by Sally Mandel
They they both laughed and Quinn said, “Now I know I’m home.”
Quinn watched Ann sit down, taste the stew, wrinkle her nose critically, and reach for the pepper grinder. She had curly dark hair, creamy freckled skin, and blue eyes. Quinn’s were blue as well, but bright and clear, filled with sparkling prisms of light. Ann’s were darker, deep-sea blue, shadowed. Quinn enjoyed looking at her, though today she thought her mother did seem a little tired. Maybe it was the dying winter sunlight against her mother’s soft cheeks. Ann looked up, smiling, and Quinn decided the pallor was only in her imagination.
“You heard about Margery? She’s engaged. To Tommy Flanagan, of all people.”
Quinn held up three fingers and wagged them at her. “Once by mail, once by phone, and now in person.”
“Oh, did I really? I must be getting old. And surely Margery would tell you in her letters.”
“She surely would. Besides, you know I’ve got the party tonight.”
“Yes, of course.”
“You trying to tell me something, Mom?”
Before Ann could answer, John muttered, “The O’Malleys will rue the day they allowed that boy in the family.”
“I’m sure he’s perfectly nice now. Susan O’Malley’s delighted,” Ann said.
“Susan O’Malley would think Adolf Hitler was perfectly nice.”
“That was four years ago, Jake,” Quinn protested, reverting to her childhood habit of addressing her parents by their first names, or in John’s case by his nickname. It had pleased her to think of them as comrades. “We were just kids, for Christ’s sake,” she continued.
“Don’t swear, dear,” Ann said.
“You must hear a lot of cursing up at B.C., Mom. When are you going to get used to it?”
“She chews them out too, don’t think she doesn’t,” John said. “And Tom Flanagan behaved like a dog. You know, I found out from Father Riley that the Flanagans were first cousins to the O’Roarkes. Not the Dublin O’Roarkes, the farmers. My great-grandfather on the Madden side got fleeced by old man O’Roarke when he bought that pitiful little shed near the river. Took all his savings and the damn thing nearly floated away in the spring floods. Worthless, it was.”
Quinn tipped her bowl to capture the last spoonful of stew and sang with an exaggerated brogue, “The thing about John Mallory, y’ see, the man never carries a grudge. Sure, and not past the sixth or seventh generation.”
“And sure, you’re not a rogue,” Ann said with a laugh.
Quinn leaned back, balancing her chair on its hind legs. “I bet everybody’ll be at Margery’s tonight. All the old gang.”
“I think I heard Noreen’s cousin from Quincy is up,” Ann said. “You remember, dear, the tall good-looking one.”
Quinn grimaced.
“She remembers,” John said.
“Is there anyone special at school?” Ann’s voice was casual.
“No. I really don’t have time.”
“Of course you have time. Every young girl has time.”
“There’s the cafeteria job and the work at the garage. I see a lot of Gus Lenowski. We spend many a weekend together changing points and plugs.”
Ann looked closely at her daughter. “He’s … older, isn’t he?”
“Ancient. Forty if he’s a day. There isn’t anybody, Mother. I’ll probably go to my deathbed a virgin.”
Ann set her soup spoon down abruptly.
“Besides, you’ve been a career lady for two years now. How come you’re still putting the pressure on me to get married?”
“Was I?”
“You were,” John said. “There’ll be plenty of time for all that after graduation. Let her concentrate on her studies.” He turned to Quinn. “Make Phi Beta Kappa yet?”
“Speaking of pressure,” Quinn said, “don’t I always do all right?”
“All right? What’s that?”
She made a face at him.
“Leave her alone, John,” Ann said. “She just got here, for heaven’s sake.”
“That’s all right, Mom. I wouldn’t recognize him if he wasn’t surly.”
“I’m the most even-tempered person in this house,” John said. Quinn hooted.
“Did you bring home something nice to wear to the party, dear?” Ann asked Quinn.
“I have a nice greasy sweat shirt with matching cut-offs …”
“Jesus Mary!” John interrupted with mock horror. “You’ll do your mother in, girl. You know she has a weak heart.”
“Margery getting married. It’s hard to believe,” Ann remarked.
“Seems just the other night she came in here crying and carrying on, poor lass,” John said.
They all sat quietly for a moment, remembering. Several years ago when she and Quinn were still in high school, Margery had appeared at the front door late one night, asking for Ann. She refused to tell Quinn what was wrong, only insisted through her tears that she must talk to Ann, until finally Quinn got her mother out of bed. She and Margery sat in the kitchen with the door closed for almost two hours while Quinn and John tried to concentrate on Marlon Brando in Viva Zapata. Days later Margery confided in Quinn that she was pregnant. She miscarried soon afterward, and, as far as Quinn knew, the O’Malley family never found out.
Troubled people had always turned to Ann Mallory, and it was only during their unburdenings that the kitchen door was kept closed. Quinn would go to her room or sit by the television with the volume turned way up so that she wouldn’t be tempted to eavesdrop. As a child she had felt uneasy about those sessions. On the one hand, she was proud that people valued Ann’s advice. On the other hand, she sometimes wished it had been possible to hoard her mother’s special comforting gifts. Some things were hard to share with the general public.
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what it was all about?” John asked. As Ann looked at him he held up his hands. “No, never mind. Forget I asked.”
Everyone knew that with Ann a secret remained a secret. Quinn shoved back her chair and began collecting dishes.
Ann started to rise. “Yes, you’d better get a move on if you’re going to make it to the party by six.”
“Sit down, Ann,” John ordered. “I’ll do it.”
Quinn stared at him as he stacked the plates and carried them to the sink.
“Your shower,” Ann prompted.
“Yeah, thanks, okay. Stew was great, Mom.” On her way out she planted a hasty kiss on her mother’s cheek.
They listened to her clatter up the stairs.
“It’s nice to have noise,” Ann said.
John, up to his elbows in soapsuds, grinned at her from across the kitchen. “You betcha,” he said.
Quinn dressed carefully. Just in case Magnificent Marvin shows up, she told herself. Why did it seem as if two weeks ago she’d been primping in front of this same mirror for the sake of Tommy Flanagan’s admiring smile? She supposed it was the absence of any important person ever since. Besides, she was sixteen when she fell for Tommy and eighteen when it was all over. Everything gets exaggerated during those years. Her hormones must have been making her crazy. She brushed her hair energetically, pleased at how the light caught its waves. It shone against her shoulders, and her blue sweater matched her eyes. Tommy was probably ugly. Maybe even fat. What the hell.
The party was in full swing when she arrived. Susan Kelly shouted, “Hey, there’s Quinn!” But immediately she was pressed up against Jim Donohue. He handed her a papercupful of beer.
“How’s our co-ed? Still learning how to be better than us poor working slobs?”
“Now tell me, Jim, how in the world could I ever be better than you?”
He gave her a squeeze. “You’re still pretty cute, Freckles. For an intellectual.”
It took her fifteen minutes to shove through the crowd to the happy couple. She managed to swallow another cup of beer on her way. When she spotted Tommy’s curly head beside the win
dow, she gulped down a third. He watched her approach, and she caught his quick appraisal of her face and body. Margery, busy with her mother, didn’t notice.
“Hi,” Quinn said, smiling into the smoky eyes that had bewitched her way back in seventh grade when she’d had to pitch a no-hitter to make him know she was alive.
Tommy returned her smile, dipped his head for a chaste kiss. Then Margery interrupted her conversation with Mrs. O’Malley long enough to hug Quinn. Margery had an aureole of wild, frizzy brown hair that had always dismayed her. Since the boy-crazy days of junior high she had experimented with every remedy: expensive conditioners touted by Italian countesses with sleek dark tresses; creams sold exclusively in the ghetto drugstores of Roxbury—she had even talked Quinn into ironing it the night of the Junior Prom, but the result was always a disappointing thatch that was as brittle as hay, or singed kinks that exuded alarming wafts of Eau de Bonfire with every movement of her head. Quinn concluded that Tommy’s attentions must have given Margery confidence. Tonight her hair, left to its own devices, was a pillow of tangled curls. Her face was a perfect heart shape, her eyes were golden brown, and Quinn thought she had never looked prettier.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Margery was saying. “But we won’t be able to get two words in tonight. When am I going to see you?”
“I’ll be around till Sunday,” Quinn said.
“Terrific. I’ve got so much to tell you.” Margery gave Tommy a mischievous look. “Come on, Mom, we’d better find those ashtrays or we’ll have a new pattern in the rug.”
Margery’s mother said hello, then looked from Quinn to Tommy with undisguised anxiety. But Margery escorted her toward the kitchen.
Left alone with him, Quinn said, “Congratulations. You couldn’t have done better.”
“I’m a lucky son of a bitch,” he said. The gray eyes watched her closely. “How are you, Quinn?”
“Never better. I hear you’re a banker now.”
“Yeah.”
“You like it?”
“Beats college.”
“Now, how would you know?”
“You going to start on that?” he asked.
She stared at him in silence for a moment, wondering if she had just found out why he hadn’t shown up that last Saturday night. “I bet Margery’s much too easy on you,” she said finally.
“Yup. She seems to think I’m acceptable in my present flawed state.”
“Everybody can use improvement,” Quinn said.
“Some of us are hopeless.” He reached out a long arm to grab two more cupfuls of beer from a passing tray. He handed one to Quinn. “Are you working on anybody at school?”
Quinn felt herself growing flustered and took a swallow from her cup. “No.”
“I can’t believe that. There must be all kinds of guys who need motivating. Better grades, more touchdowns—”
“Is that what you think I do?” she interrupted. “Go around like some missionary bettering people’s characters?”
She realized immediately that her tone was far too intense for his cheerful banter. She looked down into the nearly empty paper cup, and Tommy touched her shoulder lightly.
“Hey, I was just teasing.”
“And all this time I thought it was because I wouldn’t go to bed with you.” Infuriatingly, her eyes began to fill with tears.
“Quinn, what in hell did I say?”
She shook her head. “Sometimes I think that was my first mistake. I actually believed all that eyewash about going straight to hell.”
“You’re still pissed off at me,” he said. His voice was quietly incredulous.
“You broke my heart, you bastard.”
“Hey, listen, that was kid stuff. I never meant—” A lone tear trickled down her cheek and he broke off miserably, “Jesus.”
“Margery makes you happy, doesn’t she?” Quinn asked.
“Yes.”
“She’ll be good to you. She’ll make your bed and wash your socks and have your babies and never demand a thing.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she didn’t let him speak. “I’m not putting that down.”
“Like hell.”
“She’s the best-natured, kindest person on earth, and you’d just better be nice to her forever.” Quinn glanced toward the kitchen and saw Susan O’Malley staring at them. “I’m going to mingle. It’s good to see you, Tommy. All the best.” She kissed his cheek and turned to lose herself in the crush.
At Thanksgiving dinner, and for the remainder of the vacation, Quinn’s parents thought she seemed quieter than usual. Instead of pursuing her customary frantic schedule of visiting and parties, the front door banging with incessant entrances and departures, she mostly stayed at home, reading magazines and tinkering with her father’s car. On Sunday afternoon Stanley and Van stopped by to pick her up.
Stanley waited until she had finished waving goodbye to Ann and John from the back window of the bus. “So, how was it?” he asked.
“Fine. What about yours?”
“Your mother is so pretty,” Van said.
“You don’t look anything like her,” Stanley commented.
“Gee, thanks,” Quinn said. “You’re both alive, so it couldn’t have been too bad.”
“Yeah, but you should see them,” Stanley said gleefully, “lying in a pool of blood on the pale white carpet, hatchets sticking out of their backs.”
“Stanley was wonderful,” Van said. “They couldn’t find a thing the matter with him.”
“Drove them nuts. I could feel them inspecting my nails. I wonder why they didn’t ask me for a urine specimen.”
“Oh, Stanley,” Van said.
“Who knows, they might have detected some rare disease found only among those of the Jewish persuasion. Fatal, of course, preferably within the hour.”
“They’re coming along,” Van said firmly, and turned around to ask Quinn, “Was Marvin at the party?”
“Not that I noticed. It was very crowded. Did you do anything special?”
“Wait a minute,” Stanley said. “What about Flannelmouth? Has he reformed?”
“Hard to tell. Did you pass the golf test?”
“God damn it, what happened at the party?” Stanley bellowed.
“Nothing. I said ‘hello’ and he said ‘hello’ and we shot the breeze for a while and that was that. I think he’ll be extremely happy with Margery.” Her voice was even. Van peered into her face, and Quinn smiled back sweetly. After that she fell silent, watching out the window.
Finally Stanley complained about the unnaturally low noise level in the backseat, and Van said, “Tell her about the Great Freudian Slip.”
“You tell her.”
“Oh, no, I’m much too humiliated.”
“We’re all sitting at the table looking like a Norman Rockwell painting,” Stanley related, “and Mrs. Huntington gives me this tight little smile, hands me a thimbleful of coffee, and says, ‘Stanley, wouldn’t you like another piece of this lovely chocolate kike?’ ”
“She didn’t! I don’t believe you,” Quinn howled.
Van shook her head. “Do you think maybe I was adopted?”
“That got a rise out of her,” Stanley said, referring to Quinn. But she had already slipped back into her reverie. “Mallory, what in hell is going on with you?”
“Nothing. I’m thinking.” It had begun to snow, and Quinn watched the fine dry powder whirl into fanciful shapes beside the road as the bus roared past.
“Yes, but what about?” Van asked.
“Just working on Marvin, that’s all.”
“That’s all,” Van echoed.
“If he wasn’t at the party, where’d you meet him?” Stanley asked.
“I didn’t. But I’m going to. Soon. Now leave me alone. I’m plotting.”
Van shrugged at Stanley. For the rest of the trip all conversation was confined to the front seat.
Chapter 2
“We’re late,” Van said, her arms loaded with books. She watched Quinn’s disheveled figure emerge from beneath the jacked-up truck-battered sneakers first, then overalls, and finally the grease-streaked face. Bright tendrils poked out from beneath an oversize plaid handkerchief tied around her head.
“You look like a chimney sweep,” Van took a small step backward, unconsciously avoiding the possibility of besmirching her skirt.
“Chim chim cheroo,” Quinn replied. “Thanks for bringing my stuff.” She stepped out of the overalls, undid the handkerchief, and shook her hair. “Gus!” she yelled into the shadowy recesses of the garage.
“Christ, Mallory,” Gus answered. “You trying to bust my eardrums or what? Hello, Vanessa.”
“I didn’t see you, sneaking up on those little cat feet,” Quinn said, cleaning her hands with a rag. Gus looked down at his size thirteen work boots.
Quinn nodded at the truck. “She’s okay now, but they ought to give that maniac a nice safe desk job. He’s hell on transmissions.”
“What about number 63? I need her by Friday.”
Quinn groaned. “I can’t, Gus, really. I’ve got a Religion final.”
“Listen, nobody else has your way with shock absorbers,” he said. “You’ll get your A anyway.”
“Come off it, cheapskate. You just don’t want to hire a union mechanic.” She tossed him the rag. “Can’t it wait until the weekend?”
“For you it’ll wait.”
“Deal,” she said. Van glanced pointedly at her watch. “Okay, I’m coming.”
As they headed for the door Gus called, “Hey, good luck in Religion! If you don’t know the answer, pray!” He reached through the window of the truck and started the engine, nodding as it roared into life.
The two figures raced along the campus walk, Quinn slightly ahead of Van, their breath exploding in icy clouds. Despite her long legs Van struggled to keep up with Quinn’s unrestrained gallop.
“We’re not that late,” she gasped.
“Have to check the mail before class.”
“You’ve got a break after English. My God, you’re making me perspire.”