Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me

by Jennifer Crusie

  “Human Valium, that’s me,” Sophie said.

  “Hey,” Phin said, and when she looked up, her beautiful lips parted to say something horrible to him, he kissed her, long and slow and deep, and she kissed him back, and he felt human again instead of harried, just because he finally had his arms around her and she was so warm and sure against him. “We’re more than just the sex,” he whispered, and she closed her eyes and whispered back, “I know, I know.”

  He kissed her again, and then rocked the swing with his foot, and she put her head on his shoulder and said, “So tell me about this lousy day,” and he told her while they watched the sun go down, and everything that had been awful seemed funny when he told her about it. He listened to her laugh in the twilight and felt the tension seep away. When it was dark, he sighed and said, “I have to go,” but he didn’t want to.

  “What about the sex?” Sophie said. “Usually you have me naked by now.”

  “Davy’s staying here, right?” Phin said, and when she nodded, he said, “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said, and he said, “Tell you what. Come on up to the Hill, and we can do it with my mother in the next room.”

  “Oh, God,” Sophie said, and he laughed and kissed her and said, “I’ve got a council meeting from hell tomorrow anyway. I’ll really need to release some tension after that.”

  “You’re such a romantic,” she said, and he kissed her again and then again until she laughed against his mouth, and he drove away feeling all the comfort he’d come for.

  Maybe her brother would leave soon.

  “You never fucking learn,” Davy said when Sophie went inside.

  “What?” Sophie plopped down on the sofa, and Lassie plopped down at her feet. “Thanks to you, he left early, so this is not a good time to yell at me.” She looked at Davy, standing indignant by the fireplace, and had to smile. “I’m so glad you’re here, even if you are being a butthead.”

  Davy came over and sat down beside her. “Let me explain to you again about town boys.”

  “Go away, Davy.” Sophie let her head fall back against the couch and smiled, thinking about her town boy. “He’s not like that.”

  “ ‘This can only lead to tears,’ ” Davy said in a comic voice, and when Sophie rolled her head on the back of the couch, he said, “Anastasia. The bat.”

  “Bat country,” Sophie said. “What are you nervous about?”

  “The way you look at him,” Davy said. “The way he looks at you. You’re in love. He’s in heat. It’s an old story and a lousy one.”

  “That’s what I keep telling her,” Amy said, coming in with three Dove Bars. “ ‘This is Chad all over again,’ ‘he’s got “town boy” all over him,’ but—”

  “Chad?” Davy said.

  “An old mistake,” Sophie said, taking her Dove Bar. “And Phin is not Chad. And I’m not in love.”

  “I still think we ought to go to Iowa and make Chad pay,” Amy said, and bit into her ice cream viciously.

  “This would be Chad Berwick, right?” Davy shook his head and bit into his bar, too. “Not necessary,” he said around the ice cream.

  Sophie blinked at him. “How did you know—”

  Davy looked at her with affectionate contempt. “I was a freshman in the same school, dummy. Everybody knew.”

  “Oh, ouch,” Sophie said, and ate more Dove Bar for comfort.

  “Yes, but the last month of Chad’s senior year was not a good one,” Davy said. “Poor guy.”

  Amy collapsed cross-legged on the rug in front of them with her ice cream dripping, looking about ten. “Ooh. Ooh. What did you do?” She licked the drips away and grinned up at Davy adoringly, moving her ice cream as Lassie took an interest and waddled over.

  “Many things,” Davy said airily. “Too many to recall now.”

  “Come on, Davy,” Amy said. “Sophie needs to know.”

  Davy leaned back on the couch and ate more ice cream as he thought. “Mostly little stuff. I taped a cheat sheet in his notebook and then snitched on him to the English teacher. I started a rumor he had head lice and put lice shampoo in his gym locker. I stuck a bunch of Hustlers in his regular locker and he got busted and had to see the counselor.”

  “That’s it?” Amy sniffed, and ate her ice cream, holding the stick above Lassie’s reach.

  “Well, let’s see, was there anything else?” Davy pretended to ponder, and Sophie started to grin.

  “I love you, Davy,” she said, and leaned into his arm.

  Davy put his arm around her. “I love you, too, babe. Oh, yeah, wait. It’s all coming back to me now. There was that cherry-red Camaro he got for graduation. His folks gave it to him early so he could take it to prom.” He grinned and bit into his ice cream again.

  “He was driving a clunker when I . . . knew him,” Sophie said.

  “He drove it to prom, too,” Davy said. “I put shrimp in the Camaro.”

  Amy frowned. “Shrimp?” But Sophie started to laugh, hiccuping on her ice cream.

  Davy nodded. “I put shrimp down in the seats, in the wheel well, shoved some down into the screw holes under the carpet, anyplace it would be hard to find them. Shrimp are small, you know.” He began to smile, remembering. “And it was the end of May so we were getting some hot weather.” He shook his head. “Chad never did get to use that car. For a week, whenever I went by the Berwick house, that car was sitting in the driveway with all the doors open. Then finally, it just . . . disappeared.”

  He laughed and bit into his Dove Bar again, and Amy said, “Oh, yes.” Sophie thought, I love my family, I really do. “What else?” she asked Davy.

  “He destroyed the guy’s Camaro,” Amy said. “What do you want?”

  “Dempsey revenge, Ame,” Sophie said. “A car is not enough.” She looked at Davy. “Right?”

  “Well,” Davy said. “There was prom.”

  “Oh, tell us about prom,” Amy said.

  “He was dating this really hot senior girl named Melissa Rose,” Davy said. “Boy, she was something. She wore this silky blue thing to prom that sort of slipped around whenever she—”

  “I thought this was supposed to cheer me up,” Sophie said.

  “And because Chad was an asshole, he took a flask to prom,” Davy said. “Big man around town, sneaking Boone’s Farm into the gym. So around midnight, I put ground-up sleeping pills in it.”

  “So he went to sleep at prom and that’s it?” Amy said.

  “No,” Davy said. “He got groggy at prom, and Melissa got disgusted because she thought he was drunk and made him take her home, except he was too out of it, and I just happened to be there in the parking lot. So I helped her.” Davy shook his head as he finished his Dove Bar. “He got a little banged-up when we tried to get him into the backseat. Melissa was not a nice person, so she did most of it.”

  “Good for Melissa,” Sophie said, entertaining her first thoughts about Chad that didn’t involve guilt.

  “That’s good,” Amy said. “That’s enough—”

  “Then we took him home and left him on his front-porch steps with his flask in his hand and his fly unzipped,” Davy said. “Melissa suggested he should have something else in his other hand, and I just happened to have Dad’s Polaroid with me. The pictures were a big hit at school on Monday.”

  Sophie was laughing into her Dove Bar now. “Thank you, Davy,” she said, and his arm tightened around her.

  “Okay, that was enough,” Amy said. “You did good—”

  “And then I drove Melissa home,” Davy said. “And we were feeling warmly toward each other at that point, being sort of united in our distaste for Chad, so I asked if there was anything else I could do for her.”

  “And was there?” Sophie said.

  “You weren’t the only Dempsey who lost yours in the backseat of that clunker,” Davy said. “I remember Melissa fondly to this day. That girl knew things. Wonder what happened to her?”

  “Something wonderful, I
hope,” Sophie said.

  “She already had something wonderful,” Davy said. “Me.”

  “Beyond that,” Sophie said. “I like a woman who knows how to get even.”

  “So do I, as long as she’s not getting even with me,” Davy said.

  Lassie whined at their feet, and Sophie looked down into his pathetic brown eyes. “Poor baby,” she said, and then he rolled over with his legs in the air and she laughed and leaned down so he could lick the rest of the ice cream off the stick.

  “Con dog,” Davy said.

  “What?” Sophie said, still smiling at her baby.

  “Con dog,” Davy said. “Look pathetic, make the mark feel superior, get what you want. He just ran a con on you for that ice cream.”

  “My dog conned me?” Sophie said.

  “What the dog is doing to you is not your problem,” Davy said. “It’s what the mayor’s doing to you that worries me. Which brings us back to now. If I have to fill a Volvo with shrimp, I will, but I’d just as soon you wised up.”

  Sophie stopped smiling. “I’m wise. He’s not a Chad. I’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah,” Davy said, “Right. Well, I’m telling you now, when he screws you over, I’m kicking his butt.”

  “I love you, Davy,” Sophie said.

  “I love you, too,” Davy said. “You dumbass.”

  The council meeting the next day went so badly that Phin was still reeling from it when his mother cornered him in the empty council room.

  “About this woman,” she said. “You can’t see her again.”

  “I did my damnedest to stop that permit vote, and Stephen got it through anyway because you turned on me.” Phin sat down on the council table, fuming. “What the hell were you thinking of?”

  “That movie company can do us no good,” Liz said. “Zane Black visited everybody on the council this morning, trying to get them to stop the filming, and that’s made everybody suspicious. I don’t want us to do anything that aligns us with them. You cannot go back out there. That woman—”

  “I like that woman,” Phin said. “She’s a hell of a lot more comfort than you are. You knew damn well—”

  “Will you at least think of Dillie?” Liz said.

  Phin frowned at her. “What’s Dillie got to do with this?”

  “You might think of her future while you’re unzipping your pants,” Liz snapped.

  “You have to be kidding me,” Phin said. “If every parent thought about his kid before sex, the race would die out.”

  “What happens when she finds out about this? What happens when she wants to meet this woman?”

  “She’s not going to meet her,” Phin said. “And I get to have a life, too, you know.”

  “You put your child first,” Liz said flatly.

  “You never did,” Phin said, just as flatly, and Liz took a step back, as if she’d been struck. “And you know it,” he said when she didn’t say anything. “You didn’t even know I was there if Dad was in the room. And when he wasn’t, I only had half your attention because you were waiting for him to show up.”

  “Phin,” Liz said.

  “It’s all right.” Phin sat back, trying not to take his frustration out on his mother, no matter how much she deserved it. “The older I get, the more I envy what you and Dad had. I’d watch him come up those steps at night, looking old and tired and miserable, and then he’d see you, and his face—” He stopped because Liz’s face had crumpled and he thought she might cry. It’s about time, he thought, and when she didn’t, he said, “You made the world go away for each other.”

  Liz tightened her jaw. “Don’t.”

  “I thought I was going to get that, too,” Phin said. “I thought it just came with the wedding ring, that feeling that the world was all right because two people were together.” He laughed shortly. “Found out I was wrong about that.”

  Liz rallied. “That was not your fault. That was—”

  “That was my fault,” Phin said. “I thought what you had was easy. Now I know better, and I’m not settling. I get what you had or I don’t get married. Which doesn’t mean I can’t have a good time while I’m waiting for the right woman.”

  “Damn few people get what we had,” Liz said. “And you pay for it. You pay a lot for it.”

  Phin shook his head. “So you just gave up.”

  “I never gave up,” Liz said. “We’re still—”

  “Not ‘we’,” Phin said. “I’m not talking about the fucking courthouse. I’m talking about you. You just cut that part of your life off completely. There are great guys in this town, but you won’t even look at them.”

  “I have no intentions of getting married again,” Liz said.

  “I don’t either,” Phin said. “But you’re pushing me at Rachel Garvey just the same.” He leaned closer. “You really think if I marry Rachel, I’ll start to love her? That she’ll love me?”

  Liz swallowed. “People do come to care for—”

  “Is that how it happened for you? Is that what you and Dad had?”

  Liz shut her eyes tight, and then the tears did start. “I’m sorry, Phin. I just can’t stand thinking about it. I just can’t. I’ve lost everything except you and Dillie and—”

  She broke off and he said, “And that’s not enough. We’re a lot, but we’re not enough. You need your own life.”

  Liz sniffed and said, her voice strangling with pain, “I just want him back.”

  “I know.” Phin walked around the end of the table and put his arm around his mother, and then she did start to cry. “I know you do. I know.” He patted her shoulder until she stopped crying, which was about thirty seconds, and then he said, “Listen, I don’t know what’s going to happen with Sophie. It’s only been a week, so who knows?”

  “I knew right away,” Liz said, pulling back a little and wiping her eyes with her fingers. “The minute I saw your father in high school, I knew. If you don’t—”

  “Yeah, well, that’s easier in high school,” Phin said, handing her his handkerchief. “Nobody has any sense then.”

  “But I knew,” Liz said. “And so did your father, he knew, too. And if you and this woman—”

  “Her name is Sophie,” Phin said as he sat on the end of the table. “And there’s something there, because I do not want to be involved with her, but I am still going back out there tonight.”

  “That’s sex,” Liz said, almost her old self again.

  “Don’t knock it,” Phin said. “You guys used to do all right there as I remember, so don’t even try to tell me you were above all that.”

  “No,” Liz said. “We weren’t above anything.”

  “I don’t want any details,” Phin said. “I got enough just walking into rooms at the wrong time. If I had a nickel for every time I caught Dad with his hand on your butt, I’d have a lot of nickels.”

  “That’s enough,” Liz said, but she gave him a watery smile.

  “You had a good marriage,” Phin said. “Respect and passion and good times and love.”

  “Yes,” Liz said.

  “Well, Sophie gives me respect and passion and good times,” Phin said.

  “No,” Liz said. “Listen to me, that woman is all wrong for you. She’s low and she’s rude and she’s callous. She’s terrible for you.”

  “Talked back to you, did she? I don’t blame her. You probably started it.”

  Liz froze up on him again, and Phin said, “You know, you were almost human there for a minute.”

  “Just because I’m looking out for the people I love—”

  “Don’t.” Phin stood up. “Obsess about the election if you must, but don’t even try to pretend you’re doing it for me and Dillie. For some reason, you’ve got it stuck in your head that it’s the most important thing in your life, and I’ll be damned if I know how to talk you out of it. So I’m not going to try. Just back off and let me live my life.”

  “I will do anything to protect you,” Liz said, all her tears gone. “Anyth
ing.”

  “You know, when you talk like that, you scare me,” Phin said. “Knock it off. I’ll go get Dillie. You get a grip.”

  He left her sitting there then, alone in the marble council room, under the portrait of his great-grandfather, and his grandfather, and his father, because he didn’t know what else to do.

  He just hoped he never found out exactly what “anything” meant.

  While Phin fought the good fight, Sophie was brushing Lassie on the dock and trying to get her life back on track. Somewhere back at the beginning of time, she’d had a plan, but now Amy was out front with Rachel filming Clea and Rob in what was turning out to be a porn flick while Davy watched and shook his head. Georgia was planning to do God-knew-what with Zane when he came back that night, Leo was planning to talk Clea into Coming Cleaner, and the Coreys were painting the house a lighter version of the water tower. Amazing. “A cast of thousands,” she told Lassie, bending down close to him. “But that’s it. We don’t let anybody else in.”

  “Are you talking to that dog?”

  Sophie jerked her head up. A pale, thin child with long blonde hair stood at the end of the dock in neatly pressed blue shorts and an immaculate white T-shirt. “Where’d you come from?” Sophie said.

  The girl pointed across the river. “My grandma’s house is over there.”

  “Not the Garveys.”

  “Certainly not.” The little girl examined the end of the dock and evidently found it satisfactory because she sat down. “My grandma Junie.”

  “Oh. Does she know you’re here?”

  “She’s napping.” The girl stared at Sophie, and Sophie felt a little uneasy. “I’ll go back before she wakes up. If you don’t mind that I visit, that is.”

  “Oh. Sure.” Sophie gestured to the yard. “Visit away.”

  “Because you said you weren’t going to let anybody else in,” the little girl pointed out. “You said that to the dog.”

  “Well, you’re just visiting, not staying.” Sophie tried to find her place in the conversation. “I’m Sophie.”

  “I know,” the little girl said. “That’s why I came.”