why?
For those of you who wanted more of Welcome to Temptation, there was more in the early drafts. It just didn’t have anything to do with the story I was telling, so I cut it. But if you want caught up to date, here’s what Sophie said on the phone to Davy.
Deleted Scene from Faking It
“Hey,” Davy said when Sophie answered. “What’s ne—”
“Where are you?” she exploded. “I can’t believe you talked to Dillie and didn’t–”
“Columbus,” Davy said, moving the phone a little farther from his ear.
“—leave your num–Columbus?”
“Yeah,” Davy said. “State capitol. You may have–”
“That’s two hours from here.”
“I know,” Davy said. “Stop shrieking at me, woman. What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m having the week from hell,” Sophie snapped, “everything is going wrong, and the one person whom I would actually welcome seeing is two hours away and hasn’t even bothered to stop by. How long have you been there?”
“About a week,” Davy said, shaving some time off.
“A week?”
“Okay, you stop yelling now, or I’m hanging up.”
He heard some heavy breathing on the other end of the phone and then she said, “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Not a problem. How’s Dillie?”
Sophie groaned. “Don’t ask?”
“Okay, how’s Dempsey?”
“He’s teething,” Sophie said. “What are you doing in Columbus?”
“Nothing you want to know about. So what’s new with you?”
“I thought you were going straight,” Sophie said, caution making her voice soft again.
“I am,” Davy said. “For me, I’m practically a Boy Scout. So what’s making you nuts? Tell me everything.”
“Well, Stephen Garvey, for one thing,” Sophie said, mercifully distracted by her own problems. “Ever since his wife left him, he’d been stalking Liz, and it was making her crazy, so about two months ago, she went on this cruise to Greece.”
“I see nothing but good in that,” Davy said, remembering his sister’s Steel Magnolia of a mother-in-law.
“Yes, but she didn’t come back,” Sophie said. “She left the cruise and she’s on some yacht with some guy we don’t anything about. So Phin is not happy about that.”
“The woman’s in her fifties, how much trouble can she get into?” Davy said, and then remembered Gwennie. “I take that back. You better send in the marines.”
“Yeah, very funny,” Sophie said. “So having been dumped by two women in less than six months, Stephen not only hates me because I’m a Tucker and a Democrat and the mayor, he hates me because I’m a woman.”
“Ignore him.”
“He’s on the council. So every damn meeting, I get to hear about how being a woman I probably don’t know much about street repair, but when he worked on a street crew–”
“He never worked on a street crew,” Davy said.
“And then Hildy says something nasty about how he never worked on a street crew, but when she was building roads in the Peace Corps–”
“That I believe.”
“And then . . . ” Sophie went on babbling about her insane council and Davy listened to her with one ear, keeping the other for the shower and Tilda. Someday I’m going to be in there with her, he thought, and then realize he wasn’t. By the time someday got there, he’d be gone.
“Wait a minute,” Sophie said, and Davy brought his mind back to the conversation. “Dillie’s here . . . ” Her voice faded as she turned away from the phone. “It’s your uncle Davy. I’ll let you talk to him in a minute. Really? You sure? Okay.” Her voice grew louder as she turned back to the phone. “Dillie says hi and she loves you.”
“Back at her,” Davy said, hastily. “So Hildy was in the Peace Corps . . . ”
“And then there’s Dillie,” Sophie said. “She brought home this boy after school last week so he could help her with her softball swing, and Phin says he’s showing her all wrong and anyway, he taught her to swing a bat when she was six–”
“Oh, God,” Davy said, not into the phone.
“—so I said, ‘I don’t think it’s about softball’–”
“No, you didn’t,” Davy said, picturing his brother-in-law in cardiac arrest.
“—and then Phin realized it was a boy-girl thing–”
“—and he put Dill in a nunnery,” Davy said, just as the door opened and Tilda came in, bundled in her robe from her shower, smelling like cinnamon and distracting him again.
“Almost,” Sophie said. “I managed to sit on him long enough to convince him that talking to boys at twelve was part of normal socialization. Except that the kid has been over here every night after school, except when he has a game in which case Dillie goes, or when she has a game, in which case he goes, so–”
Sophie talked on as Tilda pulled the towel from her hair, and Davy watched all those little ringlets spring up around her face, shining damply in the lamplight.
“—and I can’t remember if Amy and I started doing boy-girl things at twelve, but Phin says considering my family that wouldn’t be a recommendation anyway.”
“You sure you love this guy?” Davy said, and Tilda sat down on the foot of the bed and raised her eyebrows in interest.
“Yes,” Sophie said. “He is my one and only. So did we?”
“I don’t think that matters,” Davy said. “The question is, do they do that now? Hold on a second.” He covered the receiver and said, “When did Nadine start bringing home boys?”
“Birth,” Tilda said. “She’s Gwennie’s granddaughter.”
“Right,” Davy said. “You’re no help at all.” He uncovered the receiver and said, “Look, they’re playing softball. Let them alone.”
“Who’d you just talk to?”
“Stop harassing your daughter.”
“Well, that’s what I thought. Besides he’s a really nice kid. And Phin went to school with his dad and mom–”
“Of course he did,” Davy said.
“—and they’re nice people, so I think he’s just bothered by the idea that Dillie’s hanging out with a boy–”
“Well, nobody knows the evil that men do better than he does,” Davy said, distracted again as Tilda crawled up beside him on the bed.
“—and twelve does seems a little young–”
“It’s Dillie,” Davy said. “She’s got more brains and sense than both of you put together. Leave her alone.”
“This is probably why she adores you,” Sophie said. “Of course when she runs off to Kentucky and gets married at fourteen–”
“You’re insane,” Davy said. “It’s living in that little town, it’s warped your brain.”
“So who’s there with you? Is it Simon? Bring him with you when you come home.”
“Simon is in town, but he’s not here and I will not drag him down to that hellhole.”
“It’s not a hellhole,” Sophie said automatically. “It’s a beautiful little town. So who were you talking to?”
“Why did Stephen’s wife leave him?” Davy said.
“I told you that months ago. Who’s there? Is it a woman? It’s a woman, isn’t it?”
“You may have told me but I don’t remember. I remember she was a lousy human being.”
“Yes,” Sophie said. “But when Rachel had the baby, Virginia went out to LA and moved into Leo’s guest house and a couple months ago she filed for divorce.”
Davy spared a thought for Leo, a man who did not suffer fools lightly even if they were his mother-in-law. “Have you heard from her lately? Because by now, Leo has probably had somebody drown her in the pool.”
“Who are these people?” Tilda whispered to him.
“There’s a woman there,” Sophie said. “I can hear her.”
“My landlady,” Davy said, looking down the front of Tilda’s robe. “She’s a hundred and two, and she’s asking for my rent. I have to go give it to her.”
“Wait, don’t hang up, when are you coming down here?” Sophie said.
“Next Sunday,” Davy said, watching the curve of Tilda’s terry-cloth-covered rear as she rolled out of bed away from him. “I have some things to finish here first. But then I will come visit. I swear. I even have a present for you.”
“Forget the present, bring your landlady,” Sophie said.
“I don’t think so,” Davy said.