Jennifer Crusie - Faking It

“Wipe what?” Dillie said and hung up.

“Well, that was illuminating,” Tilda said, and Davy clutched the phone and turned to see her lounging in his doorway. “Who were you talking to?”

“My niece,” Davy said, turning off the phone. “It’s rude to eavesdrop.”

“How old is this kid?” Tilda said.

“Twelve,” Davy said.

“And what exactly is it you do for a living?”

“Sales,” Davy said. “So how was the basement?”

Her smile vanished and she straightened, tense again. “Mason and Clea just pulled up. Could you get a move on?” She looked impatiently down the stairs. “I want to get this over with. And you out of here.”

He put his phone in his jacket pocket and folded his arms, watching her. She still looked like a bug. He had an old-fashioned urge to rip her glasses off and say, “Why, Miss Goodnight, you’re lovely,” but she’d probably dislocate something of his and take the glasses back before he could finish the sentence.

“Wow what are you doing?” she said.

Also, she wouldn’t be lovely. That was sister Eve. This one was… He tilted his head at her, trying to think of the right word.

“Could you please-”

“Betty,” he said, cutting her off. “I have stolen one painting for you and I am about to help you steal another, even though I don’t need to, even though I have fish of my own to fry. So I’m waiting for you to ease back on the hostility. It’s annoying and, frankly, boring.” He watched her take a deep breath, the furrow in her forehead disappearing. He still couldn’t think of a word to describe her, but she was definitely fun to watch.

She nodded. “You’re right.” She came in to sit on the bed beside him, making him bounce a little as the mattress sank down. “This is making me crazy. I hate relying on other people to save me, I hate being clingy, I hate it, and every time you show up, I lean on you.”

“ ‘Clingy’ is not the first word that comes to mind when I think of you,” Davy said.

“So I’m taking it out on you. You don’t deserve that. I apologize.” She looked at him. “Really. I’m sorry.”

Davy nodded, taken aback by her honesty, not to mention her proximity. “Accepted.”

“And I hate stealing stuff,” she said miserably.

“Well,” Davy said. “ ‘I’ve always believed that if done properly, armed robbery doesn’t have to be an unpleasant experience.’” She looked at him as if he were insane, and he added, “It’s a movie quote. Thelma and Louise”

“A movie quote.”

“It’s a family hobby.”

She looked almost sweet sitting there beside him, her eyes wide behind her bug glasses, her dark curls all tumbled and soft, and then she said, “It’s so odd to think of you having family.”

“What did you think?” Davy said, annoyed. “That I was raised in a petri dish?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean that,” Tilda said hastily. “I meant that you seem like such a loner. Kind of a Liberty Valance thing.”

“Thank you,” Davy said. “I’ve always wanted to be a vicious killer.”

Tilda looked genuinely puzzled. “What vicious killer?”

“ Liberty Valance. Lee Marvin.”

“No, I meant Gene Pitney.”

Davy frowned at her. “Who’s Gene Pitney?”

“The guy who sings ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.’” They stared at each other in incomprehension until she said, “Never mind, I take it all back. Can we go?”

“So you’re thinking of me more as John Wayne than Lee Marvin.” Davy shrugged. “Okay.” He stood up and gestured to the door. “Want to go steal stuff, Thelma? Or would you rather be Louise?”

She looked up, startled. “I don’t know who I want to be,” she said, and went past him out the door.

“That makes two of us,” he said, catching the faint scent of cinnamon as she passed. “I don’t know who I want you to be, either.”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE we broke a window,” Tilda said half an hour later, trying not to panic as Davy closed Clea’s bedroom door behind them. “Even if it was a basement window. That’s vandalism.”

“I broke the window,” Davy said. “I climbed inside. I let you in. And yet, so far, no thank you.”

“Thank you,” Tilda said. “Oh, God.”

“You’re not good at this, Betty,” Davy said. “Go look in the closet. If the painting’s not there, you’ll have to go upstairs.”

He went to Clea’s bureau and began to go through her drawers, and Tilda opened the closet doors again. “Bleah, this perfume.”

“Obsession,” Davy said, opening the next drawer.

“You can tell from over there?”

“No, that’s what she wears.” Davy lifted up a pile of something silky and expensive.

“Known her long?” Tilda said, feeling annoyed.

“Yep. Find a painting yet?”

Tilda took a deep breath and pressed into the closet. The damn thing was huge, and she moved to the back, trying to avoid Clea’s shoes, feeling around for an eighteen-inch-square piece of evidence that she’d been a forger. She heard Davy push the clothes back, and she said, “I need a light,” just as he closed the doors.

“Hey,” she said, turning and he put his hand over her mouth.

“Shut up, Betty,” he whispered in her ear. “There’s somebody in the hall.”

Tilda froze as she heard Clea’s bedroom door open. Great, she thought. They’d asked Gwennie to do one little thing, and-

Davy took his hand off her mouth, and she sucked in air, staving off panic, which would lead to asthma. He moved his hand to the small of her back and patted her there, the way she patted Steve to calm him down, and Tilda pressed closer to him, trying not to wheeze, her heart pounding.

Outside, a drawer slammed shut with a bang, and Tilda jerked and clutched Davy’s shirt. He patted a little faster, and she thought, As long as I’m in here, I’m safe, nobody knows I’m here, nobody but him, and she put her arms around him, grateful he was there. He stopped patting, and they stood like that for eons while Tilda grew warmer and whoever was outside rustled and shuffled. She felt Davy’s fingers slide against the small of her back, felt his palm go flat there, not pressing, just flat and hot there, and something kicked up low in her solar plexus and spread, waiting for him to pull her close. When he didn’t, she lifted her face through the darkness, and when he bent closer, her breathing went ragged, and when his mouth brushed hers, her body stuttered and when she closed that last inch between them, his arms tightened around her, and she kissed him in a closet again.

He was a damn good kisser, and Tilda felt breathless as she leaned into him, good breathless as she pressed him against the back wall of the closet and sank into all that good heat. I don’t do this enough, she thought as she came up for air, and then she went back for more, unleashing her inner Louise, or at least her inner Vilma.

Then the closet door opened and somebody pawed through Clea’s shoes and grabbed her ankle, and she kicked back hard on panicked reflex, and connected with something hollow and something heavy hit the floor.

“Oh, great.” Davy let go of her and shoved the clothes apart, kneeling to see whoever was on the floor. “Damn it.” He stepped over the body and dragged it out of the closet by its shoulders.

Tilda followed him out, trying not to panic. “Is he dead?”

“No,” Davy said, “but he’s unconscious. You have a kick like a mule, Matilda.”

“I was tense. He grabbed my ankle.”

“Something I must remember not to do. Christ, you really nailed him.” Davy stood up and frowned. “Do you know who he is?”

Tilda bent cautiously to look at the guy. He was a weedy thirty-something with dark hair and a bleeding lump forming on his temple. “No. I never saw him before.”

“Okay.” Davy took her arm and moved her toward the door. “Out.”

“What?” Tilda tripped as she tried to see back over Davy’s shoulder. “We can’t just leave him-”

“You can.” Davy kept her moving into the hall and down the stairs, his hand on her arm like a vise. “This just changed from a small heist to a major crime. Get out of here, walk straight home and do not talk to anybody.”

“What about you?” Tilda said, trying to keep her feet on the stairs as Davy picked up speed. “I’m not leaving you-”

“That’s very sweet.” Davy steered her down the hall and into the kitchen and opened the back door. “Goodbye.”

He shoved her out the door and slammed it behind her, and she was left on the back steps, shivering in the warm June night, with nothing left to do but go home.

MEANWHILE, GWEN was thinking envious thoughts about Tilda, who was only breaking and entering, much preferable to being stuck with Mason and Clea.

“Man, the times we had here,” Mason said, looking around the gallery. “I can almost hear that big booming laugh of Tony’s. What a guy.”

What a guy, Gwen thought, and put the files for 1988 on the table in front of him. Across the table, Clea watched her like a hawk, for what, Gwen had no idea.

“Remember that opening for the New Impressionists he did? Nineteen eighty-two.” Mason smiled at Gwen. “Tony wore a blue brocade vest, and you had on a black halter dress and gold hoop earrings the size of dinner plates. I’ll never forget it.”

Gwen straightened a little, startled by the memory.

“You were amazing, Gwennie,” Mason said, his face softening as Clea’s hardened. “You moved through the crowd, and people smiled looking at you, and Tony and I stood at the back of the gallery, right by the door over there-” he nodded at the office door “-and we watched you. You know what he said?”

“No,” Gwen said, trying to hold on to her memory of Tony-as-son-of-a-bitch.

“He said, ‘I’m the luckiest son of a bitch in the world,’” Mason said. “And I said, ‘You sure as hell are.’”

The early Tony came back to her, laughing down at her, wrapping her in love and excitement, and she tried to push him away, to get back to the later Tony, desperate because the gallery wasn’t doing well, growing grimmer, laughing less, making Tilda paint the Scarlets.

“He was a great guy,” Mason said. “And he built a great gallery.”

“Yeah,” Gwen said. “So the records for eighty-eight are right here. That’s when we sold the Scarlets.”

“Wonderful.” Mason pulled them over in front of him. “I’ve always wanted to know how the gallery worked, how Tony did it. The building’s an asset, too, isn’t it? Real estate is always a smart move.”

Maybe we should let the creditors have it, Gwen thought. Maybe we should bum it down, set everybody free.

“So what other assets does the gallery have?” Mason said, picking up a new folder.

“What?” Gwen said.

“Assets,” Mason said. “Besides the building and the inventory. How does a gallery work? What other assets are there?”

“Uh, none,” Gwen said, confused. “The paintings are on consignment.”

“Well, the good name, of course,” Mason said.

“Oh, yeah,” Gwen said. The good name of the Good-nights.

“God, I envied him,” Mason said. “His gallery, his parties, his charm.” He smiled at Gwen. “His wife.”

Clea stirred.

Gwen smiled back stiffly and thought of Tony, introducing her: “This is my wife, Gwennie.” One night she’d said to him, “Just once, can’t you introduce me as Gwen, your wife?” and he’d stared at her, not comprehending.

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard he’d died,” Mason was saying. “It didn’t seem possible. I wrote, but there wasn’t really anything I could say.”

“Your letter was lovely,” Gwen said, not remembering it. There’d been so many.

“You’ll probably never get over him,” Clea said sadly, and they both turned to look at her, surprised. “Real love is like that.” She put her hand on Mason’s sleeve and smiled at him dreamily, and Mason looked at her, incredulous.

I hope she’s good in bed, Gwen thought.

“It must be hard running the place on your own,” Mason said to Gwen, picking up the first file.

“I have family,” Gwen said, trying to sound brave. “So the records…”

An hour later Mason said, “These are all the records for 1988? Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure,” Gwen said and then realized if he was done, he’d go home. “But you know, Tony was a pretty sloppy recordkeeper. Better check eighty-seven and eighty-nine, too. I’ll get them.”

Mason nodded happily, Clea sighed, and Gwen headed for the office. Hurry up, Tilda, she thought. I can’t keep them here forever. It’s too damn painful.