“Okay. Thanks.” Quinn started walking away. Fifty-Four Chestnut, she repeated to herself. First room on the left.
“Hey, Quinn.”
She turned around. “Yeah?”
“Be good to my brother. He’s been through a lot.”
“I know,” she said. What did Tommy think she was going to do? Ring the doorbell and then run away laughing when Nick answered the door?
Quinn wove her way across the basement and up the stairs. She still didn’t see Ivy or Carmen or Lissa. On her way outside, she texted them. Where r u guys??? Heading to Nick’s house. Txt me back. Ivy might be mad, but Quinn wasn’t going to worry about that now.
She sent Nick a direct message on Instagram. U up? I’m in ur hood.
Then she tapped on her navigation app and plugged in 54 Chestnut Street.
CHAPTER
11
TOMMY WAS RIGHT; THE FRONT DOOR was unlocked. Quinn walked in. She poked her head through the first doorway on the left. Nick was sitting on a pullout couch, a crocheted blanket on his lap, reading a book.
“Hey,” Quinn said. She took two steps forward.
Nick looked up and frowned. “You should go back to the party.”
“Why?”
“I know my brother sent you here to check on me. Like I’m some grandma in a nursing home.”
“Tommy didn’t send me.”
“He didn’t?”
Quinn shook her head. “I sent myself. He just told me where you live.”
“Well, I’m fine,” Nick said. “As you can see.”
“I’m not.”
“What?”
“I’m not fine,” Quinn said. “The music was too loud, and I don’t drink beer, and I lost my friends, and I felt really … I don’t know … young.”
“Could it be the hat?”
Quinn looked at Nick. He was smiling. An actual smile, not a smirk.
“Maybe,” she said. She took his smile as an invitation to walk farther into the room, which was full of dark wood and plaid slipcovers and framed photos on the walls. “Are these all your brothers?” she asked, pausing at a shot of four boys in football jerseys, mugging for the camera.
“Gavin, Kip, Tommy, and me,” Nick said. “In that order. I’m the one with no teeth.”
“Cute.”
There were school photos, of course, each boy through the ages. Glasses and braces and pimples and goofy grins. There were awkward family poses in front of the Christmas tree, everyone dressed in red, one where Nick was crying and his brothers were laughing.
“Awww,” Quinn said. “What happened here?”
“Who knows? They did so much crap to me over the years I can’t remember. One time, when I was four, my parents were out, and my brothers zipped me in a suitcase and pushed me down the stairs. My knee hit my mouth and knocked out my two front teeth.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Even Tommy?”
Nick nodded. “Tommy followed Kip’s orders. Kip followed Gavin’s. And Gavin followed the General’s.”
“The General?”
“My dad.”
“He’s in the army?”
“Nah. General contractor. Construction sites.”
“Oh,” Quinn said. She leaned in to examine one of the family photos. Nick’s dad had thick shoulders and one of those short, bristly haircuts. His eyes were squinty and his mouth was a straight line. Game face, Quinn thought.
She kept walking, pretending not to notice Nick’s prosthetic legs propped in a corner. Instead, she stopped at a desk that was covered in papers. She started flipping through them.
“What are you doing?”
“Being nosy.”
Quinn flipped and stared. Feet, calves, knees. Charcoal, ink, pastel. Broad strokes and delicate lines. Tendon, muscle, bone.
“Don’t,” Nick said sharply.
Quinn lifted her head to look at him. “Did you draw these?”
He nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“Nick. These are … amazing. I had no idea you were an artist.”
“I’m not.”
“Are you kidding?”
He shook his head. “I just like to draw.”
“That’s like Steph Curry saying ‘I just like to play basketball.’” Quinn held up one of the foot sketches. “Do you know how hard this is? To get the shapes right? To add dimension? Whenever I try, I end up with a blob.”
“You draw?”
Quinn smiled. “I doubt you could call it drawing. I take that studio art elective, fourth period? I’m really bad. My mom’s the artist in the family. She’s a sculptor. Heads and busts, mostly—”
“For a job?” Nick said.
“Yeah.”
“Your mom actually makes money from doing art?”
“Well, she did in Colorado. I doubt she will here.”
“What does she work with? Plaster? Terra-cotta?”
Quinn tried not to look surprised. “Clay, mostly.”
“Does she have her own studio?”
“Yeah. It’s just a room in our house, but…” Quinn looked at Nick. She was still trying to process the words coming out of his mouth. “You could come see it sometime, if you want.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
Nick nodded. “Cool.”
Silence for a second. Then he said, “I thought you would think I was weird.”
“I do think you’re weird.”
“Shut up. I’m being serious.”
“Okay.”
“Drawing pictures of … you know … legs.”
Quinn kept her eyes on Nick. Part of her wanted to look away so he wouldn’t feel self-conscious, but the other part wanted to stay right here.
“I don’t think you’re weird,” she said. “Not for that.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
The room was so quiet. Bizarrely quiet. And then it wasn’t. There was a tapping sound, coming from outside.
“What’s that?” Quinn said.
“I don’t know.”
The front door opened and Ivy came flying into the den. “The cops busted the party! We have to go!”
“The cops?” Quinn said.
“Yes!” Ivy hesitated for a second, then turned to Nick and gave him a strangely formal nod. “Hello, Nick.”
“Hello, Ivy.”
“Come on!” Ivy grabbed Quinn by the hand. “The girls are outside!”
“Bye, Nick,” Quinn said, letting Ivy pull her out the door.
“Bye, Quinn.”
* * *
Back in Ivy’s basement, zipped safely into their sleeping bags, they couldn’t stop laughing. “Ivy was like, ‘The cops are here! We have to go!’ And I was like, ‘Can I please finish kissing this boy?’”
Carmen, apparently, had kissed a boy.
“Tell me again how it happened?” Quinn said. “How do you go from ‘Hi, I’m Carmen’ to letting him stick his tongue in your mouth?”
“To be fair,” Carmen said, “he didn’t use a lot of tongue.”
“How much?” Lissa said.
“I don’t know. A medium amount.”
“What if the cops hadn’t come?” Ivy said. “What if he’d tried something else?”
“Like what?”
“Like … up the shirt?”
“I’d have said, ‘Easy, tigah, we just met.’” Carmen was sitting up in her sleeping bag, brushing her thick black hair. When she saw Quinn watching, she held out her brush. “You want?”
“No, thanks,” Quinn said, feeling her cheeks go warm. She had, thank God, finally taken off her party hat. In the privacy of Ivy’s upstairs bathroom, she had witch-hazeled her scalp, applied fifteen pieces of fresh wig tape, and pressed Guinevere on so hard her fingertips had turned white. Now she looked just like the rest of her friends, in flannel PJ bottoms and a T-shirt, holding her satin pillowcased pillow in her lap.
“Speaking of kissing…” Ivy turned
to Quinn.
“What?”
“Is there anything you want to tell us?”
“About kissing?”
“We’re confused,” Ivy said. “First you’re messaging Nick. Then you’re flirting with Tommy in the basement. Then you’re leaving Tommy in the dust to hang out with Nick.”
Quinn inhaled. Quinn exhaled. She wasn’t sure what Ivy was trying to say exactly, but it didn’t sound good.
“I wasn’t flirting with Tommy,” Quinn said. “He’s too old for me.”
“He’s not too old for me,” Lissa said.
Carmen laughed. Ivy and Quinn didn’t.
“We were just having a conversation,” Quinn said. “And I didn’t ‘leave him in the dust.’ He’s the one who suggested I go see Nick after you guys ditched me.”
“We didn’t ditch you,” Ivy said. “We went to refill our juice.”
“How was I supposed to know that? You could have texted.”
Carmen wrapped an arm around Quinn. “We were trying to be good friends. We wanted to leave you and Tommy alone so you could make out.”
Quinn shook her head. Why did people always assume things about her that weren’t true? She took another breath, let it out slow. “If I were going to kiss someone, it wouldn’t be in a basement full of people. And anyway, it’s not like that. Tommy and I are friends. Nick and I are friends.” Quinn turned to Ivy. “I would never do that to you.”
“Do what?”
“Steal your ex-boyfriend.”
“Steal my ex-boyfriend?” Ivy’s eyebrows shot up.
“Or your ex-boyfriend’s brother, or whatever. I don’t know. I’m confused, too.”
Ivy huffed out a breath. “Oh my gawd, Quinn.”
“What?”
“Am I being a total bee-atch?”
Quinn didn’t know how to answer that, so she said nothing.
“You have no idea how awful it was,” Ivy said softly. “After Nick’s accident, it was like he had that thing that happens to soldiers when they come home from war … that disorder…”
“PTSD?” Carmen said.
“Right. He, like, couldn’t stop crying, and he wanted me to be with him every second, but he nevah wanted to leave the house. It would be this beautiful sunny day, and all he wanted to do was stay inside, wrapped in a blanket. Every time I tried to leave, to go to the beach or whatevah, he would beg me to stay. Or he’d get really mad. It was like … I was everything to him. I was his lifeline. Do you have any idea what that felt like?”
Quinn shook her head.
“But now he doesn’t need me anymore, and—”
“I’m sure he still needs you,” Quinn said.
Ivy waved her off. “I know it sounds stupid. I’m the one who broke up with him. And I’m glad I broke up with him. It wasn’t my job to sit in a dark room with him all summah long, you know?”
“It’s not like you were married,” Carmen said.
“It’s not like you took vows,” Lissa said.
“Right.” Ivy nodded. Her face was serious. “But Nick was my first boyfriend. I cared about him. I still care about him. And his family. Not that Tommy ever gave me the time of day, the way he does with you.” She looked at Quinn and shrugged. “But anyway … I guess I’m just kind of jealous that you got to roll into town and take my place.”
Quinn thought about this. Ivy didn’t sound like a bee-atch, exactly. She sounded honest.
“I’m not trying to take your place,” Quinn said.
“I know you’re not trying to.”
“Do you want me to…” Quinn hesitated. “What do you want me to do?”
Ivy sighed and shook her head. “Nothing. You’re not doing anything wrong. This is just me being stupid.”
“I don’t think you’re being stupid,” Quinn said. “It actually makes sense, the way you said it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Lissa nodded. “It makes total sense.”
“You can’t help how you feel,” Carmen said.
“I don’t know.” Ivy sighed and collapsed back onto her pillow. “Maybe I just need someone new to kiss.”
Lissa squealed. “Yes! New lips!”
“Someone older, without any emotional baggage.”
“Like Rob,” Carmen said.
“Who’s Rob?” Ivy said.
“The boy I kissed tonight. He’s definitely older.”
Ivy sat up. “You want me to kiss Rob?”
“No. Rob’s mine. You need to find your own Rob.”
“I want a Rob,” Lissa said. “Can we time-share?”
This made Ivy laugh.
“Rob has friends,” Carmen said. “Did you see how cute some of them were?”
They burrowed deep into their sleeping bags and talked about the party. How cute the junior and senior boys were, and how mean the junior and senior girls were, and how lame the music selection was. When Lissa started sharing her list of the best dance songs and telling them that, if she ever had a party, these were the songs she would play, Quinn let her mind wander. For some weird reason, she kept coming back to Nick’s hair. How it winged out from his ears like a little kid’s, and how, the whole time they were talking tonight, she’d wanted to reach out and touch it.
CHAPTER
12
NICK’S INSTAGRAM MESSAGE CAME ON SUNDAY morning, not long after Quinn got home from Ivy’s, when she was sitting on her bed in front of the fan, feeling the delicious breeze on her bare head. Did u mean what u said abt me seeing ur moms studio?
Anytime, Quinn wrote back.
About two seconds later she got, How’s now?
Without really thinking, she wrote back, OK. 37 Cliffside.
* * *
Quinn had made a terrible mistake. She realized this as soon as Nick’s wheelchair turned onto her street. The houses on Cliffside were all built into the rock face. Everything was on an incline.
Quinn stood on the front steps, shading her eyes from the glare. It took a long time, but Nick finally started pushing up the driveway.
“Hey!” Quinn called from the top step.
Nick raised a hand in greeting. He pushed some more. When he reached the stone path, Quinn jogged down to meet him. Sweat wasn’t just trickling down his face; it was gushing. His hair was blue-black in the sun. His shirt was green, with the words LEAVE IT ALL ON THE TURF in block letters on the front.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I thought you’d be getting dropped off. I thought…” She turned, looking hopelessly at the steep slate steps leading up to the house. “I didn’t think this through.”
Nick nodded, catching his breath.
“Did you bring your prosthetics?” It was a stupid question, Quinn realized. How would he carry them, in his lap? “Sorry,” she said. “That was dumb … How do you get in your house?”
“Ramp.”
“How do you get to your room?”
“Don’t.” He took another gulp of air. “Been sleeping downstairs. The den.”
“Right.” Quinn nodded. She glanced at the steps again, then back at Nick. “Well. This is nothing we can’t handle.”
“You … are not … piggybacking me.”
“I wasn’t going to piggyback you. I was thinking I’d go get my dad. Between the two of us, I’m sure we could lift you and your chair.”
Nick shook his head.
“Do you have another idea?”
He shook his head again.
“Listen,” Quinn said. “I know this is weird. But I don’t want you to be embarrassed. Not in front of me. Not about your legs.”
Nick looked at her and said nothing.
Quinn took this as a sign to continue. “My parents are really nice. I told them you were coming. They’ll be happy to help. Believe me … they’ve dealt with much weirder things.”
“Are you calling me weird again?”
Quinn smiled. “Of course not.”
And Nick said, “Okay.”
*�
�� * *
It took all three of them, and they had to try a few different carrying techniques, but Quinn and her parents finally managed to get Nick and his wheelchair up to the house without much trouble. Everyone acted normal. Quinn’s dad offered Nick a Coke. Quinn’s mom made space at the kitchen table so Nick’s chair would fit. Then she said, “Let me get Julius. He’ll want to meet you, too.”
“Mom,” Quinn said. “Nick came to see the studio.”
“This won’t take long.”
A minute later, Julius shuffled into the kitchen, wiggling his fingers. He stood facing the refrigerator.
“Julius,” Quinn’s mom said. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet. This is Quinn’s friend, Nick. Can you say hello to Nick?”
“Hello to Nick,” Julius said in his robot voice. He wasn’t even looking at Nick. His eyes were darting all over the place. His fingers were flying through the air like he was conducting an orchestra.
“Nice to meet you, Julius,” Nick said. He rolled over and stuck out his hand, which of course Julius ignored.
“Julius,” Quinn’s mom said. “Can you look Nick in the eye?”
“Wheels, Mo. Wheels.”
Quinn wanted to die, right there in the kitchen.
“That’s right, bud,” Quinn’s mom said. “Nick’s chair has wheels. Isn’t it cool? I’ll bet he can go really fast.”
“The fastest speed ever reached by a vehicle powered through its wheels was seven hundred thirty-seven point seven nine four kilometers per hour, by the turbine-powered Turbinator, driven by Don Vesco, USA, at Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, USA, on eighteen October two thousand and one.”
“Oh my God,” Quinn said. “Mom.”
“Let him finish, honey.”
“The largest Ferris wheel indoors measures forty-seven point six zero meters. It was presented and measured in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on thirty April two thousand and twelve. The Ferris wheel has twenty-four cabins. The structure cost approximately ninety million dollars—”
“Mom.”
“Okay.” Quinn’s mom nodded. “Okay.”
“Wheels, Mo. Wheels.” Julius was snapping his fingers like a jazz musician.
“Hey, Jules,” Quinn’s dad said, sweeping across the room with a tray. “I’ve got snacks here. What do you say we go watch some TV?”
How We Roll Page 9