Jennifer Crusie - The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

No she wouldn’t have. Dee and Lizzie would have gotten burned at the stake without her. She was the only one who knew how to use the shotgun. Lizzie can make muffins, Mare thought, but I can lock and load.

‘Good food in Italy?’ Pauline was saying.

‘Yeah,’ Crash said, and Mare could tell from his voice that he was watching her, so she put the quarters in and punched some buttons at random.

‘Italy’ Pauline said, as Kim Richey began to sing. ‘Damn.’

So I didn’t punch the buttons at random, Mare thought as Kim sang about buying a new red dress to keep her spirits up because her boyfriend was gone. Damn subconscious.

‘So in Italy-’ Pauline began.

‘You should go tell someone about that, Pauline,’ Mare said from behind her sunglasses. ‘That’s hot news. Don’t want it to cool off.’

Pauline nodded. ‘Back in a minute,’ she said and headed for the kitchen.

Crash didn’t look exasperated anymore, just tired. ‘Mare, there wasn’t any reason to stay if you didn’t want me around, if you wouldn’t talk to me. And I knew why you wouldn’t. I swear, I didn’t see that trash barrel roll into the street. I was watching the road, I don’t know where the hell it came from. I have replayed it over and over in my head, and I swear-’

Mare blinked at him. ‘That’s okay, that could have happened to anybody, I’m not mad about that.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s not it at all.’

‘I wouldn’t have taken any chances with you behind me.’ He met her eyes, straight on. ‘You were everything to me.’

Kim sang, ‘You’ll never know how much I love you,’ and Mare sat back. ‘Well, I’m nothing to you now, so it doesn’t matter, does it?’

He leaned forward, and Pauline came back to take their order.

‘Maxine says welcome back, and she saw this movie about Tuscany and wants to know if that’s where you are.’

Mare scowled at her. ‘Since when do you ask questions for Maxine? You’ve had Maxine completely terrorized for years and now you’re her lackey?’

Pauline grimaced. ‘It’s supposed to be this big secret, but Maxine bought the diner two days ago.’

Mare’s annoyance vanished. ‘Oh, bad luck, Pauline.’

‘No shit,’ Pauline said. ‘You’re not going to believe this one: starting tonight, we’re serving martinis.’

‘No.’ Mare leaned closer. ‘How the hell did she get a liquor license that fast?’

Pauline leaned in, too. ‘You got me. I’d say she was giving blow jobs, but I don’t think Ferris Tuttle over at the license bureau has a dick.’

‘Good point,’ Mare said.

‘Do you mind?’ Crash said to both of them.

‘So is that where you are?’ Pauline said to him. ‘Where Maxine said? Tuscany?’

‘Yes,’ Crash said.

Pauline turned around and yelled, ‘That’s where he is, Maxine.’

Over behind the counter, little dark-haired, rumpled Maxine gave him a thumbs-up, and Crash gave her a nod and turned back to Mare, looking as if he were thinking, This is why I left.

‘So,’ Pauline said. ‘What’ll it be?’

Crash said, ‘Two hamburgers, one medium well, one medium rare, pickles on both, cheese on the medium well, fries, two Cokes, one diet, with water chasers. Wait fifteen minutes then bring a chocolate milkshake. Large.’

‘Hungry, are you?’ Mare smiled at Pauline. ‘I’ll have-’

‘I just ordered for you,’ Crash said, looking impatient.

‘That’s what we always got. Can we finish our conversation now?’

‘Well, I’ve changed,’ Mare said. ‘You leave a woman alone for five years, she’s gonna change.’ She smiled at Pauline again. ‘I’d like ketchup on the medium rare burger and a lemon slice in the Diet Coke and in the water, please. And make the shake a strawberry.’

‘I like chocolate,’ Crash said.

‘Then get your own,’ Mare said, and he ordered a chocolate shake.

‘Not much of a change,’ Pauline said to Mare.

‘Thank you,’ Mare said, and Pauline topped up Crash’s coffee cup and left.

Crash picked up the sugar dispenser. ‘She’s right. Adding lemon doesn’t change the basic order. I still know you. And you are something to me, damn it. You’re-’

‘You do not know me,’ Mare said, staring at Crash’s coffee cup.

‘You ran five miles this morning and waved to Mother at the tattoo parlor,’ Crash said, getting ready to pour sugar into his coffee but keeping his eyes on her. ‘Then you came here and had orange juice and a doughnut for breakfast. Why are you making this so hard? Why do there have to be so many secrets and so many rules and why does everything have to be so damn hard?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Mare stared at the coffee cup until it sparked blue, and then she slid it over two inches as Crash glared at her and poured sugar onto the table where the cup had been.

‘And I know you. I’ll bet you five bucks that you’re wearing blue lace under that god-awful coverall. You always wore blue lace under anything butch.’ He grinned at her then, for the first time since he’d come back, and she lost her breath because she’d forgotten how his smile lit up his whole face.

‘I am not wearing blue lace,’ Mare lied, and tried to think of anything besides how good it felt to have him smiling across the table from her again. Like how easy it was to move things like muffins and coffee cups and how hard it was to move little things like sugar grains. She stared at the sugar and began to separate out grains, biting her lip as she concentrated.

‘I can see the lace.’ Crash put the sugar dispenser back. ‘Right there at the top of your zipper.’ He picked up his spoon, looked down for his cup and saw the pile of sugar instead, and said, ‘What the hell?’ as Mare looked down to see her zipper had slipped enough for a flash of blue lace to show at the top.

It looked pretty good so she left it.

‘You peeked so that’s cheating,’ she said. ‘No bet. There are many new things about me.’

Crash shook his head, cleaning up sugar as he spoke. ‘Nobody knows you like I do, Mare. I know you, the real you, the part that doesn’t change. There’s nobody else in the world like you. And I know because I’ve looked.’

‘Knew me, maybe,’ Mare said. ‘But not anymore. There’s a lot new about me, like…’ Her voice trailed off as she realized there wasn’t anything new if you didn’t count being able to move sugar granules. ‘I have a new tattoo,’ she lied, and watched with satisfaction as his eyebrows went up.

‘Where?’ he said, grinning, and the light in his eyes made her want to grin back at him. ‘Give me a map and a flashlight. I’ll find it.’

Kim sang on in the background and Mare thought, Do not get sucked into him again, he left you, and said, ‘You’ll never know. So why did you come back?’

‘For you,’ he said, and she went very still. ‘I miss you, Mare. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything, but there’s nothing and nobody like you.’

Mare took her hands off the table and put them in her lap. ‘Oh.’ Concentrate on the sugar. She tried to make the sugar swirl, thinking of each separate grain. It gave her a hell of a headache but that beat heartache any day. I love you so much. I never stopped loving you. I never will stop loving you.

‘I didn’t have anything when I was here.’ He pushed his coffee cup away to lean across the table to her. ‘I was just Crash the Loser who almost killed you on my bike on your prom night. But things are different now. I’ve got my own business in Italy. I was roaming around over there and I met this guy, he’s as nuts about bikes as I am, and Mare, the Italians, they really know motorcycles, they’re an art form over there, and this guy, Leo, he loves the old ones and he’s been restoring them and he showed me how.’ Mare nodded and Crash went on. ‘I’ve been working on this bike for you. It’s back in Italy, all done, ready to go. Here.’ He got out his wallet and took out a photograph and handed it to her.