Crazy for You

  Quinn stared down into the dog’s eyes. “No.”

  “Okay,” Darla said. “Out with it.”

  Quinn shifted in her chair again while the dog watched them both. “I’m going to keep this dog.”

  You have beige carpeting, Darla wanted to say, but it didn’t seem supportive.

  “Bill wants me to take her to Animal Control,” Quinn went on. “But I’m keeping her. I don’t care what he says.”

  “Jeez.” Darla caught the lift of Quinn’s chin and felt the first faint stirrings of alarm. Bill was being incredibly dumb about this. “He’s known you for two years, and he doesn’t know you any better than to think you’d take a dog to the pound?”

  “It’s the practical thing to do,” Quinn said, her eyes still on the dog. “I’m a practical person.”

  “Yeah, you are.” Darla felt definitely uneasy now. The one thing she’d always wanted for Quinn was a marriage as good as her own. All right, Bill was a little boring, but so was Max. You couldn’t have everything. You compromised. That was what marriages were about. “What if he says, ‘It’s the dog or me’? Tell me you’re not going to risk your relationship over a dog.”

  The dog looked over as she spoke, almost as if it were narrowing its eyes at her, and Darla noticed for the first time how sneaky it looked. Tempting. Almost devilish. Well, that made sense. If Quinn had been in Eden, Satan would have showed up as a cocker spaniel.

  “Bill’s not difficult like that.” Quinn leaned back, obviously trying to sound nonchalant and only sounding tenser because of it. “We don’t have problems. He wants every day to be the same, and since they always are, he’s happy.”

  That could be Max. “Well, that’s men for you.”

  “The thing is, I don’t think that’s enough for me.” Quinn petted the dog, who leaned into her, gazing up at her with those hypnotic dark eyes, luring her into messing with a perfectly good relationship. “It’s starting to get to me, knowing this is going to be my life forever. I mean, I love teaching, and Bill’s a good guy—”

  “Wait a minute.” Darla sat up. “Bill’s a great guy.”

  Quinn shrank back a little. “I know.”

  “He works his butt off for those kids on the team,” Darla said. “And he stayed after school to coach Mark for the SATs—”

  “I know.”

  “—and he’s the first one in line every time there’s a charity drive—”

  “I know.”

  “—and he was teacher of the year last year, and that was long overdue—”

  “Darla, I know.”

  “—and he treats you like a queen,” Darla finished.

  “Well, I’m tired of that,” Quinn said, her chin sticking out again. “Look, Bill’s nice—okay, he’s great,” she said, holding up her hands as Darla started to object again. “But what we have, it’s not exciting. I’ve never had exciting. And with the way Bill plans things, I’m never going to have exciting.”

  I did, Darla wanted to say. She and Max had been hot as hell once. She could see him now—that look in his eye as he zeroed in on her, that grin that said, I have plans for you, the way they laughed together—but you couldn’t expect that to last. They’d been married seventeen years. You couldn’t keep exciting for seventeen years.

  “It’s not really Bill’s fault,” Quinn said. “I mean, I didn’t have exciting before he showed up, either. I just don’t think it’s in the cards for me. I’m not an exciting person.”

  Darla opened her mouth and shut it again. Quinn was a darling, but—

  “See?” Quinn finally met Darla’s eyes, defeated. “You want to tell me I’m exciting and you can’t. Zoë was exciting, I’m dull. Mama used to say, ‘Some people are oil paintings and some people are watercolors,’ but what she meant was, ‘Zoë is interesting and you’re sort of washed out.’”

  “You’re the dependable one,” Darla said. “You’re the one everybody leans on. If you were exciting, we’d all be screwed.”

  Quinn slumped back. “Well, I’m tired of that. And it’s not like I’m going out Bungee-jumping or something stupid. I just want this dog.” The dog looked up at her again, and Darla’s uneasiness morphed into real dread. “That’s not even exciting, adopting a dog. And it’s not so much to want, is it?”

  “Well, that depends.” Darla glared at the dog. This is all your fault.

  “Don’t you ever want more?” Quinn leaned forward, her hazel eyes now fixed on Darla’s with a passion that made her uncomfortable. “Don’t you ever look at your life and say, ‘Is this all there is?’”

  “No,” Darla said. “No, no, I don’t. Look, sometimes you have to settle for less than you want to keep your relationship going.”

  “You’ve never settled with Max,” Quinn said, and Darla bit her lip. “Well, now I’m going to be like you. Just this once, I’m not going to settle.”

  She cuddled the dog closer, and Darla thought, Everybody settles. The dog looked over at Darla, daring her to say it out loud, the devil in disguise. Forget it, Darla told it silently. You’re not getting me in trouble. “So what do you want on your pizza?” Darla leaned across the table and picked up the phone. “The usual, right?”

  “No,” Quinn said. “I want something different.”

  Two

  Bill had gone back to the weight room slightly exasperated with Quinn but mostly amused, so when his principal, Robert Gloam, perspiring elegantly in royal blue sweats, caught the look on his face, he stopped mopping his face on a Ralph Lauren towel and said, “What’s so funny, Big Guy?”

  Of all the crosses Bill had to bear in life—parents and boosters, teenage athletes with hormones pinballing through their bodies, the struggle to make ideas like the Great Depression real and significant to a generation of mall credit junkies—the most irritating was his biggest fan, Bobby Gloam, the Boy Principal. Bill tried hard not to think of Robert as Bobby or the BP because it wasn’t respectful, and Robert was a hard-working little man, if a bit obsessive about sports; but he was so young and so clueless that the nicknames were almost irresistible.

  “Funny? Oh, Quinn found another dog,” Bill said, and Bobby rolled his eyes in male sympathy.

  “You got a lot of patience there, Big Guy,” Bobby said.

  “She’s practical,” Bill said. “She’ll do the right thing.” He began to do the last check on the weight room, which was pretty much unnecessary since he’d trained the boys well, and the BP had been in there while he was gone, nagging at every dropped towel or misplaced weight. The BP felt proprietary about the room since it had been renovated only the past month and was now almost embarrassingly plush, a symphony in scarlet and gray. “The teachers’ lounge should look this good,” Quinn had said, and Bobby had answered, “Hey, the athletes earned this. What have the teachers done for anybody?”

  “I wish Greta would do the right thing,” Bobby went on now. “Of course, she’s due to retire after next year, but that’s still a year and a half to go, and that’s a long time to put up with a lousy secretary.”

  Bill heard him only peripherally, moving toward the light switch, ready to shut down and go home and make dinner for Quinn, just like every Wednesday. Quinn. He felt good just thinking about her.

  “I mean, sometimes I think she’s defying me,” Bobby was saying.

  “She’s just a little tactless sometimes,” Bill said. “She’s a darn good art teacher, and that’s all that matters.”

  “Not Quinn, Greta,” the BP said. “Although I have doubts about Quinn, too.”

  “What’s Greta doing exactly?” Bill asked, feeling a little guilty for tuning him out.

  “Well, take my coffee,” Bobby said. “I ask her to get me some, and she pours it and puts it on the corner of her desk. And then I have to ask her to bring it in to me.”

  “Why don’t you get your own coffee?” Bill asked. “The pot’s right there on the counter outside your door. You’re probably closer to it than she is.”

  “Chain of command,”
Bobby said. “What kind of authority do I have if I get my own coffee?”

  None, which is what you have now anyway.

  “What would you do?” Bobby asked, and Bill repressed the urge to say, “I’d get my own coffee,” and said, “Just make my expectations known, I guess, like I do with the boys.”

  Bobby looked confused, so Bill went on. “I make it clear what I want from them. I don’t get upset, I just expect them to deliver. Expect Greta to give you what you want, and eventually she will.”

  “That seems pretty optimistic,” Bobby said.

  “No.” Bill flipped off the lights and started for the door. “Take this thing with Quinn and the dog. She knows we can’t have a dog, so I just kept reminding her of that until she agreed to give it to Edie.”

  “Edie’s another one I’m not too sure about,” Bobby said. “These older women do not understand authority.”

  “Look,” Bill said, pretty sure he was fighting a losing battle. “People want to be thought well of, they want to live up to other people’s good opinions of them. You let people know what they have to do to earn your approval, and they’ll do that, as long as it’s within their capabilities, of course. Never expect something from people that they can’t deliver.”

  “Greta can bring me coffee,” Bobby said.

  “And Quinn can give the dog away to a good home.” Bill opened the door as the last of the afternoon sunlight filtered into his weight room. “All it takes is patience.”

  “You’re really something, Big Guy,” the BP said. “A real master of people.”

  Bill drove home a contented man. Giving the dog to Edie had been a good idea, and so like Quinn, solving Edie’s loneliness problem and finding the dog a home, too—two good deeds at once. Bill had lived alone a couple of times in between relationships, and he’d hated it, so he knew Edie must hate it, too. When he’d met Quinn, he’d known instantly that she was the one, the way she was so practical, the way she always made everything all right. There were no waves when Quinn was around; she calmed the waters. It had taken him a year to convince her to let him move in, and another six months to get her to move to the great apartment he’d found for them, but she’d understood in the end, and now his life was perfect.

  So in June they’d get engaged, and they’d get married at Christmas. He had it all planned out so it wouldn’t conflict with school or the athletic season, and he imagined the future with her while he parked the car at the apartment. They’d have children, of course. She’d sit in the stands while he coached their sons, she’d tuck them in at night, she’d do all those mother things. Whenever he saw mothers in stores yelling at their kids, he’d think of Quinn’s round, serene, Madonna-like face and know she’d never do that to his kids. And she’d always be there for him, too, warm and understanding. She was everything he needed, the solid, sure center of his life.

  So when Quinn came in the apartment door at six-fifteen with the dog smirking at him from her arms, he kept his voice calm, his tone warning her that this was not negotiable as he said, “Quinn, the dog goes to Edie.”

  Quinn’s chin came up, and her jaw clenched, and suddenly her face didn’t look as round as it usually did. Her hair slid back, and two bright spots stood out on her cheekbones. She looked awful, and the dog looked worse, feral, as if it had bitten and infected her.

  “No,” she said.

  “Hey,” Darla said to Max as she came into the grimy, cluttered station office that was decorated in what Quinn called Early Clipboard. “Whose Toyota is that out there?”

  “Barbara Niedemeyer’s,” Max said without lifting his head from the bill he was making out. “And we are not adopting another dog, so just forget about it.”

  Darla grinned at the back of his head and thought how sexy the curve of his neck was, rounding down into the back of his T-shirt. Max had put on a little weight in the seventeen years since they’d graduated, and his dark hair was a little thinner, but she could still see the best-looking boy in the senior class who’d invited her to be the first girl he took to the drive-in in the car he’d finally gotten running. They’d seen The Empire Strikes Back, or most of it. Looking at him now, she wanted to jump him all over again. Not bad for seventeen years, after all.

  She peered out into the service bay. “Where’s Nick?”

  “Upstairs.” Max pushed his chair back. “I mean it, no dog.”

  Darla sat on the edge of the desk and nudged his thigh with hers. “Not even if I asked real nice?”

  “Not even then,” Max said, but he’d caught the undertone in her voice; she could tell by the way his eyes crinkled. “You could try to persuade me, though.”

  Darla slid until her legs were on the outside of Max’s and leaned over to put her hands on the arms of his desk chair. “Well, I want this dog pretty bad. What exactly would I have to do?”

  “Come home and give me a back rub,” Max said. “And a few other things. You’re still not getting that dog, though. I got to be fair here.”

  He tried to look stern, and Darla laughed, leaning closer. “Forget about home,” she whispered. “It’s full of kids. You and me, right here, honey.” He started to frown and she kissed him, and Max kissed her back, their good, solid, damn-I’m-glad-you’re-here kiss, but tonight her blood rose faster because they weren’t at home, they were in the office, windows all around, lights on, acting like dumb kids all over again. Sex with Max was never bad, but it wasn’t always pulse-pounding, and lately it hadn’t even been often.

  Now her pulse was pounding.

  “Wait a minute,” Max said, coming up for air, and she slid down into his lap as best she could with the chair arms in her way, straddling his thighs but not tight against him the way she wanted to be.

  “Come here,” she said, and he said, “Jesus, the whole world can see us.”

  “So they’ll learn something,” Darla said, but Max was standing up, sliding tight against her for a lovely second before the straightening of his body nudged her back onto the desk.

  “Let’s go home,” he said. “The kids’ll be in bed by eleven. Then it’s you and me, girl.”

  Darla felt the heat die out of her. “That’s five hours.”

  Max grinned. “We can make it. Come on. Let’s get out of here before somebody sees us necking.”

  “Yeah, that would be bad,” Darla said flatly and followed him out the door. The white Toyota gleamed at her in the garage lights. “Whose car did you say this is?”

  “Barbara Niedemeyer,” Max said.

  “She just dumped Matthew,” Darla said, and stopped in her tracks. “Oh, my God, she’s after Nick.”

  “Maybe she just thought there was something wrong with her car,” Max said. “You don’t really want another dog, do you?”

  “No, and anyway, Quinn wants it.” Darla’s mind turned over the possibilities, sliding away from her own disappointment. “I’m telling you, if that Toyota comes back in here again within the week, she’s gunning for Nick.” She turned to look at Max. “Should we try to save him?”

  “Nick doesn’t need saved from anybody,” Max said, and he looked so uncomfortable, Darla let the subject drop. Max and Nick were close, but they didn’t interfere with each other, a relationship plan that had worked for the thirty-five years they’d been brothers. No need for her to go suggesting they change it now.

  “All right,” she said, and Max said, “What do you mean, Quinn’s keeping it? That’s not like her.”

  Darla followed him out into the dreary March dusk, trudging through the slush and thinking that Quinn would laugh when she found out Barbara was after Nick, and trying hard not to think about how much she’d wanted to make love back in the office, something different, just once after seventeen years.

  “Maybe she wants something different,” Darla said, and Max said, “Quinn? Not likely.” He yanked open the truck door on the driver’s side and climbed in. “She’s got a good life, and if she plays her cards right, she can keep it forever. Why mess it up?”
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  Darla stood in the parking lot, the snow drifting around her, suddenly cold to the bone. “Because sometimes you need something new to feel alive again, Max. Sometimes what used to be good isn’t enough.”

  “What are you talking about?” Max leaned over and opened the passenger door. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. Get in here before you freeze.”

  Darla walked around the truck, and climbed into her seat. She wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but she was fairly sure she knew how she felt.

  And if Max thought he was getting laid tonight after the kids were in bed, he didn’t know her at all.

  He patted her knee. “After the news, girl,” he said. “You and me.”

  Saying no, flat-out no, went to Quinn’s head like cheap wine—she felt dizzy and lightheaded and a little sick as Bill smiled at her, hi, lips together.

  “Don’t be silly,” he said. His face was set in the benevolent Captain of the Universe look that had earned him the respect of all of Tibbett. A real man’s man, her father had said when she’d brought him home the first time. Which would explain why she didn’t want him now. Let the men have him.

  Quinn bent to put Katie on the floor. As she stood, she looked past Bill to where pots simmered on the stove, and flushed with annoyance. “You cooked again. I’ve told you over and over, on Wednesdays I eat with Darla—”

  “You eat early,” Bill said. “And pizza is not good food. You need good food.” He opened a cupboard and took out a plate.

  Quinn considered running down the food groups that pizza satisfied and gave up. It was easier to eat than to argue. She walked across the kitchen to rummage in the cupboard under the sink, Katie tiptoeing anxiously behind her, toenails clicking on the tile floor. “Where’s the puppy chow from the last time?”

  “Clear in the back.” Bill’s voice sounded flat, and Quinn pulled her head out in time to see him glaring at Katie.

  Quinn stuck her head back into the cupboard and fished out the puppy chow. When she stood, Bill had his back to her, dishing up noodles and sauce.