Unleashed (A Sydney Rye Novel, # 1) Read Free Page A

first six months of marriage, leaving her with the full name of Nona Carvel Nevins Blatt, but she went with her maiden name, Jones.
    Nona ruffled Blue’s ears and cooed to him about how handsome he was, and so big. “Would you like a snack, you little rapscallion, you?” Blue answered by prancing behind her as she moved toward the kitchen, his massive tail swinging the width of the hallway. Photographs of Nona in front of the Eiffel Tower, the Mirage Hotel, an elephant, dotted the walls. Her youthful face smiled from behind the glass. Nona’s hair, now a brilliant silver and cropped short, had once been long, silky, and black. In my favorite photograph, Nona is in the center of ten smiling women all crowded together. Behind them looms a large blimp.
    Nona was half in the fridge with Blue by her side when I walked in. “How about a little chicken fricassee?” Nona asked as Blue’s tail thumped against the cabinets. She had remodeled her kitchen, putting down cork floors, putting up blue cabinets, and laying butcher-block counter tops. Over the stove hung photographs of her three husbands, all beautifully framed with a slight layer of grease coating them. Nona stood up from behind the fridge and smiled at me.
    “So, you got a dog, broke up with Marcus—anything else dear?” she asked while feeding Blue from a Tupperware container. He sat quietly in front of her, licking his lips and tapping his tail.
    “Yeah, I got fired.”
    Nona let out a laugh. “Isn’t it all so exciting?” she said, pulling down her teapot.
    “I guess you could call it that.”
    “Oh, cheer up. You have a whole new fresh start,” she said with a furrowed brow that quickly spread into an infectious smile. “You can do anything now.” I smiled back at her, feeling slightly better.
    We were soon settled in Nona’s living room enjoying strong black tea and velvet cake. Blue was curled up at my feet on the plush rug, snoring. “Now, about this job situation. Don’t you think it’s time you started thinking bigger?” Nona asked. I looked at her, my cheeks filled with cake. “I mean a career. Don’t you want a career?” I swallowed and then smiled.
    “Sure, but I don't know what I want to do.”
    “What did you go to school for again?” Nona asked and then refilled my teacup. I poured fresh milk into it, enjoying the way it sank to the bottom and then rushed to the top in a delicious brown cloud.
    “Undeclared,” I said. Nona nodded, her brow creased, as if I had said something important instead of a simple fact.
    “Why didn't you get a degree?”
    I smiled at my mug. “I didn't want to be saddled with debt and no way of paying it off.”
    “"But wouldn’t going to college help you find a well-paying job?”
    I just shrugged, in no mood to continue the conversation. We sat for a while listening to a clock tick on the mantel, the distant beeping of a truck’s reverse warning, and the familiar sound of chewing in our heads.
    “Do you think you will go back to school?” Nona asked, breaking the calm.
    “I don't know. I’d like to, but financially it probably won’t ever make sense.”
    “Isn’t your mother’s husband a wealthy man? Wouldn’t they pay for it?” Nona had brought this up before, and it made me angry that she was doing it again.
    “I don’t want that, Nona,” I said, trying to keep myself from snapping at her.
    “But don’t you think you should take advantage…” Her voice faded when she saw the look on my face. “Fine, then. What are you going to do?”
    “Nona, I honestly have no idea, but I don’t think I should be working in any kind of customer-service job anymore. My ability to deal with people has all but disappeared,” I said jokingly, trying to break the tension in the room. Nona laughed for me.
    “Well, if you’re not going to college you’ll have to go into business. I know of a woman who is selling a dog-walking business. She’s a friend of Julia—you remember Julia, right? The