Nothing but Trouble

by Cathy Quinn

  She patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll chat to Ellen instead.” She snickered, knowing just where to hit him. “Maybe she can share some interesting stories of her own,” she added slyly.

  Chris groaned and put his head in his hands.

  Linda laughed. “I’m kidding, Chris. Really.” She kissed his temple as she stood up and pushed past him. “You’re sweet. Thanks for the ambush. I feel much better. You may now tell Ellen the whole story.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” She bit her lip. “I really don’t know.”

  “I’ll repeat my brilliant idea: Talk to him?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  Chris rolled his eyes. “Women. They’re obsessed with ‘talking things over’, but when something really needs to be talked over, it’s too complicated or too embarrassing or too difficult.”

  “I know,” she sighed. “Chris, can you do me a favor?”

  “What is it?”

  “Could you ask Ellen to ask Robert if he would mind giving me George? I know it’s silly, but I’m too nervous to ask him myself.”

  “George?”

  “Yes! George!”

  “Ah. Right. The mouse.” She nodded. “Will do.”

  Robert noticed Ellen peeking into his office for the seventh time this morning. He didn’t even bother looking up from his paperwork this time. Whatever it was she needed to say, she’d spit it out sooner or later. In the meantime, it was almost amusing to see what pretexts she came up with before backing out. “Do you need to borrow my stapler again, Ellen?”

  “No...”

  “Paperclips? A ruler? Or should I kick the photocopier for you again?”

  She approached his desk, biting her lip. “No. It’s something else. It’s that mouse... I wanted to ask.... I mean...” She put her hands in her lab coat pockets and stared at him. “Okay, this is it: Linda really wants that mouse back.”

  Aha. “It’s a rat, not a mouse. She wants it back? She never had it in the first place.”

  “Where is he, anyway? She wanted me to check if he was okay, but he’s not in the inner lab where she said he’d be.”

  “The rat is fine,” he mumbled, shuffling some papers. “It’s at home.”

  “At home? At your home?”

  Her tone was incredulous, but he wasn’t in the mood to explain that George was now a social rat who got all depressed and lonely if cooped up in a lab. Better just ignore the whole subject. “Yes. At home. My home.”

  “Well, can she have it?”

  “Maybe. Sometime. She’ll get visitation rights, if she wants them.”

  He had a feeling Linda would show up sooner or later to see her beloved George. That was part of his plan. When she did, she wouldn’t be allowed to leave until they had talked. He had a lot on his mind, but he needed to get it a bit more organized so he wouldn’t just growl at her like a wounded bear.

  Ellen looked more than a little confused and he didn’t blame her. “So, can I tell her she can visit the rat at your place?”

  He lifted his head. “Do you mean she asked you to ask me for the rat?”

  “Yes. Or rather, she asked Chris to ask me to ask you. And if I could, then take it home with me.”

  Robert muttered a curse. “I’m giving the rat to her in person, or not at all.”

  Ellen fidgeted. “Robert, I don’t know, but it sounds like it’s just all a big misunderstanding between you two. Can’t you work it out?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s no misunderstanding, Ellen. Everything’s very clear.” It was clear enough. Linda didn’t have enough faith in their relationship even to postpone that darned operation, or even to just ask him how he felt about it. Nor did she trust him to be there for her afterwards, as if her status as a procreating machine was the defining part of her. She had taken for granted he wouldn’t want her, so she had pushed him away and gone ahead with it anyway. And for reasons that seemed to have everything to do with a guilt trip from something that hadn’t been her fault in the first place. She was being an idiot.

  Or had all this gotten mixed up in his head? Was he the one being an idiot?

  He growled at his report. He was in love with a woman who didn’t care for him enough to take his feelings into consideration for something that would deeply affect their future as a couple. He could live with the thought of not having any children. What was killing him was her lack of trust in him, the way she seemed to want their lives to be parallel at the most. Never joined.

  Or was this all some misguided noble sacrifice on her half? He’d been pretty sure she was falling in love just as alarmingly fast as he was.

  They needed to talk, but she wasn’t very receptive. Maybe there was something to be said for the club and cave method, after all.

  He’d give talking one more try. Maybe she’d be more reasonable now that she’d gone ahead and had her darned operation.

  Pushing the papers away, he looked up at Ellen. “I’ll bring the rat over this afternoon, okay? But don’t tell Linda, she’ll just vanish if you do.”

  When he got to the house that afternoon, Ellen was already home, and she and Chris were sitting in the garden. Carrying George’s cage he walked towards them. “Hi guys. Did Linda run away yet?”

  Ellen brought a finger to her lips. “Ssssh. She’s inside. I’ll go get her.”

  He and George took a seat opposite Chris, who was staring at the cage. “That’s Linda’s pet? A rat?”

  “Yeah. Only, she thinks it’s a mouse.”

  Chris chuckled. “Oh. Are you going to tell her?”

  “I doubt it. The consequences might be catastrophic.”

  Ellen re-emerged, Linda right behind her. She stopped short when she saw him, and was looking about as lousy as he was feeling. Good.

  “Robert brought the rat over,” Ellen said cheerfully. “You can have it if you really want it as a pet, right Robert?”

  “Rat?” Linda recovered enough to laugh as she slid down on the bench next to Chris and reached across to stroke George through the bars. “He’s not a rat, just a mouse.” She looked at Robert. “Like I would ever touch a rat...”

  Robert failed to change his expression from guilt to innocence in time and with dread he watched Linda drew in a shocked breath as she stared at him in appalled disbelief. Uh, oh.

  Chris started laughing and Ellen joined him as Linda shot to her feet, hands on hips and eyes blazing, voice loud enough to carry into the next dimension. Robert cringed.

  “Did you let me make friends with a rat?”

  He raised his hands in supplication, wincing at her shrieking tone, but still, it was better than the way she’d been avoiding looking at him. Much better. “I didn’t think you would become best buddies, sweetheart. You were so pleased to be over your mouse phobia so I just let it go.”

  “Don’t sweetheart me!”

  “What difference does it make, anyway? They’re both rodents, close relatives. They’re practically the same. It’s not like you noticed a difference.”

  She gave a sound that in any other species would be construed as a snarl, a growl or a bark. Whatever it was, it signaled clear and present danger and gave him goose bumps, especially when combined with the sharp red nail of her forefinger pointed at his chest like a lethal weapon. “Practically the same? Hah! One is a cute little furry pet; the other is a sewer-dwelling pest-infested plague-carrying monstrosity. Sure, no difference at all!”

  Robert patted the top of the cage where the counterfeit mouse was curled up in a nest of wood shavings, napping. “Watch it, George will hear you. You’ll hurt his feelings. You’ll break his ratty little heart. It’s not his fault his species has a bad reputation.”

  “I’ll show you whose ratty heart will be broken...” Face red with fury, Linda charged to her feet and started towards him.

  Chris jabbed Robert in the side with his elbow. “Run for your life, man!”

  Grinning, Robert shot to his feet and d
arted along the side of the house. From the yelling behind him he knew she was in hot pursuit and he managed to cross the corner and hide behind a tree before she caught up. He snagged her by the waist and pulled her against him.

  “You’ll forgive me, won’t you?” he asked, imprisoning her between the tree and his body. Her rapid breaths puffed against his face, her sky-blue eyes were sparkling with fury and she had never looked more beautiful. He had to fight the urge to kiss her. She’d probably bite him in her current frame of mind and he had other plans for her mouth. “You won’t break my ratty little heart again, will you?”

  “You let me kiss a rat!” she screeched. “In my book, that makes you a rat! Give me one good reason to forgive you!”

  “You love me.”

  She scowled at him and he treasured the way she squirmed against him and hit his shoulders in her token attempts to get away. “Pretty sure of yourself, are you?”

  He hadn’t been. Not one hundred percent, but now he was sure. She didn’t deny it and, and the look in her eyes – underneath the fury, of course – told him it was true. Mingled with his relief was fear – would she try to push him away, loving him and knowing he loved her? He nodded and risked a kiss on the tip of her nose, well out of reach of those sharp white teeth. “I missed you. I was so furious with you for being so stubborn and breaking up with me, but I missed you anyway. Do you think you could ever marry a rat?”

  “Depends.” She stopped wriggling but didn’t look any friendlier. In fact, the look on her face was downright frosty. She shook the hair from her face and looked over his shoulder with a haughty expression. “If one ever asks me, I’d consider it, of course. A lady always gives due consideration to her suitors, rats or not.” She punched his shoulders again with her fists. “Now let me go!”

  Robert captured her wrists and imprisoned them above her head as he pressed even closer to her. “Don’t I get extra credit for finding that G-spot for you?”

  “You’re trying to make me blush. Well, I won’t. And for your information, any proposing rats will be judged on their eloquence at professing their love, as well as their sexual competence. So far, the contesting suitors have failed the eloquence test miserably.”

  She wasn’t looking into his eyes and he put one hand to her chin and forced her to look up. What he saw made him release her hands, but he still kept her imprisoned with his body. “Linda, you’re crying.”

  “I’m not. I’m allergic to pollen.”

  He stroked the tears away from her cheeks with his thumbs. “It’s autumn, sweetheart. There is no pollen. You’re crying.”

  “I’m not crying. I’m allergic to leaves, also.”

  “I love you.”

  She sniffed. “No, you don’t. You hate me because I told you I was getting a tubal ligation. You’re just infatuated with my ankles.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m infatuated with your ankles. And your hair, and your smiles, and the way you smell, and your sense of humor and even the way you love to torture me from the front row while I’m teaching.”

  That got a tiny grin. “I did learn quite a lot of elementary biology. You were right, it all depends on the instructor. For a rat, you’re not a bad teacher.”

  “And I do love you.”

  “No. You’re angry because of the sterilization thing.”

  “I’m not angry, Linda. I just disagreed. Strongly, I admit. I still think you shouldn’t have done it, but I do love you, intact Fallopian tubes or not.” His hand covered her mouth when she opened it to deny it for the third time. Her hands were imprisoned again as he put his mouth to her ear and became an eloquent rat for a long long time. By the time he had finished she had reclaimed her hands, her arms were around his neck and there were even more tears in her eyes.

  “Oh, Robert. I’m sorry for all the mess. I love you too.” She traced his mouth with a finger. “I had no idea you could be so romantic.”

  “It’s easy.” He grinned to cover up what felt suspiciously like a fog clouding his own eyesight. “If my mind is reserved, I just let my hormones speak. They want you in bed again and they can be very persuasive when they’re desperate enough.”

  She slapped his chest playfully. “Bed, bed, bed. That’s all you can think of, isn’t it?”

  “Not at all,” he scoffed. “I’ve also thought quite a lot about that shower you mentioned when we were bathing the Quad. We never got around to having one, and all my showers since then have been cold ones. I don’t know how I’ve managed to keep clean.”

  “We’ll kick Chris and Ellen off to Florida and in a few days we’ll have the house all to ourselves. We were going to paint and wallpaper, remember? You’ll be cute with paint in your hair.”

  “Do I get to chase you around the house with a wet paintbrush?”

  “Of course. What about kids?”

  “What kids? The Quad?”

  “No, our kids.”

  He hugged her. “Don’t worry. We’ll work it out. Even if we’ll never be parents, we’ll have the Quad to spoil.”

  “I do want kids. I didn’t... that doctor’s visit was just for birth control pills, not for sterilization. But I didn’t want you to start hating me some day for denying you children. And I didn’t realize until David got sick that my biological clock is not about to give in, and then when I thought about all you’d said about Barry....” She hugged him fiercely. “You were right. And I changed my mind. I want a kid. Maybe more, if the first one is as adorable as David.”

  Her rambling lifted his spirits even higher. He had been disappointed, even devastated for a while, finding out she did intend to go through with the operation. He’d gotten over it, more or less, but now everything was turning out... perfect. “You’ve got it. One kid, maybe more. But you have to wait a while. I want you all to myself first.”

  “Fine with me. Ellen told me you mentioned visitation rights for the rat. Why wouldn’t you let me have him?”

  “I wanted you back. I knew you’d come to see George. That would be my chance to lure you back.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Do you think I’d put up with that animal for any other reason than true love?”

  He got another kiss for that. “About that wedding...”

  “Yes?”

  She tilted her head and looked at him in a way that reminded him of Copernicus when he wanted tuna fish. Or Aphelion when he’d told her she could absolutely not have another bite of chocolate. Or a puppy who... He groaned as realization hit.

  “This is the puppy eyes look you warned me about before Ellen's wedding, isn’t it?”

  She only smiled.

  “No, Linda. No, no, no and no. I’m not having Aphelion and Perihelion at our wedding. That’s absolutely out of the question. No. No way. No. That’s final.”

  “But I really want them there. They brought us together. We might never have fallen in love if it wasn’t for the two of them.”

  “Did you borrow Ellen's script for this scene?”

  “Come on, Bob. It will be perfect!”

  “No. No way. And you have to call me Robert during the ceremony. If you call me Bob, I will turn you over my knee right there at the altar.”

  She gasped. “Really? And you call me kinky?”

  “Don’t change the subject. There will be nothing but homo sapiens at our wedding. That’s final.”

  She pulled him closer and whispered for a while into his ear. By the time she pulled back, he was smiling.

  “When you put it like that...”

  Linda grinned. “I knew you’d see it my way.”

  “Payback time. You’re brilliant. Can I break the news to them? I can’t wait to see Ellen figure out Aphelion’s dress.”

  Linda snickered. “I think Chris is a bit afraid of Perihelion. Oh, this will be fun. Too bad our back will be to them during the ceremony.”

  Robert smiled. “What about George? Will he be living with us?”

  Linda looked horrified. “The rat? In our home?”
>
  “Linda! He’s still your George, isn’t he?”

  “He’s a rat!”

  Robert shook his head ruefully. “You’re guilty of speciesism.”

  “Speciesism? Is that a word?”

  “Well, if it isn’t it should be. Rejecting poor little George just because you found out he’s a different species than the one you thought?”

  “But he’s a rat!”

  “He’s George! Your George. He’s still the cute little thing that’s been nuzzling your palm and looking unhappy when he’s lonely.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel guilty so I’ll forgive you for letting me think he was just a mouse?”

  “Is it working?”

  “Yes.” She wriggled out of his arms and started running. “I hope he forgives me,” he heard her mutter before she disappeared around the corner.

  Left alone under the tree, Robert grinned as he looked upwards to where the blue sky winked at him through the thinning crown of autumn leaves.

  The rat came first. Of course it did.

  The End