Then Mama drove up with a tuna surprise casserole, and she said, “Deborah Jo, what is that naked man doing in your front yard?” Darla said, “Warming up, Mama, warming up.” Then she told Mama that potato chips on a casserole were unhealthy because of the high fat content, and Mama said that without the potato chips there wouldn’t be any surprise, and Darla said potato chips on a casserole hadn’t been a surprise since 1952, and Mama got so aggravated, she left. I do love Darla. Then we both got beers and stood at the window and watched Darrin mow the grass. And Darla said, “Deborah Jo, it’s time to forget that worthless skunk you married and move on,” and I said, “Darla Jean, I am thinking about it.” But I really wasn’t because I am married to you, Ronnie. But I did feed Darrin that casserole later, and he did mention the potato chip topping so I guess Mama was right again. And tomorrow, I’m making dinner for him since he’s going to fix the bathroom sink and he says he loves home cooking and isn’t getting any. But he isn’t getting anything else because I am still your wife, even if you don’t deserve me.
Debbie
PPPS. I got your letter yesterday, Ronnie. It was thoughtful of you to say you hoped I was doing fine, although I could have done without the “PS” from Barbara saying she hoped we could still be friends. Where she got the “still” part I will never know because I have never been friends with anyone who wears that color of eye shadow that Darla has taken to calling “Bank Slut Blue.” Women who wear eye shadow like that look like they do it for nickels, that’s all there is to it.
But since you asked, I am more than fine. Darrin Mueller’s been taking real good care of me, and I’ve gotten a whole lot done. Like yesterday morning, after I got your letter, I took all your clothes out to the garage, and 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? 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 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.
Of course I didn’t give away the Mustang. It’s waiting for you in the driveway with the key in the ignition, and like Darla said, even if somebody steals it, it’s not going to be hard to find. You just tell the police that it’s a cherry condition, 1975 baby blue convertible with “Bengals Suck” spray-painted on one side in my handwriting and “Barbara Is A Lousy Lay” on the other side in Darla’s.
There is just one more thing I have 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 when we were finished breathing heavy, “I have to say that it is a pleasure not faking it any more. The truth is, Ronnie Luterbein couldn’t make summer come in June, that’s how bad he is in bed.” I know that’s painful for you to hear, Ronnie, but I’m telling you this for your own good, so that when Barbara starts moaning 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 gotten to know Darrin better, 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, and I think I’m going to because 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, since it’s in my name so the creditors couldn’t take it away from you if the hardware store 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.
Debbie
PPPPS: Well, Ronnie, today’s the day you’re coming home. I’m heading over to Darrin’s now and 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. I know this has some harsh things in it, but those things are also some of the truest things I’ve ever said, 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 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 I thought about how happy Mama would be to see me watching TV with a man and a wedding ring. I did feel like crying for a minute about us because we were over after twenty-six years…
That’s when it hit me. We’ve been married for twenty-six 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, that woman has been single for twenty-six years, and in all that time, she’s never even gone to so much as a church mixer. 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, “Well, 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 I thought, “Debbie Jo 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, and I’m putting a down payment on one of those little condos by the river. And I imagine Darrin will be dropping by regularly 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.
So while I’m not exactly grateful to you for running off like a rat, I do think I’m almost glad it happened. At any rate, 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, and 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.
Debbie
Appendix C: Dog Days - Chapter One
The last part of my master’s thesis was the proposal for a book called Dog Days that later became Crazy For You. If you’d like to see how a book evolves through the writing and publishing process, you can trace Crazy For You’s growth from the short stories in this book through the publishing proposal I sent to Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin's Press to the final published book. The chapter below is from the proposal, which is the document a writer sends to an editor when trying to sell a book. A proposal has a synopsis of the plot, which tells her if you have a story, and the first thirty to fifty pages which tell her if you can write. Jen bought Crazy For You based on the chapter below. To see what the book was like when Jen was finished editing it and I was finished rewriting, check out Appendix D, the first chapter of the published Crazy For You.
Quinn saw the dog as she came out the back door of the high school, bracing herself against the January wind, her arms full of purse and gradebook and portfolios of sophomore charcoal drawings. She thought No, and then the dog skittered across the slick parking lot, scrambling away from the boom of a senior’s Mustang—Corey Possert leaving early from weightlifting, feeling pumped and macho—and she tried to be firm with hers
elf. She was not going to rescue another dog, especially not on a cold afternoon when she had people to meet and things to do.
Then the dog slipped again as it tried to get traction on the ice before it went under the band van (NEW BERLIN HIGH SCHOOL BAND: THE BEST DARN HIGH SCHOOL BAND IN OHIO) parked against the building, and Quinn closed her eyes, knowing she was doomed, knowing she was going to have to go after it. But not alone. She was going to need help getting it out from under the van, and that would probably take two people because in her experience stray dogs that ran under cars were harder to rescue than the ones that came trotting up, sure they’d be loved. The ones that hid under things took some convincing that she was on their side.
The only person on the playground was a tramp in a red plaid hunting cap, hanging around the teacher’s cars. Not her first choice. Bill was still inside, cheering his weight-lifters on to greater groans. But if she asked him for help, she’d have to listen to practical suggestions, like maybe the dog had rabies, like calling animal control, like leaving it to find its own way home, as if it’d be out in this cold if it had a home. Darla was on her way to the restaurant, Steph was probably already there, her mother was never a possibility. And then there was Nick. The good thing about her ex-brother-in-law was that he wouldn’t make her mortgage her soul for his cooperation, he’d just say no or yes and then follow through. But he was across town at the garage, and the dog might be gone by the time he got here.
So she’d just have to do it herself. Quinn walked over and leaned her portfolios against the wheel cover, and then she knelt down in the slush and peered under the van.
The dog was little but not a puppy: wiry black body, skinny white legs, narrow head, worried eyes, everything held together with so much tension that the poor baby quivered with it.
I don’t need this, Quinn thought, but she said, “You okay?” cooing the words to the dog for comfort as she patted the ground. “Come here, sweetie.”
The dog shrank back against the far tire and the wall of the building, its stilt-like legs stretched out in front of its body, pushing it out of the wind and out of reach. It looked cold and scared and hungry, and Quinn’s heart broke. No animal should ever look like that.
“Come here, baby.” She patted the icy ground again. “Come here. I’m sorry if I sounded grumpy. Let me get you some place warm.” She made coaxing noises, clicking her tongue, and the dog peeled its eyes back and quivered harder.
The back door to the gym slammed open to hoots and laughter and the slap of hands shoving and a shouted “fuck” countered with a muttered “dickhead.” Weight-lifting was over. The dog shrank back even farther, as if trying to disappear into the tire, and Quinn sympathized. A little weight-lifter went a long way.
“Lose something, McKenzie?” Jason Barnes said from behind her and without turning to look at what she knew would be there—six feet of grinning, clueless high school jock in a letter jacket and Air Jordans—Quinn said, “Jason, go get me two hamburgers, now.” She fumbled with her purse, not taking her eyes off the dog who didn’t take its eyes off her. “Here.” She stuck a couple of bills at him behind her back, knowing him doubly because he was in her first period intro-to-art class and because he was one of Bill’s weight-lifters. She could trust him with money. “McD’s is fine. Hurry.”
Jason held his ground. “McKenzie, in case you haven’t noticed, schools out.”
“And it’ll be back in tomorrow and you’ll be sitting in my class again. How do you want me remembering you then, Barnes?” Quinn ducked her head lower to see the dog. It was shivering, shuddering really, out of control. Its coat was so short it looked slick instead of furry; it could die of the cold; it would die of the cold if she didn’t get it home. “Will you get a move on, Barnes?”
“This is blackmail,” Jason said as he took the bills, and then he crouched down beside her. “Oh. You didn’t tell me it was for a dog.”
“Dogs need to eat, too,” Quinn said. “If it’s for a dog, I’ll go faster,” Jason said. Quinn took her eyes off the dog for the first time and Jason stared back, standard-issue broad-faced, brown-haired high school jock, confident, arrogant, and a little slow about the finer things in life.
Or maybe not.
“You like dogs?” Quinn asked.
“Better than people,” Jason said.
“No kidding,” Quinn said. “This one’s cold and scared and hungry. We’ve got to get it out.”
“I’ll get the burgers,” Jason ducked his head under the van. “Hold on, kid. Food coming right up.”
“Thank you,” Quinn called back to him as he loped off to find his car.
“If I’m in an accident, my parents will sue,” he called back to her but she was already focused on the dog again and barely heard him.
“Come on, baby,” Quinn crooned, and the dog watched her, not making a sound. Could dogs get so cold they couldn’t bark or growl? “Come here, baby.”
More scrunching over the ice and somebody else came to stand beside her in Nikes the size of shoe boxes. The same size shoes she’d seen beside her bed every morning for the past year, every Saturday morning for the past three years. Quinn felt her panic over the dog ease a little bit to let some exasperation in.
“Quinn?”
“Not now, Bill.” Quinn scrunched lower on the ice and reached farther under the truck to pat closer to the dog. “Come here, baby. Come on.” She felt Bill kneel down close beside her, casting a shadow over her, and the dog looked even more anxious at the darkness. It wasn’t Bill’s fault that he was huge, but he could at least notice that he cast considerable shade where ever he went. “You’re blocking the light.”
Bill leaned to peer under the truck and groaned in what Quinn felt sure was supposed to be benevolent good nature. “Not another dog.”
“I sent Jason Barnes for hamburger,” Quinn said. “I’ll get her out and get her warm—“
“I don’t suppose we could just call animal control.”
Quinn clenched her teeth. “When she’s calm and she knows she’s safe, I’ll find her a good place to live. And no, animal control isn’t a possibility, are you nuts?”
“They don’t kill them all, Quinn.” Bill put his hand on her shoulder. “Just the ones that are sick.”
If she shrugged his hand off her shoulder, he’d be hurt, and that wasn’t fair; it wasn’t his fault he was irritating the hell out of her lately. “I’ll handle this,” Quinn said. “Go home. Oh, and that Possert kid was gunning his motor in the lot again. Yell at him.”
“It’s stupid, but it’s not a crime.” Bill moved his hand and stood up, and Quinn let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Look, some of the boys are still inside. I’ll get them to stand around the truck and we’ll shoo it out and they can—“
“No.” Quinn tried again. “This dog is scared enough. I have this under control. Jason will be back with the burgers, and that will do it. Go home.”
Of course he didn’t. Bill stood by his woman, even if it meant kneeling in slush. After fifteen minutes of Bill’s rational explanations of why it was illogical for her to sit in ice to save a stray dog, followed by plans that involved terrifying the dog further or calling in professionals, followed by a short re-cap of the weight-lifting hour, Quinn didn’t care if she hurt his feelings.
“You’re driving me crazy,” she told him. “Go home.”
Bill nodded, understanding. “At least let me put your stuff in the car for you.” He stood and picked up her portfolios, gradebook, and purse without waiting for her answer. “You stay here,” he said, as if she’d been planning to follow him, and while Quinn watched exasperated, he walked across the icy lot toward her aged CRX as if slipping weren’t a possibility. It probably wasn’t for him; Vikings loved ice, and at 6’5”, 243 healthy blond pounds, Bill was a Viking’s Viking. New Berlin loved him, a coach in a million, but Quinn was having doubts. And it was so unfair of her to have doubts. She knew he’d warm the car for her, first opening th
e door with his key instead of hers, another thing about him that irritated her, that he’d had that key cut without her permission three years ago, but since he’d had the key cut so he could keep her gas tank filled, it was completely illogical that she should be annoyed.
“He fills your gas tank every Saturday morning?” Darla had asked after Quinn had been seeing Bill for a couple of months.
Quinn had nodded. “He gets up, goes out for doughnuts, and fills the car with gas. I haven’t bought gas since January.”
“Maybe it’s for services rendered,” Darla said, grinning, and Quinn rolled her eyes.
“That’s what I’m worth, a tank of gas and a couple of doughnuts?”
“Times are hard,” Darla said. “And of course you get all the football and baseball games free. There’s a plus.” She’d stuck out her tongue to show how much of a plus she thought that was, and Quinn had laughed and told her how nice Bill was. And the sex was good, she’d told Darla, clean, healthy, athletic, coach-like sex. At the time, she’d really thought it was a plus.
Three years later, he was beginning to seem like a curse, but it was hard to complain about a man who was unfailingly generous, considerate, protective, understanding, successful, and who’d shelled out hundreds of dollars in fossil fuel for her since 1982. Really, the dumbass was the perfect man.
“As soon as I get you out from under this truck,” Quinn told the dog, “I’m taking a serious look at my love life,” but she knew even as she said it that it was cheap talk; she’d have to be demented to dump a good guy like Bill. Behind her, she heard a car start, and knew Bill would be warming it up for her, cleaning off the windshields, tidying up the trash in her front seat. Why did all that good stuff make her want to scream?