Sounds Like Crazy by Shana Mahaffey Page B

it.”
    “Give me his number then.” I prayed she was bluffing. She’d told me they were in regular contact since she got married. Sarah had believed his paltry, overcome-with-grief, felt-trapped, want-to-make-up-everything, please-forgive-me excuse. I believed leopards never changed their spots. I didn’t want to risk seeing those spots for this opportunity.
    The door buzzer sounded. I stood up, reached around the doorjamb, and found the intercom. “Babe, it’s me.” It was Peter. Perfect timing.
    “Sarah, Peter’s here.” I pushed down on the buttons until the door buzzer sounded.
    “I heard,” she said.“We’re not through with this conversation. I want you to explain to me how you are going to do this.” That explanation would definitely take longer than the three flights of stairs the banned boyfriend was now climbing.
    “Are you going to make me call the Father?” I held my breath.
    “Call me tomorrow and we’ll see. I can’t believe Milton is going along with this,” said Sarah.Then I heard a dial tone.
    If Sarah was going to abandon my fate to my father because I’d made a decision she didn’t like, she would have said good-bye.
    I heard a knock. I stepped into the bathroom, kicked the gravel from the cat box under the claw-foot tub, stepped out of the bathroom, and opened the door. Peter tilted his head to the left and smiled at me.
    You might wonder how a woman with five voices in her head can manage a relationship. I found out several years ago in therapy, when I started using my boyfriends as fodder for discussion as well
as diversion from the things I wanted to avoid, like the Committee and whatever they kept hidden in the corner closet: the closet I didn’t go into ever, under any circumstances. Everyone should know their relationship patterns. Mine was an uncanny ability to attract men who wanted a relationship based on projection instead of intimacy. Then I sabotaged the relationship when the blinders came off. Operation Destroy My Relationship had been well under way before my thirtieth birthday. Now the voice-over training was giving me and Peter a last-minute stay of execution.
    Turned out training to be one of Walter Torrent’s voice-over artists included a number of social engagements. Peter had immediately volunteered to escort me to the first one. It was no surprise that he did a great job.When Peter and I first met, he was at the peak of his transformation from an ascetic lifestyle and two years in seminary to his own version of nihilism, which included beautiful clothes, beautiful girls, and many late nights in clubs. Even though his studies forced him to limit the partying, he hadn’t lost his touch. With Peter as my date, I was able to hang back, mute, while he charmed everyone at the event, and then deftly got us out when he noticed my fake, flat smile in response to being called “our Little Waitress” one too many times. Given that I couldn’t rely on any Committee members to help me through the social engagements, I didn’t question Peter’s motivation, or mine.
    “Holly?” he asked. I gazed deeply into his eyes, hoping to find a glimpse of that rush I used to feel at the sight of him. All I noticed was the different blues of his irises.“Holly?” My thoughts receded as I smiled at Peter. He put his hands on my cheeks and straightened my head. Then he kissed me on the nose and said, “You ready?”
    I still felt nothing. “Yeah,” I said, stepping onto the landing and pulling the front door toward me.

    “Do you need a jacket? Your keys?”
    “Oh, right.” I stepped backward and glanced furtively around.
    “On the bed,” said Ruffles inside my head.
    I leaned over to grab my bag. I felt Peter’s eyes on my double-wide ass sticking up in the air. No amount of starving made my butt any smaller. My only hope was large-pocket jeans, for all the good they did. I snatched the shoulder strap of my bag and turned, expecting to find a look of disgust on