on and on//open

Zelda slammed her car door behind her and moved to the front of the car, where the engine was. She slipped her key into the hole and popped the hood of the car. As soon as the hood went up, though, she got a face full of smoke. She immediately jumped back, coughing, and waving the smoke out of her face. “Ugh! What in the world?” she said, hesitantly leaning forward as the smoke began to clear slightly. Her first thought was that it overheated, but she found that rather strange since she’d been only driving for a short while and it wasn’t even hot outside.

She had been so focused on what was happening with her car that she hadn’t even realized there was someone else in the area. The sound of the woman’s voice caused her to jump and turned around to find the source. “Oh,” she said, putting her hand to her heart, which had started beating very fast from her fright. Her guard was up, since this woman seemingly appeared out of nowhere during the night. “Yes, it seems I do. I’m afraid I’m completely useless when it comes to cars,” she said, moving to the side to allow the other woman to investigate the engine.

Zelda moved swiftly out of the way, so as to give the other woman plenty of room to do her work. She crossed her arms over her chest and tried to peek around the woman's figure to see what she was doing to fix the engine. Unfortunately, though, the way she was standing and the way she had her hands positioned made it impossible for Zelda to really see what was going on with the engine. She huffed out a sigh and stopped trying to watch.

The fixing process took a bit longer than Zelda would have liked, but she didn't speak up about it. After all, if she interrupted the other woman, the whole thing would just take even longer than it needed to. "Alright," she said, dropping her arms and moving back into the driver's seat of the car. She slipped the key into the ignition and turned it. She gasped slightly and a smile crossed her face when the radio came back on and the car started.

She heaved a big sigh, relieved at how lucky she'd been. Afraid that the car would die again, she kept the key in the ignition, but got out of the car to talk to her rescuer. "Oh, thank you so much! It appears to be working now," she said, smiling at the girl before glancing around. There was no other car around, which made Zelda curious as to how the woman got out there. "Do you need a ride somewhere?"

Zelda had merely been extending the invitation for a ride as a mere courtesy, fully expecting the young woman to decline her offer. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and heave a sigh. All she wanted was to just go home. She was sure that Olivia was overwhelmed with dinner for the family and who knew what sort of mess Alex had caused by now? She could only hope that Nancy was helping out in some way, instead of fiddling with that camera of hers. No one could deny that the red head was talented at photography, but really, she needed to focus on other things from time to time. It really was ironic that Zelda, of all people, was thinking such a thing about Nancy. Everyone knew that Zelda had her own issues with being too obsessed with something.

“Alright, then, hop in. Where am I dropping you off?” she asked as she opened the driver’s door and delicately slipped in. She turned on the car and carefully turned down the angry symphony music she had been previously listening to.

It really shouldn’t have struck Zelda as odd that the young woman inquired about what she had been doing so late at night. She was just paranoid, like she always was and it set her off whenever someone she didn’t know very well or at all inquired about her life. “I was just on my way home from work when my car decided to stop,” she said, with a shrug of her shoulders,”I’ll have to get it looked at.” She turned and stared at the meters placed behind the steering wheel. As far as she could tell, everything seemed to be in working order now. “What were you doing out here so late?” she asked, turning the question back on the other woman.

Zelda sighed at the girl’s answer. She should have known it was something like that. Really, if people were going to have some sort of pet, they really needed to learn to keep them in control. She never really had any pets. Mrs. Garrett would never have allowed it, but as far as Zelda could remember, she never wanted any animals. Even at a young age, she preferred things nice and neat and animals would just make a mess of things. “No, I’m afraid I’ve not seen any dogs,” she said with a sigh, irritated that her previous question had been ignored.

“Now where do you need to be dropped off?” she asked, still not looking at the girl. She furrowed her brow when she heard a soft growling sound. Her immediate reaction was to blame the engine, but it had never made that sound before. Perhaps she would have Harry or Nancy look at her car after all – or better yet, Tobias. If she remembered correctly, he used to work as a mechanic for a few years before the experimentations took place. Yes, she would much prefer going to Tobias for such things. She knew that nor Harry or Nancy would let her hear the end of the fact that she came to them for help with her car.