Faking It

Chapter 7

DAVY’S KISS TASTED LIKE VODKA and disaster, and even while she kissed him back, Tilda thought, I’m never going into a closet with this man again. He slipped his hand under her T-shirt, and she said, “You know,” as his hand slid up to her breast, but the only thing left to say was, I’m not that kind of girl, and of course she was.

She felt his thumb slide under her bra and thought, Louise would love this guy, and it occurred to her that maybe if she faked being Louise, she’d finally have the wild, screaming, carnal, criminal sex that Louise always had. Call me Scarlet.

He dropped his head, his mouth hot on her neck.

No, that wasn’t right. Call me Louise.

His hands slid around to her back and pulled her closer as he eased her T-shirt up and she nestled into his arms, feeling warm because somebody was holding her close.

And if she was pretending to be Louise, maybe she wouldn’t lose her mind and scream out, “I painted the Scarlets,” when she came.

He bit her neck gently, and she drew in a short, shuddery breath.

Because if she said anything, Davy was the kind of guy who’d notice. And remember.

He began to press her back against the arm of the couch.

Louise never screamed out, “I’m Eve.” It could work.

Steve jumped off the couch onto the rug and looked at them with what might have been contempt.

Yeah, I’m appalled, too, Tilda thought, and then Davy kissed her again, another deep, warm kiss, and she cuddled closer, but the wildness wasn’t there, she missed the closet, if they’d only done it in the closet…

He pressed her back against the arm of the couch and she shifted a little as he kissed her stomach, trying to fit her butt into the space between the cushions as she drifted back from the warmth, thinking, This isn‘t going to work.

Not unless he wanted to neck all night. Maybe he-

His hand slid between her thighs, and she thought, Nope, doesn‘t want to neck.

At least he hadn’t made it inside her bra yet. Maybe she could say yes just to keep him holding her but convince him to do it fully clothed-

He unsnapped her bra -one-handed, too, she gave him points for dexterity- and began to lick his way up her rib cage, clearly headed north to her breasts.

No, she thought, this isn’t working, and pulled her T-shirt down, connecting her fist smartly with the top of his head.

“Ouch?” he said.

“I was thinking,” she began.

“Well, stop,” he said and kissed her again, and she remembered how she’d ended up on the couch in the first place. The man had an excellent mouth.

Oh, just do it, Louise, she told herself. You could use this.

He moved his hand under her bra, and she considered a moan, which was better than heavy breathing because if she breathed too heavy, she’d end up in an asthma attack, and that would be the end: topless geekdom. She pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. Definitely moaning.

Then his mouth moved to her breast, gentle and hot, and she clutched at him and said, “Oh!” for real, a lot louder than she’d meant to.

He lifted his head and met her eyes. “Sorry,” she said, and felt a blush start.

Davy smiled at her, the smile of a man about to have sex. “Not a problem.” He stretched over her head and pounded at random on the buttons on the jukebox. The music started as he slid back down to her. “What is this, anyway?”

“What?” Tilda said, panicking that he’d realized something was wrong with her.

“This song,” he said, as the surf rolled on the jukebox.

Tilda listened. “ ‘Wonderful Summer,’” she said as Robin Ward started to sing. “It’s one of my favorites.”

“Never heard of it,” Davy said, and Tilda felt annoyed. Then his mouth was on hers again, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to coax herself back into all that heat she’d felt in the closet. But no matter how she tried as the minutes passed, she couldn’t get beyond conflicted warmth. Then Davy’s hand was on her zipper, and that was dangerous. She had too much to lose to let somebody like Davy Dempsey in.

Robin belted out the last line about the most wonderful summer of her life, and the surf rolled, and the room was silent again, and the sound of her zipper reverberated everywhere.

“Hold that thought,” Davy said, as he moved back up to the jukebox, and Tilda thought, You don’t want me to hold my thought. You want me to hold the one you ‘re having.

He reached over her head and smacked half a dozen buttons at random. The Essex kicked in the opening bars of “Easier Said Than Done,” and Tilda said, “You know-”

“Later,” Davy said and slid his fingers into her jeans.

“Oh. Hey.” Tilda closed her eyes and decided to push him away in a couple of minutes. Or maybe not at all. If he kept doing that for about half an hour, she’d even take off some clothes.

Davy pushed up her T-shirt, narrowly missing her chin, and she yanked it back down again as he pulled her hips down to his. The pressure there was nice as long as she kept her eyes closed and thought, LouiseLouiseLouise. Then he stopped kissing her long enough to strip off her jeans and slide between her legs. Maybe not, she thought, as he shoved off his jeans. Birth control, we didn‘t-

“Wait,” she said, opening her eyes, careful not to look down. “I don’t have-”

He held up a condom and went for her mouth again, and she thought, If I say no, he’ll stop, and then we’ll have to talk about it, and that’ll be terrible, and he did feel good, if she could just get her head straight-

Come on, she told herself, and tried to work herself into the mood, concentrating on how solid his arms were around her, how wonderful it was to be held, how good his mouth felt, finally generating enough heat that when he pulled her hips to his and she felt him hard against her and then hard inside her, it didn’t hurt-there’s a recommendation for you, she thought: it didn’t hurt.

She moaned for effect, more surprised he was inside her than shocked-this is what happened when you didn’t pay attention, they got ahead of you, and there you were-and it wasn’t that she wasn’t ready, exactly, it was more that Louise would have felt more. There would have been gasping with Louise, she was sure of it.

Of course, Louise wasn’t asthmatic.

She began to move with him, trying to pick up his rhythm, which was hard because she kept slipping down the couch. Oh, hell, she thought, and moved her hand to brace herself on the back of the couch and caught him across the nose.

Don’t have a nosebleed, she thought, please don’t have a nosebleed, but he just said, “Ouch,” and kept going.

Single-minded, she thought. Okay, there is no Louise, Louise is like the Easter Bunny, so just breathe heavy and get this over with and never go near this man again.

She took deep breaths, not even trying to match his because they were never going to be in sync, and once she stopped trying and started breathing, things got better. He picked up speed, and Tilda tried to imagine the tightening of her muscles and did a damn good job with those moans as the minutes passed and her pulse picked up. Then he shifted against her and hit something good, and she sucked in her breath and thought, Wait a minute, this could-but even as she had the thought, he shuddered in her arms and that was it. Just hell, she thought, and finished off with an oh-my-god-that-was-good moan-sigh combo.

So much for channeling her inner Louise. He was semi-mindless on top of her now, so she held him, patting him on the back while he caught his breath and Pippy Shannon sang “I Pretend” on the jukebox. Our song, Tilda thought.

Steve dozed on the rug beside the couch, oblivious to both of them. He had the right idea. She should have taken a nap instead.

Then Davy pushed himself up on one arm and looked in her eyes, nose to nose. “So what was that?” he said, still breathing hard, looking mad. “A fake or a forgery?”

“Hey.” She tried to sit up, and he shook his head.

“You’re a terrible actress,” he said, and collapsed on top of her again.

“Your foreplay was okay,” she said crushingly to the top of his head. “Your afterplay sucks.”

“Sorry,” he said, clearly not, and eased away from her, and she looked at the ceiling as she pulled up her jeans, and he got rid of the condom and got dressed.

“Well, gee, I can’t thank you enough,” she said when they were both clothed again. She made her eyes wide. “What a good time.”

He shook his head and turned away from her. “Good night, Tilda. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Ouch, she thought, and then he turned back and said, “Look, don’t fake. It’s lousy for everybody.”

“Gee, you sounded like you were having a pretty good time,” Tilda said, stung.

He started to say something and then shook his head again and headed for the door.

When he was gone, Steve jumped up on the couch again and Tilda patted him and tried to blame everything on Davy, but fairness got in the way. Okay, so it hadn’t been good. That was her fault. She wanted to be Louise and she wasn’t. She was a fake, she just wasn’t a hot fake.

Although she was sure as hell a tense fake, damn it.

And if he were any kind of a lover, he would have known something was wrong.

She punched buttons on the jukebox and decided to forget about Davy and concentrate on the comfort of music. She lay down on the couch and Steve climbed on top of her stomach and stretched out, his nose underneath her chin. “Lotta guys doing that tonight,” she told him and when he looked at her adoringly, she relented and patted him. “You’re a good man, Steve. Needy, but good.”

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 count 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.”

“Matilda,” Davy said, “you weren’t born to do anything. You do what you do when you do it because that’s where you are at the time. When you’re ready to have great sex, give me a call. Until then, lie back down and stop moving around under that shirt.”

“Sorry,” Tilda said and slid back down under the quilt, disturbing Steve.

Yeah, she disturbs me, too, Steve, Davy thought. I’m never going to get to sleep now. Maybe he could count sheep. Or paintings, there seemed to be a hell of a lot of those around. “Tilda?”

She rolled back over.

“These Scarlet Hodge paintings. How many are there?”

She hesitated. “Six.”

“So I could conceivably screw this up three more times before I got the right one.”

Tilda sat up. “You’re going to try again?”

He looked at her T-shirt, round in the moonlight. “Oh, yeah.”

“Because I have the records for them all,” Tilda said, her voice eager. “We can figure out where the rest of them are.”

Davy stopped staring at her T-shirt. “You want them all.”

“Yes,” Tilda said, her voice intense. “I didn’t before, but I realized tonight that I need them all.” Her voice trailed off and Davy thought, Here comes a lie. “They’re defective,” she said. “I know it’s too much to ask but-”

She bent closer as she talked, and he caught the faint scent of cinnamon and vanilla and heat, and he missed part of what she said.

“-sorry I was so awful,” Tilda finished. “I mean it, I’ve been horrible to you.”

It took everything he had not to reach for her. “You can make it up to me later,” he said and rolled over, and felt her slide back down under the covers next to him. Sweet Jesus, he thought. I have to get out of here.

“I mean it,” she said, over his shoulder. “I’ll help you get your money back. I swear.”

“Good,” he said. “Why do you smell like dessert?”

“What? Oh. My soap. It’s called Cinnamon Buns.”

“Good choice,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m really grateful.”

How grateful are you? he thought and then tried to remember her drawbacks: she was prone to biting and kicking, she was bad in bed, she was brunette-

“I’m really grateful,” Tilda said, her voice very small.

He was definitely going to try again.

WHEN TILDA woke up the next morning, she was sandwiched in between Steve, whose back was to her stomach, and Davy, whose back was to her back. Forty-eight hours ago, I didn‘t know either one of these guys, she thought, and tried to decide if the current situation was an improvement or not.

She propped herself up on her elbows. Steve was lying with his head back, breathing through his nose, his tiny little Chiclet teeth protruding over his lower lip. Overbite, Tilda thought. Too much inbreeding. She looked over at Davy. He had a five o’clock shadow and he was breathing with his mouth open, but everything else looked good. No inbreeding. In fact, there was nothing wrong with him at all. Except for the arrogance and the lousy sex and the tendency to turn to theft to solve his problems.

Of course, those were also her faults. And thanks to the asthma, she probably snored, so he was actually ahead on points. She shook her head and crawled over Steve to get to the bathroom. When she came out after her shower, Davy was still out cold, but Steve hung his head over the edge of the bed, looking at her with mournfully beady eyes. “Come on,” she whispered, buttoning her paint shirt. “I’ll take you outside.”

Ten minutes later, she went into the office for orange juice and found Nadine in her cow pajamas investigating the milk carton.

“Hey,” Tilda said, getting the juice out of the fridge as Steve rediscovered his food and water bowls. “How’s the new boyfriend?”

“ Burton.” Nadine sniffed the milk carton and made a face. “He has a very good band, and he doesn’t freak at the stuff I wear, so I’m thinking he’s a keeper.”

Tilda put two pieces of bread in the toaster. “Your mom says he has no sense of humor.”

“He has one.” Nadine shoved the milk carton at Tilda. “It’s just not hers. Sniff this.”

Tilda sniffed the carton. “Dump it. Is his sense of humor yours?”

“Not really.” Nadine poured the milk down the sink and rinsed out the carton. “But I’m keeping him anyway so don’t preach. When did you know you wanted to be a painter?”

“I didn’t.” Tilda reached over her head to get the peanut butter down. “I was told I was going to be one. Don’t change the subject. If you’re not laughing with him-”

“But you’re really good at it,” Nadine said.

“Yeah.” Tilda shoved the silverware around in the drawer but could only find a butter knife. She held it up. It looked like a palette knife. Bleah. What the hell, it would spread peanut butter. “That was just a lucky break,” she said, slamming the drawer shut.

“But you like it,” Nadine prompted.

Tilda picked up the peanut butter and began to unscrew the lid. She was starving. A little lousy sex the night before could really lower a woman’s blood sugar.

“You do like it, right?” Nadine said.

“I used to,” Tilda said. “Yeah, I like it.”

“You used to.” Nadine leaned against the cabinet. “But not anymore.”

Tilda shrugged. “It used to be fun. Learning to paint. And then painting the furniture.” And the Scarlets. She unscrewed the jar lid the rest of the way, slowly. “I think the murals are getting to me. Like the one in Kentucky?” She shook her head. “Have you any idea how awful van Gogh’s sunflowers look blown up ten times their real size behind a reproduction Louis Quinze dining room table? It was a crime against art.”

“So are you going to quit?”

“No.” Tilda’s toast popped, and she picked it out with the tips of her fingers, trying not to get singed. “We have a mortgage to pay off and the murals are doing it.”

“But you don’t like it,” Nadine said. “So how long before you can quit and be happy?”

“If I keep doing one every two weeks?” Tilda stabbed her knife into the peanut butter. “Oh, fifteen years or so. When your mom gets her teaching certificate next year, that’ll speed things up. And the Double Take’s doing better.”

“Fifteen years. You’ll be forty-nine,” Nadine said.

Tilda frowned at her. “How did we end up on murals instead of Burton?”

“I have to choose the right career,” Nadine said. “I don’t want to get stuck doing something I don’t want to because the family has to eat.” She looked at the peanut butter jar. “I don’t mind supporting them, but it has to be something I like.”

“You don’t have to support them.” Tilda handed her the first piece of peanut butter toast. “I’ve got it covered.”

“Well, you can’t do it forever,” Nadine said. “Let’s face it, I’m up next.”

“No.” Tilda stopped in the middle of spreading the second piece of toast. “No you are not. You do not have to-”

“Keep Mom and Dad and Grandma from the poor-house?” Nadine said. “If not me, who? The Double Take barely pays for itself. Teachers don’t make that much. Grandma hasn’t done anything but Double-Crostics since Grandpa died, and the Finsters aren’t selling. You’re going to be nuts from doing murals by the time I’m out of high school. It’s me.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Tilda said seriously. “Nadine, really. You are not going to-”

“It’s okay,” Nadine said. “I want to. But it has to be something I like. I don’t want…”

“What?” Tilda said, knowing she wasn’t going to like what was coming next.

“I don’t want to be as unhappy as you are,” Nadine said. “I want to still be laughing when I’m thirty-four.”

“I laugh,” Tilda said.

“When?” Nadine said.

Tilda turned back to her toast. “I laughed at Buffy the Vampire Slayer last Tuesday. I distinctly remember chortling.”

“I like singing,” Nadine said. “And Burton ’s band is good, even Dad thinks so and he doesn’t like Burton. And Burton ’s good to me. So I’m thinking that might be the way I can support us.”

“You picked Burton because you want to make money as a singer?” Tilda shook her head and picked up her juice glass and toast plate. “I’d think about that some more. Listen, I have to go downstairs and get ready for next week’s mural. Can you take Steve?”

“Sure,” Nadine said, looking down at Steve’s furry little head. “He can watch me get dressed.”

“Close your eyes, Steve,” Tilda said. “Oh, and if you see Davy, will you tell him that the notes about the rest of the paintings are in the top desk drawer there?”

“Sure,” Nadine said. “Rest of the paintings?”

“You don’t want to know,” Tilda said and headed for the basement, balancing her glass on her plate. She stopped in the doorway. “Nadine, I’m not unhappy.”

“Yeah,” Nadine said, clearly humoring her.

“Right,” Tilda said and went to work.