Faking It d-2 Read online

  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!”