Tay, “The Omaha cops are stupid” because they couldn’t catch the stalker. As Liz griped, Tay tried to sympathize but grew weary when it turned into an exhausting monologue. Tay was relieved when Heather dropped in.
“Heather, this is Dave’s girlfriend, Liz,” said Tay.
“Heather?” Liz’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, you’re the one who came to see Dave. He should have brought you to my place when Crazy Cari threw the brick through the window.”
“I don’t even know you,” Heather said coldly. “Why would I stay at your house?”
Flustered by Heather’s attitude, Tay shot her best friend a warning glance. Why was Heather being so rude to poor Liz? But Heather ignored Tay, instead locking eyes with Liz, who asked her, “What were you doing at Dave’s?”
“You know,” Heather said slowly. “Dave and I have been friends with benefits for decades. I will always be here. I was here before you, and I will be here after you. You’re just the Wednesday Girl.” Then Heather walked out, leaving a fuming Liz glaring after her. It had been a tense exchange, but at least it got Liz’s mind off of Cari. Now Liz wanted to talk about Heather, and she asked Tay how often Heather and Dave had sex. “I don’t know,” Tay told her. “I don’t keep track of it.”
Then Liz wanted to know if Tay had ever had sex with Dave. Tay laughed and said, “Kroupa is like a little brother to me!” She told Liz about meeting him for the first time when he was a toddler in diapers, but Liz was skeptical. “She didn’t believe me, and she asked me over and over again if I’d ever slept with Kroupa. I kept telling her that we were just friends.”
Liz said she was aware that Dave had been intimate with several other women in the group. If Dave had slept with those women, why hadn’t he slept with Tay?
“We’re not attracted to each other,” Tay said patiently. “And I’m married!”
“Why aren’t you attracted to him?” Liz prodded. “What’s wrong with him?”
“There’s nothing wrong with Kroupa, but he’s like a little brother to me! And I don’t think it’s a good idea to sleep with your brother!”
Liz asked her to explain again about how she and Dave had met, so Tay repeated the story. “Seriously,” Tay told Liz. “Kroupa is just a friend!”
“If he’s just a friend, then why do you have a pet name for him?”
“A pet name? What do you mean?”
“You call him Kroupa.”
“I call him Kroupa because I’ve got so many friends named Dave. Even my husband’s name is Dave.” Tay tried to explain that Kroupa was not a term of endearment, but a way to distinguish him from multiple Daves and reduce confusion.
“Why do you text him so often?” Liz asked.
Tay told her that she regularly texted a number of her friends, just to say hi or ask how they were doing. After a while, Liz switched gears and suggested they visit Dave’s parents, who lived a few blocks from the Braver home. Tay phoned Dave’s mom and asked if they could come. Patricia “Trish” Kroupa was surprised by the call. She didn’t know either Tay or Liz well, but she graciously invited them over. Tay remembers that they sat down at the Kroupa kitchen table, drinking coffee, as Liz began to gripe about the stalker situation. Tom and Trish appeared worried as Liz told them that “Crazy Cari” was very dangerous.
The Kroupas were aware of the stalking and had been concerned enough that Tom had recently given Dave a gun for protection, but Tay recalls that Liz went on and on about it until she had the couple worked up into a panic. “Tom finally said that maybe Dave should have more guns, and Liz got excited and said, ‘Yes, we need more guns!’”
Trish Kroupa recalls that the most peculiar part of the visit was when Liz started to obsess over Dave’s child-support payments. Liz felt that Dave was handing over way too much of his hard-earned cash to “greedy” Amy and suggested that Trish speak to her son about it. Maybe with input from his mother, he would finally realize that Amy was taking advantage of him.
Trish was astonished by her gall but kept her voice level as she responded, “Dave is a grown man. He can make his own decisions.” Trish had two other encounters with Liz that left her shaking her head. Once, Dave had gone to his parents’ home to see his cousin,