Crazy People: The Crazy for You Stories by Jennifer Crusie Page B

“Debbie Jo Headapohl, it is that kind of mouthy attitude that makes a man leave home.” And what I want to know, Ronnie, is why is it my fault you went to Lake Huron?
    Then the phone rang, and we went inside, and it was Darla, and she was starting to tell me what a dumbass Lori Schmidt was and how good she looked after I’d fixed her perm, and I said, “Darla, I can’t talk now, Mama’s here,” and she said, “Sweet Christ,” and hung up. And then Mama went on about how you were a good provider, and that you’d surely come to your senses once you got a good look at Barbara in the daylight because her pores were a disgrace, and on and on until Darla drove up and came in wearing her T-shirt that says “Jesus is Coming, Look Busy.” She said, “Hi, Mama, I was just going to Big Bear and stopped to see if Debbie was needing anything, like maybe some rat poison for that faithless, sorry skunk she married.” And Mama said, “Now, Darla, Ronnie’s just going through a stage here,” and then she got a good look at Darla’s T-shirt and said, “You are not going to the grocery in that shirt, Darla Jean Headapohl, what would the neighbors think?” And Darla said, “Well, I am going to,” and Mama followed her out to the car, and they had a good five minute argument, and then Darla got in her car, and Mama got in hers to follow her home and yell at her some more. I’m telling you, Ronnie, I know you don’t like Darla much, but there are times when I purely love her. Even if she wasn’t my sister, I’d love her, even though she tells me I’m a dumbass when I say that I’m understanding why you’re doing this.
    But the thing is, I lied, Ronnie, because I am really not understanding this at all. I do not understand how you can leave a wife who’s been good to you for twenty-six years for some bank teller you can’t hardly know unless you’ve been seeing her awhile, which is what Darla says that people are saying now, but then she never did like you. And I cannot understand how you can cheat on me because I was always true to you, Ronnie, even that time last year when Darrin Mueller—yes, your best friend Darrin Mueller, the one who beat you out for MVP on the football team senior year in high school but I didn’t care because I loved you, the one who got picked for the Western Ohio Buckeye League All-Star team and you didn’t but I loved you best anyway, that Darrin Mueller—put his hand on my knee and told me what he’d like to do with me if you ever went out of town. Darrin told me that I was the kind of wife every man dreamed of having, and that you were the luckiest son of a bitch in the world, and that you didn’t appreciate me. And then he told me he had ways of appreciating a woman like me, and he told me some of them, and they were interesting, I must say, and as you know, Darrin’s been lifting weights down at the high school while you’ve been lifting beers down at the alley, and he is looking good for a man of our age. But I was strong, Ronnie. I said, “Darrin, you are one fine-looking man, and I appreciate the suggestions and the imagination it took to come up with them, but I belong to Ronnie Luterbein and will until the stars run out of shine.” That’s what I said, Ronnie. That’s how much I love you. And then you go to Michigan with Barbara Niedemeyer, of all people.
    And then I started to think, you probably figure you’re moving up, Barbara wearing suits and all since she’s a teller with her own window. And that makes me a little mad, Ronnie, because I’d like to remind you that she’s got nothing but high school, while I am a licensed cosmetologist by the state of Ohio and a D-cup, a little lower than it used to be but still a D-cup, and that’s a combination that’s hard to find. And it certainly beats somebody with no higher education stuck behind Plexiglas sporting an A-cup, if you can call that a cup. I don’t know where your mind was when you went with her, I truly