Disclaimer: As usual… I don't own Lizzie McGuire or anything pertaining to it!
ON THE WAY DOWN
Chapter 5
"Hey Miranda, remember that movie we rented last month, the one that Gordo directed?" Lizzie maneuvered her car carefully down the street through the torrents of rain pelting down on a Tuesday afternoon. She wondered briefly if it was really such a good idea to be talking on a cell phone while driving through that.
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Did you like it? I thought it was a really good movie, and I'm curious as to why it did so… um… badly."
"Liz, what's up with you? Ever since you saw that guy at Publix, you've been talking about Gordo practically nonstop. You'd think you were in love with him or something," Miranda said, sounding a little irritated. Lizzie's eyes widened in surprise.
"I haven't seen him in like five years. How could I be in love with him? And I do not talk about him nonstop!" Miranda was silent on the other end of the phone, and Lizzie thought about what she'd just said. "Shut up. I just miss him, that's all," she said defensively.
Miranda started talking, but suddenly Lizzie didn't hear a word she was saying. She looked out the window. Waiting beside her at the traffic light was a beat up black car. Closer inspection let her know it was a Honda Civic, and Lizzie strained to see inside the darkly tinted windows. 'Have you lost your mind, McGuire? There's no way he'd still be driving that old beater,' she thought.
"LIZZIE!" Lizzie snapped back to reality at the sound of Miranda screeching in her ear.
"I'm here, I'm here! Chill!" The light changed and she accelerated slowly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the black Honda turn into the parking lot at Publix and tried to shake off the weird feeling she had.
Gordo sat in his car for a moment after pulling into the parking space. There was just no way in hell that it was possible. He shook his head vigorously and told himself that the rain distorted his view of the woman in the BMW. Lizzie was in Michigan. The woman in the BMW was just that; a woman in a car. "I'm losing my mind," he muttered to himself.
Inside the store, he was standing at the time clock waiting to begin his shift when the store manager, Robert, approached him. "David, can I speak to you in my office please?"
'Oh, no… that wasn't a good tone…' Gordo thought, following the older man into the office. Robert motioned for him to sit down, and did so himself.
"What's up, Robert? Am I in trouble?" Gordo asked, using a tone that dripped humor. Robert sighed.
"Alyse spoke to me this morning and said that she's been having nothing but trouble with you, not that you're being disrespectful or anything, but that you're constantly distracted. She said she's spoken to you several times about it and while she says you've acknowledged it and understand, you haven't made any move to correct the problem. We can't have people off in dreamland while they're here to work. I'm sorry, David, but we're going to have to let you go."
Gordo sighed. Robert was right, he was constantly distracted. His mind always seemed to drift off to Lizzie-land. There was no helping it, it just happened, and Alyse had commented the day before that she wondered if even a freight train coming toward him would bring him back down to earth. He doubted it.
"I'm really sorry, Robert. I understand, though. I've got a lot on my mind right now," he said. Robert nodded, and Gordo stood up. He shook the man's hand and walked out of the office. 'Now what am I going to do?' he thought, as he walked back out into the pouring rain to the little black car sitting all alone. 'Just like me.'
