Hazel sat on the corner of the desk. “As if you could ever look haggard...except maybe when you haven’t had coffee yet.” She reached out and pushed Zoey’s hair back over her shoulder. “But this is definitely better than that would have been. And Mike’s idea of using Pop-pop’s old product manuals on the bookshelves was fire—the guy loved it.”

“He did,” Zoey agreed. “I never thought of those being collector’s items until he asked me to show him that washing machine manual from the 1930s. That belonged to my grandfather.” It had been the perfect icebreaker on the video call.

It was a teacher’s resource day at Hazel’s school, so Zoey’s little social media whiz was available to set up the lighting as well as take charge of her wardrobe and makeup. Zoey had vetoed a few options right away—no low-cut tops, wild hair or sparkles. She’d had to remind her daughter that it was a job interview and not an online video challenge. And the interview was for a service technician job, so she couldn’t look like she was going to a rave.

Hazel had rolled her eyes at that. “No one says rave anymore, Mom.”

They’d finally settled on a navy blue knit top under a tailored cotton shirt that Zoey had received as a gift from Vickie. The shirt had narrow stripes of blue and white, and the tiniest of eyelet ruffles along the edge of the collar. She’d never worn it before today. Hazel added what she called a statement necklace—it was a chunky twist of blue, green and gold beading. Zoey wasn’t much for jewelry, but Hazel was so determined and invested in this project that she’d relented. If she lost the job because of a statement necklace, so be it.

But she hadn’t lost the job. They’d been impressed with her résumé, as well as the way she’d answered their questions on how she’d approach various repairs, how she’d deal with certain customers and how skilled she was at filling out online reports. She’d completely fudged that answer, crossing her fingers in her lap as she assured them how computer-savvy she was.

“Oh, yay!” Hazel exclaimed. “Mike says he’s taking us out for ice cream to celebrate!”

“I’ll go clean up and change.” The makeup felt like cake batter on her face. Hazel had insisted she needed a matte foundation so her face wouldn’t shine on camera.

“What? No way, Mom. I worked too hard for this look to not let people see it.”

“Not really helping my ego for you to make it sound like such an enormous effort.”

“You know I didn’t mean it that way. You just look...extra good today.”