Crazy for You

  “I need to go now, Bill,” Quinn said. “You’re holding up our practice. Let me out.”

  “We really need her, Coach.” Jason’s voice was close now, as close as Bill’s, and Quinn imagined them standing there side by side at the door, Jason almost as big as Bill, Jason at eighteen practically a man, strong from weightlifting, ready to face Bill down.

  No, she thought, and opened her mouth to tell Jason it was all right, but then the doorknob turned, and Jason opened the door, gently shoving Bill out of the way with his elbow as he did so.

  “You’re late,” he said to her, his voice deliberately cheery. “You’re in trouble now.”

  She slipped out past him, ignoring Bill standing desolate behind him, trying not to shake as she headed for the door, Jason close behind her, shielding her.

  “Wait,” Bill said, and she turned, reaching out to hold on to Jason’s arm as she did. “You forgot your paint,” Bill said, and she shook her head.

  “I’ll send somebody else for it,” she said and escaped into the hall, still holding on to Jason.

  “You okay?” he said when they’d turned the corner into the main hall, when she felt safe enough to let go of him.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “That was weird.”

  “Very,” she said and swallowed.

  Jason put his arm around her. “Don’t walk around here alone anymore. You keep Corey or me with you. That was really bad.”

  Hearing him say it made it worse, having a student know, but Quinn shut her eyes and nodded, knowing he was right.

  Jason squeezed her shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” he told her, and then he looked past her and dropped his arm.

  She turned and saw Bobby glaring at them. What the hell was he still doing here this late? Stalking her?

  That wasn’t funny, she realized. Not funny at all.

  “Ms. McKenzie, I’d like to see you in my office,” he said, his voice icy.

  “Not now, Robert,” she said, her fear morphing into anger as she looked at his silly, stupid face. “But you might want to go check on your baseball coach. He just trapped me in my storeroom.” Bobby stiffened a little, suddenly wary, and she added, “There’s something really wrong with him, Robert. Really, really wrong. You’re going to have to talk to him. Keep him away from me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Bobby said, but he took off down the hall.

  Bill sat in the empty art room, tense with frustration. Jason had meant well, but he’d ruined everything. She’d been listening to him, quiet in there, he’d been explaining it so well, if he’d just had a chance to finish—

  “Bill?” Bobby said from the doorway. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “She won’t let me take care of her,” Bill said. “She’s just all caught up in this play and she’s so busy—”

  “Look.” Bobby came in and sat down next to him. “I think you should stay away from her—”

  “If she’d just stay still enough to listen,” Bill said.

  “Yeah, well, I could break her leg,” Bobby said sarcastically. “But even then she’d just get crutches and walk off. She’s done with you.”

  “You don’t understand,” Bill said. “We belong together.”

  “Right,” Bobby said. “After baseball season. You’ll have the whole summer to get her back.”

  Bill frowned at him. “That’s too long. I can’t wait that long.”

  “Look, Bill, don’t make me get nasty,” Bobby said. “I could screw things up for you, I’m the principal, you know, but I won’t because I don’t want you worried about anything but the team.”

  Bill stood up, sick of the team. “There are more important things than baseball, Robert,” he said, and walked out of the room, fairly sure that Bobby couldn’t think of one.

  That was really sad.

  “He was crazed,” Quinn told Joe and Darla at home later that night. “I couldn’t believe it. He thinks he’s moving in and we’re having kids.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Joe said, and Quinn looked at her father in surprise. “I’ll tell him to leave you alone.”

  “It won’t do any good,” Quinn said. “I told him that, and he didn’t believe me.” She smiled at her dad. “But thanks, anyway. I told Bobby to take care of him. Maybe—”

  “It’s not enough,” Joe said and Darla said, “He’s right, Quinn. If Bill’s trapping you in storerooms, he’s gone over the edge. We’ve got to do something.”

  “What?” Quinn said. “Call the police and say Bill Hilliard, the Hero of Tibbett, locked me in my storeroom and wouldn’t let me out? It sounds like a kid’s prank. I mean, who would you believe, Bill or the woman who stole her dog from the pound?”

  “Let me say something to Frank Atchity,” Joe said. “We play poker. Let me just give him a heads-up on this. And from now on, you don’t go anywhere alone.”

  “For the rest of my life?”

  “He’s right,” Darla said. “No place alone. And you tell the BP that if he doesn’t call Bill off, you’re going to the police. That should do something.”

  As it happened, the first person Quinn saw when she got to school the next morning was the BP, vibrating by her classroom door.

  “Jason quit,” Bobby told her as she unlocked it. “He quit the team cold this morning, just like he didn’t owe Bill anything.”

  Oh, hell, Jason, Quinn thought, and then she flipped on the light and went into the room. “Look, I’m sorry but I’m not surprised. He watched Bill wig out last night. I’m not kidding, Robert, there’s something really wrong there. You either keep Bill away from me or I’m going to the police for a restraining order. And you can just imagine what kind of rumors that will start. Good-bye levy.”

  Bobby turned purple. “This is all your fault. All he wants is you, although God knows why. You’re the most ungrateful—”

  “Bobby, will you forget it?” Quinn turned on him. “What do I have to do to—”

  “Just until June,” Bobby said. “That’s all I ask. Just go back to him until we get the trophy and I’ll help you move out afterward myself.”

  “You’re as crazy as he is,” Quinn said. “No. And you keep him away from me. Or else.”

  “This is your fault,” Bobby said and walked off, and Quinn thought, That’s what everyone else is going to think, too. Bill had been perfectly normal until she’d left. Well, as normal as any coach in America.

  Her homeroom kids started to file in, still half asleep and sullen as always, and Quinn shoved all thoughts of Bill away so she could get attendance taken. There was at least one part of her life that was under control: she could still count kids. But all the way through the roll call, Bill lurked in the back of her mind, refusing to go away.

  She really was going to have to do something. She just didn’t know what.

  Jason had quit. Bill tried to understand it, how Jason could leave him after four years. Four years of football and baseball, and then Jason just stood there at morning weightlifting, his eyes blank, and said, “Sorry, Coach. I’m just not interested anymore.”

  “Jason,” Bill had said, but Jason had just shaken his hand and left the weight room.

  Bill looked at Corey Mossert and said, “Talk him out of it.”

  Corey shook his head, too. “Something happened yesterday after school. He didn’t tell me what, but he’s real sure this is what he wants. He’s gone, Coach. Let it drop.”

  Bill felt cold. That thing in Quinn’s room. When he was trying to talk to her, Jason had butted in and ruined it. What had Quinn said? What had she told Jason that had made him want to quit?

  He had to do something. He had to do something. His headaches were getting worse. Nothing was going right. Nothing was going right.

  So he went back inside Quinn’s house on his planning period—he had to, he’d forgotten to measure the upstairs the previous time so he had to—and inside, he felt better. It was almost like being inside Quinn. No, no, he didn’t mean that, he meant with Q
uinn.

  He couldn’t wait to move in.

  The dog went under a chair as soon as it saw him, snarling at him but staying away. On his way up the stairs, he noticed how flimsy the railing was. Just bolted to the wall. It could come loose any time. If he lived here, he’d make sure there was a better railing. She really needed him there.

  He slowed as he neared the top of the stairs. Maybe that was it. Maybe if she realized how much she needed him—

  He went back downstairs to the back porch and found Quinn’s toolbox. With the screwdriver he loosened the bolts on the stair rail, and then went through the house, loosening other screws, to doorknobs and outlet plates, loosening the wires behind the plates, too. He thought of other things he could do. He could loosen the gas lines so there’d be just a little leak, nothing big. The steps to the front porch were awful. He could weaken one so it would go later, so everything wouldn’t be bad at once. He could loosen a porch rail. He could do lots of things. She’d need him again.

  When he went upstairs an hour later, he was brisk, sure he’d be moving in soon. The second door up there was another bedroom, set under the eaves, with a twin bed, probably Quinn’s or Zoë’s from when they were kids, and he smiled, cheered because it’d be such a great room for their boys. The two rooms at the back of the house were an office with the other bed and a bathroom. The bathroom was just too small, they’d be extending that out, and maybe putting another one behind it, enlarging the office to a master bedroom with the master bath right off it, behind the old bath, that was the way it would go. Just right.

  Bill made notes of the measurements and then pocketed his measuring tape and organizer. He had everything he needed, everything would be easy now, once Quinn realized how much she needed him. Once she called him back.

  And she’d be so surprised when he showed her the plans after he moved in. “Silly,” he’d say. “You knew we’d need more room. You should have known I’d plan it.”

  On the way down the hall, he opened the fifth door out of curiosity.

  Quinn’s closet.

  He could see the sleeves of her dresses. The green print one she’d worn the first time they went out, the blue checked one she’d worn with a jacket for fall open house, the red plaid flannel one she’d worn to the last basketball game they’d gone to—he clutched a little there, they’d been so happy—the black one she wore to teach in when the kids weren’t doing something messy, and the brown patchwork print one and the denim one and—

  He closed his eyes because his chest hurt. He couldn’t be having a heart attack, he was too young and healthy. Indigestion maybe. He should lie down.

  Once in Quinn’s bed, the quilt pulled over him, he felt better. For a moment he was almost angry with her, she was being so stubborn, she deserved what he’d done to her house, if she’d just listen to him, she could be here with him, under this quilt, she wouldn’t listen, if he could just make her listen—

  He thought about making her listen, about what he’d have to do to make her listen, what she deserved for not listening, so angry, he was so angry because she wouldn’t listen—

  He breathed harder, the room went away, and he thought about Quinn, about making her listen, about making her take him back, she’d have to take him back now, this had gone on long enough, it was enough, enough, enough—

  When he was calm again, he told himself the old story, that things would be fine, that she’d listen now—it’s been two months—just a little more time, and things would be fine, and she’d listen—

  No, she won’t.

  He felt himself clench again, like a giant fist, and rolled out of the bed. He was fine, she’d listen, things would be okay.

  He went around the room, opening the closet door—this one was her shirts and skirts, jeans folded on the shelf above—opening the pie safe—sheets and pillowcases, T-shirts—opening the washstand drawers—

  Quinn’s underwear. My secret life, she’d called it. Absurd colors, screaming pinks and metallic golds and acid greens and—

  He plunged his hands into the drawer, into the lace and the satin and the silk—“I have to dress like a dockworker to teach art,” she’d said once, “but I can be all dressed up underneath”—all the stuff he didn’t really like, not really, all those weird, bright colors, that wasn’t how he wanted Quinn, bright and hot; his Quinn was clean, white, plain, good—he clenched his fists around the vile stuff—his, she should know she was his.

  He threw the underwear back in the drawer as if it were unclean, contaminated, it contaminated her, he wanted to rip it up, shred it, burn it so it never touched her again, and he gathered it up in handfuls to do that, and that’s when he saw the white at the bottom of the drawer.

  They weren’t plain white cotton, they were lacy and brief, bikini pants—not the kind that really covered her up, but they were white, like a bride’s, and he picked them up, holding his breath. Some guys called them panties but that always seemed dirty to Bill, so he just called them underpants, a nice clean name, these were mostly lace with just a strip of white satin down the crotch—crotch, not a word he wanted to use with Quinn, harsh—satin down the crotch, the part that went between her legs, the part—

  He shuddered a little, and shoved the drawer shut, still clutching the panties.

  Underpants.

  They were white lace. She could wear them when they got married.

  She had to listen. He had to make her listen. He’d been patient long enough. You waited for a while to give women time, but then you had to be firm.

  He’d be firm and she’d understand. She’d be grateful, she’d want this over, too. She’d come back to him, wearing these panties, open her arms to him, open herself to him in the dark—

  It would be fine.

  He held the panties and tried to slow his breathing, and he was looking at them, just looking at them, when Bobby said, “So this is where you go on your planning period.”

  Bill jerked his head up, and Bobby leaned in the doorway, smiling.

  “This is really pathetic, Hilliard,” he said.

  “How did you—”

  “I followed you.” Bobby shrugged. “You’re losing it, Hilliard. More important, you’re losing games. Can’t have that.” His voice was insolent and his face was smug.

  Bill swallowed. “Get out of here.”

  Bobby shook his head. “It’s too late for that. Go ahead, put those things in your pocket if that’s what you need, but we have to get out of here. I really wouldn’t want to explain this to anybody.”

  “You don’t understand,” Bill said. “This isn’t—”

  “I understand plenty,” Bobby said. “Now shut up and get out of here before you get caught. Jesus, you’re a fool.”

  “You can’t talk to me like that,” Bill blustered, but he felt cold. His world had been wrong before, but not this wrong.

  “I can talk to you any way I want.” Bobby’s smile was ugly. “After this?” He nodded toward the panties, still clutched in Bill’s hand. “I’m the Big Guy now, and you do what I say.” He jerked his head toward the stairs and then walked toward the door, acting like he was sure Bill would follow him.

  And dizzy with confusion, his headache back again in full force, Bill did.

  “What the hell is she doing?” Max said, slamming down the office phone.

  Nick raised his head from the Subaru he was working on and squinted out the window. “Who?”

  “Not out there. Darla.” Max sounded exasperated. “She just left a message on our machine that the boys should come to dinner again. Not me, just the boys.”

  “She probably thought you’d be eating at the Anchor Inn.”

  “Fuck you,” Max said. “This is stupid. We’re married. She should be home.”

  “Yep.”

  “It looks weird. People are talking, damn it.”

  Nick kept his head under the hood. “Maybe if we were nice to them, they’d let us watch.”

  “You can make jokes,” Max said
. “You’re not missing anything.”

  The hell I’m not.

  “It’s been over a month,” Max seethed. “I didn’t go this long in high school.”

  “Oh,” Nick said. “That’s why you’re so grumpy.”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  Nick thought about telling him it didn’t matter how long it had been, it was the idea it was never going to happen again that was making him nuts, but he didn’t. Some things he just wasn’t interested in discussing with Max even if he couldn’t help thinking about them himself.

  He had to fight the urge every day to drop by Quinn’s house to see if she needed anything. Like him inside her. Of course with Darla and Joe there, he was out of luck, and Quinn wasn’t stopping by his place any more, so short of jumping her on the street, he was pretty much screwed. Or in this case, not. Which was good. She was just a friend, and anyway, his attention span was not that long. He should have been past this by now. He was not the kind of guy who obsessed over women.

  He wanted her naked under him again.

  No, he didn’t.

  “I’ve been over to the Upper Cut,” Max said, lost in his own problems. “She says no. I can’t figure out what to do. I go to Bo’s and she laughs. I date Barbara to make her jealous, and she tells me to avoid the lobster next time.”

  “I told you that was a dumb move,” Nick said.

  Max ignored him. “I tell her to tell me what she wants, I tell her she can have it, whatever it is. She says if she has to tell me, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I hate that one,” Nick said, his sympathy veering back to Max.

  “She wants change,” Max said. “I like our life. Why should I change?”

  “To get your life back?”

  “She’s my wife,” Max said stubbornly. “She belongs to me. I’ll just wait. She’ll come to her senses.”

  Before you’ve lost yours? Nick wanted to say, but it was fairly clear that Max’s mind had already gone seriously astray, and Nick wasn’t in any position to criticize since he wasn’t doing any better. After all, he was still fixated on a woman he was never going to see naked again, never hold, touch, stroke, squeeze, bury himself inside—