Jennifer Crusie - Maybe This Time

“Damn it,” North said. “I sent funds to fix all of that two years ago.”

“To Mrs. Crumb?”

North pictured the housekeeper. Elderly. Dyed red hair. Smelled like peppermint and rubbing alcohol. “Yes, I sent a check to Mrs. Crumb.”

“Well, the funds stayed with Mrs. Crumb. I suggest you hire people directly this time.”

“I’ll have a contractor come out and look at the place.”

“Tell him to talk to me, not Mrs. Crumb. And to look at the inside, too. The kitchen is awful. I can’t even bake here.”

He closed his eyes and remembered late afternoons, Andie home from teaching and doing the Four O’Clock Bake, the smell of banana bread or chocolate chip cookies or cinnamon rolls, dozens of different smells telling him the day was almost done-

“North?”

“Right,” North said. “Contractor. I’ll put Kristin on it.”

“Also, if anybody calls from this end of the world, we’re still married.”

North stopped looking at his watch. “What?”

“It’s the only thing that gives me clout. They’re very impressed with you here. I figured, what could it hurt? You’re never coming down here. Will’s never coming down here. Nobody in Columbus will ever know. So I took back my married name.”

“You didn’t take my name when we were married,” North said, trying to find his footing again.

“I was going through an independent phase. Now I’m going through a practical phase. It’s a good thing to be an Archer down here. Come to think of it, it was probably a good thing to be an Archer up there. I should have taken your name just for the power. As your mother so often told me, I was an idiot.”

So was I, North thought, and then shook his head before regret could set in. The past was gone and the present had Mrs. Nash in the waiting room. “I’ll get Kristin on the cable-”

“That’ll be a help,” Andie said over him. “Because frankly I could use a bargaining chip with the kids, too. I made a hot breakfast this morning and Alice refused to eat it and went for the damn cereal anyway. Mrs. Crumb thinks she’s winning. According to her, the two of you are very close. You think of her as a mother.”

“Is she delusional?”

“Everybody here is delusional, including your nannies. Carter didn’t set fires because he’s crazy, he set them so he’d get kicked out of school and could come home to take care of Alice. He needs to be in a good public school where he can make friends and then see Alice every night. They’re really close, North. If you don’t separate them, I think he’d go to school without a fight.”

“Damn.” North leaned back. “I knew boarding school was a bad idea. My mother tried to send me away when Southie was six, and I wouldn’t go. Kids need each other. But the last nanny kept telling me he needed discipline, so-”

“He has discipline. He’s so self-disciplined he’s barely breathing. Alice, on the other hand, has no discipline at all. If something’s going on that she doesn’t like, she screams. But it’s not like a normal temper tantrum, there’s something else going on there. Carter I can eventually reach, I think. Alice… I don’t know.”

She sounded worried, and North tried to think of a way to make her feel better and then realized that was ridiculous. She was doing a job for him, she hadn’t called for comfort, they weren’t married anymore no matter what lies she was telling down there, he had Mrs. Nash waiting, and there was nothing he could do anyway… “Do you need me to come down there?”

“No, I can handle this,” she said, her voice as confident as ever. “It’s the kids I’m worried about. I don’t know if I can make things normal for them. I think I can make things better.”

“You always make things better.”

The silence stretched out at the other end of the phone as he thought, Dumb thing to say, and then she said, “Thank you.” Her voice was softer than it had been, and it brought the past rushing back again.

“You’re welcome,” he said, thinking, Get off the damn phone. “I’ll get you your cable and your contractor and somebody to fix the phones.”

“I know you will. You always come through.”

Jesus. “Call me if there’s anything else,” he said briskly, trying to find his way back to normal.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk to each other.”

“I was going through an independent phase,” North said, and then closed his eyes as her laugh bubbled through the phone.

“That was a helluva long phase. I’ll call if there’s anything else. You have a good day.”

She hung up, and he sat there with the phone in his hand for a minute, trying to find his way back to normal, until Kristin came in.

“She needs cable down there,” he told her, hanging up the phone. “Get it for her, please.”

“That’s going to cost you,” Kristin said.

It’s the only thing she’s asked for in the entire time I’ve known her. “Get it for her. Also find a good contractor down there and have him go out to talk to her, not to Mrs. Crumb. And call the phone company and find out why they lose service and if there’s anything we can do about it. Bills to come here.”

Kristin nodded. “And Mrs. Nash in the waiting room?”

“Give me a couple of minutes,” North said, and Kristin nodded again and went out.

Andie had never asked for anything. He’d kept waiting for her to, it was crazy of her not to, to ask for a house instead of his apartment in the attic of the family’s Victorian-he’d heard her bitching at the stove once and sent in people to redo the kitchen for her-for a car instead of public transportation-he’d surprised her with a bright yellow Mustang and she’d loved it-hell, for an engagement ring and a decent wedding ring-he’d tried to give her a good ring once and she’d insisted on keeping that damn green band-but she’d just gone on with her life, tromping around in those crazy skirts and tight tank tops, her hair wild no matter how much she fought it, arguing with him, laughing with him, falling into bed with him…

He closed his eyes and thought, I really was an idiot.

He just wasn’t sure if he’d been an idiot for marrying her or for letting her go.

Not that it mattered anymore. She was gone, and he had a client to interview. He punched a button on the intercom and said, “I’ll see Mrs. Nash now,” and went back to work.

After North hung up, Andie put more coins in the phone and called Flo and told her everything was fine, and then called Will and said the same thing, but he wasn’t as easily put off.

“Have you talked to North?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I asked him to get us cable.”

“I wish you weren’t talking to him.”

“I’d talk to Satan to get cable,” Andie said, and changed the subject, giving him half her attention while she watched Alice lean against Carter’s arm, sitting as close to him as possible. “I have to go,” she said when they’d finished their ice cream, and then realized she’d interrupted him in mid-sentence. “Sorry, the kids… I have to go.” She hung up and went back to collect the kids, taking a phone number tab from a flyer for the Happy Housekeepers cleaning service she found on the Dairy Queen’s bulletin board. She lost the kids again as soon as she stopped the car on the flagstones behind the house, Carter taking the bookstore bags and Alice dragging the bags of clothes and office supplies. Andie took everything else into the kitchen and put the food away, taking a surprised satisfaction in seeing the fridge and cupboards fill up. Then she took the rest of the bags upstairs, dropped Carter’s striped comforter off in his room without getting so much as a glance from him, and took Alice’s blue comforter into the nursery where she set up her sewing machine, tore the sequined chiffon into strips, and sewed the strips all over the comforter.