Quinn

by Sally Mandel

  He remembered the look on her face when she emerged from under his bedspread this afternoon, all rosy and pleased with herself. He had a long way to go before he reached despise.

  Chapter 14

  Quinn sat alone in her room for about five minutes before she was on her feet again. She slipped into her jacket, brushed furiously at her cheeks, and vowed to waste not one more tear on William Hamilton Ingraham.

  The night air was bracing. As she neared the garage she began to feel better. The side door stood ajar, but Gus was nowhere to be seen. Quinn grabbed her overalls from the wall hook and headed for a truck she had been overhauling. Lying beneath its metal entrails, she began to dissect the argument. A thorough soul-search convinced her that she had not deliberately usurped Will’s choices; truly, she had expected him to be pleased. But by the time she had replaced the shock absorbers, she decided that perhaps she had made a few assumptions. Will had overreacted, but maybe he was scared. From now on she would approach the subject of their future with more tact. Will’s mind, with its imaginative meanderings, could invent impediments where none existed. She always told him he thought too much.

  She slid out from under the truck and hurried toward Gus’s office. Will’s dorm had already closed to women visitors, but she could still call him. She stripped off her overalls, and as she turned to hang them next to Gus’s she heard a rustle behind her. She whirled around, but too late. An arm grabbed her around the neck, pinning her to a bulky body. Rough fingers covered her mouth. The reek of nicotine was sickening.

  A gruff voice said, “I’ve got a knife. I’ll use it if you yell.”

  Quinn stopped struggling and willed her body to remain still. There was tension in the thick arm at her throat. It was vibrating with what she hoped was indecision, or fear.

  “Where’s the cashbox?” He gave her neck a cruel squeeze. Sweat formed on her forehead, then the hand lifted slightly, testing, and finally released her mouth.

  Quinn whispered in a voice she didn’t recognize, “There is no cashbox.”

  “This is a garage, isn’t it? There’s gotta be cash.” He was angry. The steel arm stiffened again.

  “Not public. For the college.” It was hard to speak with the vise twisting against her larynx.

  “Fucking bitch,” the voice muttered. “No cash, no cash. You bitch.” The free hand slipped beneath her sweater and touched the bare skin of her stomach. Quinn felt her knees begin to give way. She made an involuntary sound like a moan. Instantly the hand clamped over her mouth. The arm cut off her breath until she began to see sparkles against Gus’s overalls. She was staring at them where they hung on the wall, as if they would suddenly, magically be filled with the friend who belonged inside the baggy folds.

  The man shoved his pelvis against her. His erection was stiff against her right buttock. She closed her eyes and tried to think. She hadn’t actually felt a knife. Should she take the aggressive tack, bite that hand, hard, and try to make a run for it? He was very strong. Also, he had shut the side door.

  Suddenly the hand eased again and she felt the salty taste of blood on her mouth.

  “Get down on the floor. Take off your clothes first.”

  Somewhere in Quinn’s brain there were cells that continued to function despite her terror. “Listen. Listen to me,” she said, in a monotonous voice that she hoped was unthreatening. She could sense hesitation in the shift of the body behind her.

  Out of nowhere a wild thought appeared in her head. It was a risk, undeniably, but there wasn’t a whole lot of time for detailed analysis. She spoke quickly. “I’m sick. I have this thing. It’s up to you.” She had never heard the strange voice that was speaking now, but at least he was listening. “It’s up to you,” she repeated, trying to hang on to the soothing monotone. “Messy. It’s a messy thing. Stomach. It’s chronic, my stomach. Diarrhea. Lots of diarrhea. No control at all. Very messy, a real problem.” Suddenly she felt the impulse to laugh. She forced the hysteria down and gulped. “It gets my clothes. My clothes are a mess, my bed, everything …”

  “If you turn around, I’ll kill you,” the voice snarled. He released her, giving her a rough push. On his way out he drew his arm across Gus’s desk and swept everything onto the floor. She never saw his face.

  She fell to her knees beside Gus’s desk and began to cry. “Thank you. Oh, Jesus, oh, God, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.” After a few minutes she brushed herself off and began crawling around on the floor to pick up the papers and debris. It took her a while to remember that she ought to leave it all just as it was.

  Gus strode into the office, saw her on the floor, and said, “Hey, Mallory, whadya do, shove a bulldozer across my desk?” She turned her face to him. Her cheeks were tearstained and smudged, but it was her look of fear and helplessness that most stunned him. He called the police, and they sat waiting together, on the edge of the desk, hand in hand. Soon the town police arrived to take Quinn to the station. Gus stood for a moment watching the flashing red light of the patrol car recede into the darkness. If his cursed insomnia was fated to make an appearance, at least it could have propelled him to the garage in time to spare Quinn. He walked into the garage, ripped a loose door off one of the campus vans, and slammed it against the floor.

  Despite Quinn’s protestations that at no time had she glimpsed the man’s face, she was required to stare at hundreds of faces in a macabre photograph album labeled “Known Sex Offenders.” She reported to Sergeant Collins, who seemed to be in charge, her conviction that the man’s primary interest was cash. Any rape intentions were either incidental or a reaction to the frustration of finding no money.

  A patrolman asked her if she had “done anything to invite a sexual attack.”

  “Oh, sure,” she retorted, “I said to him, ‘Gee, I feel so bad that there isn’t any money for you to steal. How about I try to make it up to you?’ Then I climbed up on the desk and did this cute little dance …”

  Her voice had risen half an octave, recapturing the attention of the distracted sergeant. Collins was small and sinewy like her father.

  “Cut it out,” he said. Quinn wasn’t sure whether he was addressing her or the patrolman, but they both fell silent. After two more albums she was escorted home in a patrol car.

  She took a long shower. Too tired to dry her hair, she just covered her pillow with a clean towel and climbed into bed. Suddenly she began to cry again, but this time she welcomed the tears as if they were cleansing the suffocating smell of nicotine from her nostrils, and washing the ugly incident out of her life for good.

  Chapter 15

  When she woke the next morning, instead of tumbling out of bed the moment her eyes opened, Quinn lay still and thought. The fight with Will seemed real enough, but not the events that followed. If God were going to send her a brainstorm to elude rape, surely it wouldn’t take the form of diarrhea.

  She tried to get up, but the room seemed to be revolving around her bed, slowly at first, except each time she moved, the tempo accelerated as though she were the center post of a merry-go-round. She leaned back against her pillow gingerly. Suddenly she was frozen and her body began to tremble. Her teeth chattered, her arms and legs quaked. And yet a moment later she felt as if she were being boiled alive and had to kick off her blankets. The movement made her groan. Every part of her ached. Wherever her flesh came in contact with the sheets, she felt bruised.

  She closed her eyes and hoped that whatever was happening would pass. Ordinarily Quinn did not acknowledge the authority of pain. She never bothered with Novocain at the dentist’s office. Scrapes and bruises, even broken fingers, were an inconvenience to be ignored. She never got colds. Now, this morning, she wasn’t convinced she could even make it to the infirmary. Another bout of chills struck her. She tried to force her limbs to be still, but they disobeyed. Frightened and crying now, she hauled herself out of bed. With the room spinning she found a dime in her desk drawer and groped her
way down the hall to the telephone. The first time she tried to insert the coin into the slot, her shaking fingers dropped it, but finally she managed to complete the call.

  It wasn’t difficult to persuade the person on the other end to wake Will. She knew she must sound desperate.

  “Hello?”

  Just the sound of his voice started her crying again. “Will? It’s me. I’m … I can’t …”

  “What’s happened?”

  “I’m sick. I guess. It’s so stupid. I can’t seem to walk very well. Will you help me get to the infirmary?”

  “Can you make it to the lobby?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Quinn crept back to her room by steadying herself with one hand against the wall. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt and cautiously made her way to the elevator. She didn’t have to wait long for Will. He was red-faced and breathing hard.

  “What happened to you, Quinn?” He was staring at the tendrils of sweat-soaked hair around her face. Her freckles looked gray against the white cheeks.

  “Got sick. I’m sorry, I never had to do this … call somebody. I feel so dumb.”

  He lifted her from the chair, put his arm around her waist, and half carried her to the infirmary.

  He sat with her while the nurse took her temperature.

  “How much is it?” he asked.

  “Hundred and three point six,” the nurse answered. “Into bed, young lady.”

  “May I stay?” he asked.

  “Visiting hours are two to four.”

  “Please come back,” Quinn said. Her eyes had filled again at the thought of his leaving. She was pretty sure that she had spilled more tears these past twenty-four hours than in all her life up to yesterday.

  She slept through the morning. By the time Will showed up at her bedside, her temperature had dropped to a hundred degrees and she was feeling much better.

  He sat down in the chair next to her bed. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got great recuperative powers. Will, I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Me, too. I was a churl.”

  “If you were a churl, I was a troll.”

  “A perfect match.” He took her hand and examined it. She had freckles on the backs but none on the creamy skin of her palms. He tried to remember if her feet were similar. “I didn’t want to hear what you were saying.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s that bruise?” He pointed to her throat.

  Quinn averted her eyes.

  “Is it a bruise? Or …” He looked embarrassed. Quinn knew what he was thinking and started to laugh.

  “I didn’t exactly have a hot date … oh, God …” The laughter was getting out of hand. She knew that soon she would be crying again, so she took a few deep breaths and told him about the intruder in the garage.

  Will pulled the neck of her nightgown aside.

  “Looks like a Rorschach, doesn’t it?” she said.

  All of the muscles in his face had gone rigid. “Do they know who he is?”

  “Please, don’t get angry now. Just be calm and nice.”

  He understood at once. She needed his restraint, almost like a child whose tiny body cannot contain the fury of a temper tantrum. He remembered Marianne’s little sister flying apart over some four-year-old disappointment. As rage overwhelmed her, her eyes had dilated with fear. She threw herself on the ground, pounding her arms and legs against the grass. Marianne had picked her up, ignoring the screams of protest and dodging the flailing limbs as best she could, and held the child tightly against her own quiet body. She talked soothingly, making repetitive comforting noises until finally, the tempest over, the little girl wiped her tears with the back of her fist and scampered off to play again.

  “It’s all over,” Will said. “I’m going to sit here holding your hand forever, so everyone will think we’re furniture. We’ll be here in the year 2000, a couple of fossils stuck together.”

  “I love you.”

  Neither of them had ever said it before. He examined her face closely for a moment and then leaned over to kiss her.

  Then he gazed at her, thinking that surely the pain circling his own neck had already manifested itself into hideous livid bruises like hers. It dawned on him that whatever happened to her had just as certainly happened to him. There was no escape.

  Chapter 16

  There was to be an all-campus costume party that Saturday night. Quinn and Will made a pact not to divulge to each other what they would wear but agreed that their costumes must display a cherished fantasy. And for the first time Stanley and Van would join them in a double date.

  As she was climbing into her Annie Oakley costume, Quinn wondered how Will would get along with her friends. She was impatient with her nervousness; how could three such terrific people not like one another? It was the argument from two weeks ago that had done this to her, she decided. Will’s sudden explosion had left her with the uneasy sensation that he was not altogether predictable.

  She appraised herself in the long mirror on the closet door. Her fringed skirt was exactly right. The dimestore material appeared worn and discolored, like real suede. In that skirt Quinn might have spent the past twenty days chasing cattle rustlers across the plains. She wore a plaid work shirt, and over it a vest with fringe to match her skirt.

  She had bought skeins of corn-yellow yarn, which she had braided into a wig with pigtails. Her plastic ivory-handled six-guns were somewhat small but could be tucked neatly into her belt. She had drawn patterns on her old leather boots in white chalk to simulate elaborate cowboy stitching. Feet apart, she snatched the guns out of her belt, twirled them around her fingers, and shot her image right in the heart.

  “Gotcha,” she said. Then she flung on her raincoat and headed off for the union. It was a damp January night. Every now and then a snowflake dropped heavily out of the sky and turned to slush the moment it hit the ground. She glanced at her watch. The others would be there already, maybe sitting and staring at one another in silence.

  Stanley intercepted her by the door. “I am taking Marvin his beer,” he said. “Who’s this, Calamity Jane?”

  “Aren’t you cute, Stan!” Quinn exclaimed, scrutinizing his long velveteen robe with the rat-fur trim. He poked a leg through the folds to exhibit purple tights. “Oh, my,” Quinn said. “This has to be Henry the Eighth.”

  “Your obedient servant,” Stanley said. He forged a path through the crowd with his foaming pitcher.

  “I should have known. Who’s Marvin?”

  “Who’s Marvin!” Stanley echoed in mock horror. “Your Marvin. Marvin the Magnificent.”

  Quinn giggled. “Oh. That one. He is, isn’t he?”

  Stanley had to shout back at her over the din. “If first impressions don’t deceive, he’s better looking than Quasimodo and smarter than Ed the Talking Horse. More than that I dasn’t say.”

  Quinn poked him in the back. “You dasn’t, dasn’t you?”

  Will and Van sat at a table in the corner behind a solid wall of costumed students. They were talking with heads close together in order to hear over the cacophony.

  “I think they like each other,” Quinn observed.

  “Not too much or heads will roll,” said Henry the Eighth.

  Will and Van looked up as Quinn reached for her six-shooters. “Pow!” she said.

  “Annie Oakley,” Van and Will pronounced simultaneously.

  “You got it,” Quinn said, using her hip to edge her way to the seat next to Will. She examined her friend. “I don’t suppose you’re Ann Boleyn.”

  “You won’t get it,” Van said. She waved arms that were draped in gauzy white cloth. “Isadora Duncan.”

  “A fine match for King of the Brits, think ye not?” Stanley asked, pouring beer into their paper cups. “We raided the drama department, but there wasn’t much left.”

  “H
enry the Eighth was Stanley’s finest role. Wasn’t it, Quinn?” Van asked.

  “And ’tis a kind of good deed to say well: / And yet words are no deeds,” Stanley proclaimed.

  “I saw you in that production,” Will said. “I’m impressed. You were very good. Why are you going to medical school when you’re such a good actor?”

  “Doctors are the ultimate in royalty back in Brooklyn,” Stanley replied.

  “Anyhow, I think the impulse to be Henry the Eighth goes beyond remembering the play,” Van said.

  “Here we go, Freud time,” Quinn remarked.

  “The impulse, my dear Isadora,” said Stanley with a Viennese accent, “is the sublimated urgency to dispose of my wenches when they become too much a pain in the ass. I like especially to chop them off at the head. I find the castration symbolism so gratifying, don’t you agree?”

  They all laughed.

  “But Will,” Quinn protested, “you didn’t dress up.”

  He held out his hands to display an old flannel shirt and patched jeans. “I did.”

  “You won’t get him, either,” Van said. “He’s Henry Thoreau.”

  “Oh,” Quinn said. “Well, at least we’re both outdoor types.”

  “Come on, Isadora,” Stanley said. He pulled Van to her feet. “Let’s show ’em how to trip the light fantastic. Don’t look when she does a pirouette. You can see right through that stuff.” They got up and squeezed through the crowd to the dance floor.

  “So do you like them?” Quinn asked.

  “They seem nice.”

  “Seem, seem. They are nice. What were you talking to Van about?”

  “I don’t remember. Beacon Hill, I think.”

  “Stanley’s a dear, don’t you think?”