That was one thing Davy wasn’t. She had to give him that. Completely self-sufficient, didn’t need her for anything. Davy would never tell her she had to choose between him and her family. Of course, Davy would never propose, either. That was the problem with independence. It so rarely went well with commitment. Which she didn’t want anyway because she had enough people to take care of.
Maybe that’s why I don’t miss Scott, she thought and then shoved Scott and Davy and uncompleted sex-not that that was bothering her-out of her mind and let the music fill the void until she heard Andrew and Louise come in the back door and hit the stairs. If they were home, it was past midnight.
She got up as the jukebox began to play “The Kind of Boy You Can’t Forget,” and picked up the painting from the table. “Well, let’s look at you,” she said. “You’re the one that started this mess.” She tore the paper off and then stopped, staring at the cupped yellow flowers that rioted under the checkerboard sky while the Raindrops burbled, “I ain’t got over it yet.”
Flowers. Not houses, flowers. He’d stolen the wrong damn painting again. Her already tense system split down the seams, and she headed for the stairs.
She stomped on every tread as if it were Davy’s head as she climbed the three stories to his door, Steve trailing dutifully behind her. “Open up!” she said, pounding on it, not caring who heard.
After a minute he opened the door, wearing nothing but black boxers, looking sleepy and annoyed. “Look, if this is about the couch, I don’t want to hear-”
She shoved the canvas at him. “I said a city?” Snapping at him felt wonderful, really, she just wanted to rip him apart. “These ate flowers.”
He took it and shoved it back at her, pointing at the houses in the distance. “Those are houses. See? Those little red things? That’s a city”
“Yes, little” Tilda spit back. “In the background. Everybody knows if you say city, it means a big city, it means what the picture is about.”
“That’s true,” Dorcas said from the doorway behind them as she peered at the painting from her doorway. “That’s a painting of flowers.”
“Thank you, Dorcas,” Tilda said. “Go away.”
“This is so like you,” Davy said, ignoring Dorcas. “It’s all about what you know and I don’t. I don’t know who Gene Pitney is, so it’s my fault.”
“ ‘Town Without Pity,’” Gwen said from below on the stairs. “What’s going on?”
Davy jerked his head back from Tilda. “Why are you here?” he asked, looking down the stairwell at Gwen.
“I live here,” Gwen said. “Why are you shouting about Gene Pitney?”
“ ‘True Love Never Runs Smooth,’” Louise said from behind her, her black china-doll wig swinging away from her stage makeup as she stretched to see the painting.
“‘Only Love Can Break a Heart,’” Andrew said, from behind Louise.
“ ‘One Fine Day,’” Dorcas said, from behind Tilda.
“That’s the Chiffons,” Tilda said to Dorcas, fed up with everybody. “Will you people please go back to bed?”
“I wasn’t the one screaming in the hall,” Dorcas said and shut her door.
“She has a point,” Gwen said. “What’s going on?”
“Did Davy say something bad about Gene Pitney?” Nadine said, from farthest down the stairs. “Because I think he has a point.”
“It’s not about Gene Pitney,” Davy said, fixing Tilda with cold eyes. “It’s about people who do not give other people the information they need to get the job done.”
“What job?” Louise said, her eyes dark behind black contacts. “Is that the painting?” Tilda turned it so she could see it. “Oh. No. It isn’t.”
“You got the wrong one again?” Gwen said.
“Hello,” Davy said, squinting at Louise in the dim hall with interest. Suddenly he wasn’t nearly as sleepy or annoyed, and Tilda wanted to kick him.
“Hello.” Louise handed the painting back to Gwen, looked him up and down and smiled, and then faded down the dark stairs in her four-inch heels, probably trying to get away before he noticed she was Eve.
Davy stretched his neck to watch her go as Tilda took the painting back from Gwen. “If you’re all finished yelling at me,” he said, when Louise was history, “I’d like to go to bed. Alone.”
“Not a problem,” Tilda said, and he slammed the door in her face.
“So, the evening went well, did it?” Gwen said.
“No,” Tilda said. “The evening sucked. But don’t worry, I will figure out a way to get the right painting back.” She went down the stairs, Steve on her heels once more, slammed the office door behind them, threw the painting back on the table, and plopped herself down on the couch, determined not to cry. It had been a horrible, horrible night. She felt her face crumple. It had been-
Louise came in, leggy in her heels. “You okay?”
“No,” Tilda said, ready to burst into tears.
“Jeez.” Louise sat down beside her and put her arm around her, her long red nails looking like petals on Tilda’s T-shirt. “That bad. What did he do?”
“It’s not him, it’s me.” Tilda tried to smooth out her face and crumpled it more in the process. “God, I’m hopeless.”
“Better not be,” Louise said. “You’re holding the rest of us together. What happened?”
Tilda drew a deep shuddering breath. “Lousy sex.”
“Really.” Louise looked thoughtful as she sat back. “I thought he’d be hot. He’s got that look going on in his eyes. And a very nice body.”
“He probably would have been great with you,” Tilda said, defeated. “I just wasn’t in the mood.”
“Well, why didn’t you say no?”
“Because I was in the mood when we started,” Tilda said. “I really was. Except that it’s Davy, and he sees everything so you can’t let your guard down, plus, the embarrassment factor. I mean, I hardly know him.” She turned to look at Louise. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“No,” Louise said. “It’s the reason Eve never has sex. She keeps thinking she doesn’t really know this guy, and then there’s Nadine, what will she think, and of course Andrew will hate him, and it just doesn’t seem worth it to her.”
“Eve has sex,” Tilda said flatly. “She just has it when she’s you.”
“I have sex whenever I want,” Louise corrected her. “Eve never does. I don’t think she’d even know what to do, it’s been so long.” She cocked her head at Tilda. “You know, you should really think about getting a Louise.”
“I tried,” Tilda said, annoyed. “That’s how I got into this mess. But I couldn’t make it work. I kept thinking, What if I come and scream out ‘I’m an art forger’? We’d all be dead.”
“Stop thinking.” Louise stretched out on the couch, put her sequined high-heeled feet in Tilda’s lap, and surveyed her red ankle straps with pleasure. “So it was hot at first, huh? Where did he screw up?”
“Well, there was the lag time,” Tilda said bitterly. “I kissed him in a closet, and he said wait a minute and sent me home and stole a painting and then came back here and had a drink and talked to Clea Lewis and-”
“The guy’s a moron,” Louise said. “Why didn’t he jump you in the closet while you were hot?”
“Because we would have ended up in prison,” Tilda said, guiltily remembering the guy she’d knocked unconscious. “I actually do get that part.”
“Okay, so you cooled off, and he came home. Why didn’t you say, ‘Not tonight, Dempsey’?”
“Because it felt so good to be held,” Tilda said, feeling pathetic even as she said it. “And because I wanted to be Louise. He was out there flirting with Clea Lewis instead of me, and then he came in and he looks really good, you know-”
“I know,” Louise said with enthusiasm.
“And he kissed me and I thought, Oh, what the hell, and then it turned out to be hell.” She wiggled her toes. “And now I’m mad!”
Louise shrugged. “Take care of it and get back to business. Where’s your vibrator?”
“That’s not it,” Tilda said. “I’m mad at him for the painting, not for not coming.”
“I don’t think so. You’ll feel much better if you finish yourself up. Or go bang on Davy’s door and make him finish what he started.”
“He did,” Tilda said. “We are completely finished. You can have him.” She clenched her jaw. “He’s all yours.”
“Not a chance.” Louise swung her feet off Tilda and pushed herself up from the couch. “He’s yours. I do not poach.”
Someone hammered on the street door and they both turned to look through the window in the office door. “Don’t answer it,” Tilda said, “it’s late,” but Louise was already on her way, so Tilda followed.
“Hel-lo,” Louise said when she opened the door, and Tilda peered past her and thought, She has a point.
He was dark and tall, he had one of those classically beautiful faces with cheekbones, and his clothes were impeccable. Tilda had a brief moment when she thought that getting mugged by this guy would be a step up from sex with Davy.
“Would you like to buy a nice seascape?” Louise said, channeling Mae West as she stood back to let him in.
He looked at the nearest Finster as Steve sniffed his shoes. “No, thank you.”
“Wise move,” Tilda said.
He smiled at her, a lovely matinee-idol smile, and said, “I’m really here to bail out my friend Davy Dempsey. He is staying here, right?”
“You’re Davy’s friend,” Tilda said.
“And he owes you this,” the lovely man said and handed her an envelope.
When she opened it, there were fifteen crisp hundred-dollar bills in it. “Oh. Yes, he does,” she said, thinking, I had to sleep with the wrong guy, I couldn’t wait until the right one showed up.
“Is he here?” Davy’s friend said. “The name’s Simon, by the way.”
“Davy didn’t mention you.” Louise moved closer.
“He never does, love,” Simon said, looking deeply into her eyes and smiling. “He never does.”
Tilda sighed, and Simon transferred his smile to her.
“Two brunettes. Which one of you did Davy meet first?”
“Tilda.” Louise linked her arm through his. “I’m Louise. I’ll take you up to his room.”
“Thoughtful of you,” he said, smiling down at her with intent.
Tilda thought about intervening, and then decided there was no point. She was here and Davy was up in his room, so unless Louise raped him on the staircase, Simon was safe. And they had fifteen hundred dollars. She put it in the cash box in the office after Louise had started up the stairs with Simon, and then she caught sight of the flower painting again.
Just hell.
Sooner or later, Mason was going to notice he was leaking paintings, and he probably wasn’t going to buy the explanation that Davy was dumb as a rock. The thought of Davy made her clench her jaw, which was ridiculous. It wasn’t his fault.
It was just that at the end, there’d been that possibility. The thought alone was making her warm all over again. She tapped her feet on the floor faster.
Really, just hell.
She took the flower painting down into the basement and stuck it under the quilt with the cows, and then she went up the stairs with Steve on her heels one more time and paused at Davy’s door. Maybe Louise was right, maybe if she said, “You know, I was close,” he’d be interested in giving it another shot. Maybe-
Inside, Louise giggled, and Tilda froze. When Louise giggled like that-
Davy must have gone out. Not even Louise would do a three-way. Probably. Oh, hell. Tilda went upstairs and opened her dresser drawer and found Eve’s Christmas present from ten years before. Thank God Louise picked it out, she thought as she plugged it in. At least somebody around here knows what she’s doing.
BEATING ANOTHER sucker at pool had partially restored Davy’s good humor, so when he went into his apartment and saw Louise and Simon in bed, all he said was, “Of course, that’s perfect,” before he went back out and stood, bedless, in the hall. Somebody was going to pay for his lousy night. After a moment’s reflection, he climbed the stairs to Tilda’s attic, knocked on the door, and went in.
“Jesus,” he said when he’d stopped inside the door.
The room ran the length of the building and the whole place was white -ceiling, walls, floor, the heavy old four-poster bed in the center of the space- and Tilda sat in the middle of it all, looking tired but relaxed in the soft glow from the skylights, wearing what looked like a white T-shirt, her hair the only dark thing in the place. It was the coldest room he’d ever seen. Which figured.
“It looks like a meat locker in here,” he told her.
“Come in,” Tilda said, frowning at him. “Don’t bother to knock. It’s only my room.” Steve poked his head out from under the white quilt as she spoke and looked at him with deep suspicion.
Davy shook his head at Tilda. “A white T-shirt. You are what you sleep in.” He closed the door behind him and looked at Steve again. “And what you sleep with.”
“Thank you,” Tilda said. “I feel Steve is a big step up from the last guy I slept with. Why are you here?”
“Because Louise is showing Simon more than my room,” he said. “I thought about sleeping in the hall, but she’s loud. Which made me think of you.”
“I know.” Tilda sighed. “I should have stayed with them, but I didn’t think she’d jump a complete stranger.”
“What makes you think she’s the one who jumped?” Davy moved to the side of the bed, unzipped his jeans and shoved them off. “Simon has moves. Which side of the bed do you want?”
“We’ll take the left,” Tilda said, sliding over and taking Steve with her. “And Louise has moves, too.”
Davy crawled in beside her. The sheets were warm where she’d been. Or where Steve had been, it was hard to tell. “If Louise has moves, why didn’t she move on me?”
“You slept with me,” Tilda said. “She also has loyalties.”
“How does she know we had sex?”
“I told her.”
“Thoughtful of you.”
“We’re close.” Tilda lay back and stared at the skylight. “I should have shown Simon that room. He’s much more my type.”
“It wouldn’t have done you any good.” Davy put his arms behind his head. “Simon has loyalties, too.”
Tilda turned to look at him. “How could he know I slept with you? He just got here.”
“He may have picked up an intention.”
“An intention.” She went back to looking at the ceiling. “Very nice.”
Davy started to grin in spite of himself. “Fixed each other good, didn’t we?”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Tilda said, sliding back under the covers. “You and I are doomed to be the best friends.”
“Huh?”
“It’s always been that way. Louise is Meg Ryan and I’m Carrie Fisher. She’s Melanie Griffith and I’m Joan Cusack. She’s the beautiful heroine who gets the beautiful guy, and I’m the wisecracking friend who gives the good advice.”
“Ruth Hussey in The Philadelphia Story.” Davy turned his head to look at her. Her hair lay in little question-mark curls on her pillow and the quilt settled roundly over her, and he was finding it difficult to stay mad at her. Also, he was pretty sure she was naked under that T-shirt. “The best friends are always more fun. I could never see what Cary saw in Katharine Hepburn when Ruth was standing there wisecracking with that camera. Much more grit.”
Tilda frowned. “I thought that was Celeste Holm?”
“Wrong version,” Davy said. “Celeste was in High Society. But also gritty.”
“I don’t think Cary was looking for grit,” Tilda said. “I think he was probably going for beauty and sex appeal.”
“Ruth and Celeste were sexy,” Davy said. “Celeste was the kind of woman you could cou
nt on. Celeste would hit somebody with that camera for you.”
“Okay, fine,” Tilda said. “And you are Ralph Bellamy in His Girl Friday, a good, dependable man.” Her tone said, See how you like that.
“I am not Ralph Bellamy,” Davy said. “I’m Cary Grant. Pay attention, woman.”
“If you’re Cary Grant, what are you doing in bed with Celeste Holm?”
“Wising up,” Davy said. “Katharine Hepburn probably turned out to be a pain in the ass.”
“But the sex was great,” Tilda said. “Which is more than you can say for us.”
“I had a fairly good time,” Davy said mildly. “And now that I’m here, I’m willing to try again. How about you?”
“Right,” Tilda said. “As we speak, I’m feeling an overwhelming urge to scream, ‘Ravish me, Ralph.’”
“Merely an offer,” Davy said.
“Thank you, no,” Tilda said. “It would upset Steve. Good night, Ralph.”
“Good night, Celeste. Your loss.”
Tilda rolled away from him, leaving Steve nestled between them. They lay there in the soft glow from the skylight for a while, until Davy heard her sigh.
“Look, if you can’t sleep with me here, I can go back downstairs,” he said, feeling guilty. “They can’t take much longer.”
“You don’t know Louise,” Tilda said, keeping her back to him. “It’s okay. You can stay.”
Davy stared up at the skylights, thinking about strangling Simon, and then Tilda rolled over, her face as pale as ever in the moonlight, her crazy eyes reflecting soft light.
“It was my fault,” she said.
“What? Simon? You couldn’t know he has no morals.”
“No. The lousy sex.” She propped herself up on one elbow to look into his eyes. Everything shifted under her T-shirt, and suddenly he wasn’t mad at all anymore. “I know it seems like I’m in control,” she said to him, her voice earnest, “but it’s a fake. I’m a big fake at everything. I was born to fake.”
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