Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Crusie

not. She had enough problems without committing adultery. Aside from the fact that it was wrong, adultery in Frog Point got you your own miniseries on the grapevine.
    Still, the thought of revenge was lovely. And, she was surprised to realize, the thought of confounding the town by not being a good girl was pretty attractive, too, as long as all she did was think about it, not do it.
    Reba McEntire took over the radio from Patsy, and Maddie turned a corner only to brake a good ten feet short of the next stop sign for a little multicolor mutt. It was sitting in the middle of her lane, scratching an ear, unimpressed with her car. “No hurry,” she told it, and Em relaxed and laughed.
    Then Em became very still and turned to her mother, her eyes wide with innocence behind her glasses. “I bet that dog doesn’t have a home. Maybe we should adopt it.”
    Maddie peered at the dog over the steering wheel. It was wearing a red collar, and its tags jingled as it scratched. “It belongs to somebody, Em. It’s probably on its way home.”
    “Well, then,” Em said. “Maybe we could go buy a dog and give it a home. As a good deed.”
    Maddie leaned back. Angel Daughter cashes in, she thought. Finally. “Okay, spill it. What’s up?”
    Em gave up and slumped back on the seat. “I want a dog. I want one really, really bad. And I’ve been good. And my birthday’s coming up.”
    “Your birthday’s in January,” Maddie said.
    Em groaned. “I knew you’d say that. Listen, we really need a dog, Mom. We do.”
    “This is because of ‘Frasier,’ isn’t it?” Maddie said. “Em, it’s not as easy as it looks on TV. You have to take care of a dog—”
    “I know,” Em said with such satisfaction that Maddie knew she’d been had. Em crawled around the seat and brought up a batch of library books. “I’ve been studying.”
    Maddie looked at the books. Caring for Your Puppy. The Complete Book of Dog Care. Dog Lore. No Bad Dogs. There were others in Em’s lap.
    “I read them all, even the hard ones,” Em said. “I can do it. Please .”
    Maddie’s first impulse was to say no, that she had too much to deal with already, but Em was so earnest. And Brent would hate having a dog, which was a major selling point. And a dog might distract Em if there was a divorce coming up, something she could hold on to while the rest of her world fell apart.
    Em looked at Maddie as if her entire life depended on what Maddie said next.
    “All right,” Maddie said. “We’ll go to the pound when we get back from Daddy’s.”
    “Yes!” Em bounced on the seat.
    “But you’ll take care of it—”
    “Yes, I will, I know how to, I will, I will, I love you, Mom!” Em bounced and bounced, her grin swallowing her face.
    The mutt stopped scratching and yawned, and Em laughed again, and the world seemed a good place for a moment. Maybe I won’t go up to the company to see Brent, Maddie thought. Maybe we’ll go get a dog instead. Or maybe I’ll just stay here parked in the middle of the street. Maybe if she never got to the corner, things wouldn’t change.
    Then she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the ancient Datsun hurtling around the corner toward them.
    She turned in panic to warn Em, but her voice was lost in the scream of peeling tires and slammed-on brakes and the gut-wrenching scrunch of pleated metal. She felt the blow of the impact on her back, and her head jerked forward as the seat gave beneath her and slid and the radio cracked into silence, and then her head whipped back and smacked sickenly into the headrest behind her.

    Three
     

    “Em,”Maddie said, when everything stopped moving.
    Em—short, relaxed, and wrapped in her seat belt—sat unhurt, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “I’m okay, Mom. Wow.”
    “Are you sure? Does your neck hurt?” Maddie’s neck hurt.
    “I’m okay. Boy, he really hit us.”
    Maddie pushed her car door free of the buckled frame, and small metal things tinkled onto the