Davy pushed up her T-shirt, narrowly missing her chin, and she yanked it back down again as he pulled her hips down to his. The pressure there was nice as long as she kept her eyes closed and thought, LouiseLouiseLouise. Then he stopped kissing her long enough to strip off her jeans and slide between her legs. Maybe not, she thought, as he shoved off his jeans. Birth control, we didn‘t-

“Wait,” she said, opening her eyes, careful not to look down. “I don’t have-”

He held up a condom and went for her mouth again, and she thought, If I say no, he’ll stop, and then we’ll have to talk about it, and that’ll be terrible, and he did feel good, if she could just get her head straight-

Come on, she told herself, and tried to work herself into the mood, concentrating on how solid his arms were around her, how wonderful it was to be held, how good his mouth felt, finally generating enough heat that when he pulled her hips to his and she felt him hard against her and then hard inside her, it didn’t hurt-there’s a recommendation for you, she thought: it didn’t hurt.

She moaned for effect, more surprised he was inside her than shocked-this is what happened when you didn’t pay attention, they got ahead of you, and there you were-and it wasn’t that she wasn’t ready, exactly, it was more that Louise would have felt more. There would have been gasping with Louise, she was sure of it.

Of course, Louise wasn’t asthmatic.

She began to move with him, trying to pick up his rhythm, which was hard because she kept slipping down the couch. Oh, hell, she thought, and moved her hand to brace herself on the back of the couch and caught him across the nose.

Don’t have a nosebleed, she thought, please don’t have a nosebleed, but he just said, “Ouch,” and kept going.

Single-minded, she thought. Okay, there is no Louise, Louise is like the Easter Bunny, so just breathe heavy and get this over with and never go near this man again.

She took deep breaths, not even trying to match his because they were never going to be in sync, and once she stopped trying and started breathing, things got better. He picked up speed, and Tilda tried to imagine the tightening of her muscles and did a damn good job with those moans as the minutes passed and her pulse picked up. Then he shifted against her and hit something good, and she sucked in her breath and thought, Wait a minute, this could-but even as she had the thought, he shuddered in her arms and that was it. Just hell, she thought, and finished off with an oh-my-god-that-was-good moan-sigh combo.

So much for channeling her inner Louise. He was semi-mindless on top of her now, so she held him, patting him on the back while he caught his breath and Pippy Shannon sang “I Pretend” on the jukebox. Our song, Tilda thought.

Steve dozed on the rug beside the couch, oblivious to both of them. He had the right idea. She should have taken a nap instead.

Then Davy pushed himself up on one arm and looked in her eyes, nose to nose. “So what was that?” he said, still breathing hard, looking mad. “A fake or a forgery?”

“Hey.” She tried to sit up, and he shook his head.

“You’re a terrible actress,” he said, and collapsed on top of her again.

“Your foreplay was okay,” she said crushingly to the top of his head. “Your afterplay sucks.”

“Sorry,” he said, clearly not, and eased away from her, and she looked at the ceiling as she pulled up her jeans, and he got rid of the condom and got dressed.

“Well, gee, I can’t thank you enough,” she said when they were both clothed again. She made her eyes wide. “What a good time.”

He shook his head and turned away from her. “Good night, Tilda. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Ouch, she thought, and then he turned back and said, “Look, don’t fake. It’s lousy for everybody.”

“Gee, you sounded like you were having a pretty good time,” Tilda said, stung.

He started to say something and then shook his head again and headed for the door.

When he was gone, Steve jumped up on the couch again and Tilda patted him and tried to blame everything on Davy, but fairness got in the way. Okay, so it hadn’t been good. That was her fault. She wanted to be Louise and she wasn’t. She was a fake, she just wasn’t a hot fake.

Although she was sure as hell a tense fake, damn it.

And if he were any kind of a lover, he would have known something was wrong.

She punched buttons on the jukebox and decided to forget about Davy and concentrate on the comfort of music. She lay down on the couch and Steve climbed on top of her stomach and stretched out, his nose underneath her chin. “Lotta guys doing that tonight,” she told him and when he looked at her adoringly, she relented and patted him. “You’re a good man, Steve. Needy, but good.”

That was one thing Davy wasn’t. She had to give him that. Completely self-sufficient, didn’t need her for anything. Davy would never tell her she had to choose between him and her family. Of course, Davy would never propose, either. That was the problem with independence. It so rarely went well with commitment. Which she didn’t want anyway because she had enough people to take care of.

Maybe that’s why I don’t miss Scott, she thought and then shoved Scott and Davy and uncompleted sex-not that that was bothering her-out of her mind and let the music fill the void until she heard Andrew and Louise come in the back door and hit the stairs. If they were home, it was past midnight.

She got up as the jukebox began to play “The Kind of Boy You Can’t Forget,” and picked up the painting from the table. “Well, let’s look at you,” she said. “You’re the one that started this mess.” She tore the paper off and then stopped, staring at the cupped yellow flowers that rioted under the checkerboard sky while the Raindrops burbled, “I ain’t got over it yet.”

Flowers. Not houses, flowers. He’d stolen the wrong damn painting again. Her already tense system split down the seams, and she headed for the stairs.

She stomped on every tread as if it were Davy’s head as she climbed the three stories to his door, Steve trailing dutifully behind her. “Open up!” she said, pounding on it, not caring who heard.

After a minute he opened the door, wearing nothing but black boxers, looking sleepy and annoyed. “Look, if this is about the couch, I don’t want to hear-”

She shoved the canvas at him. “I said a city?” Snapping at him felt wonderful, really, she just wanted to rip him apart. “These ate flowers.”

He took it and shoved it back at her, pointing at the houses in the distance. “Those are houses. See? Those little red things? That’s a city”

“Yes, little” Tilda spit back. “In the background. Everybody knows if you say city, it means a big city, it means what the picture is about.”

“That’s true,” Dorcas said from the doorway behind them as she peered at the painting from her doorway. “That’s a painting of flowers.”

“Thank you, Dorcas,” Tilda said. “Go away.”

“This is so like you,” Davy said, ignoring Dorcas. “It’s all about what you know and I don’t. I don’t know who Gene Pitney is, so it’s my fault.”

“ ‘Town Without Pity,’” Gwen said from below on the stairs. “What’s going on?”

Davy jerked his head back from Tilda. “Why are you here?” he asked, looking down the stairwell at Gwen.

“I live here,” Gwen said. “Why are you shouting about Gene Pitney?”

“ ‘True Love Never Runs Smooth,’” Louise said from behind her, her black china-doll wig swinging away from her stage makeup as she stretched to see the painting.

“‘Only Love Can Break a Heart,’” Andrew said, from behind Louise.

“ ‘One Fine Day,’” Dorcas said, from behind Tilda.

“That’s the Chiffons,” Tilda said to Dorcas, fed up with everybody. “Will you people please go back to bed?”

“I wasn’t the one screaming in the hall,” Dorcas said and shut her door.

“She has a point,” Gwen said. “What’s going on?”

“Did Davy say something bad about Gene Pitney?” Nadine said, from farthest down the stairs. “Because I think he has a point.”

“It’s not about Gene Pitney,” Davy said, fixing Tilda with cold eyes. “It’s about people who do not give other people the information they need to get the job done.”

“What job?” Louise said, her eyes dark behind black contacts. “Is that the painting?” Tilda turned it so she could see it. “Oh. No. It isn’t.”

“You got the wrong one again?” Gwen said.

“Hello,” Davy said, squinting at Louise in the dim hall with interest. Suddenly he wasn’t nearly as sleepy or annoyed, and Tilda wanted to kick him.

“Hello.” Louise handed the painting back to Gwen, looked him up and down and smiled, and then faded down the dark stairs in her four-inch heels, probably trying to get away before he noticed she was Eve.

Davy stretched his neck to watch her go as Tilda took the painting back from Gwen. “If you’re all finished yelling at me,” he said, when Louise was history, “I’d like to go to bed. Alone.”

“Not a problem,” Tilda said, and he slammed the door in her face.

“So, the evening went well, did it?” Gwen said.

“No,” Tilda said. “The evening sucked. But don’t worry, I will figure out a way to get the right painting back.” She went down the stairs, Steve on her heels once more, slammed the office door behind them, threw the painting back on the table, and plopped herself down on the couch, determined not to cry. It had been a horrible, horrible night. She felt her face crumple. It had been-