Crazy for You

  “He only wanted you for sex?” Quinn hated saying it. For one thing, she didn’t want to be reminded that he’d had sex with Zoë.

  “No, that’s the only thing I wanted him for. I don’t know what he wanted me for. A wife, I guess.” Her voice grew thoughtful. “Although he was never very possessive. It was more like I was just along for the ride. After three months, I made him take me home to see you and Mom, and I was so happy to be back in Tibbett that I knew something was wrong. When we went back to Dayton, I left. Couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Are you sorry?” Quinn asked, wanting absolution, wanting Zoë to say, Take him, he’s yours.

  “No. Is he?”

  Quinn thought back to the few times he’d mentioned Zoë. He’d said her name without inflection, like anybody else’s name, nothing special. “I don’t think so. He doesn’t seem like he’s hiding anything.”

  Zoë’s laugh snorted over the line. “Then he isn’t. Nick couldn’t hide anything if he tried. What you see with Nick is what you get.”

  Quinn had a sudden sharp image of Nick lean and naked beside her. “Okay.”

  “He was fun, just no zazz.” Zoë didn’t sound broken-hearted, and then her voice faded as she turned away from the phone to say, “Yes, you have zazz. That’s why you’ve got me.”

  Quinn heard the rumble of Ben’s voice and then Zoë laughed, and she felt a twinge of envy. It must be wonderful to live with a man you loved and who loved you, the way Ben and Zoë lived. “How did you know Ben was the one?” she asked suddenly. “How were you so sure? You just met him at work, how did you know?”

  “I didn’t really meet him at work,” Zoë said. “I mean, I told you and Mom that, but actually, he picked me up in a fountain.”

  “What?”

  “There was this fountain outside our building.” Zoë sounded embarrassed. “And I went out there one day, really depressed because I was almost thirty, and I was never going to have kids, and I wanted them, and because I was wearing a suit and being normal instead of, well, you know—”

  “Instead of being Zoë,” Quinn said, knowing exactly.

  “And I took off my shoes and pantyhose and went wading in the fountain because that’s what I would have done before I got to be a suit, and I didn’t even know Ben was there until he said, ‘You have great legs.’ He was sitting on the other side of the fountain with his pants rolled up and his feet in the water, looking at me through those horn-rim glasses, and I thought he was trying to pick me up, so I shut him down. And he said, no, it was just a scientific observation because he was happily married and the father of a fine son named Harold—”

  “You’re kidding me,” Quinn said.

  “—and I told him only a sadist would name a kid Harold, that my daughter was Jeannie and she was the star of her ballet class—”

  “This is great,” Quinn said.

  “I know,” Zoë said. “I felt like me again. And then we told each other about how great our spouses were, and somewhere in there I realized he was lying in his teeth, and I told him I was actually a Russian spy with a license to kill, and he said, ‘I’ve always wanted to have sex in the afternoon with a Russian spy with a license to kill,’ and I said what a shame it was that he was married to such a wonderful woman or we certainly could have had sex, and he said ‘She left me,’ so we spent five days in a suite at the Great Southern and then eloped to Kentucky.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” Zoë said. “That’s why I told you we met at work and we’d known each other a long time. Dumb, huh?”

  “It’s wonderful,” Quinn said. “No wonder you don’t miss Nick.”

  “Hey, Nick was a good guy,” Zoë said. “Just not the right guy. Why are you asking about him so much anyway?”

  “I’ve just been thinking about the way we used to be,” Quinn said truthfully. “Who we all were back then. Who we are now.”

  “Yeah, well, I bet Nick’s the same now as he was then. Guys don’t change. Nick was always sports, cars, and sex.”

  That sounded like Nick.

  “Not that that was bad; I just got so tired of Fleetwood Mac I was ready to scream—”

  Quinn went cold. “What?”

  “Fleetwood Mac. He liked to fuck to Fleetwood Mac, and I will bet you a nickel he still does. Ask Lisa. I bet she’s heard ‘The Chain’ so many times she can come to it without him.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Quinn said.

  “What?”

  Well, there she was. One of a series brought to you by Nick Ziegler. Music by Fleetwood Mac. The bastard.

  “Quinn?”

  He’d even pulled it out of her CD stack that night after Meggy and Edie had left. Making his move, changing his mind. She’d put it on. He’d kissed her because of Fleetwood Mac and stopped kissing her because of her hair. Then she’d cut her hair and—“I’m going to kill him.”

  “You slept with him.” Zoë’s voice was flat.

  “Yep.” The more Quinn thought about it, the more her blood boiled.

  “Well.”

  “Well, what?” Quinn said, ready to fight with anybody.

  “Well, nothing. Except that you slept with my ex-husband, and you’re my sister, and we sound like one of Jerry Springer’s greatest hits.”

  “I thought you didn’t care who he slept with.”

  “I don’t.” Zoë sounded a little surprised. “I care who you sleep with, though.”

  “Well, you can stop caring because I’m never sleeping with anybody ever again.” Quinn thought of Nick naked and hot on top of her, and shoved the thought aside. “Never.”

  “It was that bad?”

  “No.” Quinn tried not to think about it. “I just can’t believe he used Fleetwood Mac on me, too. He kissed me halfway through ‘Hold Me’ and had me naked by ‘You Make Lovin’ Fun.’”

  “I don’t think we ever made it to ‘You Make Lovin’ Fun,’” Zoë said. “That was at the end of the album. He didn’t last that long. I’m not kidding about ‘The Chain.’ If I hadn’t made it by then, I wasn’t going to because he was done.”

  “He’s changed,” Quinn told her. “‘Hold Me’ was on its second play by the time I came. I don’t believe this.”

  “I don’t remember ‘Hold Me’ at all,” Zoë said. “The Rumours album, right?”

  “They’ve made a few others since you were eighteen,” Quinn said. “This was the Greatest Hits.”

  “And I imagine he’s been making a few with it, too,” Zoë said. “He was always good at taking girls to bed. The rat bastard.”

  “He still is,” Quinn said. “I’m so mad I could spit.”

  “I can’t believe he seduced my little sister,” Zoë said. “He was always sex-crazed, but I thought he’d have matured—”

  “I seduced him,” Quinn said.

  “What?”

  “I went over to his place so he’d take me to bed.” Quinn felt stupid saying it. “I wanted to know what it would be like. So I went over and propositioned him.”

  “Oh.” Zoë regrouped. “So why are you mad at him? I mean, I’m mad at him because you’re mad at him, but now I don’t know why you’re mad at him. Was it bad?”

  “I thought I was different.” Quinn felt like a fool while she was saying it.

  “You probably were until you went to bed with him,” Zoë said. “You have to be the only woman he was ever close to that he’d never seen naked. Besides his mother and Darla.”

  “Thank you,” Quinn said. “That makes me feel so much better.”

  “In fact, he was probably closer to you than anybody he’d ever seen naked. He was never very good at combining emotion and sex. Don’t expect a lot of phone calls discussing the relationship.”

  “I can’t believe I was so dumb,” Quinn said.

  “Tell me again why you did this,” Zoë said. “Because for the life of me, I can’t figure it out.”

  Because he’s darling. Because he’s sexy. Because I trust him. “Because I wanted to be
like you, I think. Exciting instead of just…there.”

  Zoë didn’t say anything for so long, Quinn thought they might have lost the connection. “Zoë?”

  “I’m thinking. What happened all of a sudden? You never wanted to be me before. You left Bill, you slept with Nick. What’s with you?”

  “I don’t know. I just wanted…different.”

  “Well, you got it. You want me to come home for a while?”

  “No.” Quinn sighed. “What can you do? I’ll get this figured out.”

  “Well, I can castrate Nick with a dull spoon. I told him once I’d do it if he ever touched you, so he’s probably expecting me.”

  Quinn sat up straighter. “What do you mean, you told him once?”

  “I caught him looking at you. You were just a baby and he had that look in his eye. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “How old a baby?”

  “We were married. We’d just come home and—”

  “Sixteen,” Quinn said. “Nineteen years ago. He waits nineteen years, and then he plays Fleetwood Mac.”

  “You may be taking this too hard,” Zoë said. “It’s just sex, not death. Unless you’re hooked.”

  “I’m not hooked,” Quinn said, fairly sure she was telling the truth. “I just thought the sex would be exciting, and I wanted some exciting sex before I died.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” Quinn said. “I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on most of the time and then all of a sudden I was coming. It seemed so unlike me to be doing that with Nick.”

  Zoë’s laugh cackled through the line. “Sounds great. Not.”

  “Toward the end it was,” Quinn said, trying not to sound wistful. “Shortly after ‘No Questions Asked’ it approached excellence. Then he got hungry for pizza, and the whole thing went to hell.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to come home?”

  “Positive,” Quinn said. “I can handle this. I have dull spoons of my own.”

  “Let me know,” Zoë said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Quinn said. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “So how was your hot date with Barbara?” Nick asked Max when he came into work the next morning.

  Max snarled at him and went into the office.

  “You’re number four, you know,” Nick called after him, needing to spread his own misery. “Pretty soon Barbara’s going to have to get one of those number things like they have at Baskin-Robbins. Now serving.”

  He heard Max slamming drawers and felt about as pleased as he could for how pissed off he was.

  “You guys can form a club,” Nick went on, talking at the top of his lungs. “The Promise Breakers. You can stand up at the beginning and say, ‘I’m Max and I’m a—’”

  “You got a reason for busting my chops on this?” Max said, standing in the door to the office.

  “Yeah.” Nick folded his arms and leaned against the workbench. “I do. I like Darla.”

  “I don’t,” Max said.

  “The hell you don’t,” Nick said. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be this damn mad. And you wouldn’t have pulled that jackass stunt last night.”

  “I didn’t sleep with her,” Max said. “I took her home right after the Mud Pie. She’s the most boring woman I’ve ever met.”

  “That’s because you’ve been living with Darla for all these years,” Nick said. “She sets a high standard.”

  “Fuck off,” Max said and went back into the office, and that was the last voice Nick heard until Quinn walked into the garage three hours later.

  “Fleetwood Mac,” Quinn said and watched with satisfaction as Nick raised his head up from the Honda he was working on so fast he smacked himself on the edge of the hood.

  “What?” He rubbed his head and looked at her across the car. “Don’t sneak up on me like that. Where’d you come from? Why aren’t you at school?”

  “I signed out,” Quinn said. “I’m on my lunch break. Don’t change the subject. You did me to Fleetwood Mac.”

  Nick looked over his shoulder and then came around the car to take her arm. “Could we talk about this over here, please?”

  When they were in the back of the garage, Quinn said, “I thought I was different.”

  “You are different,” Nick said. “What are we talking about? Different from what?”

  “Different from all the other women you’ve—” Quinn struggled to find a word that wasn’t gross or bland.

  “You are different from all the other women I’ve.” Nick sounded grim. “Which is one of the reasons I didn’t for so long.”

  “Well, it’s so good to finally be one of the club,” Quinn said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Nick frowned at her. “You knew I wasn’t a virgin. Why are you so bent?”

  Quinn swallowed, trying to keep her voice firm. “You did Zoë to Fleetwood Mac, too.”

  “Hell, I do everybody to Fleetwood Mac,” Nick said, and then he winced and said, “Let me put that another way.” Then the other shoe dropped. “You told Zoë?”

  “Dumb me, I thought I was different, not just one of a series,” Quinn said. “I can’t believe this.”

  “I can’t, either.” Nick scowled at her. “You’re mad because I like to do it to the Mac? Swell. Pick another group. I’m flexible. You’re the one who put it on the stereo.” He sounded sarcastic, not apologetic. “I can’t believe you told Zoë.”

  The last thing she needed was sarcasm.

  “You’re very flexible,” Quinn said. “Zoë mentioned that when we talked. You also seem to have developed staying powers.”

  He scowled at her. “I was eighteen when I was with her, cut me a break.”

  “Aside from that,” Quinn went on with savage cheerfulness, “according to our comparisons, you haven’t changed much.”

  Nick closed his eyes. “I don’t want anything to do with this.”

  “Well, you should have thought of that before you turned on the stereo, you jerk.” Quinn glared at him. “I can’t believe I was just like the others.”

  “You weren’t just like the others,” Nick said. “You’re still not. None of them ever creeped me out like you’re doing.”

  “Wait a minute—”

  “Also, you’re the one who turned on the stereo, not me, babe.” Nick folded his arms. “You were the one who cut your hair and came up with no bra and put ‘Hold Me’ on.”

  “Oh, this is my fault.” Quinn fought back the urge to pick up a wrench and deck him with it, mostly because he was right. If she’d stayed out of that apartment—

  “And then you had to call Zoë,” Nick said. “She’s probably sharpening her scissors now.” He leaned against the car and crossed his arms. “You know, it’s just dawned on me. This isn’t about me at all.”

  “The hell it isn’t,” Quinn said, indignation making her voice rise.

  “This is about you wanting to be Zoë.” He looked at her grimly. “That night on the couch, you said you wanted to be like Zoë. The only reason you slept with me is because Zoë did.”

  “That’s not true,” Quinn said, pretty sure it wasn’t. “I really wanted you. And you really wanted me, too, damn it.” When he just shook his head as if he was disgusted at her, she said, “Fine. I just wanted you to know that that was it. Never again.”

  “Fine,” Nick said, and Quinn felt the word like a stab.

  “Glad to see you’re taking it so well,” she said. “I really changed your life, didn’t I?”

  “You were fun,” Nick said. “A lot of hard work, but fun. But I don’t need this kind of hassle, and I sure don’t need to be your ticket to Zoë.”

  He half-turned to go back to the car, and Quinn kicked him hard. “Hey!” he said, nursing his shin as he turned back to her.

  “That’s just until I can find a dull spoon,” she said, and stomped out.

  Nick watched her go and tried to feel good about it as he rubbed his shin. She had a kick like a mule.
There was a good thing: he wouldn’t be getting kicked again. Another benefit: he wouldn’t wake up alone and remember that he’d fucked his best friend. And he wouldn’t remember how much he’d enjoyed it, either, taking her like that, making her want him, making her come when she’d been fighting it, watching her move because of what he was doing to her—

  No, it was a damn good thing Quinn had called it off because that meant he didn’t have to. His lucky day.

  “What was that about?” Max said from behind him.

  “Not much.” Nick straightened and limped back to the car.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her that mad.” Max sounded pleased.

  “And you never will again,” Nick said.

  “Am I missing something good?”

  “No,” Nick said, and Max gave up and turned to go back to the office.

  “Oh, hell,” he said, and Nick looked up to see Barbara heading for the door.

  “Go,” he said, and Max escaped out the back door.

  “Is Max here?” Barbara said thirty seconds later, poking her head around the door.

  “He had to go out for a minute.” Nick leaned against the car and really looked at Barbara as a possible woman for the first time. Medium height, slender, a little vague but not dumb. Clean and neat and pretty. A man could do worse, especially if by doing it he could save his brother and escape from two homicidal sisters. He wanted to say, “How do you feel about Fleetwood Mac?” but instead he put the hood on the Honda down and said, “I was just going to break for dinner. You busy?”

  “Me?” Barbara blinked at him.

  “Would you like to have dinner with me?” Nick said, gently because she was so taken aback. “I’ll even spring for the Anchor Inn instead of a Big Mac.”

  “Oh.” Barbara stood there, stuck as always.

  “I fixed your heater.” Maybe if she was grateful.

  “What?”

  “The one that stuck? I fixed it, not Max. Come have dinner to thank me.” He smiled at her, the smile that usually made women smile back.

  “You fixed my heater?”

  “Right,” Nick said, regretting ever starting the conversation.

  “That was really nice, what you did for Quinn.”

  “What?” Nick said, startled. “Oh, the loan thing.”