Crazy for You Read online

  Across the lobby, Barbara—elegant in a powder-pink Chanel-style suit, pale stockings, pink heels, and new hair streaked light brown in a loose French twist—conversed with great adult seriousness with a chubby guy in a gray suit. Quinn tugged a little at her peacoat, uneasily conscious of her own jeans and canvas flats. She’d put on her good navy blouse to do business, even though that meant by the end of the school day she’d have destroyed it with clay and paint, but it didn’t seem enough now. She should have dressed better to go that deeply into debt.

  Barbara saw her and waved, and Quinn went over and said, “My mother called about a loan appointment,” which made her feel stupid in addition to guilty. She was thirty-five and her mother was calling about her loans?

  Barbara nodded. “You’re buying the old house out on Apple Street, right?” She didn’t seem particularly pleased about it.

  “Well, you know, it’s time I stopped renting,” Quinn said, wondering why it was time. The idea of owning her own place, of being free and adult and independent, had been heady, but being in the bank was reminding her that “owning a house” actually meant “owing a lot of money.” She smiled at Barbara, trying to calm her own nerves. “You like owning your house, don’t you?”

  “No,” Barbara said.

  “Oh.” Oh, hell.

  “I’ll get the paperwork.” Barbara pointed behind her. “Take a seat at the second desk.”

  Quinn nodded and went to sit on the edge of the massive green leather chair beside the massive mahogany desk. She felt like an obedient twelve-year-old and had to resist the urge to slump down and kick the legs of the chair. Why was buying a house making her regress?

  When Barbara sat down with a sheaf of forms, Quinn said, “Why don’t you like your house? Because maybe this isn’t something I should do.”

  Barbara put the papers down and said, “Owning a home is an excellent investment that will appreciate over time. Rent is an expense, but a mortgage payment is an investment in equity. And your interest is tax-deductible, so it’s a very sound financial move.”

  Quinn looked at her doubtfully. Bank Barbie. “Then why do you hate it?”

  Barbara shifted in her chair. “A house really needs a man,” she said finally. “Things go wrong, and then you have to hire people to help, and so many times they’re not competent, and it becomes difficult because you don’t know. Men know, the competent ones. So there really should be a man.”

  So much for Barbara, the feminist woman of finance.

  Barbara smiled at Quinn. “But that won’t be a problem for you, since you have Coach Hilliard. He looks very competent.”

  “I don’t have him anymore,” Quinn said. “I returned him. The house is just for me.”

  Barbara’s face relaxed into sympathy, Bank Barbie disappearing. “I’m so sorry, Quinn, that must be awful. I just hate it when they let you down like that.”

  Quinn wanted to say Like what? but that would result in talking men with Barbara, and all she really wanted was the loan. Sort of.

  “You think you can count on them,” Barbara went on, “and then something comes up and they don’t come through for you, and you think, ‘Why did I bother? I can be helpless without you easier than I can with you,’ and they just don’t get it.”

  I don’t get it, either, Quinn thought, but she nodded.

  “But then you’re good friends with Darla Ziegler, aren’t you?” Barbara smiled with her whole face this time. “Her husband is very competent.”

  “Yes, he is—” Quinn began, and then she thought, Oh, no.

  “I heard he even does the plumbing at their house.” Barbara’s face took on a faraway look. “The kind of man you can count on. She’s so lucky.” She pulled herself back. “So I’m sure you can call him. He’ll know everything.”

  “Barbara, if you hate owning a house that much, sell it,” Quinn said. And stop vamping married plumbers and electricians. And possibly mechanics.

  “I can’t,” Barbara said. “It was my parents’. And it’s a wonderful investment.”

  “Maybe you could take night courses in plumbing,” Quinn said.

  Barbara drew back, plastic again. “I take night courses in investing. Now you’ll need to fill out these forms and attach the proper documentation…”

  Quinn listened with only part of her mind, the rest of it trying to decide if Barbara’s interest in Max warranted saying something to Darla. Probably not, since there wasn’t anything to go on, it wasn’t as if she was dropping by the station or anything.

  Life had been so much simpler a week ago. Her teaching, her apartment, her friendship with Nick—she felt lost for a minute, missing him since he was avoiding her like commitment—but of course, a week ago there had also been Bill and no Katie.

  Barbara was pointing at a form with one perfectly shaped shell pink fingernail. “…Fill in this information and sign right here. Do you have any questions?”

  Any questions. If she signed right there, she’d be sixty-three thousand dollars in debt and much of her savings would be gone.

  But she’d also be free. An adult woman who owned her own house. And couch.

  “No questions,” Quinn said. “I’m sure I’m doing the right thing.”

  On her way back to school, she stopped at the only furniture store in Tibbett and bought a massive queen-size golden oak fourposter bed to celebrate. After her old twin beds at home and the double she’d shared with Bill, it looked like a golden oak football field, and twelve hundred dollars was a lot of money to impulse, but it felt so right she didn’t even hesitate.

  She had some plans for that bed.

  After school that afternoon, Bill sat on the edge of one of the weight benches while Bobby finished lifting and tried to deal with the thought he’d been fighting all day: Quinn was buying a house.

  He’d run into her—well, he’d been waiting for her by the art-room door—when she’d come back from wherever she’d gone on her planning period, and he’d said jovially—just like they were still together because they were, really, this was just a temporary thing—“Where have you been, young lady?” And she’d looked at him without smiling and said, “The bank. I’m buying a house.”

  A house. It made him ill to think of it. And then he’d found out it was that old derelict house on Apple Street of all places. An old house in an old neighborhood too far from school for their kids to walk. What was she thinking?

  “You don’t look happy, Big Guy.” The BP came over to stand beside him in hunter green designer sweats. Bill closed his eyes and thought, Go away, Bobby, before I step on you. That’s what Quinn always said, “He’s such a bug you want to step on him.” Once she’d said, “Don’t you just want to slap him when he calls you Big Guy?” and he’d said, “No, of course not, he’s smaller than I am.” Besides, poor old Bobby didn’t have much of a life. Bill had a sudden realization of what his own life would be like without Quinn—like Bobby’s—but he shoved it away immediately. Not a possibility.

  Bobby sat down beside him, a coordinating towel around his neck, his eyes at Bill’s shoulder level. “Still woman trouble, huh?” he said, and Bill thought about catching him across the nose with his elbow. Just a thought; he’d never do it. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.”

  What was that supposed to mean, anyway? He’d had no trouble living with Quinn. And he sure wasn’t going to live without her.

  “But you can’t let it affect the team,” Bobby went on. “You got to be up for the guys, you know?”

  Bill looked down at him. “Are you telling me there’s something wrong with my coaching?”

  “Whoa!” Bobby stood up. “Hey, no, you’re the best, we all know that.” He looked thoughtful. “Although we did lose tonight. Not that I’m complaining.”

  “What a twit,” Quinn used to say. She was right.

  “But, attitude is everything, right, Big Guy? And let’s face it, your attitude isn’t what it used to be.” Bobby settled in on the padded scarlet