A Good Little Girl Like You (A Sample)

The first thing Rebecca noticed when she came home

from the Westerley was that the television was on. She

briefly considered that there might be a burglar inside, but

then she recognized Quentin's favorite sports channel. The

announcer's voices were annoyingly familiar, shouting as

though they were reporting the end of the world, instead of

merely the end of a game.

Quentin was indeed there, standing in the living room

by a large cardboard box on the coffee table. He pulled

smaller boxes out of it and counted. She grabbed the remote

control and turned down the volume. Quentin kept

counting, "Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, . . ."

What is he doing here? He was not supposed to come

waltzing into her apartment anytime he wanted. Did she

have to explain "trial separation" to him? At this point, she

wondered if it would be better to explain the term

"permanent separation."

"I thought we were going to be apart for a while?"

Quentin waved his hand to cut her off. "Rebecca,

please. I'm trying to count." He kept pulling out the little

boxes and stacking them on the table, muttering the tally.

Oh no you don't. Not only was he barging back into her

life, he wasn't even apologetic about it. Typical, insensitive

Quentin.

She watched him count, staring in disbelief. "I don't

want you here, Quentin. Go home."

He stopped counting and tapped the number into his

phone before turning his attention to her. "I know you're

mad at me." Then he mumbled, "Although I still don't

understand why." She wondered if this was his idea of an

apology.

Apparently it was. He gave her an all-is-forgiven smile

and pointed to the big box. "Anyway, I had this sent here a

few weeks ago, so I came over to pick it up. I was just

looking through it."

Her curiosity won out over her annoyance. "What is it?"

He picked up one of the smaller boxes and opened it,

giving the contents a bigger smile than he ever gave her.

Inside were two plastic-wrapped lollipops. "It's my new

business, Executive Lollipops. They're the latest craze. I'm

going to make a fortune on this."

Another of his ill-considered business schemes. This idea

was the worst one yet. Quentin was intelligent, which

appealed to her, but he lacked common sense. Did he really

think he could get rich selling lollipops to adults? She

doubted that very much.

He continued his pitch, more excited than before. "I'm

going to take them to local shops and get everyone to sell

my lollipops. Look at this huge sucker!" He pulled out a

larger package and showed her an immense lollipop, as big