“I don’t date them while they’re married,” Barbara insisted. “I’d never date a married man. It’s just that when I find somebody who’s really good and can fix things, I have a lot for him to do.”
“So he comes over a lot.” Quinn nodded for her to go on.
“And then sometimes they ask me out,” Barbara said. “But I always tell them that even though I’m really, really grateful for how hard they’ve worked, and that I think they’re wonderful, because they are, I couldn’t possibly go out with a married man. Because I couldn’t.”
“And then they leave their wives,” Quinn said, light dawning. She could just imagine Matthew, after umpteen years with Lois bitching at him, having a young, beautiful blonde telling him he was wonderful.
“And then for a while it’s wonderful,” Barbara said, almost to herself. “And I feel so safe, and I know who I am because I’m with this wonderful man who knows everything.” She came back to earth and said, “But it always turns out he doesn’t. It’s so disappointing because they always say they do, you know? But they don’t, and you can’t trust them after all.”
“I think you’re supposed to love them for themselves,” Quinn said.
“Well, I do,” Barbara said. “Until they fail me.”
Quinn went back to the essentials. “Why would you want somebody who would dump his wife?”
Barbara looked dumbfounded. “People get divorced all the time. Nick’s divorced, and you’re with him.”
“No, I’m not,” Quinn said. “He’s not even talking to me.”
“Then why did he pay your loan?” Barbara said. “He must think he’s with you.”
“I don’t know what he thinks,” Quinn said. “I’m not even sure what I think. My world is going through a weird phase.”
“Darla Ziegler is living with you, isn’t she?” Barbara said.
Quinn frowned at her. “No. She’s just staying temporarily to work on the school play.” That sounded so lame she could see why Barbara wouldn’t buy it, so she ditched the excuses and went for the truth. “She hasn’t left Max. They’re still married.”
“If I had somebody like Max, I wouldn’t move out and leave him alone,” Barbara said. “I heard he was at Bo’s last night. That’s terrible.”
Bo’s. Oh, hell. “They are not getting divorced, Barbara,” Quinn said. “Forget it.”
Barbara flushed, and Quinn felt sorry for her. “You’ll find somebody wonderful who knows a lot who’s not married,” Quinn told her. “It’s bound to happen.”
Later, driving back to school, she realized that had been pretty patronizing. It wasn’t as if she were doing any better than Barbara, really. Barbara was at least getting her house worked on. Quinn couldn’t even get the guy she wanted to pay attention to her (although he’d pay her down payment, the dumbass), and she couldn’t get the guy she didn’t want to leave her alone. Fix your own life before you start on Barbara’s, she thought.
She started with Jason. “Mr. Gloam is upset that you’re doing both the play and baseball.”
“I’m not the one screwing the team up,” Jason said.
“He seems to think that would be me,” Quinn told him. “He also implied that our relationship might be, uh, more than teacher and student.”
“He’s whacked,” Jason said.
Quinn moved back as Thea came out of the storeroom with more paper. “I think so, too, but he can make life hell for me, so I’d appreciate it if you’d stand at least twenty feet from me at all times.”
“You’re kidding.” Jason looked disgusted.
“What’s wrong?” Thea said, and Jason said, “Gloam thinks I’ve got the hots for McKenzie.”
“He’s just trying to blackmail me into kicking Jason off the crew,” Quinn told her. “He doesn’t really believe it.”
“You’re not going to kick me off, are you?” Jason said, and Quinn shook her head. “Good,” he said. “This place is crazy.” He looked at Thea as he said it, and then went back to his seat, only to get up a few minutes later and say to her, “Listen, Thea, if Gloam shows up at practice, I’m sticking to you. Maybe he’ll think I’m after you instead of McKenzie and get off her back.”
“Are you that good an actor?” Thea said coolly, and Jason shook his head and said, “This place is definitely crazy.”
“Not just this place,” Quinn said and thought about Nick. He’d paid off her loan. He should be thanked for that. Her pulse kicked up a little at the thought. Exciting wasn’t turning out to be as easy as she’d thought it would be, but it was definitely worth pursuing. After ignoring her for two weeks, Nick should definitely be thanked.
Whether he wanted to be or not.
Darla was just finishing up Joan Darling’s blow-dry when Max came into the Upper Cut.
“There’s your husband,” Joan said.
“Is that who that is?” Darla said. Shut up, Joan.
“You been gone so long you probably forgot,” Joan said.
“There you go,” Darla said, shutting off the dryer before the back of Joan’s head was completely done. Let her walk around like that for a while.
“You and that Quinn aren’t fooling anybody,” Joan said as she got up. “We all heard the rumors, and Corrie Gerber said that Quinn admitted it right here in this chair.”
“Admitted what?” Darla said, but then Max was there, saying, “I need to talk to you,” and she walked to the break room with him following her while Joan watched them, avid for news to spread.
Max closed the door behind them. “How long are you going to pull this crap?”
“Which crap?” Darla said. “Living with Quinn instead of you? Until you give me a good reason to come home.”
“Well, I’ve got one for you,” Max said. “There’s a rumor going around that you and Quinn are sleeping together.”
Darla laughed. She couldn’t help it, he looked so indignant. “So are you afraid we are, or disappointed we aren’t?”
“It’s not funny.” Max glared at her. “You’re making me a laughingstock.”
“I don’t see how,” Darla said. “You should be getting a lot of sympathy. I bet those cookies are just piling up over there.”
Max’s face got red. “You really think I’d cheat on you? you really do?”
“No,” Darla said. “But I really think you still don’t get it.” He looked so unhappy she wanted to put her arms around him, but that would just get her back where she’d been. “We need a change, Max. We need to really look at each other again, take risks again, remember what it was like to really live again. If I come home, it’ll be like it always was, and I can’t stand that.” She stopped, knowing from the look on his face that he wasn’t getting it, that he was getting angrier instead. “Forget it.” She turned back to the door. “Just forget it.”
“Look, just tell me what you want and you can have it,” he said, his voice tired with exasperation.
“If I tell you, it doesn’t mean anything,” Darla said. “It isn’t anything specific. I just need you to realize that we’re turning to stone and we’re not even in our forties yet. I tried to do something different, and you wouldn’t pay attention. Now you try something. Surprise me. Prove to me we’re still alive.”
“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” he said.
“Well, that’s why I’m sleeping with Quinn instead of you,” Darla said.
Late that afternoon, Nick bent over Marcy Benbow’s Jeep and thought about Quinn. And sex. He wasn’t comfortable with the two ideas in the same sentence, but he couldn’t get them out of his mind. So maybe he could talk her into doing it once, so they could get it out of their systems and go back to where they’d been before. One shot, that’s all he wanted. One chance to rip that underwear off her and roll her over and then back to the good old days like before. One fast forbidden fuck, and then—
Out front, a car door slammed and Barbara Niedemeyer walked toward the station door. She’d driven in her mom’s Camry this time,
which made sense since they’d fixed everything on her own car. Nick ducked under the hood of the Jeep, planning on being too busy to talk. Ever since he’d paid the rest of Quinn’s deposit, Barbara had been beaming at him equally with Max. She was a nice woman, but not one he wanted anything to do with. Especially since his mind was full of Quinn and—
“Nick,” she said, and he jumped because she’d drifted right up next to him. Damn woman moved like a cat. “I have to talk to you.”
“Sure thing,” he said and straightened.
“Quinn knows about the loan.” Barbara looked guilty and delighted at the same time. “She asked where the money came from, and I had to tell her. I couldn’t help it.”
“It’s okay,” he said, and thought, Hell.
“She was a little upset,” Barbara said, and Nick winced. “But she was okay by the time we were done with lunch.”
“Good,” he said. “Well, thanks.” He nodded his good-bye and bent back under the hood hoping she’d leave, but just then Max came out of the office.
“Bringing your mom’s car in this time?” he called to Barbara jovially.
“I’m worried,” she said as she went over to him and handed him the keys. “She’s not getting any younger, and I want to make sure her car is safe.”
“Not a problem,” Max said. He filled out the work order, chatting as he wrote, and Nick stopped working on Marcy’s car when he realized that Max was taking his time, not trying to get rid of her.
No, he thought. Oh, hell, Max, don’t do this.
“So how you getting home?” Max said when he’d put the key and work order in the office.
“It’s not that far,” Barbara said. “It’s nice out today. I can walk.”
“I’ll take you home,” Max said.
“We got a lot of work here,” Nick said loudly from behind the Jeep.
“Dinner break,” Max said. “You hungry, Barbara?”
Oh, shit.
“I did have a light lunch,” Barbara said, her voice full of delight.
“How about the Anchor Inn?” Max said. “You’ve been giving us a lot of work. Only fair for me to buy you dinner.”
“Could I see you for just a minute?” Nick said.
“I’ll wait in the car,” Barbara said, and smiled at them both before she went out.
“Don’t start with me,” Max said to Nick.
Nick glared at him from behind the Jeep. “You are a fucking moron. Darla’s going to rip you in half, and that’s if you’re lucky, because otherwise, she’s going to leave your ass cold, and then where will you be?”
“Right where I am now,” Max said mulishly. “She doesn’t take care of what she’s got, she’s gonna lose it.”
“Maybe that’s the reason you lost yours, you butthead.” Nick slammed the hood of the Jeep down. “When was the last time you took Darla to the Anchor Inn?”
“She left me because she wasn’t getting bad lobster?” Max shook his head. “That’s crap.”
“Well, what was she getting?” Nick leaned against the Jeep, a lot more upset than he wanted to be. “If I had a wife like Darla who met me naked at the door, I wouldn’t be dating Bank Barbie. But you, no, you sit down and watch football tapes with me while she locks herself in the bedroom. What the hell was that all about, anyway?”
Max turned away. “I got to go now.”
“She probably cut her damn hair so you’d pay some attention to her,” Nick called after him. “Then you go to Bo’s. You’re fucking up here, you dumbass.”
Max turned at the door. “So why did Quinn cut hers, smart guy? I don’t see you doing real good, either.”
“Quinn is a friend,” Nick said.
“You are a jackass,” Max said and went out to meet Barbara.
It was all Quinn could do to keep her mind on the play tech that night. She was definitely going over to Nick’s after practice to thank him. Even if she hadn’t decided he was her ticket to excitement, she’d have had to go thank him. That was reasonable.
Maybe she’d go braless.
On the other side of the stage, something fell over with a crash, and she shoved Nick out of her mind and crossed to check out the new disaster. Jason and Corey were setting up the cardboard tube trees the Art Ones had painted, and she got there in time to see Corey pick up a tree trunk and hear him say, “That Thea. She’s something. How’d I come to miss her?”
“You’re still missing her.” Jason centered the dented trunk on the wheeled platform they’d be rolling it around on and began to bolt it down. “Forget her.”
“You going there?” Corey said.
“Nope. Not my type.”
Jason, you jerk. He was Nick all over again.
“Everything okay here?” Quinn asked.
“Just fine.” Jason shoved his hand into the trunk to push the dent out.
“Okay,” Quinn said and retreated to test the trees they’d already bolted. She was still within earshot when Corey looked back at Thea, bending over to hand one of the techies some duct tape at the edge of the stage, and said, “She’s my type. Look at that butt.”
“No,” Jason said, still tightening. “Not your type.”
Corey looked at him exasperated. “If she’s not yours, she can be mine.”
“She’s nobody’s.” Jason stood up. “Check out the second stepsister. She’s in our chem class. You missed her, too.”
“Which one?”
“The one with the big—”
“Got it.” Corey took another look at Thea.
“No,” Jason said. “Go ask the chem for help with your labs. You need it.”
Corey shrugged and said, “Whatever,” and went over to the chem.
She looked amazed and delighted to see him.
“You want to tell me what that was all about?” Quinn said, coming out from behind the tree.
“Nope.” Jason picked up the tech plan to take it to Thea.
“She’s allowed to go out, you know,” Quinn said.
“Not with Corey,” Jason said, and they both jumped when Bill said, “Quinn?” from behind them.
“Hey, Coach,” Jason said, and immediately crossed the stage to Thea.
Subtle, Quinn thought, and turned to face Bill.
“I thought maybe I could help,” he told her. “You know, an extra pair of hands.”
“No,” Quinn said, putting as much finality into the word as she could.
“Quinn, we need to be together.” Bill smiled at her, the same old smile that always said I know best, and Quinn felt her temper spurt.
“I can’t make this any clearer,” she said. “I don’t care if you start rumors about Jason and me—”
“I didn’t,” Bill said, outraged.
“—I don’t care what you do, we are not together and we’re not going to be.”
“I didn’t start that rumor,” Bill said. “I swear—”
“I believe you,” Quinn said. “That was the BP, I’ll give you that. But no more of this. Leave me alone. Go.”
He started to say something and then shrugged. “Maybe later,” he said, and she gritted her teeth as he trailed off the stage, making her feel guilty and then angry because she felt guilty. It wasn’t her fault. She was allowed to leave a man she didn’t want.
And seduce one she did.
At nine that night, after the last kid was gone and she’d checked the stage door to make sure it was locked, Quinn took off her bra and drove to Nick’s apartment, feeling cold and queasy from nerves and lack of underwear, still not quite sure what she was going to say to him—she’d rehearsed a hundred different conversations but none of them had seemed anything but desperate—and hoping the lack of support under her sweater might make a lot of conversation unnecessary anyway.
She climbed the stairs at the back of the station to his door, and when he opened it and looked startled to see her, she just said, “I heard about the bank loan,” and pushed her way past him, praying he’d give up and jump her fast so she could get
past the nervous part.
“That was no big deal,” Nick said, but when she turned to face him, he’d shut the door and was looking fairly tense.
“It was Bill,” she said. “He went behind my back to screw it up.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“And then you went behind my back to fix it,” she said. “Pretty patriarchal of you, wasn’t it?”
“What?” He looked a little confused. “You’re mad?”
“Not really.” Quinn wandered over to the bookcase so she wouldn’t have to look at him because he looked so good, tall and relaxed, his shirt open at the neck. He was barefoot, too, and that seemed amazingly sexy.
What were they talking about? The loan. “I’d just like to know what’s going on in my own finances,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “Instead of having the two of you duke it out behind my back.”
“It was more sneaking around behind your back,” Nick said. “Which isn’t that hard to do since I haven’t seen you much.”
Her heart lurched a little at that; he sounded annoyed. Maybe he’d missed her. “The play’s taking up our time,” Quinn said. “It’s going to be wonderful. Edie—”
“Want a drink?”
Quinn nodded.
He wasn’t throwing her out. He was plying her with liquor. These were good signs. While he went to get the Chivas, she flipped through his CDs, her hands shaking a little, looking for something vaguely seductive, something that wasn’t “Bolero.” When she found Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits, she slipped that in the player. It had worked at her place. If only she had her mother’s couch here—
“Rhiannon” started, and Quinn flinched and hit the “up” button until she got to “Hold Me.” There was a great song. Catchy title. She turned to see Nick stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, a drink in each hand, a funny expression on his face.
“What?” she said, walking toward him to get her drink.
“Interesting choice in music,” he said. “So, you mad or not?”
He watched her seriously, meeting her eyes, and she felt her breath go because he looked so good, lean and dark and dangerous. She was almost afraid to make love with him, he was so different from anybody she’d ever slept with, but she was more afraid not to. She’d been missing out long enough.