Now that Frank didn’t live there anymore, Nicole had to drive twenty minutes in the direction opposite the one that would have taken her to work, then hustle back across the Valley to the Woodland Hills office. After she got off, she made the same trip in reverse. No wonder the Honda needed a tuneup. Nicole kept wanting to try to find someone closer, preferably on the way to work, but the kids screamed every time she suggested it, and there never seemed to be time. So she kept taking them to Josefina’s, and the Honda kept complaining, and she kept scrambling, morning after morning and evening after evening. Someday the Honda would break down and she’d scream loud enough to drown out the kids, and then she’d get around to finding someone else to take care of them while she went about earning a living.

She turned left onto Victory and headed east. Sometimes you could make really good time on Victory, almost as good as on the freeway – the freeway when it wasn’t jammed, of course; the eastbound 101 during morning rush hour didn’t bear thinking about. She hoped this would be one of those times; she was still running late.

She sailed past the parking lots of the Fallbrook Mall and the more upscale Topanga Plaza. Both were acres of empty asphalt now. They wouldn’t slow her down till she came home tonight. Her hands tightened on the wheel as she came up to Pierce College. Things often jammed there in the morning, with people heading for early classes. Some of the kids drove like maniacs, too, and got into wrecks that snarled traffic for a mile in either direction.

Not today, though. “Victory,” Nicole breathed: half street name, half triumph. Victory wasn’t like Sherman Way, with a traffic light every short block.