Crazy People: The Crazy for You Stories (8 page)

But I guess it was sort of sweet of you to ask if I am okay, and I am. Darrin Mueller’s been taking real good care of me, and I’ve gotten a whole lot done, Ronnie. Like yesterday morning, after I got your letter, I took all your boxes of clothes out to put them in the garage so you could pick them up easier and I wouldn’t have to look at you when you did, but while I was stacking them beside the garage, this woman pulled up in a Bonneville and she said, “You having a garage sale?” And Ronnie, I looked that woman right in the eye and I said, “Yes.” And she said, “Is that men’s clothes?” And I said, “Well, I guess he’s a man,” and she said, “What size?” and I said, “Extra large and stupid,” and she said, “I’ve got one of those. What’s in there and how much?” And I looked in the window of her car and her little boy was holding a McDonald’s bag, and I felt really hungry for the first time since you left, so I said, “I’ll trade you all of it for that McDonald’s.” And she ripped that bag away from that little boy, and he started to yell, and she said, “Shut up, Jason, I’ll get you another Happy Meal in a minute.”

Then we loaded up the car, and she took off with all your things, and I sat on the curb and ate that Happy Meal, and it was the best thing I’d eaten in years, although I must say I was disappointed to find out that Happy Meals don’t come with cookies or any dessert at all. It did have a Spiderman Action Figure which I put out in the middle of the street and then watched until that Kincaid boy drove by going ninety miles an hour and flattened it good. So anyway, I’m sorry about your clothes and the bowling trophies and the other stuff in the boxes, but since you’re starting a new life, you probably didn’t want any of that stuff anyway.

And of course I didn’t give away the Mustang, Ronnie. I know how you feel about that car. I remember you telling me once that the only thing you loved as much as me in the whole world was that Mustang. I told Darla that yesterday after work when I showed her the letter, and she said, “Well, I guess that means he’s sweating inside a Chevy now, swearing he never loved a Ford. Let’s drive the damn thing off a cliff.” But I couldn’t do that to you, I know how you love that car, so the Mustang’s waiting for you in the driveway with the key in the ignition so it’ll be convenient for you to pick up just in case I’m not here when you drop by which I probably won’t be. I was a little worried about leaving the key in the car, but this isn’t a bad neighborhood, so it’ll probably still be here when you get home. And like Darla said, even if it’s gone, it’s not going to be hard to find. You just tell the police that it’s a cherry condition, 1975 baby blue Mustang convertible with “Bengals Suck” spray-painted on one side in my handwriting and “Barbara Is A Lousy Lay” on the other in Darla’s. I bet they find it in a minute, and I did call Stan’s You-Paint-It, and he said he thought he could probably get the paint off if you got it in fast. I know it was a terrible thing to do, Ronnie, but we’d had quite a few beers by then and I did enjoy it, I must say. Not as much as Darla did, but quite a lot. And I have stopped drinking now, so it won’t happen again.

There is just one more thing I’ve got to tell you, Ronnie, for your own good and for Barbara’s. And I think you should know that I did share this with Darrin Mueller last night. “Darrin,” I said to him, right before I gave him what he told me later was the finest blow job in the history of the Western Ohio Buckeye League, “Darrin,” I said to him, “No matter how much I loved him, and I did love him, sincerely I did, I have to say that for the past several years or so, Ronnie Luterbein has not been very good in bed, if you know what I mean.” “I hear you, Debbie,” Darrin said, but then he didn’t have much choice, being tied to my headboard like he was with that cotton cord from JoAnn Fabrics. So I slid myself down his extremely well-built body, and I said, “Darrin, I suppose since you are drinking buddies that Ronnie told you about all those orgasms where I came moaning and screaming and shaking?” And Darrin just nodded, being speechless with anticipation by then. “Well, Darrin,” I said, “I’ve been faking almost every single one of them, and the ones I did get I had to work for, and without much help from Ronnie, let me tell you. The fact is, Darrin, Ronnie Luterbein couldn’t make summer come in June, that’s how bad he is in bed.” Now I know this is painful for you to hear, Ronnie, but I’m telling you this for your own good, so that when Barbara starts moaning and shaking like I did, you’ll know that she’s just doing it out of the goodness of her heart. And then you can try harder. And now that I’ve let Darrin Mueller do some of those things with me that he wanted to, I can tell you that longer would be good, too.

So I’m feeling pretty good right now, especially since Darrin’s asked me to marry him. I told him I’d have to think about it, but I think I’m going to because I’m not getting any younger, and Darrin is a good man with a good imagination, if you know what I mean, and like Mama says, women are meant to be married, although thinking about you does sometimes make me wonder why. Which reminds me, I filed for divorce today, and I put the house on the market, seeing as how it’s in my name so the creditors couldn’t take it away from you if the bowling alley folded. Remember when you did that, back when we were first married? You said it didn’t matter whose name the house was in because we were going to be together forever, Ronnie and Debbie until the end of time.

I’ll make sure you get half.

Your soon to be ex-wife,

Debbie Headapohl

PPPPS: Well, Ronnie, I’m about to leave for church, and then I’m having lunch with Mama, and then Darla and I are going to the movies, and then she’s going to drop me at Darrin’s where he’s going to barbecue me a steak for supper. I figure that should give you enough time to pick up the car and find this letter taped to the windshield and then go on over to Barbara’s to spend the rest of your life. I know this letter has some harsh things in it, and I thought about tearing it up, but then I thought, “No” because those things are also true things, some of the truest things I’ve ever said about us and especially about me, and I think you should see how I got to where I am now so you won’t make any dumb mistakes like trying to come back when you change your mind. Because the thing is, Ronnie, you can’t come back. I’m really different now. I didn’t know how different until Darrin was over here last night.

He was sitting on the sectional, watching the Bengals get creamed again, and he was screaming, “No, no, no,” and I thought about how happy Mama would be to see me watching TV with a man and a wedding ring, and how much more kindly disposed she is to Darrin now that she’s seen your letter. She read the part about how you couldn’t stand looking in her mean little eyes when she found out, and she said, “A second husband is no sin, Debbie Jo,” and I thought, “All right, it’ll have to be Darrin.” And I felt sad for a minute about us being over, and I wished we could be like Darla and Max together for twenty-eight years with all the time they’ve spent knowing and loving each other, and how sweet Max was to Darla at the wedding when Daddy wasn’t there to give her away, and he told her that the only one who could give her to him was her anyway, and how twenty-eight years later, he’s still being sweet. And I almost cried, Ronnie, because I would have liked for us to be together like that forever.

But I didn’t cry because that’s when it hit me. Max and Darla have been married for twenty-eight years, which means that Daddy has been gone that long, which means Mama hasn’t been married for that long. That woman who has been nagging me to be married and telling me my life is over if I’m not and bitching at me to get you back, that woman has been single for
twenty-eight years
, and in all that time, she’s never even gone to so much as a church mixer. And I realized then that the reason she’s so hot to have me married is so she can hold her head up high in public and then go home and eat Cheetos and watch Harrison Ford at three o’clock in the morning. And I sat up and said, “God
damn
,” and Darrin said, “I know, aren’t they pitiful?” thinking I was talking about the Bengals, and I looked at him sitting on the sectional, and he looked just like you, Ronnie. He doesn’t look anything at all like you, but he looked just like you. And all of a sudden, I knew that if I married Darrin, a couple of years down the road, I’d be counting ceiling tiles again. And I thought, “Debbie Headapohl, you have been given a gift here. Ronnie Luterbein just handed you back the rest of your life. Don’t screw up.”

So I’m not going to, Ronnie. I’m taking my half of the house money (Verna Wachtell says it’ll sell in a minute, no problem, she’s got a couple of live ones already, and you know Verna, never missed a sale yet), and I’m putting a down payment on one of those little condos down by the river (Verna’s getting me a real good deal) and they mow the grass for you there so it’s not a problem. And I imagine Darrin will be dropping by regular to develop my imagination, but he’s not moving in. I’ve been there and done that now, and I don’t see any point in doing it again, no matter what Mama says. Darla said it’s such a good idea that she’s thinking about getting a condo next to mine just to keep Max on his toes, but she won’t. Some women are made to be married, and she’s one of them, and that’s all there is to it.

So anyway, while I’m not exactly grateful to you for running off like a coward and leaving me to handle this mess, I do think I’m almost glad it happened. And I do think as time goes on I’ll get gladder, only don’t even think about us having one of those friendly divorces where Barbara and I smile and wave on the street because it is not happening. Which reminds me, Ronnie Jr. is still pretty mad at you, but he’s liking running the bowling alley, and he’ll get over it. Becky says she’s coming home and taking all her money out of the First National and telling the manager why, but she’ll get over it, too. Darla won’t, she’s still hoping you’ll die, but then the two of you weren’t ever close anyway. Even Mama’s mad at you now that I showed her your letter, but you probably won’t be running into her much, so I wouldn’t let it bother you. And as for me, well, I don’t like you much, but you are the father of my children, so I guess I don’t hate you. But I have cut you loose from my list of troubles, since I have more than enough without you, the latest one being Mama, who thinks maybe she’d like to move into one of those condos, too, since I’ll be feeling lonely unmarried and all. I told Verna that I’d have to kill Mama if she bought one of those condos, and then Mama’s blood would be on her hands, so Verna told her they were all sold out and is trying to steer her up north to those Tibbett Village apartments, but you know Mama, she usually gets what she wants. Of course, from now on, I’m thinking I’m going to get what I want, too, so we’ll just have to see what happens.

Anyway, that’s what you missed while you were on vacation. Just wanted you to know.

Sincerely,

Debbie

My agent, Meg, loved this story and sent it to an editor at
Redbook
who said, “We love it but it’s too long.” But they said they’d buy it if I cut about two thirds of it, so I did. Meg said, “If I ever need anybody to do Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, I’m calling you.” If you want to see the short version, go to
Appendix B
in the back of this collection; the
Redbook
version and another note about the story are there.

In the early drafts of
Crazy For You
, Quinn had two close friends, Darla and Stephanie. Both had married young, but while Darla had settled into permanency with Max, Stephanie had divorced and remarried, and at the time the book took place, was coming unstuck from her second husband. Stephanie was such a bright, simple character that I couldn’t get a grip on her, so I wrote this story about the arc of her life and marriages, seen through the eyes of her practical and disapproving younger sister. In the process, the story turned out to really be about Caroline, the sister, a much more interesting character to write, but it also did what it was supposed to do: it gave me closure on what was going to happen to Steph, a woman who was thoughtless in the best sense of the word, living in the now with such fervor that sometimes she forgot there could ever be a tomorrow. I wonder now if I should have made Caroline Quinn’s other BFF instead of Stephanie; I think the simplicity of Stephanie’s outlook on life made her much easier to cut from the novel than Caroline’s whacked-out view of men and relationships would have. And as a side note, if you’ve read
Crazy For You
and don’t remember Caroline and Stephanie, it’s because they were cut from the novel.

1967

I
am at my sister’s wedding, looking stupid in a pink lace dress with a lot of ruffles and a butt bow, and I’m feeling putrid since I barfed up half a bottle of pink champagne an hour ago, and of course, my father saw me, but that’s my life for you.

My sister, being my mother’s daughter, would never do anything like that. Stephanie is no rocket scientist, she just married Andy the Slime and the ink on her high school diploma is still wet, but she always does the right thing about people and clothes, two things I am never going to understand but that my mom and Steph just know.

Like she picked a wedding gown and matching bridesmaids dresses with ruffles across the boobs, and I know she did it so I wouldn’t look so flat because she has plenty up there, more than the other bridesmaids, and the ruffles on her look sort of too much. I saw her during the fittings trying to smooth them down, so I know she noticed. I mean, she did that for me, got a wedding gown that wasn’t exactly what she wanted so I’d look good and everything would match. I get fed up with her because she’s eighteen and I’m fifteen, and she’s supposed to be the mature one, and I have to tell you, she’s totally dumb, but nobody ever said she wasn’t a really good person.

I’m not a good person but I’m interesting, like my dad, who’s really smart, so whenever I say anything good, my mother sighs and says, “Caroline, you’re just like your father,” like that’s not a compliment, which I guess it isn’t to her and Steph. But it’s not like I have a choice. I tried to be like them last night and look where it got me. Andy is the scum of the earth and I hate him and I hope he dies.