive, sweetie—no ambition. Not in your life, not at work. You just take the path of least resistance. Look at Hannah,” Mom says. “She’s got herself figured out. Found her thing, worked hard at it.”

“So I should be aninfluencer?” I snort. “I don’t have that kind of charisma.”

“You don’t have to be anything except yourself. Once you figure that out, everything else will fall into place.”

On cue, a Vienna Beef hot dog air freshener falls off the closest box and hits me on the forehead.

I make a noncommittal groan and flop face down into the pillow as she strokes my hair. Then after a beat, she adds, “I just don’t want you to forget that youarealmost thirty.”

Forget? I wish.

In a moment of mercy from the universe, my phone pings. It’s a text from Hannah. Hannah the Perfect.

I’m out front. Mo, you cannot stay here.

My best friend in the whole world paces back and forth between the boxes. “This is where you got potty-trained. Where you ate a box of crayons on a dare.” She flings her arms around. “The wallpaper isFinding Nemo.”

“I told you I had no other options.”

“Okay, you don’t get to blame me for this,” she says. “You are a grown-up.”

“Grown-ups like fish,” I whimper.

She holds her hand out to me. “We’re taking a walk.”

“What’s that gonna do?”