Disclaimer: I own nothing… as usual!

ON THE WAY DOWN

Chapter 9

Blonde hair whipped in the Friday afternoon breeze, and then a dainty hand reached up to brush it away. Lizzie walked hurriedly to the entrance of the grocery store, wanting to get in, get a gallon of milk, and get back out before the evening rush. When she walked into the cool building, she suddenly remembered the guy with the curly hair from her trip up there with Miranda.

'Hey, maybe I can find him now and apologize to him!' She still felt guilty about it, and realized that with a conscience like hers, she'd never feel better until she spoke to him about it. She made her way to the customer service desk and waited. When it was her turn, she asked the cashier to call a manager, then proceeded to give him what few details she remembered.

"Um… well, I didn't get a name, that's why I'm here to ask you about him. He was kind of tall, maybe a little taller than I am, and he had really curly dark brown hair. And he was out gathering shopping carts off your parking lot on this particular night… would you happen to know who I'm talking about?"

"Really curly dark brown hair… a male?" The manager asked. Lizzie glanced at his nametag. Robert. She nodded. "Well… there's no one currently employed here that fits that description… when was this?" he continued.

"About… ahhh, a month ago, I'd say," Lizzie responded.

"A month ago… curly dark brown hair… well, we did have one guy working for us for a while, he had some crazy hair… wild curly, like… his name was David," Robert paused, "David Gordon."

Lizzie let out a slightly audible gasp. "Thank you, sir. You said he no longer works here, right?" Robert nodded, and Lizzie turned away. The milk was forgotten. She hurried to the door, and almost smacked into it in her distracted state of mind. Gordo?!

Gordo settled down on the sofa in Miranda's living room and let out a distressed sigh. She had been nice enough to let him stay in her home until he found a job and another apartment. He'd made her promise not to say a word to Lizzie about it. "Day four, a complete waste," he muttered. Miranda looked up from the copy of People magazine she'd been leafing through, and gave him a curious stare.

"I feel like crap for imposing on you like this, Miranda… I can't believe I couldn't even pay my own bills, do you know how inferior and useless that makes me feel? I can't get a job, and the one lousy job I did manage to get, I lost anyway," Gordo replied.

"Well, look on the bright side – at least you know you've got somewhere to go." Miranda turned her attention back to the magazine, and Gordo sighed inwardly. At least she hadn't questioned him. He didn't know if he could fess up to his brief stint as a bag boy. Just then, Miranda's phone rang.

It was Lizzie, and Gordo listened to Miranda's end of the conversation. "Yeah… oh, REALLY??… Hmm… interesting… I wonder if it's coincidence?… No, I don't know… do you have his number?… Oh. No, I don't have it, either… I don't know, Lizzie, how many David Gordons could be in this city, with curly brown hair?… But really, Liz… a bag boy at Publix?…" Gordo gulped and hoped like hell that his face wasn't as red as it felt.

Miranda hung up the phone a few minutes later and looked him square in the face. "I thought you were some bigshot director!" she exclaimed. Gordo sighed.

"Bigshot, no. Director, eh… not really. Washed up? Yes. It was the only place that would hire me, and I couldn't find work as a director, so I had to start with something! I was losing my apartment, and had no one to turn to. What was I supposed to do?"

"Well, Lizzie's on a tare right now, firmly convinced that it was you she almost ran over in the parking lot at Publix one night about a month ago," Miranda said. Gordo laughed.

"It was me. But I can't tell her this, Miranda… she can't know about my situation, you wouldn't understand, it's too embarrassing," he said.

"But yet you can tell me?" she asked.

"Only because you dragged it out of me!"

"What if Lizzie had tried to drag it out of you? Would you have told her?"

"Uh… well, you see… um… probably not?" Gordo finally admitted. Miranda smiled in satisfaction.

"You won't admit it to her, because you're afraid she'll think less of you, and you just couldn't live with that, could you? Because you're in love with Lizzie, still, after what… ten years?"

"Try about fifteen," he admitted quietly. Miranda simply giggled. Gordo shook his head and went back to highlighting classified ads. She was hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.

A/N: Sorry it took so long to update! And thanks to those of you who reviewed – please continue to do so! And to those of you who didn't… please do! Hehe!