"Double Trouble"，"Back To The Bedroom", ("Quinn")

[fiefoe]

Deborah Cooke/Claire Cross
女主是住在改造过的前糖果工厂里的自由程序员 (oh the early days of WWW)，刀子嘴豆腐心，twin离家出走后边怨着边照顾老爸和两个侄子； 男主是她孪生姐妹夫/精英律师，因为被发现不是亲生的被赶出家族律师事务所。中间揭秘他们青葱年代的失之交臂 -- 男主丢了女主电话号码，和她twin pair up，女主一个人在日本时流产 -- 有点狗血但两人之间的zizzle 全程沸腾。女主喜欢穿五彩斑斓的服饰，最后的IRS-free party上穿flamingo 大红裙上场。Boston的local flavor 加分。第一人称的限制让偷听/旁听戏多了些。

• Maybe it’s the role-playing games to which we’re all addicted. Maybe it’s spending too much time solo, maybe it’s the lack of a sexually integrated culture or maybe it’s just too many people who were labeled too smart too soon, so never learned their social p’s and q’s. Doesn’t matter. As more-or-less a female lone wolf in a den of horny men, I cover my own butt, thanks just the same.
• Semper. Always. Ubi. Where. Sub. Under, beneath. Ah, like submarine and subway. Cool. Ubi, again. Where. Always where under where. I looked the words up again, but there it was. I said it under my breath and then the light went on. Always wear underwear.
• “I see. And since I am not your son, then ipso facto the boys are no longer your grandsons. They’re worthless to you, too, aren’t they? It’s quite a flattering self-portrait you paint, Judge Robert Coxwell.”
• Don’t even go there, Maralys. With Marcia gone 404 and James going cuckoo, I could end up with kids after all. Wait, I feel a nervous breakdown coming on. I stopped cold in the street, feeling decidedly queasy. No doubt about it, I was coming down with a bad case of dependencies. This called for sushi.
• “You could call it a breach of the understood t’s and c’s. Terms and conditions,” he amended when I looked blank. “You could certainly use it as a justification to amend your t’s and c’s, if not your price. That’s a big variable. It could be argued that it was incumbent upon them to make that clear to you at the outset.” I wagged the knife at him. “Careful, Coxwell. I’m starting to like you.”
• “You must have been in Japan for a couple of years.” James took a neutral tone so deliberately that it couldn’t be an accident.
• We stood for an eternity like that, cloaked in the shadows of the loft, serenaded by Ella and the distant rumble of traffic, staring into each other’s eyes while his thumb moved back and forth, back and forth. Oh yeah, Ella, in Boston even beans do it.
• Well, the flower power zip ankle slim pants were an obvious choice to go with the boots, as was the chunky funnel neck yellow sweater. A pair of St.Laurent-ish frames that were yellow-tinted shades and I was ready to rock. Little Miss Psychedelic Citrus.
• Johnny opened the door, his gaze flicking from me to my father. The boy could smell conflict a bit too well, which was a shame at his age. I guessed that he’d had a few good whiffs of it in this house.
• James’ words were low and soft when he continued and I was amazed at the tenderness in the way he held her hand. “You’re forgetting that I remember having a sober mom. The others probably don’t.”
• She was back in her usual mode, brow furrowed. “This designer stuff is hell to alter all those linings and flat-felled seams to pick out and replicate and it’s not worth it unless you just can’t live without the piece here let me show you.”
• I launched an aircraft carrier’s worth of paper airplanes—all with exceedingly excellent design—while I waffled. The fallen glowed in the light from the monitors, a fleet of indecision all over the hardwood floors.
• He smiled, his eyes opening just enough to reveal bright green. “Just playing that ‘anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ theme song, are you? Do you know any other tunes?”
• “Do you ever think,” he asked softly without looking at me, “that the people who find it tougher to say what they’re feeling are the ones who feel things more intensely? As if they’re the ones who really understand what it means to love someone? As if they have to keep their defenses high, because they care too much and have too much to lose?”
• “Hey, maybe you prefer men who are really little boys. Maybe you like being in charge. Maybe you don’t want to lose control by trusting someone.” James turned to face me, his expression avid.
• The wind bit at my face, the air salty from the sea. There were a thousand stars in the sky and a million lights in the city. It was magical, it was perfect, it blew the old skin of me away and buffed the new me to a sheen.
• I shook a finger at him, enraged by his attitude. “You are not going to lay this at my door! You’re the one who married my sister.” “Only because I was looking for you!”
• but I ducked out of his grip and retreated. I’d been angry with James for so long, with life for so long, that it didn’t seem fair to suddenly find out that he had tried to make it right. Talk about losing my pointer.
• Cephalopoda—which include octopus and squid—are distinguished by highly developed eyes, differentiated sexes, and the ability of the female to generate a shell as protection for her eggs. Unusual in the class, both male and female Nautilus create shells with multiple chambers. It is interesting to note that despite their impressive defenses and carnivorous diet, neither male or female Nautilus is toxic. —J.
• So, Ariadne was the babe with the ball of twine and the plan. And the objective of the group is to share contacts and connections and help each other succeed in what is pretty much uncharted territory for women.
• “My newest plum theory is that the popularity of the soul patch is utterly responsible for the sudden outbreak of chastity among post-pubescent women.”
• It was the night I told the Ariadne’s about James and Marcia and the baby and me. It was the night that I let the Ariadne’s really be my friends.
• Twosomes exist to draw attention to contrasts, to not only identify but to add a moral judgment of opposing ends of the spectrum. You can even look at the words themselves to see the truth of our bias: Bi-polar disorder. Double Trouble. Two-faced. Terrible twos. Double-dealing.
• the one who has become convinced that love and happiness are things bestowed upon other people. People who are not wicked. Or perhaps, people who snagged the better role early and held on to it for dear life.
• Marcia knew you were twins, even if James didn’t. She must have done the math right from the beginning.”... “Didn’t you think it was weird that you never got to meet the boy wonder?” “No. I was too busy barfing my eyes out
• Dear Aunt Mary— Fat chance. Persistence is the key to success—and if you knew the lady in question, you’d know that she talks tougher than she is. “Jimbo” It was really odd to know that James was online at the same time as me. I logged off quick, and got back to the work at hand, fending off the warm fuzzies.
• You’re the broom that sweeps clean, Maralys. You go after all the preconceptions, shake them up and make me look at them again.”
• We went from there to a seminar that Lydia was helping to organize. It was part of a program associated with one of the hospitals, which did a lot of facial surgery on children. The idea was to help kids look past the deformities of other children, and thus to be less aware of their own.
• “What would you have done?” I shrugged. “Probably made a joke at Louie’s expense and stayed cool.” “Like—it takes one to know one.” “Something like that. Or, is that why your mom left?” “Oh yeah!” Jimmy bounced. “His parents are divorced, too!” “I’m glad you’re all so well-adapted.”
• And I understood that maybe I wasn’t the only one afraid of the intensity of my feelings. I ran my fingertips down his cheek to his chin, feeling the stubble of his beard, then caressed his lips. He felt all new to me, he was new in my realization of what was between us.
• “Things might not have been as good between us,” I dared to suggest. “It doesn’t say anywhere that it would have been better.”
• I had to get married in the islands as it was illegal to wear something so flash for nuptials in the forty-eight contiguous states.

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What Janet Evanovich truly holds dear must be: sassy old ladies with guns, real estate, and retro macho men. This title was written when women (and only women) were supposed to bring baked goods to their new neighbors.

On one side is David, nominally a jobless bum (but no slouch in pursuing his flame), and on the other is cellist Kate, who's driven and doesn't stop and smell the roses. Within 10 minutes of a camera crashing into Kate's roof from a helicopter, the two erstwhile mere acquaintances have started flirting. Circumstances that throw them together didn't let up after that: Kate's leg got broken, Elsie the gun-toting grandma moved in, her parents came to have dinner when the police raided a drug house nearby. I.e. slapstick gold.

• The house was dominated by a rounded half-turret facade with a conical gray tile roof tipped in silver and topped with a flying horse weather vane. It was an outrageous house, a birthday cake in a showcase filled with bran muffins.
• She didn’t have a temperamental or mean bone in her entire body, but early on she’d learned how to manipulate, how to protect her ego, how to throw a well-aimed temper tantrum. Katherine Finn would never have a heart attack from suppressing emotion. Katherine Finn smashed plates, hugged babies, devoured food, and cried buckets at weddings, funerals, and sad movies.
• The sort of voice that said that as far as he was concerned, she was the only woman on the face of the earth. And his eyes confirmed it. They were frankly admiring and slightly predatory.
• “Yeah. Are you impressed?” She picked a crumb from the counter and nibbled it. “Absolutely. You fix roofs, you bake cakes, you feed pizza to distraught women.”
• And she wouldn’t have a lot of parties. Anyone that honest couldn’t have many friends.
• She liked the way he held her hand, slid an arm around her shoulders, tweaked a curl. His touch was firm and confident without being grabby. It was possessive without being insulting. It was satisfying.
• It was the first time Kate could ever remember being jolted out of place in the middle of a piece. She improvised a few bars and almost dropped her bow when she saw Dave roll up his program and smack Mellon on the top of his shiny bald skull.
• Everyone knows Mary Poppins doesn’t do drugs. That chick took sugar to get her through.
• else he’d grown up in Toad Hall, and the senior Toad had recently died. “Wedding pictures must pay well.” “Weddings pay next to nothing.” He gave her a cat-that-caught-the-canary smile. “I won the lottery.”
• The feeling she had for Dave was more like locking wire carts at the supermarket. Some humor, some annoyance, and an inability to separate the damn things.
• When he held Kate it was slow heat. Relentless, inexorable heat. The sort of heat that turned a man molten… and when he cooled down he would never be in exactly the same shape as before.
• Howard laughed. “I’m not a spy. I’m an undercover cop. I’m telling you since you’ve already seen the tape; we’ve had that house across the street under surveillance for the past three months. I even joined the Potatoes as an excuse to be in the neighborhood.”
• to the next, trying to earn a living, trying to become a better cellist, trying to be a good teacher, David Dodd was perfecting the sound of steam. It was frightening. She didn’t have the time or the emotional energy to come to terms with it now, so she filed it away.
• “I thrive on missed opportunities,” Kate told them. “In fact, I’m going to miss this one.”
• Kate rubbed her hands together. “I’m ready.” Elsie caught Dave’s eye. “I’d hate to see her at a racetrack. She’d be running along the rail ahead of the horses.”
• Kate felt as if she’d fallen down the rabbit hole. Howie Berk was counting his tear gas canisters while he discussed gravy with Dave, and her mother and Elsie were sitting side by side in the living room, getting skunked on sherry, speculating on the size of Slik’s gun.
• The image of Kate knocking over an entire row of music stands was enough to set him off howling,
• The Cadillac spun around and peeled out with a screech of tires. Dave and Elsie were coming after them! And behind the Cadillac was a line of police cars.


• Kate looked at the kitten. “Is it returnable?” “You don’t like it?” Kate’s father looked crushed. “I love it. It’s just that Elsie had the same idea.” Kate smiled.
• Kate agreed. “We need a house in a family neighborhood,” she said. “Someplace where there are children skipping rope in driveways. Someplace with lots of bedrooms.”

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Sally Mandel writes in vivid stereotypes. Quinn is the headstrong Irish girl who dreams of making it big in NYC; Will is the still-water-running-deep Idaho intellect who needs his mountain view; Quinn's roommate Van comes from a frosty Boston Brahmin family while her boyfriend is Jewish. For a (Berkshire) college romance, most of the action takes place off campus. Things couldn't work out because their life goals are so incompatible, and of course that lends extra piquancy to their affair.
Some plot points: Quinn organized an invitation-only contest to win her virginity and Will's unsolicited poetic entry won; Will is a Big Brother for a troubled youngster called Harvey; Quinn's saintly mother was discovered to have lupus; Will's high school English teacher was secretly in love with him; Quinn works as a mechanic and endured a robbery at the garage; Quinn rode a helicopter during her interview with a star TV reporter.
The story takes place in the 60s, so it almost qualifies as historical fiction now.

• “Um, Moll Magee.” “God forbid,” John said. His lifetime devotion to William Butler Yeats had resulted in a family habit of referring to the poet’s wild and tragic characters as if they lived just down the block.
• Quinn caught sight of Will Ingraham’s legs as he very deliberately crossed one booted foot over the other. He inclined his head in her direction as if loath to miss a single syllable. She smiled in admiration at his gift for communicating such profound rearview arrogance with such minimal effort.
• That letter was commissioned.” “Commissioned,” Van repeated dully. “Look, I’m going to be twenty-one years old in a few weeks and I’m probably the only virgin in the senior class.” “That may well be true.” “I can’t graduate like this.” “What would people think?” Van said.
• “Hey, Harve, you ever hear of Prokofiev?” Harvey flopped down into a seat that perched atop the bus’s only operative heater. “That a disease?” “A composer. Died about ten years ago.” “Yeah, I guess maybe I heard of him.”
• He used to enjoy thinking of his childhood as a series of gentle contours. Over the years, however, out of a natural introspective impulse, he gradually acknowledged the jagged peaks and depths that growing up had required.
• Will Ingraham pulled her toward the wall, out of the stampede. His face was weary. Quinn looked up at him curiously. “I hope I’m not too late to apply,” he said. He held out a plain white envelope.
• Van reached into her pocket for a faded party noisemaker which she held to her mouth and blew. With a feeble wheezing sound it uncurled into a paper snake. Quinn giggled. “Well, I felt there ought to be some kind of formal send-off,” Van said. “The walls of Jericho and everything …”
• She tugged at his arms, but he held her fast. “Go flex your iambic pentameter someplace else,” she said. He was silent until she stopped moving. “Quinn,” he said again. “Listen to me. I want you. I want to make love to you.” Her body was rigid. “This isn’t how it should have been. I wish to Christ I’d asked you out months ago. Sent you flowers. Took you for walks. All that.”
• “Are there people who analyze footprints? You know, like handwriting?” “Sure,” Will said. “Pedographists. My aunt was one.” Quinn looked up at him, fascinated. He returned her gaze sideways through half-open eyes. The light dawned. “You turkey,”
• Quinn reached out a finger and ran it along the line of his nose, across his lips, and down under his chin. “Don’t accuse me of not paying attention,” Will complained. “I am. Our Buxby, a true pedographist. You’re craggy.”
• He felt as if these past two weeks he and Quinn had been living in a glass bubble. They floated just off the ground, rotating lazily together in their luminous sphere.
• the cellist, who with his slight body and pale unkempt curls resembled a solemn, none too sanitary angel. As the train pulled into South Station he began to play Silent Night. The passengers sang, softly at first.
• Her impulse was to reach for Will’s hand. Instead she twirled a strand of hair around her finger. Will Ingraham was habit-forming.
• Somewhere along the way he had begun setting up house with Quinn in Idaho, just as she was hustling him off to their cozy apartment in Greenwich Village.
• Ordinarily Quinn did not acknowledge the authority of pain.
• “You can break your neck.” She exhibited the well-trod hem of her dress. “As it happens …” Will began slowly. “Don’t tell her!” Quinn said. “What?” Van asked. Stanley explained the manner of Isadora’s demise.
• class, in the midst of a lecture on Melville’s Billy Budd, Will found himself holding on to the sides of his chair to keep from being blown over.
• “Well?” Will said as they drove off. “He’s a dear man. He’s also crazy about you.” Will was silent. “You know what I mean, don’t you?” “Yes,” Will said. “You didn’t tell me that, either.” “It didn’t seem fair.”
• Train windows were like skimming a book Will wished he had the time to read. Looking out, there was a general overview of the landscape, but certain impressions registered with greater intensity than others. The frustrating element was that oftentimes a provocative image was snatched past the window too quickly.
• she decided. Tommy expended a lot of energy trying to charm, and Will was charming despite himself—assuming he bothered to open his mouth.
• Will imagined himself as Rock and Quinn as Scissors, him silent and inert, her in flashing motion, clicking and clacking, and snipping her world into its proper shape.
• Quinn asked Will if he had noticed the exquisite wallpaper reproductions. “No,” he answered. “Are the Huntingtons reproductions too?” Quinn’s delight baffled him, but he endured her enthusiastic kiss without complaint.
• “All right, I’ve got you now,” she said. “Is this an American scientist who figured out what to do with peanuts?” “Not George Washington Carver!”
• Who did she think she was, dancing out the door like that, Goddamn Loretta Young? A college kid had no right to look so poised and confident.
• New York City promised to be full of tricks. It was thrilling.