Crazy For You (9 page)

A minute later they were out on the street, braced against the gusts of March wind. “I said housebroken only,” the man said before he slammed the door on them.

“She is housebroken,” Quinn said, thinking evil thoughts about the landlord, who clearly did not understand dogs, but Darla looked approvingly at Katie for the first time.

“She knew that was a lousy place to live,” she said. “Good dog.”

“Well, how’s this for an alternative?” Quinn said, glaring at both of them. “Now I have to live with my parents.”

“There must be something else,” Darla said. “If you’re sure you’re not going back to Bill.”

“I don’t like him,” Quinn said. “Okay? Can we get that clear? He stole my dog. He’s out.”

“Right.” Darla nodded. “Okay, forget him, I’ll never mention him again. How about buying? If you can swing a down payment, mortgage payments could be cheaper than renting.”

“Buy a house?”
Quinn thought of the Tara-like subdivisions that ringed Tibbett. Buying a house was serious stuff. “What would I do with a whole house?”

“Not all houses are huge,” Darla said patiently. “Find a little two-bedroom deal. Your mother works for a realtor, for heaven’s sake. Let’s go ask.”

“Buy a house.” Quinn got into the passenger seat again and let Katie scramble her way into the backseat as she thought about it. A house. Her own house. Independence. Maturity. Privacy. The same flare of excitement that had caught her when she decided to keep Katie and kiss Nick came back. “You know, I could do that. Buy a house. Just me.” Her own house. With a fenced-in backyard for Katie. And a couch in the living room for Nick. “I could do that. Maybe. I like it.”

“Why do you have that look in your eye?” Darla said. “We’re talking about real estate, not sex.”

“They’re both exciting,” Quinn told her. “I’ll talk to Mom tonight and see what I can afford, and we can go look tomorrow. Are you busy tomorrow?”

“Only in the morning at the shop.” Darla smiled. “And tonight. I’m going to be very busy tonight.”

“Hey, babe,” he said and kissed her cheek as he pushed past her into their sunken living room. “We’ve only got—”

“Hey, yourself,” she said. “Jeez, you really
aren‘t
seeing me anymore.”

He turned around as she opened the coat. “
What
—”

“I have plans for you.” She dropped the coat just as the door opened behind her.

“I brought—” she heard Nick say, and she went cold all over, not hard to do since she was naked and there was a considerable March breeze hitting her backside. Bending over to pick up the coat was not an option, and it was transparent anyway. Before she could think of anything else, she heard Nick say, “Or not,” and the door closed again.

“What are you
doing?”
Max looked amazed and horrified, and neither was the emotion she’d been going for. “The
boys
will be in here in a minute.”

“I—” She was stuck. “The hell with it.” She walked past him, too embarrassed to pick up her coat. Too embarrassed to do anything really but walk into the bedroom and lock the door and sit on the bed with her arms wrapped around her and think about killing herself.

“Darla,” Max said on the other side of the door.

“Go away,” she said, and then she heard somebody knock on the front door, heard Max open it, heard her sons’ voices, one of whom said, “Why couldn’t we just walk in?”

“Oh, God,” she said, and let herself fall backward. After ten minutes of self-flagellation, she put on her T-shirt and jeans and concentrated on figuring out who she was madder at, Max or Nick. The fact that neither of them had done anything wrong, that she was the one who’d been stupid, didn’t make it any easier to forgive them.

An hour later, she was calm enough to go out to her kitchen to make hot dogs for the four of them camped around the TV where they watched the videotape of the last football game, rerunning the parts where Mark had made his touchdown.

“The tape just came in this afternoon,” Max told her on one of his trips to get food. “Bill called from school. I didn’t have a chance to tell you—”

“Not a problem,” Darla said, handing him a bowl of popcorn. “Take this out there, will you? Thank you.”

Max retreated without another word.

Nick came out half an hour later for a beer.

“Sorry about that,” Darla said, wishing Max had been an only child.

“About what?” Nick said. “You got any chips?”

“Sure.” Darla reached up into the cupboard, glad to turn her back to hide her burning face. She handed the bag to him across the kitchen island and said, “Thanks.”

“For what?” Nick said.

Darla took a deep breath. “For pretending nothing happened so I don’t feel bad. It doesn’t work, but I appreciate it.”

“Well, in that case, it was my pleasure,” Nick said. “You have a nice ass.”

“Hey,” Darla said, her face flaming hotter, but she grinned in spite of herself.

“Not that I’ll ever see it again,” Nick said and wandered back out to the living room.

Okay, she’d forgive Nick. But Max-—

Once they were all fed, she fixed herself a plate and locked herself in the bedroom again.

Few things she’d tried in her life had ever gone so wrong. And Max hadn’t helped. He’d just looked horrified that she was naked. Even for a second he could have looked happy—

Of course knowing Nick was right behind him might have had something to do with that, but it was still a great gesture, damn it. Naked right there in the living room, too. She thought wistfully of how exciting that could have been, naked in the living room in broad daylight. They could have—

She saw Max’s face again, appalled.

Rats. She bit into her hot dog and thought evil thoughts about Max as she chewed.

“Touch me and you’re a dead man,” Darla said in a voice like lead.

“Good night,” Max said and rolled away from her.

“Give me the list,” Quinn said, and picked Darla up at noon, determined to find a place of her own. She’d been thinking about it all night, a cozy little place where she could have people over without worrying about the neighbors hearing through the walls. Up until now, she hadn’t done anything worth overhearing, but if she had a house of her own, she might. There was reason enough to buy a house right there.

“So did the plastic raincoat drive Max mad with lust?”

she asked Darla as she pulled out into the street.

“No.” Darla’s voice was flat again, and when Quinn risked a glance, her face was tense.

“You want to talk about it?”

“I met him at the door, naked. Nick was with him. It sort of wrecked the moment.”

“Oh.” Quinn slumped back in her seat. “Well, you could have sent Nick over to me.”

“He hasn’t said anything to you yet?” Darla said, perking up a little in shared outrage. “What a jackass.”

Quinn glanced at her. “Does that mean you’re okay with the Nick thing now?”

“No.” Darla settled deeper into her seat and folded her arms. “But if that’s what you want, I’m with you.”

“Thanks.” Quinn’s voice sounded as flat as Darla’s to her own ears. This depression stuff was catching. “Any ideas?”

“Not yet,” Darla said. “I’m still recovering from last night. But I’m not giving up.”

“Good,” Quinn said. “Let’s go buy a house and then we’ll think of Plan B for you and Plan A for me.”

But after they’d spent the afternoon looking at her options, Quinn had to admit her mother had a point. “They’re ugly. Even after I fixed them up, they’d still be ugly, poky little houses. I wanted something cozy and cute and these are all—”

“Really, really ugly,” Darla said. “That’s why they’re cheap. There are two more in this neighborhood—”

“No,” Quinn said. “They all look alike. I hate them.”

“—and then one on the other side of town that’s eighty-five, but your mom wrote a note that it’s been on the market for a while so they might come down.”

“The other side of town.” Quinn sighed and started the car. “Twenty minutes from school and anything else, plus how good can it be if it’s been on the market that long?”

Fifteen minutes later, Darla said, “We don’t have to actually go in.”

The house was tall and skinny, about one room wide, sided in peeling gray asbestos shingles and trimmed in dark gray rotting wood. It had a little side porch, but most of the porch rail had fallen off in pieces. Several of the storm windows were broken, the spouting swung drunkenly from the roof, and the tiny front yard was decorated with two twisted trees, one of which was dead. On one side was another house in even worse condition, on the other a weed-choked empty lot. As a finishing touch, the for sale sign had fallen over.

“We have the key, we might as well go in,” Quinn said. “Look at it this way. If it’s anything on the inside, I should be able to get a really good deal.”

“Quick, before it falls down,” Darla said, but she shut up when they got inside.

The downstairs was three rooms in a row, the side porch letting them into the middle room first. Its hardwood floors gleamed in the light from two tall windows framed in wide peeling white woodwork. An archway led into the front of the house, a living room with a bricked-up fireplace framed in bookcases, their leaded glass doors missing most of the panes. Two more tall windows looked out on the deserted street and the dead tree.

“Lots of light,” Darla said. “Of course, the trees would give you nightmares.”

Quinn turned around, imagining comfortable furniture, none of it stripped pine. A big couch, definitely. “I think I like it.”

The other door from the center room led to the kitchen at the back of the house, an ugly little room with gray cupboards and counters, but more light from another tall window and a door with a dog flap to a big yard that was, miracle of miracles, fenced in.

“Maybe a little paint.” Darla looked doubtfully at the cabinets. “You know somebody really depressed lived here.”

Quinn pulled the retaining board out of the dog door, and Katie sniffed it as if it were the door to hell and then climbed through. After a cautious circuit of the yard—a mass of weeds spotted with barren earth—she stretched out in a run, doing a dog version of
Born Free.
“I really, really like it.”

“Because of the backyard?”

“It’s big,” Quinn said. “If the upstairs isn’t awful, I’m buying it.”

The upstairs wasn’t awful. Two small bedrooms and one big one with another bricked-up fireplace, a bathroom with a clawfoot tub that had once been white, and lots and lots of wonderful light.

“Somebody kicked this door in once,” Darla said, stooping to see the woodwork.

“Darla, I can fix all that.” Quinn turned to survey the upstairs from the landing and felt the same warm feeling in her solar plexus that she’d felt looking at Katie in the car the first day, much the same warmth she’d felt when Nick had almost kissed her. “I am going to buy this house.” She smiled, suddenly euphoric. “You know, three days ago my life was as gray as that kitchen downstairs, and today it’s full of infinite possibilities. Just think what tomorrow might be!”

“Yeah,” Darla said, looking around. “Just think.”

“Thank you.” Quinn hugged her mother. “I’m truly grateful. I know you think I should go back to Bill—”

“Well, now he can move in with you,”‘ her mother said. “It’s a good house. I had it inspected this morning. Lots of work, but a good foundation. Bill can work on it.”

The hell he will
, Quinn thought, but she kept her mouth shut.

“You’ll need seven thousand for the down payment,” Meggy went on.

“Got it,” Quinn said. “I have over eleven in savings. I’ll even have some left over for furniture.”
A new bed. And Nick can help me move.

“New furniture.” Her mother walked to the archway and gazed around the living room, lit only by TV. “It’s been years since I did that.” Her eyes fell on the couch, currently occupied by her husband who was oblivious to her. “Maybe I’ll get a new couch and give you this one.”

Nick had blamed the couch, Quinn remembered.
It’s this couch.
“I’d love to have the couch,” she said. “You can keep Dad, though.”

“Mmm,” her mother said, and turned to survey the rest of the room. “This place could use some changes.”

“Little changes,” Quinn said, suddenly nervous.

Her mother’s eyes went back to the couch. “Certainly.”

Joe looked up and caught them watching him. “We got any beer?”

Quinn turned back to the kitchen to get him one. “Little changes, Mom. Just little ones.”