Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me

by Jennifer Crusie

  “Nope,” Emilio said. “I saw the way you looked at each other.”

  “That was fear and loathing,” Cal said, opening the door.

  “God, you’re dumb,” Emilio said, and Cal ignored him and went out into the dark to find Min.

  Chapter Three

  “Infatuation is the fun part of falling in love,” Cynthie said to David when they were ensconced in Serafino’s and the waiter had brought their very expensive filets and departed.

  David smiled at her and thought, I bet Min isn’t talking psychology with Cal. God knew what Min was doing with Cal. Whatever it was, he was going to have to find a way to stop it.

  “Infatuation triggers a chemical in the brain called PEA,” Cynthie said. “Your heart races, and you get breathless and dizzy, you tremble, and you can’t think. It’s what most people think of when they think of falling in love, and everybody goes through it.” She smiled a lovely, faraway smile. “Our infatuation was wonderful. We couldn’t resist each other.”

  “Hmm.” David picked up his blue-frosted margarita glass. “Tell me again how it’s not working out for them.”

  “Well,” Cynthie said, “about now, he should be realizing it’s time to cut his losses. He’ll take her to her car to make sure she’s safe, and then he’ll shake her hand and say, ‘Have a nice life,’ and that’ll be it.”

  “What if he was attracted to her?”

  “I told you, he wasn’t,” Cynthie said, but her smile faded. “But if he was, which he wasn’t, then he’d ask her out again and look for more cues, more evidence that she’s somebody he should love. Like whether his family and friends like her. But she’s not Roger’s type, he likes giggly little blondes, and I doubt Tony even saw her since he’s pretty much a breast-butt-legs man, so it wasn’t his friends who prompted him to pick her up.”

  “Hard to tell what made him do that,” David said, trying to sound innocent.

  “And she’s not going to meet his family, but even if she did, his mother would hate her, his mother disapproves of everything, so that wouldn’t be a cue, since Cal needs his family to approve of him.”

  “So you’re saying that’s all it would take for them to reject each other?” David said. “Friends and family disapproving?”

  “Unless she doesn’t like her family or wants to rebel against them. Then their disapproval would push her into his arms, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case.”

  “No,” David said, thinking of two dinners with Min’s parents in the past two months. “They’re very close.”

  “Then family and friends are very powerful,” Cynthie said. “Which is why I’ve been nice to Tony for nine months. But, David, it’s not going to happen. Cal is in the mature love and attachment stage with me, which means he won’t be attracted to Min.”

  “Mature love. That would be the, uh, fourth stage,” David said, trying to show he’d been listening.

  “Right,” Cynthie said. “Infatuation doesn’t last because it’s conditional and conditions change, but if it’s real love, it turns into mature, unconditional love, and new chemicals are released in the brain, endorphins that make you feel warm and peaceful and satisfied and content whenever you’re with the one you love.” She took a deep breath. “And miserable when you’re without him because if he’s not there, the brain won’t produce the chemicals.”

  “Oh,” David said, understanding now. “So you’re going through endorphin withdrawal.”

  “Temporarily,” Cynthie said, her chin up. “He’ll be back. He’s going without sex, which is pain, a physiological cue to deepen his attachment to me.”

  “Pain,” David said, thinking anything that hurt Cal was a good idea.

  Cynthie nodded. “In order to move from infatuation to attachment, Cal will have to feel joy or pain when he’s with Min. The joy could be great conversation or great sex, the pain could be jealousy, frustration, fear, almost anything that adds stress. The pain cue is the reason there are so many wartime romances. And office romances.”

  “Right,” David said, remembering an intern from his earlier years.

  “But I don’t think that’s going to happen tonight. I think he’s going to be bored. I must say that it’s a great comfort to know that your Min is dull and frigid.”

  “I didn’t say she was dull and frigid,” David said. “I wouldn’t date somebody who was dull and frigid.”

  “Then you should have stuck it out,” Cynthie said. “Infatuation lasts anywhere from six months to three years, and you can’t know you’ve found the right person until you’ve worked your way through it. You quit at two months so you couldn’t have reached attachment and neither could she.” She shrugged. “Mistake.”

  “Six months to three years?” David said. “And you pushed Cal after nine months?” He shrugged. “Mistake.”

  Cynthie put down her fork. “Not a mistake. I know Cal, I have written articles on Cal, and he is in the attachment stage, we both are.”

  David stopped eating, appalled. “You wrote about your lover?”

  “Well, I didn’t call him by his real name,” Cynthie said. “And I didn’t say he was my lover.”

  “Isn’t that unethical?”

  “No.” Cynthie pushed her plate away, most of her dinner untouched. “That’s how we met. I’d heard about him through a couple of my clients. He had quite a reputation.”

  “I know,” David said, thinking vicious thoughts about Cal Morrisey, God’s Gift to Women. “Totally undeserved.”

  “Are you kidding?” Cynthie said. “I was studying him, and he got me.” Her mouth curved again. “Nature gave him that face and body, and his parents gave him conditional affection as a child. He’s been trained to please people to get approval, and the people he likes to please most are women, who are more than willing to be pleased by him because he looks the way he does. So his looks guarantee assumption and his charm guarantees attraction. He’s one of the most elegant adaptive solutions I’ve ever observed. The papers I wrote on him got a lot of attention.”

  David tried to picture Cal Morrisey as a child, trying to earn affection. All he could come up with was a good-looking dark-haired kid in a tuxedo, leaning on a swing set and smiling confidently at little girls. “Did he know you wrote papers on him?”

  “No,” Cynthie said. “He still doesn’t. He never will. I finished that work, it’s over. I’m writing a book now, already under contract. It’s almost done.” She smiled, a satisfied feline smile. “The point is, I’m not some silly woman moaning, ‘But I thought he loved me,’ I have clinical proof he does love me. And he’ll come back to me soon, as long as your Min doesn’t distract him.”

  “So,” David said, leaning closer. “If we wanted to make sure they didn’t get to—what was it? Attraction?—what would we do?”

  Cynthie’s eyes widened. “Do?” She put her wineglass down and thought about it. “Well, I suppose we could talk to their friends and families, poison the well, so to speak. And we could offer them joy in different forms to counteract whatever happens between them. But that wouldn’t be . . . David, we don’t have to do anything. Cal loves me.”

  “Right,” David said, sitting back. Family, he thought. I have an in with the family.

  Cynthie smiled at him. “I’m tired of talking about them,” she said. “What is it that you do for a living?”

  David thought, It’s about time we got to me. He said, “I’m in software development,” and watched her eyes glaze over.

  Outside Emilio’s, Min took a deep breath of summer night air and thought, I’m happy. Evidently great food was an antidote to rage and humiliation. Good to know for the future.

  Then Cal came out and said, “Where’s your car?” and broke her mood.

  “No car,” Min said. “I can walk it.” She held out her hand. “Thank you for a lovely evening. Sort of. Good-bye.”

  “No,” Cal said, ignoring her hand. “Which way is your place?”

  “Look,” Min said, exasperated. “I can
walk—”

  “In the city alone at night? No, you can’t. I was raised better than that. I’m walking you home, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so which way are we going?”

  Min thought about arguing with him, but there wasn’t much point. Even one short evening with Calvin Morrisey had taught her that he got what he wanted. “Okay. Fine. Thank you very much. It’s this way.”

  She started off down the street, listening to the breeze in the trees and the muted street noises, and Cal fell into step beside her, the sound of his footfalls matching the click of her heels in a nice rhythm.

  “So what is it you do for a living?” she asked.

  “I run a business seminar group with two partners.”

  “You’re a teacher?” Min said, surprised.

  “Yes,” he said. “So you’re an actuary. I have a great deal of respect for your profession. You do it for money. I do it for recreation.”

  “Do what?”

  “Figure out whether something’s a good bet or not.” He looked down at her. “You’re a gambler. You do it with millions of dollars of an insurance company’s money. I do it with ten-dollar bills.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t lose any of my own money,” Min said.

  “Neither do I,” Cal said.

  “You win every bet?” Min said, disbelief making her voice flat.

  “Pretty much,” Cal said.

  “Hell of a guy,” Min said. “Is that why you went into business for yourself? So you could control the risk?”

  “No, I just didn’t want to work for anybody else,” Cal said. “That didn’t leave me any other options.”

  “We turn here,” Min said, slowing as they came to the corner. “Look, I can—”

  “Keep walking,” Cal said, and Min did.

  “So what’s the name of this company?”

  “Morrisey, Packard, Capa.”

  “Packard and Capa being the other two guys on the landing with you,” Min said. “The big blond and the bull—uh, the jock-looking one.”

  “Yeah.” Cal grinned. “Bull?”

  “One of my friends mentioned his head looked like a bullet,” Min said, wincing. “She meant it as a compliment.”

  “Bet she did,” Cal said. “That would be the redhead, right?”

  “You noticed her,” Min said, and felt a twinge.

  “No, the bullethead noticed her,” Cal said.

  “Don’t tell him she said that,” Min said. “She wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

  “It takes a lot to bring Tony down,” Cal said. “But I won’t mention it.”

  “Thank you.”

  The farther they got from the busier streets, the darker it became, even with the streetlights, and Min began to feel grateful he was there. “So why do people hire you to teach? I mean, you specifically. Instead of somebody else.”

  “We tailor the programs,” Cal said. “In any instructional situation, a certain percentage of the student population will fail to master the material. We guarantee one hundred percent and we stay until it’s achieved.”

  “That sounds like promotional literature.”

  “It’s also the truth.”

  “And you do this how?” Min said. “Charming them?”

  “What have you got against charming?” Cal said.

  “It so rarely goes hand in hand with ‘honest,’ ” Min said.

  Cal sighed. “People shut down because of fear. The first thing we do is analyze the students to find out who’s afraid and how they’re coping with it. Some of them freeze up, so we put them with Roger. Very gentle guy, Roger. He can reassure anybody into learning anything.”

  “That’s a little creepy,” Min said, trying to picture Roger as one of those slick self-help gurus.

  “You are a very suspicious woman,” Cal said. “Then some people hide their fear in wisecracks, disrupting class. Tony takes them. They joke around together until everybody’s relaxed.”

  “And who do you get?” Min said.

  “I get the angry ones,” Cal said. “The ones who are mad that they’re scared.”

  “And you charm them out of it,” Min said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way, but yes, I suppose that’s one interpretation.”

  The angry ones. They walked on in silence, their footsteps echoing together.

  Min looked up at him. “You must have felt right at home with me tonight.”

  “Nope,” Cal said. “You’re not mad because you’re scared. I doubt that much scares you. You’re mad because somebody was lousy to you. And there’s not enough charm in the world to get you out of that until you’ve resolved the deeper issue.”

  “And yet you kept on trying,” Min said.

  “No, I didn’t,” Cal said. “Once you’d told me you’d been dumped, I backed off.”

  Min thought about it. “I guess you did. Pretty much.”

  “Now aren’t you sorry you were such a grump all night?” Cal said.

  “No,” Min said. “Because you were pouring on the charm before that, which means you were trying to get something from me, God knows what—” Sex to win a bet, you beast. “—and you deserved to be called on that.”

  A few steps later Cal said, “Fair enough.”

  Min smiled to herself in the darkness and thought, Well, he does have an honest bone in his body. Too bad it’s just one. They walked on in silence until they reached the steps to her house. “This is it. Thank you very much—”

  “Where?” Cal said, looking around. “I don’t see a house.”

  “Up there,” Min said, pointing up the hill. “The steps are right there. So we can—”

  Cal peered up the hill into the darkness. “Christ, woman, that looks like Everest. How many steps are there?”

  “Thirty-two,” Min said, “and another twenty-six after that to get up to my apartment in the attic.” She held out her hand. “So we’ll say goodnight here. Thank you for the walk home. Best of luck in the future.”

  He ignored her to look up the hill again. “Nope. I’m not leaving you to climb up there in the dark.”

  “It’s okay,” Min said. “Seventy-eight percent of women who are attacked are attacked by men they know.”

  “Is that another shot at me?” Cal said.

  “No. I don’t know any men who would climb thirty-two steps to attack me, so I’m safe. You can go home with a clear conscience.”

  “No,” he said patiently. “I can’t. Get moving. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Behind her? Thirty-two steps with him looking at her butt? “No, you won’t.”

  “Look, it’s late, I’m tired, can we just—”

  “It’ll be a cold day in hell when you follow me up those steps. You want to go up, you go first.”

  “Why?” he said, mystified.

  “You’re not looking at my rear end all the way up that hill.”

  He shook his head. “You know, Dobbs, you look like a sane person, and then you open your mouth—”

  “Start climbing or go home,” Min said.

  Cal sighed and took the first step. “Wait a minute. Now you’ll be looking at my butt all the way up the steps.”

  “Yes, but you probably have a great butt,” Min said. “It’s an entirely different dynamic.”

  “I can’t even see yours,” Cal said. “It’s dark and your jacket is too long.”

  “Climb or leave,” Min said, and Cal started up the steps.

  When they got to the top, he hesitated, and she saw the mid-century stone and stucco house through his eyes, dark and shabby and overgrown with climbing rosebushes that were so ancient they’d degenerated into thornbushes. “It’s nice,” she said, on the defensive.

  “It’s probably great in the daytime,” he said, politely.

  “Right.” Min pushed past him to climb the stone steps to the front porch. She unlocked the door. “There, see? You can go now.”

  “This is not your door,” he said. “You said you live twenty-six steps up.
”

  “Fine, climb all the way to the attic.” She waved him in front of her into the square hall of the house. With him there, the faded blue wallpaper and dull oak woodwork looked shabby instead of comfortable, and that irritated her. “Up,” she said, pointing to the narrow stairway along one wall, looking even narrower now that he was at the bottom with what looked like several yards of shoulder blocking her way, and he climbed two more flights of stairs to the narrow landing with her following.

  He had a great butt.

  And that’s all that’s nice about him, Min told herself. Be sensible, keep your head here. You’re never going to see him again.

  “Well, at least you know anybody who walks you home twice is serious about you,” he said, as he reached the top.

  He turned as he said it, and Min, still two steps down scoping out his rear end, walked into his elbow and clipped herself hard over the eye, knocking herself enough off balance that she tripped back, grabbed the railing, and sat down on the step.

  “Oh, Christ,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He bent over her and she warded him off.

  “No, no,” she said. “My fault. Following too close.” Ouch, she thought, gingerly feeling the place he’d smacked her. That’s what you get for being shallow and objectifying the beast.

  “Just let me see it,” he said, trying to look into her eyes. He put his hand gently on the side of her face to tip her chin up.

  “No.” She brushed his hand away as her skin started to tingle. “I’m fine. Aside from being part of the seventy-eight percent of women who are attacked by—”

  “Oh, cut me a break,” he said, straightening. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She stood up again and detoured around him to unlock her door. “You can go now.”

  “Right.” He picked up her hand and shook it once. “Great to meet you, Dobbs. Sorry about the elbow to the head. Have a nice life.”

  “Oh, I’m going to,” Min said. “I’m giving up men and getting a cat.” She slipped inside and shut the door in his face before he could say anything else. Have a nice life. Who is he kidding?

  She turned on her grandmother’s china lamp by the door, and her living room sprang into shabby but comforting view. The light on her machine was blinking, and she went over and pressed the button, and then rubbed her temple while she listened.