Keeping Brandy from becoming totally unglued had kept Shelby more than a little busy all of Sunday. Between waiting on patrons at Tony’s, keeping Brandy supplied with tissues as she sat at the table closest to the kitchen watering the silk floral centerpiece with her tears, and trying to come back to life after her second—and definitely last!—bout of trying to find happiness in the bottom of a wine bottle, Shelby was almost too exhausted to even notice that Quinn was nowhere to be found.
Quinn and Gary were nowhere to be found. The rats.
Although, Shelby believed, Gary’s absence was probably a good thing, because Brandy was ready to cave in, forgive him, and start up that same circle of ridiculousness that had kept her from the altar for twelve long years. Shelby didn’t know why, but she felt it was sort of her mission in life to keep Brandy from making that mistake.
Which meant she’d been babysitting her friend at Tony’s for most of the day, redoubling her efforts when Brandy had actually broken down and called Gary’s house and ended up talking to Mama. “Why, dear, I don’t know where he is,” Mama Mack had told her sweetly. “He did mention something about going somewhere with someone for the day. Perhaps he has a date? But how are you keeping, dear? Still gaining weight? That’s so sad.”
Yes, Shelby had had her hands full all right. And Brandy had had her mouth full. Turkey and all the fixings. Two slices of lemon meringue pie. An éclair for dinner. By the time the restaurant closed, Shelby’s only thought had been how she was going to boost Brandy from her chair and maneuver her up the street to the apartment.
She had at least half expected Quinn to be sitting on the apartment steps, waiting for her. After all, he did say he would see her today, didn’t he? But the Porsche was still missing, and his apartment was dark.
So Shelby and Brandy had climbed the stairs wearily, checked the answering machine to see that there were no messages, and crawled off to bed.
Men. That’s what Brandy had said a time or two that long, long day. Just “men.”
And that said it all....
By Monday morning Brandy had rallied. She’d taken the phone off the hook the previous evening, and left it off until she headed out the door for her bus, having skipped breakfast at Tony’s because she was starting a new diet. Her fifth of the year, one that had something to do with eating nothing but protein until she could turn a special testing strip blue with her urine. Shelby hadn’t really listened to more, not after that test-strip business.
She had walked to the door with Brandy, gave her a kiss on the cheek before watching her go down the steps, then glared at the closed door to Quinn’s furnished apartment for a full minute before going back inside, putting the phone on the hook, and taking a long, long shower.
She stepped out of the bathroom half an hour later, a towel turban around her head, a long bath sheet wrapped around her body, her feet bare. “Hello, Princess, darling,” she said to the shaded silver Persian who had just come out of her bedroom.
And then she saw it.
It. An itty-bitty, great gargantuan it.
The mouse. The mouse clamped tightly in Princess’s jaws—and Princess was heading straight for her, as if ready to give her the still slightly squirming rodent as a present.
Shelby gave out with a fairly ladylike “Eeek!” and raced for the telephone. She believed her feet must have touched the ground as she ran down the hallway and into the living room, but she wouldn’t bet on it, especially as she vaulted over the couch and grabbed the phone, pushing the speed-dial for Brandy’s office.
“Brandy!” she shouted a few years later, after having to deal with a lengthy “If you want form eleven A, press one; if you want to set up an appointment, press two,” that nearly reduced her to tears. By the time Brandy finally came on the line (“If you wish to speak to one of our counselors, please stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly.”), she had curled herself into a small ball on the back of the couch, daring to look down the hall every few seconds, just to make sure Princess still had the mouse in her mouth. Having the mouse in her mouth was bad, Shelby knew. But not having the mouse in her mouth meant it was somewhere else, and that, Shelby had decided, was worse.
“BrandyPrincesshasamouseinhermouth,” Shelby said breathlessly.
“What?”
Shelby rolled her eyes, winced as she saw Princess heading toward her. “I said, Princess has a mouse in her mouth. In her mouth, Brandy. And it’s wiggling. No, wait. Now it’s not wiggling. I think it’s dead, poor thing. Probably died of heart failure; I know I would have. What do I do? Brandy? Brandy, stop laughing. This isn’t funny.”
Brandy stopped laughing long enough to say, “Oh, honey, yes it is,” before going off into another round of giggles. “God, I needed this this morning.”
Shelby took the receiver away from her head, glared at it, then pressed it against her ear once more. “Well, I didn’t! What am I going to do? She won’t... she won’t eat it, will she?”
“I don’t think so,” Brandy said, still trying to control herself. “Look, just walk up to her, give the mouse’s tail a little pull, and maybe she’ll let go.”
Shelby suddenly thought of the Tudor mansion on the Main Line. Of all the permanent staff who could be relied on to keep even the thought of a dead mouse at bay. “You want me to touch that mouse? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“You could call Quinn? He’s probably home, right?”
Shelby closed her eyes, did her best to straighten her backbone. “Do you have rubber gloves, Brandy?”
“That’s my girl. Under the sink. Big yellow ones. Put one on, go over to Princess, grab the tail—that’s the mouse, sweetcakes, not the cat—and then tell Princess to let go. I’ll hang on.”
“Okay.” Shelby put down the phone, dangled her bare legs over the back of the couch, measured the distance between the couch and the kitchen sink. She could do this. She had to do this. It was either that or let Princess eat the mouse. Ugh! Or call Quinn and ask for his help after he said he’d see her yesterday and then didn’t see her yesterday. Double ugh!
She found the glove, put it on, and approached Princess carefully, digging her bare toes into the carpet with each step. “Nice Princess. Pretty Princess. Give Shelby the mousie, Princess. That’s a good— Damn it!”
Brandy was laughing hysterically as Shelby picked up the receiver once more. “Let me guess; it didn’t work?”
“She growled at me, Brandy. I didn’t know cats could growl. Now what do I do?”
Brandy gave the problem another moment’s thought. “Water. Go to the sink, fill a glass, and pour it over the cat’s head. She’ll have to let go then, and you can quickly pick up the mouse.”
“Brandy,” Shelby said as calmly as she could. “I can do a lot of things quickly. I’m sure I can. But I cannot pick up a mouse quickly.”
“Shelley, you gotta stop, I’m dyin’ here,” Brandy told her, laughing. “Okay, change of plan. Pour the water over her head, then pick up Princess quickly, and throw her in the bedroom and close the door. Then you can pick up the mouse slowly.”
Doing as she was told, even if she wasn’t happy about it, Shelby filled a glass and poured its entire contents over Princess’s head. The cat let go of the mouse. Shelby reached down—quickly—and picked up the cat. “Damn it!”
“Now what?” Brandy asked, having put Shelby on the speakerphone so that all her coworkers could listen in. “Shut up, guys, and quit laughing. I can’t hear her. Go ahead, Shelley. What happened?”
“She let go of the mouse, but when I picked her up she was so wet and slippery that she just fell out of my arms and picked up the mouse again. Growled at me again. Brandy, what am I going to do?”
A male voice came on the phone. “Shelley? This is Stan, one of Brandy’s friends. Listen, what you’ve got to do is just ignore the cat. Sit down on the couch, twiddle your thumbs, look up at the ceiling—you know, ignore her. Then, when she drops the mouse, you sort of stand up slowly, go over to her, still looking at the ceiling, maybe even whistling, and quick swoop up the mouse. It’ll work, I promise.”
“Sounds like a plan, Shelley. Call me back,” Brandy said, and broke the connection, but not soon enough that Shelby didn’t hear an entire chorus of laughter and the words, “Whistle? Stan, you’re a scream!”
Shelby looked at Princess, who was just standing there, sopping wet, still growling every once in a while. Still holding the mouse between her jaws. Shelby put down the phone. Smiled at the cat. Sat back on the couch.
“Nonchalant,” she told herself. “Just sit here and be nonchalant.” She smiled at Princess again, then picked up a magazine and pretended to read it. Began to hum. Humming was calming, wasn’t it?
Two minutes later, Princess opened her mouth and dropped the mouse.
Shelby waited until she counted to ten, then slowly put down the magazine. Slowly uncrossed her legs. Stood up. Kept her head high, began walking toward the kitchen. Nonchalant.
She got within two feet of the mouse before Princess picked it up once more, growled, gave a flick of her bushy tail, and walked over to stand in front of the television.
“Damn, damn, damn!” Shelby swore. “I’m going to be late for work if this keeps up. And now what?” she asked herself as there was a knock at the door.
With her luck, it would be Mrs. Brichta, come to check up on them—that would seem a motherly thing to do, except Mrs. Brichta was a lot of things, but motherly wasn’t one of them.
“Just a minute,” Shelby said, putting a hand to the towel turban, adjusting the bath sheet where she had knotted it over her breasts.
She opened the door a crack to see Quinn standing there, smiling at her. “Hi. Brandy called, said you needed a knight in shining armor. I’m here to volunteer.”
Shelby’s first instinct was to slam the door in his face. That reaction lasted about two seconds, because she really did need him, and she knew it. She stood back, opened the door. “It’s Princess. She’s got a mouse and won’t let it go.”
“I know,” Quinn said, trying to look at the cat, succeeding only in looking at Shelby. Under one towel she had her beautiful blond hair. Under the other she had... a whole bunch of things he’d better not think about right now. “Where does Brandy keep the cat food?”
“I don’t—under the sink, I think. Why?”
“Because Princess is a well-fed cat. Well-fed cats don’t eat mice. They play with them. That’s what Princess is doing. Playing with the mouse.”
“That’s disgusting,” Shelby said, shivering, and suddenly remembering that she was naked beneath the bath sheet that only covered her from the top of her breasts to just above her knees. “I... I’ll get the cat food.”
* * *
Two minutes later Princess was digging into some turkey and giblets, the mouse was running loose in the field behind the apartment building, and Quinn was standing in the hallway, knocking on the door to Brandy’s apartment once more, wondering what the reward for mouse disposal ran these days.
“I thought I’d come back and tell you. Mighty Mouse wasn’t dead, just playing possum. He’ll live to find his way back in here another day.”
Shelby felt a smile curving her lips. “Not dead? Oh, that’s so good to hear. I mean, I don’t want mice in the apartment, but I didn’t want him to be dead, either. Thank you, Quinn. Thank you very much. Well, I’ve got to get dressed now, so...”
She went to close the door, but he’d already put his hand against it, holding it open. “I wanted to apologize for not seeing you yesterday after I said I would.”
Shelby searched her brain for something to say, settled on something Tabby had once said: “It’s no big deal, Quinn. Don’t worry, um, sweat it. Now, I really—”
“It was Gary. He was a mess yesterday,” Quinn pressed on, still keeping his hand on the door. “I suppose you know he and Brandy had an argument? Anyway, I took him to the Phillies game, just to keep him from making things worse.”
Shelby stepped back a pace, looked at Quinn through narrowed eyelids. “You took him away? I had to deal with Brandy and her eat-everything-in-sight-depression all day yesterday because you decided Gary shouldn’t see her or talk to her? You shouldn’t have involved yourself, Quinn.”
“Right,” he answered, walking past her into the living room. “And you didn’t involve yourself, Shelley? Gary told me he always calls Brandy after a fight and they always spend the night on the phone, talking through their problems, making up. Except she wouldn’t answer the phone Saturday night. Now why do you suppose she wouldn’t answer the phone Saturday night, when that’s the way they play this game they’ve played for the past twelve years?”
“I have no idea,” Shelby said, avoiding his eyes. “Oh, all right, so I meddled. So did you. But somebody had to step in and stop this silliness. They love each other, Quinn; they really love each other. But if each of them keeps reacting the same old way to the same old stimuli, keep pressing the same buttons on each other, getting the same reaction, well, they’ll be engaged until they’re both eight-six years old.”
Quinn rolled his eyes. “Stimuli. Buttons. Reactions. Do I hear the echo of some Psych one-oh-one professor in here?”
Shelby yanked the bath sheet up higher around her breasts. “So what if you do? I’m right, and you know it. That old woman is running their lives, but at the same time Brandy is allowing it, and Gary is allowing it.”
“And you’re going to change all of that, right?”
She shrugged, averted her eyes. “Maybe. And what are you going to do, other than take Gary to a baseball game?”
He moved closer to her and smiled. “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m going to do nothing at all. I only took Gary away yesterday so he’d have some time to think about what he was doing, maybe even look at the problem from some other angle. Right now he’s thinking a dozen roses. In other words, he’s still got a long way to go, but he’s trying. And I suggest you butt out as well, Shelley. People don’t like other people interfering with their lives, even with the best intentions.”
Shelby felt hot color run into her cheeks as his comment reminded her that she had just run away from all the people whose good intentions had been ruling her life for so long. “You’re right, I suppose.”
He stepped even closer, put a finger under her chin, lifted her face to his. “Besides, I think we’ve got enough going on between us, don’t you?”
“I... I don’t know what you mean,” she lied, realizing that her legs had begun to tremble.
“Yes you do, Shelley,” he told her, his voice low, intimate. “Because there’s something going on between us, something neither of us wants to ignore. The only questions right now are why do we feel this way, and what are we going to do about it. Right now, I think I want to kiss you.”
She moistened her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue, a move that may have been nervousness on her part but that had an entirely different impact on him, making him feel bolder, more eager for the taste of her mouth.
“Shelley? May I kiss you? Please.”
That did it. Her knees melted. She nearly fell against him as he put his hands on her bare shoulders, lowered his head to hers. All she could see was the black of his hair, the intense gray of his eyes, the slight smile on his full lips. And then her eyes fluttered closed and she gave herself up to sensations that had nothing to do with sight.
The kiss began tentatively, nothing like his first kiss on Saturday night. He kissed her as if he was in no hurry at all, as if he had all day to kiss her, taste her, draw her sweetness from her, drive her wild with desire.
His fingers held onto her shoulders, kneading the soft flesh she’d smoothed with body lotion, and he felt her arms go around him, reaching up to hold onto his shoulders, drawing him closer. Closer.
She was his for the taking, his for the giving. She was delicate and pliant, yet she burned with an inner fire that seared him chest to thigh as he pressed against her softness, as her mouth opened beneath his, allowed him entry.
Quinn lifted his head, looked down at her, at her closed eyes, her moist mouth, and he kissed her again. He wanted to go on kissing her until the last star died and the skies went forever dark.
He wanted to hold her, to love her, to have her. He stepped back slightly, his hand going to the knot in the bath sheet, beginning to fumble with it, his movements less sure than he could ever remember them being. But then he couldn’t remember anything else he’d done in this life that was this important.
And the phone rang.
He broke the kiss, pulled her close against him, spoke against her hair. “Don’t answer it. Pretend it isn’t ringing.”
She remained locked against him, allowing him to nibble at the side of her throat, but by the sixth ring, she had pushed him away, mumbled a soft “Sorry, Brandy turned off the answering machine,” and headed for the phone.
“Hello. Brandy? What?” She turned, looked at Quinn, who was doing his best to regain his normal breathing patterns. “Oh. Oh, yes. Quinn came over and the mouse is gone. I... I’m sorry I didn’t call you back, but Quinn’s still here and... Yes, you could say that. No, it’s all right, really. I don’t mind that you called, honestly. What? When? How many roses?” she asked, looking at Quinn, holding up her hand as if to say, “I’m sorry, but she just keeps on talking.”
“It’s all right, Shelley, I have things to do anyway,” Quinn said, already heading for the door. He had to leave, or he had to have her. There was only that either/or, nothing else would do. Even if he still hadn’t told her the truth, even if the moment he told her the truth she’d slap his face and tell him to go to hell.
Maybe later. Maybe tonight. Maybe he could tell her tonight, and then let the chips fall where they may. Tonight, before he got in too deep, before they both got in too deep. If they already weren’t.
“Yes, Brandy, it is. It’s wonderful of him. So you’ve forgiven him? Goodbye, Quinn,” she then said, her hand over the receiver. “Um... later?”
“Later. That’s a promise,” he said, bending to pick up the mail the postman had slid through the slot, as all the mailboxes downstairs were rusted shut. “I’ll just put this on the table,” he said, and wandered out. He thought about taking a cold shower. Maybe two cold showers.
* * *
Shelby watched him go, wondering why she was letting him go when all she wanted was for him to pick her up, carry her to her bed surrounded by country western singers and Beanie Babies, and made mad, passionate love to her.
As Brandy rambled on about how wonderful Gary was, Shelby picked up the mail, began idly looking through it even though it was nothing but bills for Brandy or junk mail.
Then she saw an envelope with her new name on it, the address spelled out in block letters, and with no return address. Still with the receiver between her ear and shoulder, she slit open the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper, also written on it block letters and all in capitals. There was only one line, in the center of the page:
LEAVE TOWN NOW. THERE ARE SAFER PLACES.
“Um, Brandy? I have to hang up now,” she said as calmly as possible. “Yes, my hair is wet and still wrapped in a towel and I’m probably going to have to wash it again if I want it to look even halfway decent before I go to work. Yes, okay,” she said, already bending down, the phone at her ear, heading it toward the receiver. “Um-hum, later, bye.”
Then Shelby sat down on the couch, her fingers trembling, her whole body shaking with shock, and read the few words again.