Faking It d-2 Read online

  “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 Bu