“That’s a dog,” Lois said.
“Good call.” Quinn draped her coat over the back of one of the avocado armchairs. “I’ll hold on to her. She’ll never touch the floor, I swear. Who left who?”
“Ha.” Lois’s lips curved in a tight little smile as she returned to her triumph. “Barbara left Matthew. The Bank Slut dumped him good yesterday.”
“Wow.” Quinn sank into her chair with the dog cradled in her arms.
“Jeez.” Darla sat back, exhaling as she considered the development. “They’ve been tighter than ticks for a whole year. What happened?”
“Something on that damn trip to Florida they took.” Lois’s lips pressed together harder. “He never took me on any damn trip to Florida.”
Darla ran down the possibilities in her mind. “Another man?”
“If it was, he’s gone, too. She’s in town, and she’s living alone in that little house of hers, and Matthew’s down at the Anchor.” Lois sat down in the other rump-sprung armchair across from Darla. “He wants to move back.”
Darla shrugged. “That makes sense. What guy wants to live in a motel?”
“You going to take him back?” Quinn asked.
Lois shrugged. “Why should I? I got the house to myself and this place. What do I need him for?”
Darla thought about Max. “Friendship. Fun. Sex. Memories. Somebody to kiss on New Year’s Eve.”
“He left me for a Bank Slut,” Lois said. “How much friendship do you think we got at this point?”
Something about the way Lois rolled the words Bank Slut off her tongue made Darla fairly sure Lois wasn’t focusing her anger on Matthew. Maybe this marriage could be saved. Lois would sure be easier to work for if it could. “You married him the day after we graduated. You were with him for sixteen years. He only spent a year with Barbara Niedemeyer, and now he’s sorry. That’s something.” At least, Darla assumed he was sorry. If he wanted to come back to Lois knowing how bitchy she could be even before he left her for a younger woman, he must be really sorry now. “And he makes good money.” She thought back to the last time Matthew had fixed their sink. “He makes damn good money.”
“I make good money, too,” Lois said. “Who needs him?”
“Well, you do,” Quinn said, practical as always, “or you wouldn’t be talking about it.”
“It just makes me mad, that’s all.” Lois’s jaw clenched tighter before she went on. “We were doing just fine, and then she comes in with her broken bathtub drain and stopped-up sink and plans for a second bath downstairs, like she needed a second bathroom, living there all alone, if you ask me, she had it planned–”
Darla tuned her out, having heard this rant before, several times, in fact, since Barbara Niedemeyer had walked off with Matthew the previous April. As far as Barbara planning it, well, it wasn’t as if Matthew had been her first married man. Really, Lois should have caught on when Barbara had started talking the second bathroom. Darla would have caught on with the second service call. The woman had a track record. Matthew was number three, for heaven’s sake.
“–and now he thinks he’s going to come waltzing back in,” Lois finished. “Well, the hell with him.”
“I’d think about it some more,” Darla said. “Barbara’s sort of like the flu. Men catch her, but then they get over her. Gil and Louis don’t seem to have any warm feelings for her. Last I heard, Louis was getting married again. I mean, obviously, Barbara’s men recover. And Matthew makes damn good money, so he’s going to have his chances if you don’t take him back.”
Lois glared at her.
“She has a point,” Quinn said. “If you want him back.”
Darla spread her hands and tried to look innocent. “All I’m saying is, if you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t be this mad. Take him back. Make him pay. You work it right, he’ll take you on a damn trip to Florida.”
“You don’t get it,” Lois said. “What if it was Max?”
The thought of Max cheating was so ridiculous, Darla almost snickered. Max was gorgeous and about as nice as a human male could be, but women didn’t even flirt with him because he was so clearly Happily Married. Or at least, if she were honest, clearly uninterested in any change in his life. That wasn’t quite the same thing, really. Darla’s urge to snicker faded, and she told herself she was lucky to have a guy who was so content. “I’d say, ‘Max, you jackass, what the hell were you thinking?’” she told Lois. “And then I’d take him back. He’s your husband, Lois. He fucked up and he should pay, but you shouldn’t just give up on him.”
Lois still looked mad, but there was some thoughtful mixed in with the mad.
“Unless you don’t love him anymore,” Quinn said. “Unless you really want to be free to do what you want.”
“Hello?” Darla said to her. This wasn’t like Quinn, the fixer. “Of course she wants him back.”
Lois stood up. “That’s ridiculous,” she said and went back out to the shop, slamming the door behind her.
“You know, I don’t understand Barbara,” Quinn said, frowning as she patted the dog in her lap. “She’s a nice woman. Why does she keep snagging other women’s husbands?”
“Because she’s not a nice woman,” Darla said flatly. “What’s with you telling Lois to be free? Lois wants to be free like she wants to be middle-aged.”
“I just thought she should think about it,” Quinn said, settling back in her chair, not meeting Darla’s eyes at all. “There’s nothing that says that life is always better if you have a man around.”
“It is in Tibbett,” Darla said. “You really think Lois wants to hang out at Bo’s Bar And Grill and pick up divorced drunks for recreation?”
Quinn made a face. “Oh, come on. There has to be a middle ground between marriage and Bo’s.”
“Sure. There’s Edie’s life.” Darla stretched out on the couch again. “Teaching all week, going to garage sales with your mom on her time off, reheating leftovers in a lonely house at night.” It sounded like hell to Darla.
“Alone doesn’t have to mean lonely,” Quinn said. “I think Edie likes the solitude, she’s always talking about how good it is to get home where it’s quiet. And you can be with somebody and be lonely.”
As far as Darla was concerned, being lonely with somebody was probably the way most people lived. Not that she was lonely with Max.
Quinn cuddled the runty little dog closer and did not look happy, and Darla narrowed her eyes. “Something wrong with you and Bill?”
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 tryi
ng 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.”
* * *
Copyright © 1999 by Jennifer Crusie Smith. All rights reserved.
Get behind the scenes extras and purchase links for Crazy For You at JennyCrusie.com.
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Jenny Crusie is the NYT bestselling author of twenty some novels and lots of other stuff. Her latest novel, Maybe This Time, hit shelves in August, 2010. Jenny lives on the Ohio River where she often stares at the ceiling and counts her blessings.
Crazy People: The Crazy for You Stories Page 14
