“You’re Davy’s friend,” Tilda said.

“And he owes you this,” the lovely man said and handed her an envelope.

When she opened it, there were fifteen crisp hundred-dollar bills in it. “Oh. Yes, he does,” she said, thinking, I had to sleep with the wrong guy, I couldn’t wait until the right one showed up.

“Is he here?” Davy’s friend said. “The name’s Simon, by the way.”

“Davy didn’t mention you.” Louise moved closer.

“He never does, love,” Simon said, looking deeply into her eyes and smiling. “He never does.”

Tilda sighed, and Simon transferred his smile to her.

“Two brunettes. Which one of you did Davy meet first?”

“Tilda.” Louise linked her arm through his. “I’m Louise. I’ll take you up to his room.”

“Thoughtful of you,” he said, smiling down at her with intent.

Tilda thought about intervening, and then decided there was no point. She was here and Davy was up in his room, so unless Louise raped him on the staircase, Simon was safe. And they had fifteen hundred dollars. She put it in the cash box in the office after Louise had started up the stairs with Simon, and then she caught sight of the flower painting again.

Just hell.

Sooner or later, Mason was going to notice he was leaking paintings, and he probably wasn’t going to buy the explanation that Davy was dumb as a rock. The thought of Davy made her clench her jaw, which was ridiculous. It wasn’t his fault.

It was just that at the end, there’d been that possibility. The thought alone was making her warm all over again. She tapped her feet on the floor faster.

Really, just hell.

She took the flower painting down into the basement and stuck it under the quilt with the cows, and then she went up the stairs with Steve on her heels one more time and paused at Davy’s door. Maybe Louise was right, maybe if she said, “You know, I was close,” he’d be interested in giving it another shot. Maybe-

Inside, Louise giggled, and Tilda froze. When Louise giggled like that-

Davy must have gone out. Not even Louise would do a three-way. Probably. Oh, hell. Tilda went upstairs and opened her dresser drawer and found Eve’s Christmas present from ten years before. Thank God Louise picked it out, she thought as she plugged it in. At least somebody around here knows what she’s doing.


BEATING ANOTHER sucker at pool had partially restored Davy’s good humor, so when he went into his apartment and saw Louise and Simon in bed, all he said was, “Of course, that’s perfect,” before he went back out and stood, bedless, in the hall. Somebody was going to pay for his lousy night. After a moment’s reflection, he climbed the stairs to Tilda’s attic, knocked on the door, and went in.

“Jesus,” he said when he’d stopped inside the door.

The room ran the length of the building and the whole place was white -ceiling, walls, floor, the heavy old four-poster bed in the center of the space- and Tilda sat in the middle of it all, looking tired but relaxed in the soft glow from the skylights, wearing what looked like a white T-shirt, her hair the only dark thing in the place. It was the coldest room he’d ever seen. Which figured.

“It looks like a meat locker in here,” he told her.

“Come in,” Tilda said, frowning at him. “Don’t bother to knock. It’s only my room.” Steve poked his head out from under the white quilt as she spoke and looked at him with deep suspicion.

Davy shook his head at Tilda. “A white T-shirt. You are what you sleep in.” He closed the door behind him and looked at Steve again. “And what you sleep with.”

“Thank you,” Tilda said. “I feel Steve is a big step up from the last guy I slept with. Why are you here?”

“Because Louise is showing Simon more than my room,” he said. “I thought about sleeping in the hall, but she’s loud. Which made me think of you.”

“I know.” Tilda sighed. “I should have stayed with them, but I didn’t think she’d jump a complete stranger.”

“What makes you think she’s the one who jumped?” Davy moved to the side of the bed, unzipped his jeans and shoved them off. “Simon has moves. Which side of the bed do you want?”

“We’ll take the left,” Tilda said, sliding over and taking Steve with her. “And Louise has moves, too.”

Davy crawled in beside her. The sheets were warm where she’d been. Or where Steve had been, it was hard to tell. “If Louise has moves, why didn’t she move on me?”

“You slept with me,” Tilda said. “She also has loyalties.”

“How does she know we had sex?”

“I told her.”

“Thoughtful of you.”

“We’re close.” Tilda lay back and stared at the skylight. “I should have shown Simon that room. He’s much more my type.”

“It wouldn’t have done you any good.” Davy put his arms behind his head. “Simon has loyalties, too.”

Tilda turned to look at him. “How could he know I slept with you? He just got here.”

“He may have picked up an intention.”

“An intention.” She went back to looking at the ceiling. “Very nice.”

Davy started to grin in spite of himself. “Fixed each other good, didn’t we?”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Tilda said, sliding back under the covers. “You and I are doomed to be the best friends.”

“Huh?”

“It’s always been that way. Louise is Meg Ryan and I’m Carrie Fisher. She’s Melanie Griffith and I’m Joan Cusack. She’s the beautiful heroine who gets the beautiful guy, and I’m the wisecracking friend who gives the good advice.”

“Ruth Hussey in The Philadelphia Story.” Davy turned his head to look at her. Her hair lay in little question-mark curls on her pillow and the quilt settled roundly over her, and he was finding it difficult to stay mad at her. Also, he was pretty sure she was naked under that T-shirt. “The best friends are always more fun. I could never see what Cary saw in Katharine Hepburn when Ruth was standing there wisecracking with that camera. Much more grit.”

Tilda frowned. “I thought that was Celeste Holm?”

“Wrong version,” Davy said. “Celeste was in High Society. But also gritty.”

“I don’t think Cary was looking for grit,” Tilda said. “I think he was probably going for beauty and sex appeal.”

“Ruth and Celeste were sexy,” Davy said. “Celeste was the kind of woman you could count on. Celeste would hit somebody with that camera for you.”

“Okay, fine,” Tilda said. “And you are Ralph Bellamy in His Girl Friday, a good, dependable man.” Her tone said, See how you like that.

“I am not Ralph Bellamy,” Davy said. “I’m Cary Grant. Pay attention, woman.”

“If you’re Cary Grant, what are you doing in bed with Celeste Holm?”

“Wising up,” Davy said. “Katharine Hepburn probably turned out to be a pain in the ass.”

“But the sex was great,” Tilda said. “Which is more than you can say for us.”

“I had a fairly good time,” Davy said mildly. “And now that I’m here, I’m willing to try again. How about you?”

“Right,” Tilda said. “As we speak, I’m feeling an overwhelming urge to scream, ‘Ravish me, Ralph.’”

“Merely an offer,” Davy said.

“Thank you, no,” Tilda said. “It would upset Steve. Good night, Ralph.”

“Good night, Celeste. Your loss.”

Tilda rolled away from him, leaving Steve nestled between them. They lay there in the soft glow from the skylight for a while, until Davy heard her sigh.

“Look, if you can’t sleep with me here, I can go back downstairs,” he said, feeling guilty. “They can’t take much longer.”

“You don’t know Louise,” Tilda said, keeping her back to him. “It’s okay. You can stay.”

Davy stared up at the skylights, thinking about strangling Simon, and then Tilda rolled over, her face as pale as ever in the moonlight, her crazy eyes reflecting soft light.

“It was my fault,” she said.

“What? Simon? You couldn’t know he has no morals.”

“No. The lousy sex.” She propped herself up on one elbow to look into his eyes. Everything shifted under her T-shirt, and suddenly he wasn’t mad at all anymore. “I know it seems like I’m in control,” she said to him, her voice earnest, “but it’s a fake. I’m a big fake at everything. I was born to fake.”

“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?”