by Jane Graves
“How much?” she asked.
“Five hundred a month,” Charmin said, and Darcy swore it sounded like five gazillion. Still, it was the cheapest thing she’d found. Unfortunately, there was a reason for that.
“Pets?”
“Small dogs only. Cats claw the drapes. Three-hundred dollar deposit.”
So there it was. Five gazillion for the monthly rent, three gazillion to keep Pepé. She decided right then that what Charmin didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. She might not know Darcy had a dog as long as she kept the blinds closed and was careful when and where she walked him. If she got caught, then she’d deal with the deposit issue.
“Never mind,” Darcy said. “My ex will take the dog.”
Yeah, right. Like Warren would be resurfacing for custody of an animal he’d never liked in the first place.
Back at the manager’s office, Darcy filled out an application and handed it to Charmin.
“You’re working for a repossession service?” Charmin asked.
No way to gloss over that. “Yes.”
“You say you’re the office manager.”
Her job title was technically Peon, but Charmin didn’t need to know that. “That’s right.”
“How about references?”
The same questions she’d gotten everywhere else. “I’ve never rented an apartment before.”
“Is there anyone who can attest to your financial responsibility?”
Darcy opened her mouth to speak, realized she didn’t have anything to say, and closed it again.
Charmin gave her a sigh of phony regret. “You’re not giving me much to go on here. We only rent to responsible people.”
“Come on, Charmin. I saw what’s wandering around this complex. You’re telling me they’re all upstanding citizens?”
“I’ll need first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit.”
“I have that.” Barely. It had amazed Darcy just how little she could get for a ring that was worth so much.
“Your application says you’ve been on your job only a few weeks. And it’s your only one in fourteen years.”
“Come on, Charmin. I’m in a bad spot here. Can you give me a break?”
Charmin’s expression turned smug. “Maybe.” She looked down at Darcy’s feet. “Hmm. Nice shoes.”
Darcy was used to women looking at her with shoe envy. But Charmin’s eyebrows moved with a weird kind of cattiness Darcy couldn’t quite read.
“So you’re what?” Charmin said. “A size seven?”
“Six.”
“Hmm.” Bitchy smile. “So am I.”
Light dawned slowly on that, but when it did, Darcy went on red alert. “What are you saying?”
“I’ll give you what you want. As long as I get something I want.”
“You think you’re getting my shoes?” Darcy made a truly inelegant noise. “You’re not getting my shoes.”
“Oh, yeah? Then you’re not getting the apartment.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
Darcy looked at that face. Nope. No levity there. What kind of person held a dumb high school grudge for twenty-two years?
One whose mother had named her after toilet paper.
In a fit of disgust, Darcy yanked off her shoes and kicked them over to Charmin, who collected them and put them behind her desk.
“Okay,” Charmin said, turning back to the application. “Now, about the matter of credit references . . .” Charmin’s gaze drifted to Darcy’s lap. “Nice bag.”
No. Charmin was not getting her Biasia bag. Darcy eased it protectively out of sight. “It’s a knockoff.”
“No, it’s not. If it was a knockoff, you wouldn’t be trying to hide it.”
Thinking just her shoes would appease Charmin was like tossing a single dog biscuit to the Hound of Hell and expecting entry into the Netherworld.
“Does the owner of this place know you’re an extortionist?” Darcy asked.
“I can commit murder as long as I keep the occupancy rate up and the delinquency rate down.”
Darcy stood up, turned her purse upside down, spilled its contents onto Charmin’s desk, and slammed the purse down beside them.
“There. It’s all yours.”
Charmin gave her a catty smile of satisfaction. “Oh, my. You need something to put your things in, don’t you?” She fished through a lower desk drawer and offered Darcy a choice of solutions. She nodded to her right hand. “Paper?” Then her left. “Or plastic?”
Darcy ripped the plastic bag out of Charmin’s hand and stuffed the contents of her purse into it, taking comfort in the fact that the woman didn’t stand a chance of looking stylish no matter what she wore. Draping a Biasia bag over her shoulder and putting Claudia Ciutis on her feet was like putting a silver-trimmed saddle on a big fat mule.
Darcy slid the money across the desk, then reached for the lease copy and the key, but Charmin slid it out of her grasp. Then she leaned in and lowered her voice. “Spill it, Darcy. How’d you go from living high on the hog to living in a place like this? There’s gotta be a story there.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Did you sign one of those pesky prenups? End up with nothing?”
“Actually, I didn’t know what nothing was until I pulled into the parking lot of this place.”
“And yet here you are.” Charmin leaned back with a smug expression. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall, huh?”
Darcy grabbed the plastic grocery bag, her copy of the lease and the key, and left the office to the sound of Charmin snickering behind her. Every time she thought she’d been humiliated as much as was humanly possible, it happened all over again.
She got into Gertie and sat there for a moment, tears filling her eyes. How had this happened to her? How?
All she wanted was to go back home again. She wanted to sit on the chintz sofa in her family room and watch Oprah by the light streaming through her palladium windows. She wanted to have her friends over and gossip about whoever wasn’t there. She wanted to do lunch at outrageously expensive restaurants with elegant menu items like truffled risotto and crème fraîche, then flip out her platinum AmEx and tip generously.
But mostly she wanted to invite Warren into a dark alley and act out her castration fantasies.
Fueled by that thought, she decided she wasn’t going to give in. Someday, some way, she was going to get back on top again. And the most beautiful fantasy of all was that Jeremy Bridges would reappear, stop playing games, fall madly in love with her, and put a ring on her finger. When that happened, she was going to go back into that apartment office, wave the ring under Charmin’s nose, blind her with the refraction of the light as it bounced off that hefty stone, and watch her entire body go green with envy.
Then she thought about John.
The memory of that kiss still made her face hot. Ever since she’d realized he was the one who’d bought her those clothes, he looked different to her, like a man who might actually have a heart beneath that gruff exterior. But hearts didn’t pay the bills, and if she judged men on whether or not they could kiss, she’d be broke for the rest of her life.
“I still don’t know what to do about that Corvette,” Amy said, sticking her head into John’s office. “If he doesn’t drive it to work or anywhere else regularly and keeps it in that garage when he isn’t driving it, there’s not much you can do but stake him out.”
John tossed his pen on the desk. “I don’t want to take the time right now. It hasn’t been delinquent that long.”
And truth be told, John still had a bad taste in his mouth about that one. After all, how many times in three years had he actually put a car back?
“What about the Infiniti?” Amy said, taking a seat in the chair in front of his desk. “I thought you had that one.”
“It was blocked at the curb with a car on either end. The owner wouldn’t come to the door. I’ll hav
e to go to the guy’s office tomorrow morning.”
“He works in Arlington. That’s nearly fifty miles from here.”
“I’ve driven farther to pick up a car.”
Amy gave him a sly smile. “I just didn’t think you’d want to be out of the office that long.”
“Why not?”
“If you’re not here, you can’t engage in your new favorite recreation.”
“What’s that?”
“Staring at Darcy.”
John looked away. “You know she’s not my type.”
“Come on, John. Men practically break their necks doing double takes at her. I can’t imagine a man whose type she wouldn’t be.”
“Looks aren’t everything. You know how I hate high-maintenance women.”
“Maybe. But I’ve seen the way you look at her.”
“Are you sure you’re not thinking of Tony?”
“Nope. He backed away from her right off the bat.”
“Wrong. Tony doesn’t think any woman is off limits.”
“Now, John. Even he’s smart enough to know that you don’t mess with the boss’s girl.”
“Amy, don’t you have somebody else you can irritate?”
“Hey, you harass me all the time about the men I date.”
“And you harass me about the women I don’t date,” John said.
“You’d be a lot happier if you had a woman in your life.”
“I have plenty of women in my life.”
“Yeah, for one night each. You pick a woman to death. Nobody’s ever good enough for you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sure it is. How about Jennifer? Remember her?”
Yeah, he remembered her. Big eyes, big boobs, and a big space between her ears. She tended bar at McMillan’s. While Tony had been hitting on one of the waitresses, Jennifer had hit on John. They’d dated exactly three weeks before he couldn’t take it anymore.
“You dumped her because she didn’t know the name of the first man to walk on the moon,” Amy said.
“The woman had never watched a documentary in her life. She watched Saturday morning cartoons and America’s Funniest Home Videos.”
The truth was that most women eventually bored him. They all smiled the same, talked the same, looked the same. If he hung around long enough, they eventually became clingy. And every last one of them had marriage on their minds.
But Darcy . . .
She might have marriage on her mind, but not to a man like him. And he couldn’t imagine her ever being clingy. Bossy and belligerent, maybe, but not clingy. But different wasn’t necessarily good, was it?
Then again, maybe it was. Every day was a new day with her. He never knew what to expect. Yeah, she was marginally insane, but at least crazy beat boring.
Just then the outer door opened, and Darcy came into the office. She wore a flowered skirt from Wal-Mart, one he’d originally picked off the rack, and a knit top that clung to her breasts and highlighted every curve. When she looked that good wearing cheap clothes, he couldn’t imagine why she’d want to waste money on the upscale stuff.
“See what I mean?” Amy said.
John slowly dragged his eyes away. “Huh?”
“You’re staring at her again.”
“I wasn’t staring.”
Amy rolled her eyes.
Darcy reached for a pen, scribbled something on a notepad, then came into John’s office.
“I rented an apartment this weekend,” she said. “This is my new address. I’m sure you’ll want to update your personnel records.”
He looked at the address and felt a shot of trepidation. “That’s Creekwood Apartments.”
“Yes. I’m moving in on Saturday.”
“It’s a hellhole.”
“Yeah, but at least it’s my hellhole.”
“I worked that neighborhood as a patrol cop. It’s full of scum. You can’t live there.”
“Sorry, John. It’s a done deal.”
“Why don’t you just keep on staying with your parents?”
“You haven’t met my parents, or you wouldn’t ask that.”
“Darcy, I’m telling you—”
“Hey! Are you offering to raise my salary three hundred dollars a month so I can live someplace decent?”
“Uh . . . no.”
“Then I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
With that, she raised her chin in that irritating way she had of telling him the case was closed, then left his office and went back to her desk.
“See what I mean?” John said. “She’s nuts.”
Amy shook her head. “Sometimes you’re so blind it scares me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“First you bash her because she’s helpless and high maintenance. And now, when she’s finally trying to do something for herself, you bash her all over again.”
“But that place is dangerous.”
“True. But give her a few points for trying, will you?”
It just drove him nuts when people did dumb things, and he generally felt obligated to tell them about it. But this was one woman who wouldn’t listen if he told her to pull her head out of a lion’s mouth.
He didn’t know who’d be crazy enough to take the job, but sooner or later somebody needed to save that woman from herself.
Chapter 13
The next Saturday morning, Darcy put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, stuck her hair in a ponytail, and got down to the business of making her new apartment livable. She had decided to rent a minimal amount of furniture for the first few months until she could collect enough hand-me-downs and garage sale items to furnish the place. Once that was delivered, she ran to Wal-Mart to get glasses, silverware, bed linens, cleaning supplies, dog food, and a couple of sacks of groceries. Her mother gave her an old set of stoneware and a few pots and pans. A microwave was going to have to come after her next paycheck.
By that evening, she had actually created something resembling a place a person could live. As the sun began to go down, the natural light in the apartment dimmed, and if she squinted, she could almost make herself believe her living room looked homey. Pepé wasn’t too sure about the new place, though, spending most of his time under the bed. He’d get used to it eventually. At least she hoped he would. Anything that made Pepé nervous generally resulted in excessive urination in all the wrong places.
Darcy had just started thinking about hitting a Taco Hut drive-through for dinner when there was a knock at her door. She looked out the peephole to find her parents standing in the breezeway. Evidently her father had gotten home from the shop, and her mother had insisted on coming by. Great. She’d moved out to get away from them, and here they were again.
She swung open the door. As they came inside, Lyla looked back over her shoulder. “My God. Who is that awful man in the apartment across from you?”
“Crazy Bob,” Darcy said.
Lyla’s hand slipped to her throat. “Why do they call him Crazy Bob?”
“Because he thinks government satellites are reading his mind.”
“Oh! You know, I read something about that in the National Enquirer. They beam all sorts of things into a person’s head.” She gave Darcy a knowing look. “He might not be as crazy as you think.”
“Nope,” Clayton said. “He’s definitely as crazy as you think.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lyla said. “You wait until the government fills your brain with microwaves. We’ll see who’s the smart one then.”
“So what do you think, Dad?” Darcy said. “Is this a gorgeous apartment, or what?”
Clayton gave the apartment a cursory once-over, the part he could see from the front door, anyway. “It’s a roof over your head. Rangers are on the radio. I’ll be in the car.”
Well, at least her father thought it was okay. Then again, Gertie was his idea of an acceptable mode of transportation, too, so what did that say about his opinion?
Lyla walked into the living room
, and her face crinkled with disgust. “This furniture is awful.”
“Rental furniture doesn’t tend to be attractive.”
“The blinds are bent.”
“I’m lucky there are any at all.”
“And look at this dreadful carpet.”
“It has plenty of old stains, so any new ones won’t show.”
“Darcy, why did you insist on moving? You could have stayed with us as long as you needed to.”
Not and keep my sanity. “I just needed my own place.”
“What is a man going to think when he comes here to pick you up for a date?”
Darcy closed her eyes with frustration. Well, at least there was one good thing about her mother coming for a visit. It gave Darcy the absolute assurance that getting a place of her own had been the right thing to do.
Then she heard another knock at the door. She went back to the entry hall and looked out the peephole. She blinked with surprise. Blinked again. Was that who she thought it was?
“It’s Jeremy Bridges,” she told her mother.
Lyla’s jaw dropped. “Jeremy Bridges is here? Now?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t let him in,” her mother said. “The moment he sees this apartment, he’ll turn right around and leave again. He’ll be gone, Darcy. Don’t you dare open that door!” Then she grabbed Darcy’s arm. “No. Wait. On second thought, you have to. If he made it through the front gate and wasn’t scared off . . .” Then she groaned. “My God! Look at you! You’re a mess!”
She pulled the elastic out of Darcy’s hair.
“Mom! What are you—”
“Be still.” She fluffed Darcy’s hair around her shoulders. “There’s nothing you can do about what you’re wearing. Just be sure to stand up straight.” She shook her finger at Darcy. “And don’t screw this up!”
With a roll of her eyes, Darcy opened the door. Through the peephole she hadn’t gotten a good look at Jeremy, but now that she did, she couldn’t believe the transformation.
Gone was the Hawaiian grunge look. Instead he wore a pair of khaki pants, a Lacoste shirt, and loafers. Casual yet stylish. It looked as if he’d gotten a haircut. A shave. In one hand he carried a basket wrapped in blue-tinted cellophane and topped with a satin bow. She had no idea what that was all about.
