Quinn

by Sally Mandel

  “He’s definitely a dear. You want to dance, Annie?”

  “No. My feet are killing me in these awful old boots. They’ve got nails coming through.”

  “Take ’em off. I want to see if you’ve got freckles on the bottoms of your feet.”

  “You’re weird, Hank. Did I tell you that I hate your costume?”

  “What?”

  “Forget I said that.”

  “Talk about weird.”

  She moved her shoulders in time with the music. Will tugged on a braid. “Anyway, I like you in pigtails,” he said.

  “I used to have real ones until I was eleven, but Jake cut them off.”

  “Oh, is he the family beautician?”

  “It was purely a disciplinary event,” Quinn said.

  “What’d you do to provoke that?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. My mother wouldn’t let me do something I thought I should do, and I got mad and told her I hated her guts. Jake just happened to come into the kitchen and gave me this look like I’d thrown a rotten egg at the Pope. He grabbed a pair of scissors and chopped my braids right off my head and threw them on the table.” She paused a moment, then went on thoughtfully, “I had this wicked temper …”

  “I’m so glad you grew out of that,” Will said.

  “You turkey.”

  Isadora and Henry the Eighth flung themselves into their chairs. They were breathing hard.

  “I don’t know how she moved in these clothes,” Van gasped. “You can break your neck.” She exhibited the well-trod hem of her dress.

  “As it happens …” Will began slowly.

  “Don’t tell her!” Quinn said.

  “What?” Van asked.

  Stanley explained the manner of Isadora’s demise.

  “Oh, dear,” Van said. “I think I should have been Eleanor Roosevelt instead.”

  The music stopped pounding and Will sighed with happiness. Suddenly Quinn became aware of being watched. The bleary eyes that stared at her from the table directly behind Stanley and Van belonged to Chris Hartley. He wore a tinfoil crown that was too small for his head and a T-shirt with a bright-red heart painted on it.

  Chris saw that she had become aware of his gaze. He turned and whispered to his table companions. They laughed uproariously and glanced at Quinn. She felt herself blushing.

  “I’m going to slip some Scarlatti into that jukebox one of these days,” Will said.

  Quinn reached for her six-shooters and pointed them at Will’s chest. “You jis’ try it, ya’ no-good sidewinder. What’s a sidewinder, anyway?”

  Out of the comer of her eye she saw Chris rise awkwardly and lurch toward their table. He stopped when he reached Quinn, and put a hand on the back of her chair to steady himself.

  “Well,” he slurred. “The beeyoo-ful Miss Mallory, ’z I live ’n breathe.”

  Quinn kept her voice friendly and neutral. “Hi. King of Hearts, right?”

  “Nice costume, Chris,” Stanley said. “You’re pretty blasted.”

  “Drunk!” he shouted. “Intoxicated by the beauty of this fair maid. Mallory of Untouch … able.” He leaned down to put his face close to hers. He was sweaty and smelled of cigarettes. “Am I so repulsive to you, mademoiselle?”

  Quinn shook her head “no” as she breathed through her mouth to shut out the stench of nicotine. She imagined the rough hand of the garage intruder digging into her mouth.

  “You could use a cup of coffee,” Will said.

  Chris seemed to notice Will’s presence for the first time. “Ah!” he said with a clumsy flourish. “The charming Misser Ingraham.” He mimed a gesture of tearing open an envelope. “And the winner is … William the Conqueror! Virgin Vanquisher!”

  “Somebody do something with him,” Van said.

  Quinn held her hand out imploringly. “Hey, listen, Chris—”

  Chris struck it away and tried to focus on Will. “How was it? As a finalist, I got a right to know. What I lost out of … on. She got a nice tight …?”

  Will was on his feet, but Chris backed away from the table. His face had collapsed, as if he were about to cry. He waved at them in a kind of apology, but the small movement upset his balance. He slipped on a discarded paper cup and went down with a crash. Will reached to help him up, but Chris was fierce.

  “No! Do it myself. Sorry. Not the life of my party.” He stood and, with careful dignity, walked across the room and out the door.

  The others turned to Quinn, who was pale, almost gray. “Poor thing,” she whispered. A dozen onlookers averted their eyes and resumed disrupted conversations. The entertainment was over.

  “You okay?” Will asked.

  “He smelled like cigarettes,” Quinn murmured. “Excuse me.” She got up and hurried across the dance floor. The yellow pigtails bounced, more grotesque now than gay. She made it to the ladies’ room just in time.

  After that the tumultuous atmosphere of the union seemed oppressive. Van suggested Lou’s, and since none of them was dressed for the cold, they ran, howling when they intercepted the brutal wind that swept across the Pilgrim River bridge. They arrived out of breath, laughing and delighted with the stares from the conventionally attired patrons. They found a booth toward the back.

  “You sure you’re up to this?” Will asked Quinn.

  “The cold helped. I’m fine.”

  “You can content yourself with the fact that Chris is no doubt following suit—as behooves the King of Hearts—in the men’s room,” Stanley said.

  Quinn was still ashen. “He was … his face was …” She looked at Van. “You told me. You were right. I never thought anybody would get hurt.”

  “Old Chris’ll be okay,” Stanley said. “He’ll drown his grief with Henrietta Foster.”

  Quinn looked unconvinced. “I wish I could say something to him, do something to make up for it.”

  “I think the kindest thing would be to just leave him alone,” Will said.

  Van cleared her throat and said brightly, “Will was telling me about the old loggers he knew when he was growing up.”

  “That’s the Huntington ‘change the subject’ tone of voice,” Quinn told Will.

  “I’ve known a few old lawyers in my day,” Stanley said.

  “Loggers, loggers, you quahog,” Quinn said.

  “Like Paul Bunyan and John Wayne and Maureen O’Sullivan?” Stanley asked Will, and whispered to Van, “What’s a quahog?”

  “More like Pierre Lechat and John Tallfeather and Dooley Donovan,” Will said.

  Stanley forgot about quahogs and began interrogating. Will narrated the whole story, starting with his grandfather’s exodus west from Chicago with the railroad. Quinn sat sipping her ginger ale. The cold air had cleared away most of the choking odor of Chris Hartley’s cigarettes, but a faint reminder still clung to her hair. She had thought she had put the garage assault behind her. She would have to learn to live with the smell of nicotine and not be running off to vomit every time somebody lit up a cigarette. The man was still at large, but it wasn’t constructive to think about that. She tried to tune in to Will’s narration. Stanley and Van were obviously fascinated. They also seemed to like him. It was what she had wanted out of the evening. But why had Will worn that outfit? It wasn’t even a costume. And why was it that she only heard that degree of enthusiasm in his voice when he was talking about the Great American West?

  The wind had died down by the time they started back to campus. Their pace was a brisk walk, with Quinn and Will ahead of the other two.

  “They’re okay, your friends,” Will said.

  “I don’t know how you could tell. They couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”

  Will stared at her.

  “I’m sorry.” She shook his arm. “I was desperate for you to like them, and I’m really glad you do.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’ve been too Godda
mn quiet. Is it Chris?”

  “Probably.”

  “Look, this is the first time you’ve ever accused me of talking too much.”

  “Was I accusing?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You’re going to be a great teacher. I’ve already heard all that stuff and I wasn’t even bored.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  They continued walking in silence. Stanley and Van now trailed far behind. Suddenly Quinn stopped short and released his arm. “How come you’re Thoreau? I really wish you weren’t.”

  “Excuse me?” He couldn’t help smiling, even though her face was deadly earnest under the light of the streetlamp.

  “Is that really your absolutely fondest fantasy, to be off in the woods all by yourself?”

  Standing still was making them cold, and besides, Stanley and Van were catching up. Will put his arm around her and started moving again. “Not all by myself.”

  “I never hear much about Mrs. Thoreau.” When Will didn’t respond, she pressed, “Well, was there one?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I bet she brought the groceries over to Walden twice a week and shuffled off home again to tend the babies.”

  “If there were babies, he must have been around sometimes.”

  Quinn didn’t smile. “I thought you’d get a big charge out of Annie Oakley. She’s so western. I could have come as Fiorello LaGuardia, you know.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how you’d see it.”

  “Will, what is there for me out in the boondocks?” She stared up at him, but he had no answer for her. “If you ever leave me,” she said, “I’ll hate your guts forever.”

  He could sense her decision to back off. Relieved, he picked up one of her pigtails, made his fingers into scissors, and pretended to cut.

  She jerked her head away. “Oh, hell, we’re too nuts about each other not to work it out. We’ll do it.” She began to run back toward Stanley and Van. “Come on, Hank, let’s go get those two snails.”

  In the distance the streetlight glowed on Stanley’s purple tights.

  “Hey, Your Majesty!” Quinn called. “You’ve got regal stems!” Will strode along beside her with his eyes staring off into the darkness.

  Chapter 17

  The following Monday afternoon Quinn made the forty-minute bus ride to Springfield. She hadn’t mentioned to anyone her appointment with Dr. Huntington’s colleague at the Western New England Medical Research Center.

  She shook hands with Dr. George Loomis and sat down. He seemed barely within shouting distance, on the opposite side of a vast expanse of rosewood desk. It had been polished to such a high gloss that even the ornate pattern on the physician’s Liberty of London tie was clearly reflected. There were exquisite glass sculptures on the bookcase behind him. Quinn’s eyes searched in vain for the amiable clutter that she associated with her family doctor back home. In fact, the sole personal touch was a collage of children’s finger paintings that were handsomely framed but obscured by the array of diplomas and citations. What kind of doctor’s office smelled more like furniture polish than rubbing alcohol? At seventy-five dollars a crack, Quinn thought, the guy’d better be a diagnostic brain trust.

  “Russell Huntington tells me you’d like an opinion regarding your mother,” Dr. Loomis said.

  “Yes.” Quinn found herself whispering in response to the doctor’s hushed tone. Loomis began sifting through the leaves of Ann Mallory’s medical history. Quinn watched the top of his head and wished that the skull gleaming beneath the thinning hair were transparent, that she could read the thoughts hidden there before they got translated into that soft, careful voice.

  “Ym,” Dr. Loomis said.

  Ym, what’s ym? Quinn wondered. Her heart had begun to thump. Hey, that pile of statistics you’re looking at is my mother.

  Her eyes wandered to the finger paintings. Upon closer scrutiny she began to suspect that they had been selected by an interior decorator to enhance the colors in the Oriental rug.

  Dr. Loomis looked up. His face was bland, eyes a pale, noncommittal blue. “I presume you’ve read this. The prognosis and so on?”

  Quinn nodded. The thumping intensified with each movement of her head.

  “Without actually examining Mrs. Mallory,” the doctor continued, “I find nothing to dispute the diagnosis in Dr. Gunther’s letter.”

  Quinn put her hand on the glass surface of the desk and felt it stick there. “I want to know what her chances are. Whether there’ll be pain. Whether she’s better off in the hospital than at home. Where there’s an experimental program …”

  “Miss Mallory …” The doctor held up his hands to stop the torrent. “I wish I had more to offer you, but I’m afraid—”

  “How come nobody wants to answer my questions?” Quinn blurted.

  “Because there aren’t any answers.”

  Quinn thought for a moment. There were always answers. It was finding them that was tricky. But she could see that Loomis was trying to be straight with her. “Are you a better doctor than Gunther?” she asked.

  There was a flicker behind the pallid eyes. “He has an excellent reputation.”

  “What would you do if she were your mother?”

  “I’d stick with Gunther, and if he asked me to feed her raw dandelion leaves, I’d do it. I’m sorry, but you’re up against a disease we just don’t know enough about.” He looked tired.

  Quinn stood up. “I like your art,” she said.

  The doctor rose too, glanced at the finger paintings, and smiled. “I’m convinced they belong in a museum, of course.” He extended his hand. “I wish you luck, Miss Mallory. Lupus sometimes has long periods of remission. It won’t be easy, but it’s possible that she’s got many years.”

  Quinn clung to his soft fingers, as if by prolonging the handshake she could somehow prolong her mother’s life. The doctor held out the file for her, and she was forced to let go.

  “Next time you see Russ Huntington,” he said, “you tell him for me he’s a son of a bitch.”

  Quinn never did get a bill.

  “Will, I want you to come home with me,” Quinn said, slapping down The Evolution of American Foreign Policy.

  Will looked up from The Golden Bough. Beside his chair the window framed a swirling blizzard. “Funny you should say that,” he remarked.

  “Ho-ho?”

  He set his book on the windowsill and motioned to her. She sat on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ve been thinking,” he began.

  “I told you never to do that.”

  “We’ve got an eight-day break after exams. How about we go to Idaho?”

  Quinn stared at him.

  “It’s not expensive if we fly standby. There’s a really cheap Saturday flight.”

  “How cheap is really cheap?”

  “I don’t remember exactly.”

  She rolled her eyes. Sitting bolt upright, she held her hands folded in her lap. “I’ve never been west of the Hudson River.”

  “Carpe diem.”

  She thought for a moment, then looked at him and said, “You bet your ass, honeybunch. And what’s more, on our way back we can fly to Boston and stop over at my house. That way we’ll kill four birds with one stone. And I’ll have a party so you can meet all the old crowd. They can stare at you and envy me. Will, this is gonna be fun. Idaho. Holy shit. Have you got a map? I want to see where I’m going. Oh, my God, I almost forgot.”

  “What?”

  “The second thing I was going to say, after ‘come home with me.’ It’s going to put a damper on everything.”

  “Let’s get it over with then.”

  “It’s my letter to Ted Manning, the one about a job?”

  “I know the one you mean.”

  “We won’t talk about what’s going to happen. I am absolutely convinced we’ll reach a compromise. Just please take a look at
it for me and tell me how to fix it?”

  “All right.”

  She lifted herself partway off him and withdrew a crumpled page from the back pocket of her jeans. Will slipped his hand under her as she settled onto his lap again.

  “Nice,” he said.

  “Here, read.” She handed him the letter.

  He scowled at it. “I hope you’re going to type it. Nobody can read this mess.”

  She snatched it back. “Of course I’m going to type it. Here.” She read aloud. “Mr. Ted Manning, On the Line, 4141 Avenue of the Americas—”

  “Spare me the zip code, will you?” he interjected.

  She went on in a firm voice. “New York, New York 10019. Dear Mr. Manning: This is partly a fan letter. I watch your program almost every night and you are the most insightful, persuasive, thorough, and exhilarating interviewer in the media. That’s Part One,” she explained to Will, then continued. “That was the fan letter section, and now I want to ask you for a job with On the Line. I have terrific grades, my bookcase is full of awards, I’ve got enormous stamina, and besides, I can type. I am also insightful, persuasive, thorough, and exhilarating. I will be in New York the end of the month and would appreciate an interview with your company. Perhaps you would also be interested in hearing my suggestions for making your show an even greater success—humble suggestions, of course. I hope to hear from you soon. Very truly yours, Quinn C. Mallory.” She looked at Will expectantly.

  “You’re hired,” he said without enthusiasm.

  “Think I overdid the charming impertinence?”

  “No.” He looked at her carefully. “Quinn …”

  “Oh, no. We’re not getting into that, remember?”

  “We’re going to have to one of these days.”

  She nestled against his shoulder. “I want you to meet my parents. And Margery, and Jim, and everybody, even Darlene Finney.”

  “Who’s Darlene Finney? Have I ever heard of her?”

  “I think I dreamt about her last night. I do occasionally, when I’m paranoid. You ready for the sad tale of my criminal youth?”

  “If we can’t discuss the future, I guess we might as well discuss the past. But squinch over. That’s better.”