The Inconceivable Life of Quinn

by Marianna Baer

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN: 978-1-4197-2302-5

  eISBN: 978-1-68335-064-4

  Text copyright © 2017 Marianna Baer

  Cover and book design by Alyssa Nassner

  Cover illustration © 2017 by Christopher Silas Neal

  Published in 2017 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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  FOR BECKY AND BOOG, WITH LOVE

  Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil.

  —Lord Byron

  Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.

  —Julio Cortázar

  THE DEEPS

  a children’s book by Charlotte Lowell

  A still morning sea, the Deeps all asleep,

  ’til warmed by the sun they roll up the beach.

  Some glide with a shush, some crash with a ROAR,

  All eager to find what night left on shore.

  Clamshells and starfish, smooth sea glass and stones.

  Pieces of driftwood, washed pale as our bones.

  Further and further, they draw up the sand,

  Daring young Deeps, out exploring the land.

  And look—someone’s here. It’s you, come to swim!

  You kick off your shoes, run quick, and plunge in.

  Hooray! cheer the Deeps, while lifting you high.

  Let’s play! you call out, now splashing the sky.

  They tumble and toss you, upside and down.

  You flip, flop and float, no feet on the ground.

  The games go for hours, as happens with friends.

  A magical day that you hope never ends.

  But after some time, a voice calls your name.

  The Deeps feel a pull from back where they came.

  They slip out to sea, you wave a farewell,

  From two different worlds, one story to tell.

  ©1978, Southaven Press

  QUINN

  There was an ocean in her bedroom.

  Brooklyn steamed with the thick heat of late August, and while Quinn had started her day off in the backyard hammock, book in one hand and phone in the other, it was soon too much of an effort to even turn the page or type a word. So she’d retreated inside, where she was now lying on a beach towel, eyes closed, misting herself with water as cold as the Atlantic. The distant traffic on Prospect Park West echoed the rhythmic shush and roar of waves. The salty sweat above her lip tasted like the sea. She was floating away . . . when the waves were interrupted by the ring of the doorbell and the familiar muted thumps of Jesse taking the stairs up to her room two at a time.

  Quinn smiled but kept her eyes closed, too relaxed to open them quite yet.

  Footsteps approached. The air above her stirred and shadowed, and Jesse’s soft lips touched her own. She ran fingers through his hair and pulled his sweet coffee-flavored kiss even closer, a different type of heat sparking inside her. He had warned her that the visit was only a flyby, though. So, after a moment, sensing they were about to pause for a breath, she lifted her other hand and sprayed.

  Jesse jumped back, face dripping with water, and said with a sputtering laugh, “What the heck, Q?”

  “Just cooling us down,” Quinn said, sitting up and grinning.

  He shook his head to one side, sandy-brown hair flicking out in shaggy damp spikes. “Thanks. My ear canal was way overheated.”

  “I live to serve.” She bowed slightly.

  The water apparently dislodged, he sat on the floor next to her and stretched out his long legs—tan, bug-bitten, and with a few scratches and bruises from a summer of hiking and ultimate Frisbee. “Seriously, though,” he said, “know what would really cool you down?”

  “Iced coffee?” Quinn reached toward the plastic cup in his hand. He gave it to her.

  “Camping. It’s supposed to be thirty-eight degrees up there tonight. Thirty-eight! We’re going to freeze our asses off.”

  “Don’t rub it in.” She took a sip, the coffee’s sweetness dulled by the fact that she was about to spend the long weekend before school started without him. “You guys’ll be making s’mores and I’ll be making small talk with strangers.”

  “So come,” he said, nudging her.

  “You know I can’t.”

  “I could kidnap you.”

  “My dad has friends in law enforcement. You’d get in trouble.”

  “Sadie could kidnap you. She’s going to end up in jail someday, anyway.”

  “Ha.” Quinn rested her head against his shoulder. “It’s not just the campaign party. I have a check-up with my new doctor today, and I picked up shifts this weekend and Monday . . . Puttin’ the labor in Labor Day.” She gave an anemic fist pump.

  “But I’ll have to share a tent with Adrian and Oliver instead of you,” he groaned. “It’s tragic.”

  “Shakespearian,” she agreed. “Hey, what’s that?” A light blue shopping bag sat on the floor near his feet, partly hidden by scattered laundry.

  “Oh. Your mom gave it to me downstairs. Something for you to wear tonight.” He scooted the bag closer with his foot. The movement flexed his leg muscles and Quinn had to resist an urge to lean over and kiss the freckle between his right knee and the bottom of his shorts. “She said you should try it on. It’s a size zero but the saleslady said it runs big.”

  Quinn handed back the coffee and pulled a crisp, tissue paper–wrapped packet out of the bag.

  “Size zero,” he mused as she unwrapped it. “Doesn’t it give you an existential crisis? Like you’re not really here?”

  “If I’m not really here, you’re the one we need to worry about, babe.” She held up an oyster-white, gauzy cotton dress with a flared skirt and a pattern of delicate gold and silver seed beads around a halter-style neckline. Not something she’d have chosen—her favorite dresses were as close to T-shirts, hoodies, or flannel button-downs as possible. But it was pretty and she was grateful not to have to worry about what to wear.

  “Be right back.” She pushed herself up and slipped into the tiny adjoining room that was used both as her closet and for storage. (If she’d started disrobing in the room with Jesse, it would have guaranteed her little sister would burst in the door; Lydia had an uncanny sense for barging in at the wrong time.) She took off her shorts, tank, and bra, stepped into the dress, tied the halter strap behind her neck, and twisted her arm around to zip up. She could only move the zipper a couple of inches, though, so she went back out for help.

  Jesse was standing, staring out the window. “Have you ever noticed that that pigeon is always outside my room?” he said.

  Quinn peered across their
backyards at his apartment building and watched the bird bob its way along the window ledge. “Let her in sometime. See what she wants.”

  “I doubt she wants the slobbery affection of a giant mutt.”

  “Maybe she does.” Quinn loved videos of unlikely interspecies friendships. “Can you finish my zipper?” she asked, turning her back to him.

  “I’d rather unfinish it.”

  “Tease. You’re the one who can’t stay long.”

  While she sucked in, he coaxed the zipper to the bottom of her shoulder blades, the fabric squeezing her like a corset. The dress was sized much smaller than a usual zero, not bigger—that must have been what the saleslady meant.

  She faced him, hands on her hips. “Too small, isn’t it?”

  “Whoa,” he said, eyebrows raised. “It’s . . . it’s a dress, all right.”

  “Keen observation, detective. Is it a dress I should wear to my dad’s campaign party?”

  “And every day for the rest of your life.”

  She felt a hum of pleasure at his approval. “What, like Miss Havisham?”

  Jesse shrugged. “She found something that worked and stuck with it. Nothing wrong with that.”

  Quinn laughed.

  Her bedroom didn’t have a full-length mirror, so she went down the hall to the bathroom, which was currently filled with jars of suspicious liquids for Lydia’s “science” experiments. The air smelled dangerous, like it might spontaneously ignite. She flipped on the overhead light and shut the door so she could see the mirror.

  Oh. A girl stood in front of her. But she wasn’t Quinn . . . not really. The too-tight fabric had rearranged her flesh into someone else’s shape. This girl had wham-bam hips and round, full breasts with a valley of shadowy cleavage, not her usual A-verging-on-B cups. Quinn knew she’d put on a bit of weight over the summer—courtesy of working at a way-too-good frozen yogurt store—but she hadn’t worn anything that showed it off in quite this way. She turned from side to side, a little stunned by the effect. She looked older. Softer. Womanly.

  A warm breeze snuck through the small bathroom window and rustled the skirt, as if the wind was admiring it, too.

  As Quinn stared, listening to the waves of traffic shushing and roaring in the background, a fantasy flickered in her mind. Nighttime. Standing on top of a large, barnacle-speckled rock on the beach on Southaven island; salty-wet wind fluttering the dress around her legs; moonlight painting her skin phosphorescent; waves crashing at her feet; her over-full heart speeding in her chest with anticipation; Jesse there, watching her, wanting her—

  Suddenly, without warning, her thoughts skipped from fantasy to memory, from beach to dock, waves still crashing . . . and a boy’s lips against her own.

  A boy who wasn’t Jesse.

  Quinn caught herself with a start, a vicious stab of guilt twisting between her ribs. God. What was wrong with her?

  Back in her room, cheeks burning, she quickly headed to the closet, avoiding eye contact. Jesse was thumbing through a pile of paper—Quinn’s notations on the screenplay he was writing for an upcoming contest, a black comedy about a boy who thinks the girl who lives below him is literally the Devil. With the other hand he was rubbing her cat Haven’s ears.

  “You know,” he said as she passed by, “you’re allowed to comment on the things you think aren’t working, too.”

  “I did,” she said. “If you want me to be more critical, you need to write something worse.”

  Jesse pshawed. “Gonna wear the dress?”

  “Too tight. Being able to breathe is kind of important.” She untied the halter quickly, wanting the dress off her body and any lingering thoughts about Marco Cavanaugh out of her mind. For good.

  “Hey, Q?” Jesse called. “I should probably go. Oliver’s dad is picking me up soon.”

  “The sleeping bag is next to my desk,” Quinn said. “And I baked some stuff for you guys to take along. In the Tupperware thing.”

  When she came out a minute later, he was already eating one of the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. “Needed to make sure they weren’t poisoned,” he said, grinning. Jesse’s face was angular and narrow, but his smile stretched from Park Slope to the Pacific; it brought out dimples that reminded her of what he’d looked like when he was new at school in fifth grade—rounder all over; hair straighter and shorter; shy, but still quick to smile. She’d thought he was the cutest boy she’d ever seen. She still did. Quinn placed the dress back in the bag and then went over and wrapped her arms around him from behind, breathed in his distinctive scent of sandalwood and grass tinged with sweat, and felt his ribcage expand and contract under her cheek. It was too hot to be pressed against another body, but she wanted the moment of simple closeness. She wished she could melt into him so they’d never be separated and hugged him even harder, as if that might make it happen. As if erasing any physical distance could banish the space between them where secrets lived.

  “Oof,” Jesse said. “How can someone your size be that strong?” He reached up and squeezed her biceps.

  Someday he’ll figure out that you don’t deserve this kind of love. Enjoy it while it lasts.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice muffled in the soft folds of his T-shirt.

  “For what? Breaking my ribs?”

  “For not going with you this weekend.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. And you’ll be working; that’s food for the whale, right?” They were planning an epic trip, to be taken whenever they could afford it: a full year off, backpacking around amazing islands all over the world—the Galápagos, Orkneys, Dalmatians, Tahiti. They religiously put money in a whale-shaped bank.

  “So you forgive me?” she said.

  “Q,” he said, “there’s nothing to forgive.”

  QUINN

  “Qui-iiiin! Doc-tor!” Lydia’s voice bellowing up the stairs pulled Quinn awake. “Qui-iiiin! Qui-iiiiiin!”

  “Coming! Jeez,” she muttered, standing. Covered in sweat and vaguely nauseous, she reached out and steadied herself on her desk chair, then checked her phone. She’d been asleep for two hours. After Jesse left, she’d only meant to lie down for a moment, but the sun had draped itself all over her and bam, she was out. They had been happening a lot lately, these accidental naps, even when she got a good night’s sleep.

  She gave her face a spray of now-lukewarm water and headed downstairs.

  “What took you so long?” Lydia demanded when Quinn reached the parlor floor of the row house. She was wearing a polka-dot bathing suit, plaid shorts, and high-tops Quinn had grown out of not that long ago. Ten years old, and she was almost as tall as her sixteen-year-old sister. Not that that was saying much. Lydia and Ben, their twenty-year-old brother, were built like their mother’s family, which included a great-aunt who was six-two. Quinn took after her father’s side, supposedly, though there were no living relatives aside from her dad as evidence.

  “Why do you care?” Quinn said, retrieving her flip-flops from under the hall bench.

  “I had to call you forever. And where’s Jesse? I grew some mold I want to show him.”

  “He already left.”

  Lydia pouted. “I never see him anymore. Ever since he started being your boooyyyfriend you guys are all hidey-hidey in your room and stuff.”

  “That doesn’t usually stop you.”

  The sound of quick footsteps came from the stairs that led up from the garden-level kitchen to the front hall. The narrow house had four modestly sized stories, with two main rooms on each, which made for a lot of up and down. “I lost track of time,” their mother, Katherine, said, hurrying toward her daughters. “We’re running late.” She grabbed her bag from a hook next to the mirror, pressed a hand on Quinn’s back, and steered her toward the door.

  The minute Quinn stepped outside, the heat tried to push her back in. She paused for a moment at the top of the stoop, waiting for her mother to find her sunglasses in her large, overstuffed purse, which contained everything from pruning
shears to three issues of the New Yorker and five tubes of the same shade of lipstick. (Quinn had counted in amazement during a recent search for gum.)

  “You’ll only be alone for an hour or so,” Katherine said to Lydia, finally pulling out her glasses. “I’m going to see clients after I drop off Quinn. Ben will be here soon, though. You’ll be okay?” She kissed her on both cheeks then wiped off the Rose Aglow smudges with her thumbs.

  “Duh,” Lydia said. “Except I’m starving. Is there food? And don’t say ‘kale muffins.’ Those things are nasty.”

  “I shopped after my co-op shift last night,” Katherine said, as she and Quinn walked down the steps. “There should be plenty in the fridge.” She waved. “Be sure to lock the door when you go inside, sweetie.”

  The low, wrought-iron gate clanged shut behind Quinn and her mother. They started up the block, past the old brownstones, toward Prospect Park West.

  “About the groceries,” Quinn said. “You never unpacked them. They were sitting out all night.”

  Her mother glanced at her. “Seriously?”

  “There were casualties.”

  “Crap.” Katherine took out her phone and typed a quick note. “I can’t wait for the election to be over so I can have my brain back. And our regular life.”

  Quinn’s new doctor’s office was near Grand Army Plaza; she and her mother only had to walk up PPW to get there. Normally, it would have been a nice walk—the trees and bushes of Brooklyn’s equivalent to Central Park gathered on one side, elegant brick and limestone townhouses and apartment buildings lining the other. But the air was so boggy with humidity, Quinn had to shove it out of the way with every step, like she was forcing herself through a crowd of overheated, hostile bodies on the subway. That’s what heat was like in the city: it made you feel like there wasn’t enough room for you. (Although, it wasn’t just the heat; in Quinn’s opinion, the city landscape never allowed enough room for certain things—like thinking and breathing.)

  While they crossed over to the shadier park side of the street, Quinn pictured the melted butter and ice cream she’d thrown out this morning, and wondered if her mom really thought they’d go back to regular life after the election. Quinn’s father was running for Congress. He was a professor and had written books, two of which, Urbanomics and ElastiCity, were bestsellers that made him kind of famous—in an always-on-NPR kind of way. But even though he was already high profile in certain circles, life would be totally different if he won. (Which he had a good chance of doing; he’d already won the Democratic primary in June.) He’d live in DC for a lot of the year and would be even busier and more public than he was now. He’d be a friggin’ United States congressman! What was regular about that?