Crazy for You Read online

  “I need to go now, Bill,” Quinn said. “You’re holding up our practice. Let me out.”

  “We really need her, Coach.” Jason’s voice was close now, as close as Bill’s, and Quinn imagined them standing there side by side at the door, Jason almost as big as Bill, Jason at eighteen practically a man, strong from weightlifting, ready to face Bill down.

  No, she thought, and opened her mouth to tell Jason it was all right, but then the doorknob turned, and Jason opened the door, gently shoving Bill out of the way with his elbow as he did so.

  “You’re late,” he said to her, his voice deliberately cheery. “You’re in trouble now.”

  She slipped out past him, ignoring Bill standing desolate behind him, trying not to shake as she headed for the door, Jason close behind her, shielding her.

  “Wait,” Bill said, and she turned, reaching out to hold on to Jason’s arm as she did. “You forgot your paint,” Bill said, and she shook her head.

  “I’ll send somebody else for it,” she said and escaped into the hall, still holding on to Jason.

  “You okay?” he said when they’d turned the corner into the main hall, when she felt safe enough to let go of him.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “That was weird.”

  “Very,” she said and swallowed.

  Jason put his arm around her. “Don’t walk around here alone anymore. You keep Corey or me with you. That was really bad.”

  Hearing him say it made it worse, having a student know, but Quinn shut her eyes and nodded, knowing he was right.

  Jason squeezed her shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” he told her, and then he looked past her and dropped his arm.

  She turned and saw Bobby glaring at them. What the hell was he still doing here this late? Stalking her?

  That wasn’t funny, she realized. Not funny at all.

  “Ms. McKenzie, I’d like to see you in my office,” he said, his voice icy.

  “Not now, Robert,” she said, her fear morphing into anger as she looked at his silly, stupid face. “But you might want to go check on your baseball coach. He just trapped me in my storeroom.” Bobby stiffened a little, suddenly wary, and she added, “There’s something really wrong with him, Robert. Really, really wrong. You’re going to have to talk to him. Keep him away from me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Bobby said, but he took off down the hall.

  Bill sat in the empty art room, tense with frustration. Jason had meant well, but he’d ruined everything. She’d been listening to him, quiet in there, he’d been explaining it so well, if he’d just had a chance to finish—

  “Bill?” Bobby said from the doorway. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “She won’t let me take care of her,” Bill said. “She’s just all caught up in this play and she’s so busy—”

  “Look.” Bobby came in and sat down next to him. “I think you should stay away from her—”

  “If she’d just stay still enough to listen,” Bill said.

  “Yeah, well, I could break her leg,” Bobby said sarcastically. “But even then she’d just get crutches and walk off. She’s done with you.”

  “You don’t understand,” Bill said. “We belong together.”

  “Right,” Bobby said. “After baseball season. You’ll have the whole summer to get her back.”

  Bill frowned at him. “That’s too long. I can’t wait that long.”

  “Look, Bill, don’t make me get nasty,” Bobby said. “I could screw things up for you, I’m the principal, you know, but I won’t because I don’t want you worried about anything but the team.”

  Bill stood up, sick of the team. “There are more important things than baseball, Robert,” he said, and walked out of the room, fairly sure that Bobby couldn’t think of one.

  That was really sad.

  “He was crazed,” Quinn told Joe and Darla at home later that night. “I couldn’t believe it. He thinks he’s moving in and we’re having kids.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Joe said, and Quinn looked at her father in surprise. “I’ll tell him to leave you alone.”

  “It won’t do any good,” Quinn said. “I told him that, and he didn’t believe me.” She smiled at her dad. “But thanks, anyway. I told Bobby to take care of him. Maybe—”

  “It’s not enough,” Joe said and Darla said, “He’s right, Quinn. If Bill’s trapping you in storerooms, he’s gone over the edge. We’ve got to do something.”

  “What?” Quinn said. “Call the police and say Bill Hilliard, the Hero of Tibbett, locked me in my storeroom and wouldn’t let me out? It sounds like a kid’s prank. I mean, who would you believe, Bill or the woman who stole her dog from the pound?”

  “Let me say something to Frank Atchity,” Joe said. “We play poker. Let me just give him a heads-up on this. And from now on, you don’t go anywhere alone.”

  “For the rest of my life?”

  “He’s right,” Darla said. “No place alone. And you tell the BP that if he doesn’t call Bill off, you’re going to the police. That should do something.”

  As it happened, the first person Quinn saw when she got to school the next morning was the BP, vibrating by her classroom door.

  “Jason quit,” Bobby told her as she unlocked it. “He quit the team cold this morning, just like he didn’t owe Bill anything.”

  Oh, hell, Jason, Quinn thought, and then she flipped on the light and went into the room. “Look, I’m sorry but I’m not surprised. He watched Bill wig out last night. I’m not kidding, Robert, there’s something really wrong there. You either keep Bill away from me or I’m going to the police for a restraining order. And you can just imagine what kind of rumors that will start. Good-bye levy.”

  Bobby turned purple. “This is all your fault. All he wants is you, although God knows why. You’re the most ungrateful—”

  “Bobby, will you forget it?” Quinn turned on him. “What do I have to do to—”

  “Just until June,” Bobby said. “That’s all I ask. Just go back to him until we get the trophy and I’ll help you move out afterward myself.”

  “You’re as crazy as he is,” Quinn said. “No. And you keep him away from me. Or else.”

  “This is your fault,” Bobby said and walked off, and Quinn thought, That’s what everyone else is going to think, too. Bill had been perfectly normal until she’d left. Well, as normal as any coach in America.

  Her homeroom kids started to file in, still half asleep and sullen as always, and Quinn shoved all thoughts of Bill away so she could get attendance taken. There was at least one part of her life that was under control: she could still count kids. But all the way through the roll call, Bill lurked in the back of her mind, refusing to go away.

  She really was going to have to do something. She just didn’t know what.

  Jason had quit. Bill tried to understand it, how Jason could leave him after four years. Four years of football and baseball, and then Jason just stood there at morning weightlifting, his eyes blank, and said, “Sorry, Coach. I’m just not interested anymore.”

  “Jason,” Bill had said, but Jason had just shaken his hand and left the weight room.

  Bill looked at Corey Mossert and said, “Talk him out of it.”

  Corey shook his head, too. “Something happened yesterday after school. He didn’t tell me what, but he’s real sure this is what he wants. He’s gone, Coach. Let it drop.”

  Bill felt cold. That thing in Quinn’s room. When he was trying to talk to her, Jason had butted in and ruined it. What had Quinn said? What had she told Jason that had made him want to quit?

  He had to do something. He had to do something. His headaches were getting worse. Nothing was going right. Nothing was going right.

  So he went back inside Quinn’s house on his planning period—he had to, he’d forgotten to measure the upstairs the previous time so he had to—and inside, he felt better. It was almost like being inside Quinn. No, no, he didn’t mean that, he meant with Q