"Can't we just eat dinner without you bringing it up?" Linda said. "God...you're so hard to live with sometimes."
Zoe frowned. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to get on your nerves," she said. "You don't have to be so touchy though."
Linda sighed. "Fine. Forget it."
They finished their meal mostly in silence. "Can you clean up?" Zoe asked Linda.
"Yeah, sure, whatever," Linda said, distractedly. Her thoughts turned back to going out. Maybe she did want to go out. But not to the same place as Zoe. She could be such a drag sometimes.
Zoe headed into the living room, looking for her pocketbook, suddenly getting that odd feeling she'd been having all afternoon. What was making her so fidgety? It must be this dress. Sure, it made her look great, but at what cost if it was so uncomfortable?
She stopped and checked herself out in the mirror. Pretty good for 27, she thought. She needed to get her life in better order, she decided, thirty was right around the corner and she couldn't be like her kid sister, Linda and avoid responsibility.
She blinked and focused from her daydreams and headed back into the kitchen. The dishes were left undone, and the food was left out. There was a note on the counter. Gone out. Will clean up when I come back.
She'd only been gone a minute, hadn't she? "How long did it take her to skip out?" She muttered, starting to clean up herself. She could go out another night. She suddenly just didn't feel like it.
