Faking It (d-2) (5 page)

“You don’t remember
anything
,” Tilda said, as Spot squirmed in her arms. “We’ve got the painting back, so-”

“I don’t think so,” Eve said, looking at the canvas as she dropped the paper on the floor.

“What?” Tilda said, and Eve turned it around so they could see.

“The one Nadine told me about had our building in it.” She pointed to the fat little cows that dotted the landscape. “She didn’t mention cows.”

Tilda looked at the painting and felt her lungs go.

Cows.

Gwen looked at Tilda. “That’s not the painting Nadine sold Clea Lewis. You stole the wrong painting.”

“I
knew
that guy was trouble,” Tilda said, still staring at the cows as she put Spot on the floor. They weren’t even her cows; they’d been her father’s idea.

“Guy?” Andrew said. “What guy?”

Her father had said, “Scarlet is a country girl. She doesn’t live in our building, for God’s sake, are you
trying
to blow this whole deal? She paints, I don’t know, cows. Go paint cows.” And Tilda had, fat little cows with gold filigree wings that flitted all over the landscape that Eve was holding up.

The landscape that somebody had bought.

Legally.

She felt for her inhaler in her pocket again. She was using it too much. Her asthma was out of control.

Cows.

“
What guy
?” Andrew said.

“This yahoo I met in Clea’s closet.” Tilda took the painting from Eve and propped it up against the wall on her father’s old mahogany desk. “He stole it for me.”

“Somebody
else
knows about this?” Gwen said. “Somebody
else
stole this?”

“He was already burglarizing the place.” Tilda touched the painting, remembering the fun she’d had painting the fat blocky cows and their impossibly fine wings, the thin strokes of gold paint looking like lace on the checkerboard sky. They’d been difficult, but they’d been such joy.

“Where is he now?” Gwen said. “Is he going to talk?”

“No.” Tilda turned away from the cows. “He’s history. Focus on the real problem.”

“He stole the wrong painting,” Andrew said. “That can’t be good. That’s a felony or something. I’ll ask Jeff.”

“No you won’t,” Tilda said, back in charge again. “This is one of the many things Jeff will not want to know about. Not until I get arrested and I need him to defend me, then we tell him.” She looked at the cows, winging their way home, and resisted them. “This one’s a Scarlet, too.”

Gwen sat back. “I thought so. It’s Mason’s. He said he was collecting them.”

“Then he’s going to be really mad when he finds this one gone,” Andrew said.

“It’s okay, Andrew,” Tilda said. “You got a Get Out of Jail Free card with the divorce. You don’t have to play with the rest of us.”

Eve said, “Andrew?” and he went over and sat down beside her.

“I’m here, honey,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Always will be. Tilda knows that, she’s just being cranky.”

Yeah
, Tilda thought.
That’s probably why nobody puts an arm around me
.

Andrew frowned a little. “I can’t speak for Jeff, though. You know lawyers.”

“Jeff will stick,” Gwen told him. “He loves you. You don’t leave the people you love.” She made it sound like a life sentence.

“Don’t worry,” Tilda said. “I’ll figure something out. I will fix this.” She picked up the painting.

“Maybe you can get that guy in the closet to steal again,” Eve said.

Right, that guy who’d called her Vilma. She turned to her mother. “Gwennie, have you ever heard of Vilma Kaplan? Somebody from the late movie?”

“Sure,” Gwen said. “Vilma Kaplan, Bundle of Lust. It’s from an old Mel Brooks movie.”

Tilda closed her eyes. Oh, good. Along with everything else that she’d screwed up, she’d necked with a comedian. “I am never going to see that guy again,” she said to Eve, and went downstairs to bury the cows with the rest of her past.

LEANING AGAINST the wall in one of the Brewery District’s upscale pubs, Davy punched numbers into his cell phone while the mark he’d been playing pool with gloated over the twenty bucks he’d just won. “I may need help,” he said when his best friend answered.

“Beating up Rabbit?” Simon said, his faint British accent slurring over the line.

“No. Rabbit is no longer the problem.”

“He’s not dead, is he?” Simon said, not sounding as though he cared.

“No, just terminally stupid. He gave all my money to a woman.”

“Fair enough. Didn’t you take it from a woman in the first place?”

“That’s the woman he gave it to.”

“Which explains why he robbed you and not me,” Simon said. “He thought he was righting a wrong. Good old Rabbit. The blockhead. What is it you need? I’m in the middle of something here.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Rebecca.”

“Brunettes,” Davy said. “You need a twelve-step program.”

“Whereas your fetish for blondes is-”

“Just good taste. I convinced Rabbit to give me Clea’s account numbers. Now I need her password, which I can get from her laptop.”

“I know nothing about computers.”

“But you know everything about theft,” Davy said.

There was a long silence, and then Simon said, with barely suppressed envy, “You’re going to steal her computer?”

“No,” Davy said. “I just want some time alone with it. Clea’s staying with her next husband, so I went into his place and looked-”

“What do you mean, you went in?” Simon asked, his accent flattening as his voice went tense. “You went in when there were people there?”

“That’s why I got in,” Davy said patiently. “If there hadn’t been people there, the place would have been locked.”

“This is why amateurs should never turn to crime,” Simon said. “You just confessed to aggravated burglary. Are you on a land line or your cell phone?”

“Cell,” Davy said. “And I didn’t steal anything.” Much.

“You were a burglar the moment you entered uninvited. And the presence of people there made it aggravated. Normally that would put you in real trouble, but since you didn’t attack anyone, a good lawyer could probably get you off with only a couple of years.”

Davy thought about bouncing Betty on the carpet and decided not to share.

“The problem is,” Simon was saying, “you’d have to spend those years in
prison
, you fool. Tell me you wore gloves.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment deal.”

“AFIS has your prints. Imagine how thrilled the Bureau will be to know their freelance fraud consultant has turned to second-story work. Tell me where you are and I’ll come consult in person.”

“
No
. You’re on the wagon. What I need to know-”

“I’m not leaving the wagon,” Simon said. “But I’d rather give advice in person than over a bloody cell phone. Besides, I want to meet Clea. If she managed to seduce both you and Rabbit, she has a wide range. Exactly how good is she?”

“In bed?” Davy conjured up the memory again. “Phenomenal. But then you die.”

“You lived. Where are you staying?”

Davy thought about the apartment for rent sign. Maybe it was time to trust in fate. “Right now, nowhere. Tomorrow, over an art gallery, a couple blocks from Clea. German Village.”

“Why there?”

“Strangely enough, there’s a brunette I need to know better. Looks like Betty Boop.”

“Really.” Simon sounded amused. “Perhaps I can help with that, too.”

“No. You’re bored out of your mind and burglary is the only high that does it for you.”

“Whereas you followed Rabbit to Ohio because you have no interest in crime.”

“I came to get my money back,” Davy said virtuously.

“If you wanted your money, you’d have called the Bureau. You’re there because you want the rush. Completely understandable. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“No you will not,” Davy said. “Stay there and tell me how to get into this damn house.”

“Does it have an alarm?”

“I don’t think so. No stickers.”

“Break a basement window at the back of the house,”

Simon said. “They’ll find it eventually but by then the crime scene will be so old, it’ll be useless. Wear gloves. And make sure the apartment you rent has two bedrooms.”

“No,” Davy said, but Simon had already hung up.

Davy jammed his phone in his jacket pocket.

“You gonna play this second game or not, son?” his mark called to him from the pool table.

“Oh, yeah, I’m coming,” Davy said, feigning reluctance. “But I gotta win my money back here. How about upping the stakes?”

“You bet,” the guy said, happily clueless, and Davy tried to ignore the surge in his blood. Hustling pool was not illegal. He was still on the straight and narrow. There was no reason for excitement.

“Your break,” the mark said, and Davy felt his pulse leap and picked up his cue.

DEEP IN the cool basement of the Goodnight Gallery, Tilda stopped at the locked door to her father’s old studio, Spot snuffling anxiously at her feet. She looked at her cows again and heard her father say, “Well, it’s not real painting, but the idiots who liked Homer’s work will buy it.”

Somehow the thought of locking her cows in there seemed wrong. Her father had been right, it hadn’t been real painting, but still…

She crossed the hall, Spot close behind, and opened the door to the storeroom that filled the other half of the spotlessly white basement. When she flipped on the light, there were dustsheets everywhere but no dust; Nadine had been thorough and the air cleaner was doing the rest. She pulled on the nearest sheet and uncovered a wing chair painted with undulating snakes that made funky green and purple and blue stripes across the frame and upholstery. Their hot little eyes winked at her and their tongues curled around their little snakey cheeks, and Tilda grinned back, charmed in spite of herself. She went from dustcover to dustcover, peeking under them to find all of her pre-Scarlet work: a table painted with red dogs with floppy ears, a chest of drawers scrolled with chartreuse snails, several mismatched chairs painted with conga lines of yellow and orange butterflies that flirted at her with pale blue eyes. Spot followed her patiently while she looked under the rest of the covers, finding a different animal batting its eyes at her, daring her to laugh, and she told herself it was just a kid’s junk while she smiled.

Then she remembered her father, finding the pieces in the storeroom when she was sixteen. “I spend ten years teaching you to paint,” he’d said. “And
this
is what you do?”

“Junk,” she said now and covered it up again.

In the back, she found the last piece she’d done, the one Andrew had called the Temptation Bed, its leaf-covered frame now all set up thanks to Nadine and Ethan, with the mattress on it and the quilt Gwen had made to go with it folded at the head. Spot jumped up on the bed and sat down at the foot, shivering a little in the air-conditioning, and Tilda petted him while she considered the work she’d done before she’d become Scarlet Hodge and Matilda Veronica. The headboard was covered with the leafy spreading arms of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and beneath its branches a naked blond Adam grinned at a naked dark Eve, her short curls growing like little question marks around her head. Behind them in the painted bushes, animals prowled, the purple snakes and blue monkeys and orange flamingos from the other pieces of furniture, all winking and grinning at the first human figures Tilda had ever painted that weren’t copied from the Old Masters. Everything was free and wild and wrong, not real painting at all.

I couldn‘t paint like this now
, she thought.
I know too much
. It was like making love: once you learned how much you had to lose, you could never be completely free doing it again.

She sighed and propped the cows up against the headboard under the tree, and thought about the other five Scarlets, out roaming wild with Mason stalking them, and faced what she’d known since Gwennie had dropped her bomb: she wasn’t going to be safe until she had them all back.

“Oh, hell,” she said, and Spot put his nose under her hand and flipped it up, breaking her concentration. “I’ll find a home for you tomorrow,” she told him, patting him, and then she jumped when Eve said from behind her, “We’re not keeping him?”

“You scared the hell out of me,” Tilda said, clutching Spot.

“Sorry.” Eve threaded her way through the dustcovers to sit down at the foot of the bed, her purple pajamas clashing nicely with the leafy green footboard. She was holding a large Hershey’s Almond Bar, Tilda noticed with interest. “Nadine’s really set on keeping him.” She broke the end of the bar off, tearing the paper, and tossed the rest of it to Tilda. “She named him Steve.”

Tilda put the dog down on the bed and picked up the bar. “Steve?” She looked down at the beady-eyed, needle-nosed little dog staring avidly at the chocolate in her hands.

“He’s not hungry,” Eve said. “Nadine got him designer dog food and four kinds of biscuits.”

“Yes, but
Steve
?”

“Nadine and Ethan and Burton were watching
Fargo
again, and she decided he looks like Steve Buscemi.”

Tilda broke a chunk off the bar and squinted at the dog. “Not much.” She bit into the chocolate, felt the waxy sweetness rush her mouth, and twenty years fell away, and she and Eve were back in bed, whispering over torn brown wrappers with silver letters. The bars had definitely been bigger. And she definitely felt better. “Who the hell is Burton?”

“Nadine’s latest. Very pretty. No sense of humor. Has a band. She’s singing.”

“He won’t last if he doesn’t laugh.” Tilda sat down at the head of the bed, and the dog moved up beside her.

“I hope he doesn’t. He’s a pill.” Eve made kissing noises at the dog. “C’mere, Steve.” The dog crawled slowly across the bed to her, and she stretched out and propped her head up on one hand, scratching the dog behind the ears with the other.

“So,” Eve said, looking innocent. “Tell me everything, Bundle of Lust.”

T
ILDA CHOKED ON HER CHOCOLATE
. “Nothing to tell,” she said when she’d gotten her breath back. “What’s up with you and Andrew?” She picked up the quilt and shook it out until it settled over Eve and the dog, its pattern of appliquéd leaves looking like a forest floor across the bed.

Eve looked up at her and smiled. “Come on, Vilma…”

Tilda broke off another piece of chocolate. “Really, what’s Andrew upset about?”

“Louise,” Eve said. “There was this guy at the bar and he looked like fun and I was done for the night so I had a drink. Well, Louise had a drink. I don’t think I’d be his type. I never am.” She shrugged that off. “Andrew’s just overprotective.”

“He’s overpossessive,” Tilda said. “He wants you home being safe little Eve.”

“Then he shouldn’t be paying me to be dangerous Louise,” Eve said, rolling onto her back. “I hate it when he makes me feel guilty. He was never jealous of you and Scott.”

“He’s never jealous of me at all,” Tilda said, wiggling her fingers at the dog.

“He knew Scott was all wrong for you. He knew it wouldn’t last.” Eve held out her hand. “Give me the chocolate.”

Tilda tossed the bar down to her. “Scott was perfect.” She patted the quilt. “Come here, Steve.”

The dog romped down the length of the bed to her, landing in her lap with a clumsy splat, and she laughed because he liked her so much.

“See, his name is Steve,” Eve said. “And I don’t think you want a perfect guy. I think you’ve got some Louise in you. I think you want a burglar in the night.”

Tilda petted the dog. “I am so not Louise.”

“Like Barbara Stanwyck in
The Lady Eve
,” Eve went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “She says she wants a guy to take her by surprise like a burglar.” Eve rolled up on her elbow, chocolate on her mouth, her blue eyes wide and innocent. “So tell me about your burglar. Was he hot?”

“So Andrew’s mad at you,” Tilda said, gathering the dog up in her arms.

“That good, huh?” Eve broke off another piece of chocolate. “Was he perfect?”

“No.” Tilda thought about his kiss in the closet and shivered. “Not even close.”

“Oooh,” Eve said, grinning at her. “Perfect.”

“See, this is why I should never talk to you about boys,” Tilda said. “You encourage me to be bad, and I get into trouble.”

“You bet,” Eve said.

“Give me the damn chocolate,” Tilda said, letting Steve settle back onto the bed, and Eve tossed it to her.

“So why did he steal the painting for you?”

“I think he felt sorry for me.” Tilda broke off another piece.

“And the Bundle of Lust part?” Eve said. “Come on. Give it up.”

“There’s nothing,” Tilda said primly, but she started to grin in spite of herself.

“
Til
-da’s got a
se-cret”
Eve sang, her perfect voice making even that sound good, and Steve pricked up his ears.

“And you’re how old?” Tilda said, trying to sound mature.

“Thirty-five, but I’m not meeting burglars and doing God knows what.”

“Kissing,” Tilda said and then laughed when Eve shrieked in delight and Steve jerked back.

“More,” Eve said.

“There’s not much to tell,” Tilda said, trying to sound offhand. “I opened a closet door, and he jumped me and gave me an asthma attack, so I bit him. Then he criticized my clothes and told me he was no gentleman and kissed me.”

“Ooh, ooh,” Eve said. “How was it?”

“Pretty damn hot,” Tilda said, feeling safe enough in the basement with Eve to tell the truth. “I frenched him.”

“
Yes
,” Eve said, and Tilda laughed again.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Tilda said, breaking off another piece of chocolate. “I was scared and he was standing between me and disaster.”

“For which you say, ‘Thank you very much,’ not ‘Let me lick your tonsils.’”

“It was the adrenaline. It had to go somewhere and it ended up in my mouth. Plus I knew I was never going to see him again, and we were in a dark closet, so it was like it wasn’t me.” Tilda felt cheered by how reasonable it all sounded.

“That was the last you saw of him?” Eve said, disappointed.

Tilda nodded. “Except for about twenty minutes in the diner when he threatened me, told me I have bug eyes, and stuck me with the check.”

“Edgy,” Eve said. “Iconoclastic. Not your mother’s Oldsmobile.”

“Right,” Tilda said, deciding they’d talked enough about her sins. “So does Gwennie seem a little odd to you lately?”

“Gwennie always seems odd to me,” Eve said, sitting up, “which is one of the many reasons I love her. Did I tell you she went to the Eddie Bauer outlet and came back with five sweaters, one for you, one for her, one for Na-dine, one for me, and one for Louise? I said, ‘Gwennie, that’s two for me,’ and she said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, dear, you’d never wear black.’”

“Which is true,” Tilda said. “Although I never thought of Louise as an Eddie Bauer girl.”

“Which is why you need this guy and not Scott,” Eve said. “You need a burglar in the night, not a lawyer in the day. The Louise in you needs him like the Louise in me needs a black sweater.”

“There is no Louise in me.” Tilda felt a little depressed about that. She stood up, handed Eve the last piece of chocolate, and put Steve on the floor.

“There’s a little Louise in every woman.” Eve leaned down the bed and straightened the painting where it rested against the headboard. “Just because yours is nicknamed Vilma doesn’t mean it isn’t really Louise.”

“And I do not need a burglar in the night.” Tilda thought back to her disgraceful behavior, asking him to rescue her. “That guy brings out the worst in me.”

“That’s your inner Louise,” Eve said, approval in her voice. “Set her free. Really, I don’t know what I’d do without Louise. Just about the time I think I’m going to start screaming, it’s Wednesday night and there she is, blowing off all my steam.”

“Right,” Tilda said. “I don’t teach elementary school, I paint murals. It’s very peaceful. I have no steam to blow.”

“Just remember the three rules,” Eve said as if Tilda hadn’t spoken. “She only comes out four nights a week, she never has sex at home, and she never tells anybody she’s you.”

“It’s not too late to get therapy,” Tilda said. “I’m sure your school insurance covers it.”

“Why?” Eve stood up and straightened her pajamas. “I’m happy. And I got two sweaters.”

“Good for you,” Tilda said. “Look, the guy in the closet was not that hot, I was exaggerating.”

“You know,” Eve said. “You keep talking yourself out of all the good stuff, you’re never going to get any.”

“I got some,” Tilda said, annoyed. “Scott and I had great sex. I came
every time
.” Steve put his paws on her leg and she picked him up. “They should put that man’s name in lights.”

“He was too calm,” Eve said. “Did you ever feel ravished? Did you ever feel as though if you didn’t have him, you’d die?”

“For the last time, I have no inner Louise.” Tilda looked back at the bed. “I don’t even have an inner Scarlet anymore.” She handed the dog to Eve and flipped the dustcover back over the bed, hiding the headboard, the quilt, and the painting. “I have responsibilities. I have to be smart. I have to steal a painting.” She felt a little sick at the thought, but that might have been the chocolate.

“Which is another reason why you shouldn’t have let the burglar go,” Eve said.

“I didn’t let him go. He let go of me.” She forced a smile. “And thank God for that.”

“Yeah,” Eve said. “Because all that good kissing would have gotten old eventually. I think there’s more chocolate upstairs, Vilma.”

Tilda sighed. “Lead me to it, Louise.”

AT NINE the next morning, Gwen poured herself a cup of coffee, punched up a nice Bacharach medley on the jukebox, pulled a pineapple-orange muffin from the bakery bag Andrew had dropped off on his way to jog, and then went out into the gallery to the marble counter and her latest Double-Crostic. To her right, the sun streamed through the cracked glass pane above the display window, and a loose metal ceiling tile bounced silently in the breeze from the central air. Behind her, Jackie DeShannon sang “Come and Get Me,” and Gwen thought,
Fat chance. I’m stuck here forever
.

The clue for
G
was “once a popular make of automobile”; that was always “Nash.” Why they never varied that clue was beyond Gwen. It wasn’t as if there weren’t other formerly popular automobiles. That gave her two of four letters for the word in the quote -
R
, blank,
N
, blank- which could be “rang,” or “rank,” or “rant,” or “rend,” or “ring,” or “rung,” or “runs”…
Kill me now
, Gwen thought.

Okay,
H
. “Nineteen fifty-four Ray Milland movie.” Fourteen spaces. “Damn.”

“Language, Grandma,” Nadine said from behind her, and Gwen turned. Nadine was sporting a black leather jacket, spiky black hair, mime-white makeup with raccoon eyes, Steve in her arms, and her boyfriend du jour, Burton, looking his usual, sullen Goth self, at her side.

“It’s June,” Gwen said to Nadine, deciding to ignore Burton since her day was already irritating. “Maybe not the leather jacket.”

Burton made one of those all-purpose cut-me-a-break sounds, and Gwen ignored him some more. He’d have been such a good-looking boy if it hadn’t been for the sneer.

Ethan came out of the office, eating a muffin, not looking pretty. “I snagged one, Mrs. Goodnight,” he said, his bony face cheerful under his bright red hair. “What do I owe you?”

Gwen’s mood improved slightly. “I’ll spot you the muffin if you can tell me a 1954 Ray Milland movie, fourteen spaces.”

“
The Lost Weekend
,” Ethan bit into the muffin.

“You’re a good boy, Ethan,” Gwen said and filled in the space.

“That’s what the ‘damn’ was for?” Nadine put the dog down and took a corner from Ethan’s muffin as the gallery door opened. “A 1954 movie? You know you’d have gotten that eventually.”

“Ray Milland makes it harder.” Gwen turned to face whoever was lost enough to come into the gallery and thought,
Uh-oh
. Six feet, dark hair, horn-rimmed glasses, dusty jacket, and dustier duffel bag, and even with all of that, you paid attention. “Loser,” Burton said under his breath, and Gwen looked into the newcomer’s sharp, dark eyes and thought,
No, but trouble just the same
.

“Ray Milland, 1954?” he said.

“Yes,” Gwen said, as Steve barked once, a low tremolo that slid up the scale at the end.

“Steve,” Nadine said, delighted. “You’re musical!”

“
Dial M for Murder”
The newcomer stuck out his hand. “Hi. I’m Davy Dempsey.”

Gwen frowned at him and shook his hand and thought,
He’s charming. That can’t be good
. She squinted at her book.
Dial M for Murder
made the word in the fourth line “never” instead of “nevew.”

“That’s a help.”

“Sorry,” Ethan said. “Should I give the muffin back?”

“No,” Gwen said. “You’re sixteen and you came up with a Ray Milland movie. You get muffins for life.”

“So, you want to buy a painting?” Nadine said to Davy, openly appraising him.

He studied the closest Finster, a pale oil of three depressed and evil fishermen closing in on a dyspeptic tuna. “ ‘A foul and depraved-looking lot, Bailiff.’”

“ ‘Those are just the spectators, Your Honor,’” Ethan said, and the two of them grinned at each other.

“What?” Gwen said, not reassured. That smile, that confidence, that glint in his eye.
Who does this guy remind me of
?

“Movie quotes,” Nadine said, affection in her voice. “Ethan just found another film geek to play with.”

“Losers,” Burton said under his breath.

“So what are you here for?” Nadine said to the stranger, focused as always.

“You have a room to rent?” He nodded toward the sign in the window as Steve crept closer and sniffed his shoes. “I’ll take anything, even the attic.”

“Aunt Tilda has the attic,” Nadine said. “She’s not good with the sharing.”

“Efficiency apartment,” Gwen said. “Furnished, clean, neat, eight hundred dollars, two months’ rent in advance. Don’t worry about the dog. He doesn’t bite.”
We hope
.

“You going to stay for two months?” Nadine said, eyeing his duffel with suspicion.

“Probably not,” Davy said, grinning at her. “Basically, I’m on my way to Australia.”

“
Support Your Local Sheriff
,” Ethan said.

“I don’t know that one,” Nadine said, shoving her hand at Davy. “I’m Nadine and this is my grandmother, Gwennie.” She nodded over her shoulder. “That’s Burton and that’s Ethan, and that’s Steve, sniffing your foot.”

“Hey,” Ethan said, waving his muffin. Burton glowered. Steve sat down and scratched behind his ear.

“Can we
go
now?” Burton said.

“No,” Nadine said, and Burton shut up.

“Can you give me references?” Gwen said to Davy.

“Not from here,” Davy said. “I can give you several in Florida. Miami.”

Florida
, Gwen thought. Sparkling blue water. Cool white beaches. Alcoholic drinks with little umbrellas. She’d kill to be in Florida, even if it was June.

“We gotta go
now
,” Burton said, slinging his arm around Nadine’s shoulders. Nadine looked annoyed while Ethan munched his muffin, ignoring Burton completely.

“The jacket,” Gwen said to Nadine. “It’s Louise’s. If you sweat in it, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“You’re right.” Nadine shrugged off the jacket and Burton ’s arm at the same time. “Take the hair, too,” she said, and pulled off the black wig, freeing the damp blonde curls matted around her face. “June is not a Goth month.”

Burton was disgusted, but then, he always was, Gwen thought. Clearly Nadine had inherited the Goodnight women’s legendary taste for impossible men. She looked back at Davy again. Perhaps Louise should not meet this one.

“See you later, Australia,” Nadine said, and went out the door, Burton ’s arm around her once again. Ethan ambled behind them both, finishing off his muffin.

Davy leaned on the counter and watched them go. “She does know she’s with the wrong guy?”