The rain continues to pound on the rooftop overhead, but it seems to have eased from the initial torrents.
“Prudence?” Quint’s voice echoes down the long corridor.
“Back here.” I stand up and the sea lions immediately return to snuggling each other.
When Quint reaches us, he looks concerned—but his face softens as soon as he spies the animals. “I wish the lighting was better in here,” he says. “That’d make a great picture.”
“It’s probably decent enough for a social media post anyway? People might be wondering how we’re faring with this storm.”
He nods and takes out his phone. When the flash sparks, Luna covers her head with her flippers again, but Lennon just peers up at Quint, confused.
“What did your mom say?”
“We should be good. Not much more we can do until the storm lets up. She’s happy we’re here. She wanted to come herself, but I guess there are flash floods happening all over the place and she didn’t think it would be safe to drive. And she said we might be better off staying here until the storm passes?”
I let myself out of Luna and Lennon’s pen. “I should probably call my parents, too,” I say, heading toward the lobby, where I’d dropped my phone and backpack as soon as we got here.
The phone rings twice before my mom answers, sounding frantic. I assume she’s been worried about me—but no. Ellie, who they keep trying to put to bed by eight o’clock, is still wide-awake, fighting her nightly sleepy-time routine with gusto. I can hear her wailing in the background. As for me, Mom had assumed that I was still on Main Street, probably hunkered down in Encanto. I tell her Quint and I came to the center to make sure the animals were okay, and after a moment’s hesitation, she offers to drive down and pick me up.
The offer is comforting, even though I can hear the exhaustion in her voice.
“No,” I say. “It’s all right. I’ll just stay here until the storm is over.”
“All right, sweetheart. That’s probably for the best. Be safe, okay?”
“Okay, Mom. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
I hang up and turn around to see—
Quint.
Quint is standing in the doorway, just a few feet away from me.
Quint is shirtless.
Quint is wearing a faded blue towel around his waist, and using a second towel to dry his hair.
I yelp. “Holy—! What—! Why are you—?” I spin back around, my face aflame. My elbow knocks my backpack off the reception desk and it lands with a splat on the floor, scattering my pens and a couple of slightly damp notebooks.
Even though I’m not facing Quint anymore, I squeeze my eyes shut. “Where did your clothes go?”
There’s a moment of silence, and then—Quint loses it. His laughter comes on strong, and it doesn’t stop. I frown, listening to his guffaws, his howls, his gasps for air.
After a while, my surprise and embarrassment start to give way to annoyance.
Bracing myself, I turn just enough so I can glare at him over my shoulder. Quint doesn’t seem to notice. He’s fallen against the wall and is struggling to breathe. He has tears on his face. Honest-to-goodness tears.
“Sorry,” he gasps, once he’s managed to bring his hysteria under control. “Just—your face! Oh my god, Pru.” He wipes the tears away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. But … I mean, you’ve seen guys without shirts before, right? You’ve been to the beach?”
“That’s different!” I stomp my foot. Petulantly. Immaturely. I don’t care. Why is he almost naked?
There’s still a distant amusement lingering on Quint’s face, but at least he seems to be done laughing at me. “How is it different?” he says, clearly teasing me.
Because it just is, I want to say.
Because they’re not you.
I clear my throat. “You just surprised me. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“You’re not scarred for life?”
“Remains to be seen.”
I turn back to him, but can’t bring myself to meet his eye. I find myself staring at the satirical Jaws poster instead. “So, where did your clothes go, exactly?”
“The dryer. I was just heading upstairs to grab some volunteer shirts for us.”
Oooh. The dryer. I wilt with relief to hear such a practical explanation. We use the washer and dryer daily for the animals’ blankets and towels, but it didn’t occur to me to use it for us.
“Right. Okay. Good idea.”
Quint hands me a towel and I start drying my hair.
“I’ll go get those shirts,” he says. I can still hear the occasional chuckle as he heads up the stairs.
I make my way to the small utility room with the washer and dryer and close the door behind me. Peeling off my wet shirt and jeans is like peeling off a second skin. My bra and underwear are damp, too, but I can live with that. I toss my things into the dryer. They land on top of Quint’s shirt and pants. Criminy, this is weird. I start blushing all over again.
I grab a new towel from the shelf and wrap it around my body sarong-style. Then I start the dryer and stand there, listening to it rumble and thud, wondering what to do now. I am not going to go strutting around Quint in nothing but a towel, but it will be at least half an hour before our clothes are dry.
The second I have this thought, the lights flicker.
I glance up.
They flicker again—then go out.
I’m plunged into darkness so thick, it feels like I’ve been sucked into a black hole. The dryer whines to a stop. Our heavy, damp clothes thud down one last time. An eerie silence falls over the center, broken only by the torrential rains that continue to pound against the side of the building and the occasional unhappy barks of the animals.
“Prudence?”
Gripping the towel, I open the door and peek my head out into the corridor. Quint is moving toward me, illuminated by the flashlight feature on his cell phone. He’s put on a shirt, thankfully, but still has the towel around his waist.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah. The power…”
“I know. Here.” He hands me a yellow T-shirt.
“Is there a generator?”
“I don’t think so.”
I duck back into the room and turn on the flashlight on my phone, too. It casts the small room in a faint white glow as I pull on the T-shirt and tie the towel skirtlike around my waist.
I grimace. I can secure the towel around my hips, but it leaves a gap across one thigh. I cannot go out there like this.
Then I remember that there’s a stack of blankets next to the washer. I take off the towel and grab a blanket instead. I feel better immediately, with the fabric more than covering my hips and falling all the way past my ankles. It smells like fish and seawater, given that it usually lives in the pens with the animals. Not all that long ago I would have been completely grossed out by this, but now I’m just grateful. Besides, I’m often the person doing the laundry at the end of the day, so I know the towels and blankets are regularly washed.
I grab my phone and open the door.
“Now what?” I ask, before realizing that Quint is holding my backpack.
He holds it out, gripping the handles. “You dropped this in the lobby,” he says. “I didn’t know if you needed it.”
“Thanks.” I take it from him, but he looks troubled.
“What’s wrong?”
He clears his throat and holds out something else. Two things, actually. A pale yellow envelope that’s been ripped open, and a white envelope, thick with dollar bills. “These spilled out.”
“Oh.” I swallow. “The money is for my parents…” I feel like I should say more. It’s weird to be carrying around all that money. But—I don’t want to tell him about the pawnshop. I don’t want him to know that my parents have resorted to selling off our possessions. I’ve done a good job not thinking about it all day today, but whenever it does crop up in my thoughts, my stomach twists. With wor
ry. With guilt. I’ve spent my whole summer so focused on trying to help the center. Should I have been trying to help my own family instead?
In the end, I don’t tell Quint anything, just tuck the money back into my bag and zip it into one of the side pockets, which I probably should have done from the beginning. It’s really none of his business, anyway.
But I’m still holding the yellow envelope, and his eyes are on it, his brow tense. “My mom wrote a bunch of thank-you notes to some of our donors last month,” he says, “just like you suggested. I helped her put stamps on them…”
I know he’s telling me this to clue me in that he knows what this is. Almost like he’s trying to get a confession out of me.
And maybe that’s reasonable. This wasn’t my mail to open, and it certainly wasn’t mine to keep.
I sigh. “Dr. Jindal dropped it the other day when she was bringing in the mail. I picked it up, and when I saw who it was addressed to…”
I flip it over so Quint can see Grace Livingstone’s name, and the post office stamp: DECEASED.
Understanding flickers across his features. “Maya’s grandma.”
“I know I shouldn’t have opened it, but…” I hesitate. But what, exactly? It seemed like the universe was trying to tell me something? I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have opened it. I’m sorry.”
Quint takes the card, and for a moment, he looks torn. But then a wisp of a smile crosses his face. “I would have been curious, too. I’ll tell Mom that I was the one who opened it, that I go to school with her granddaughter. I think she’ll understand.”
My heart expands. I wasn’t expecting that.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
A beat of silence passes between us, and then the energy shifts again. Quint smiles, easy and relaxed. “Are you hungry?” He juts his thumb toward the staircase. “I’ve got quarters for the vending machine. We could have Pringles by candlelight.”
“How romantic,” I say. “Except, I don’t think vending machines work during a power outage.”
He winces. “Damn. I bet you’re right. I don’t actually know if there are any candles, either.”
I shrug. “Let’s go find out.”
THIRTY-NINE
In the staff break room, we spend some time digging through the drawers jumbled with silverware, offices supplies, and random takeout menus that have probably been buried in here for the past decade. Ultimately, we find two boxes of birthday candles and a book of matches. Quint settles the candles into a decorative bowl full of sand and seashells and lights them. I’ve never seen birthday candles lit for longer than it takes to sing “Happy Birthday,” and I suspect they won’t last long, but for now, their glow is comforting and strangely joyful as the wind and rain rage outside. Plus, both of our phones are getting low on battery life, so we figure it’s best to conserve them as much as possible.
After digging through the cabinets, we pull together something like a picnic. An open bag of stale potato chips, some saltine crackers and peanut butter, a box of Cheerios, some marshmallows.
Even though I’d been joking before, as we settle in at the long conference table, it actually does feel romantic. The storm rattling against the windows. The glow of the candles.
And that we’re pretty much trapped here … together.
“Do you think we’ll be stuck here all night?” I ask, trying not to sound hopeful when I say it. Because it would be awful, right? Who wants to sleep on a cold, hard floor, when they could be safe at home in a cozy, warm bed?
And yet, I’m in no hurry to leave.
“I don’t know. At this rate…” Quint glances at the window. “It’s not looking good. Were your parents worried?”
“I think they’re okay. They said to stay here until the storm passes.”
He nods. “I guess we can use the blankets from downstairs to make a bed of sorts. It may not be the most comfortable thing in the world, but…”
“It could be worse.”
Which is true. We have shelter and food. It’s warm enough. There’s light for the time being, though the candles are burning awfully fast.
“At least we have cereal.” I pop a handful into my mouth.
The first candle flickers out, leaving a trail of dark smoke curling up through the shadows. We both look at our little collection of candles stuck into the sand. They’ve already nearly burned down to nubs.
“Maybe we should have rationed those,” says Quint.
“Isn’t there a flashlight around here somewhere?”
He considers this. “You’d think so.”
We go on a hunt again, risking the battery life of our phones to dig through every cabinet, closet, and cupboard we can find. Finally—success. We find five flashlights stashed away with some of the rescue nets and other supplies, although only three of them have batteries that work. While we’re downstairs, we fill our arms with as many blankets as we can carry before retreating back to the break room. We push the table against one bank of cabinets, clearing out a space large enough that we can spread out the blankets, building them up into something like a mattress. It occurs to me that maybe we should be making two separate beds, but … I don’t say anything, and neither does he.
“What would you be doing right now if you weren’t here?” Quint asks.
“Sleeping?”
“Really? It’s not even midnight.”
“I’m more of a morning person.”
“That does not surprise me.” Quint sits down on the makeshift bed and rolls up a couple of towels to use as a cushion behind his back. I hesitate for a few seconds before sitting down on the opposite side, facing him. We’re close enough that it feels intimate, especially with the dim lighting of the flashlight reflected off the ceiling, but far enough that I can pretend it isn’t totally awkward. “Okay,” he says, “if you weren’t sleeping, then what would you be doing?”
“I don’t know. Planning the gala? Making sure everything will be perfect?”
Quint clicks his tongue, as if chastising me. “Do you ever think you might be too much of an overachiever?”
My nose wrinkles. “Jude keeps me aware of that, yes. I can’t help it though. There’s always more to do, and I don’t want to settle for less than perfect, you know? Why be mediocre? But it can be hard to know when enough is enough, or how to prioritize my time. Like this summer. I’ve been thinking so much about the center that I’ve done hardly any work on our biology project at all.”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Quint says, his eyes twinkling. “I was sort of hoping you’d forgotten about it.”
“I definitely have not forgotten about it. I still want to do something extraordinary. I actually thought that maybe we could use the gala as a real-world example of how ecotourism can function to help the environment. But I still need to bring more science into it, and that’s got me stumped. So then I set it aside and focus on the center and fundraising … even though I know that by putting it off I’m just creating more stress for myself.”
“What? You? Hold on.” Quint leans toward me conspiratorially. “Are you saying that you, Prudence Barnett … have been … procrastinating?” He says it like it’s a bad word, his face drawn with disbelief.
I can’t help but laugh at the overdramatization, even though it does give me a hiccup of anxiety when I realize the revised project is due in only a few weeks. “Absolutely not,” I say emphatically. “I’ve just been … conducting copious amounts of research.”
“Uh-huh, sure.” He winks at me, sending my heartbeat on another erratic drum solo. “Just so long as you know that when I’m procrastinating, research is my go-to excuse, too.”
“I am not procrastinating. That word is not in my vocabulary. But I will admit that it’s hard to spend my time writing a report about saving wildlife when I could be … you know. Helping to save actual wildlife.”
His teeth flash in a gigantic grin. “I couldn’t agree more.”
As he says this, a thought occurs to me.
One I can’t believe hasn’t crossed my mind until now.
I think of the times I tried to cast karmic justice on Quint at the start of the summer. When he refused to help with the biology project because he “had other things to do,” or when he was late to meet me on Main Street. I was so mad at him. So sure he was being selfish and lazy. But he wasn’t. He really did have other things to do. Seals to feed. Sea otters to rescue.
That’s why my attempts kept backfiring. Instead of punishing him, the universe was rewarding him. The extra credit from Mr. Chavez. The twenty-dollar bill.
All that time, I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. But the universe could. The universe knew.
“What?” says Quint, and I realize I’ve been staring at him.
I flush, and shake my head. “Nothing. Just spacing out.” It takes me a second to remember what we were talking about. “Anyway, don’t get the wrong idea. I do still think that revising the report and improving our grade is important. If I’m going to get into one of my top college choices, I can’t let my GPA slip.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Stanford,” I say, with no hesitation. “Or Berkeley. They both have really good business schools.”
He makes a face. “Business? What, did you look up the most boring majors possible and that one ranked just above political science?”
“Excuse me. Business is fascinating. The psychology of why and how people spend their money, the reasons why some businesses fail and others keep going strong … And I figure, a business degree can be applied to almost every field out there, so no matter what I’m drawn to later, I’ll be able to make it work.” I hum thoughtfully. “Sometimes I think, if either of my parents had any business sense, their lives would be so much easier. I never want to worry about money like they do.”
My thoughts go back to that wad of cash in my backpack. The box of silverware in the pawnshop. I swallow.
“That, I can understand,” says Quint. “I know Mom doesn’t want me to worry, but it’s impossible not to. This center is her passion, but it’s also her livelihood. If it fails…” He doesn’t finish the thought. I wonder what Rosa would do if she couldn’t run the center anymore. “But money isn’t everything. She works really hard here and it’s always a struggle to keep things going, but I don’t think she’d want to do anything else.”
Instant Karma Page 34