Quinn

by Sally Mandel

  “Tell them I’ll be down later.”

  It suddenly occurred to Quinn that her mother was only offering to make an appearance to please her. “It was too much for you, wasn’t it, this whole thing?”

  “Don’t be silly, dear. I loved planning it with you.”

  “Let me bring you something.”

  Ann started to decline, but Quinn’s face pleaded with her to ask for something, anything.

  “I’d be glad of a cup of tea, thank you.”

  Quinn found Will with Stanley and Van, the three of them rooted to the floor beside the stairs.

  “God damn it, Will,” she said. “You can talk with these two when we get back to school. Go talk to Mary Frances, will you? Find out how she got to be a Bolshevik.”

  “I’d rather have another beer,” Will said.

  Quinn glared at him. “Come on, Van, Stanley.” She grabbed each of them by the arm and ushered them into the kitchen.

  “Give the guy a break, will you?” Stanley said. “There must be three dozen ex-nuns in there checking him out.”

  “I went to a whole lot of trouble to throw this party,” Quinn retorted. “He can extend himself a little too.”

  “Yeah, but did he want a party?”

  “That’s neither here nor there,” Quinn said. “Jake, this is Van. And Stanley.”

  “Hello, Mr. Mallory,” Stanley said, holding out his hand.

  John took it and smiled. “That’s the first decent handshake I’ve had tonight.”

  “I think I’ll just say hello, then,” Van said. “I can’t compete with that.”

  “Ah, Vanessa. Quinn tells me you’re the proud proprietor of the Silver Ghost we saw on Gardner Street this evening,” John said.

  “Well, not proud, exactly,” Van said with an embarrassed smile.

  “Not proprietor, exactly,” Stanley said. “Her daddy is both.”

  “Such a precise machine,” John mused. “Hums and ticks, quiet, like a fine watch, it does.”

  “If you want to set your eyes on a beautiful specimen of a vehicle, you should see my bus,” Stanley said.

  John laughed. “I have. And heard it, too, lad. Thanksgiving you brought our Quinn home from school, and it’s God’s truth I heard you start the engine a hundred and fifty miles off.’’

  “Everybody maligns my bus,” Stanley protested.

  “Why don’t you drown your humiliation with a beer?” Quinn asked.

  “What’s your pleasure?” John said, an arm draped around both of Quinn’s friends.

  Aunt Dorothy told Quinn outside the kitchen door that her brother-in-law’s brogue became more pronounced under the influence of a pint or two. Quinn was of the opinion that John faith-and-begorra’d in direct proportion to the social status of his companions. Quinn decided that in short order Vanessa Huntington of the Beacon Hill Huntingtons would render John Mallory completely unintelligible.

  Will shut the door behind him. The room, so suddenly still after the hubbub downstairs, was a sanctuary. Ann had leaned back in her chair by the window and fallen into a doze. He crossed the room quietly so as not to awaken her. From his vantage point sitting on the floor beside her, he could watch the light from the streetlamp outside shine on her face. Again, he searched there for Quinn’s features but couldn’t find them. Eyes open, Ann reminded Will of her daughter, but not like this. Quinn’s face was never in repose. It was always mobile, always the barometer of whatever business was going on inside her restless brain.

  Will experienced what had already become a familiar sensation of disorientation: what on earth did he think he was doing, hanging around with Quinn Mallory? Wasn’t the serenity that radiated from Ann much more akin to his own temperament? He thought of the game he used to play when he was little: Paper, Scissors, Rock. Will imagined himself as Rock and Quinn as Scissors, him silent and inert, her in flashing motion, clicking and clacking, and snipping her world into its proper shape.

  One late September five years ago he had sat motionless in his canoe on a mountain lake in the Bitterroots, watching an elk drink at the shore. Suddenly an otter surfaced beside the majestic antlered head. The playful creature, whiskers aquiver, twisted, dove, leapt, rippling the smooth water with eddies and bubbles. Its bright eyes darted to the elk repeatedly in search of appreciation, but the elk, with a single glance of bored irritation, resumed its rhythmical dipping. The furry acrobat kept up the performance until finally, discouraged, it swam off, presumably in pursuit of a more responsive audience.

  For a moment Will had thought of drawing his paddle along the water, offering the otter an invitation to play beside the canoe. He had enjoyed the drama of primitive personality conflict being played out across the lake. But finally, like the elk perhaps, Will felt the otter’s meddlesome intrusion into the perfect quiet of the evening and was relieved when it gave up and swam away.

  It was true that Quinn’s perpetual motion tired him. It was also true that he was dazzled by it. But sometimes he longed to clasp her with both arms and make her hold still. Maybe that impulse helped explain the intensity of his sexual attraction for her. While he made love to her, she was, at least temporarily, overpowered. He could contain her beneath his body. After she had reached orgasm, she would lie quiet, sometimes for twenty minutes, before her recharged central nervous system propelled her into action again. He glanced at Ann, so peaceful in her rocking chair, and imagined tying Quinn into his battered recliner back at school. By forcing her to remain immobilized, all that unexpended energy would probably cause her to glow, a pulsating incandescence in the corner, lighting up his room.

  All at once Will was aware of being observed. He looked up to see Ann smiling at him.

  “What in the world have you been thinking about?” she asked him.

  “Your daughter.”

  “From your expression I would have said politics or religion.”

  “She’s more like her father,” Will said.

  Ann heard the wistful quality of the comment and was flattered. “And who are you like, your mother or your father?”

  “My grandfather, I think. His genes must have skipped a generation.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “No. I was fourteen when he died.”

  Ann listened to the distant commotion from downstairs and wondered how long Will had been sitting beside her. He ought to go back to the party. She ought to urge him. Instead she said, “Tell me about him, your grandfather.’’

  Will began to talk, the old man coming to life until Will could almost smell white-pine sawdust in the darkened room. Then Ann told him about her family, with stories of life in Kilkenny before coming to America when she was five years old.

  It was nearly ten o’clock when Quinn burst into the room. “Thanks a lot,” she said in a voice that trembled with fury. Will and Ann looked guilty. “It’s time for people to leave and Will hasn’t met half of them.”

  Will started to get up off the floor. “I’m sorry—” he began.

  She cried out, “Oh, what’s the point? Just stay up here and rot, for all I care!” She wheeled around and marched out the door, giving it a mighty slam behind her.

  Will looked at Ann. Her face was solemn, but her eyes were dancing suspiciously. Will’s mouth began to twitch around the edges and suddenly they were both laughing, ashamed of themselves but unable to stop.

  “Oh, dear,” Ann said, trying to catch her breath.

  “I’m in for it tonight,” Will said.

  “I don’t suppose she’ll speak to either of us ever again.” Ann took a deep, shuddering breath to sober herself up. “I should have sent you downstairs. I had no right monopolizing you.”

  Will rose now, stretching his legs to get the kinks out. “Most of the time I was here you were asleep. Are you coming down?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. It would only … well, it’s hard for other people, my being ill. They don’t know what to say, and it
makes them uncomfortable.”

  “It’s hard for her, too.”

  “I know.”

  Will bent to give her a kiss on the cheek and walked to the door like a soldier going off to battle.

  Quinn was already ushering people out the door. Will stood beside her and tried to redeem himself by saying a few words to each person who left. He had. a good memory for names and was able to produce a personal good-bye for nearly everyone.

  “Good night, Roseann. Glad you could come,” he said, then glanced at Quinn in hopes of an appreciative smile. What he got was a cool glare. He observed the stiff set of her head and felt chill icy mountain air swirling around him. Will had never seen this cold anger in her before. He preferred the explosions, the hot exhibitions of temper that quickly fizzled out.

  By the time the last guest had left, it was eleven o’clock. It took them two hours to clean up. While John was with them in the kitchen, Quinn was carefully polite to Will, but in their moments alone she spoke monosyllabically or not at all.

  John was exuberant. He piled dirty plates next to the sink for Quinn and grabbed a dish towel. “Fancy staying so late with no dinner. That’s the sign of a great party. Oh, and I got such a fine look at the Huntington limo,” he said. “There’s an Irish driver, fellow by the name of O’Hara. His cousin’s at the plant.” He winked at Will. “Nice of ’em to hire a Mick.”

  “Van’s not like that,” Quinn bristled.

  “I know, I know, just funnin’ with you, girl,” John said with mock offense. “I liked them both, Vanessa and her hairy boyfriend. They’re glad about the two of you going over there tomorrow.”

  Quinn and Will responded to this with silence. John regarded them carefully, then hung up his dishtowel and said, “Think I’ll take a glass of milk to your mother.” He collected the milk, a clean plate, and two cookies, and wished them a hasty good night. Only Will answered. Quinn continued washing ashtrays with silent efficiency.

  “All right,” he said, once John was safely out of range. “Let’s talk.”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  “I told you I was sorry. I am. I let you down.”

  A serving dish slipped out of Quinn’s grasp and shattered in the sink. She wailed.

  Will reached for her, but she struck his arm away. The misery in her tear-streaked face dismayed him.

  “Did you cut yourself?” he asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “Quinn, I’m sorry—”

  “You hated them, didn’t you? I should have known. It’s not fair. I wanted, I wanted …”

  He held her now, and she stood rigid, spilling out words and tears. “God, I had such a crazy idea about how it would be. Crazy, I must be crazy. You and Mom and all my friends, everybody loving the b’Jesus out of each other. And the worst of it is, I don’t even know them anymore. I grew up with those people and I feel as though they’re off in a different world. They’re practically family, and I was bored and lonely. I’m so disgusted with myself, Will. I’m turning into a snob, just like you.”

  “People grow in different directions. That doesn’t make them better or worse, and it doesn’t make you a snob.”

  “But are they growing or standing still?”

  Will was silent.

  “I didn’t like what I was seeing tonight, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry. I guess this was supposed to be one night when everything was all better.”

  “You mean your mother.”

  His intuitive grasp of her meaning started her crying again. There was no anger now, only sadness.

  “Oh, screw it,” she said. “You’re not God Almighty. I want you to be, I guess. Will,” she sounded tired, “what’s going to become of us? I don’t even understand why we’re together.”

  He shook his head. “It’s one of the great galactic mysteries.”

  She dried her eyes with the dish towel. “See what I found under the piano bench?” She reached into her skirt pocket and handed him an unopened packet of condoms.

  “Whose?”

  “I’m truly shocked. The mind boggles.” She sniffed noisily. “Maybe it was Father Riley. Pity to just toss them out.” She had begun to look more thoughtful than unhappy.

  Will reached for her again, but she shook her head. “No. I’ll just start all over with the melodrama. Let’s finish cleaning up this mess.”

  Will was finding it tough to fall asleep. Quinn insisted that for the remainder of their visit Will use her bed while she slept on the sofa. But the bed also seemed doll’s-house proportion under his sprawling limbs. Quinn had made him try it out this morning, and when she saw him draped across her mattress with his boots hanging over the edge, she burst into laughter. The bedspread with its frills and flowers only added to the incongruity. She had pounced on him with delight. Now he felt as if he were precariously afloat on a child’s rubber raft. Besides, after the emotional intensity of the past hour in the kitchen, his mind was buzzing.

  His thoughts leapt to Idaho for comfort, but that topic had recently assumed a menace of its own. Quinn had been like a caged bird out there. She had tried hard, but there was no denying the relief in her face when the plane took off and headed east. He would think of Ann instead, beautiful Ann with the alabaster skin. She had endowed Quinn with her generosity of spirit and blue eyes, but everything else had come from John. Tonight, during that moment by the kitchen sink, Will had caught another glimpse of Quinn’s anguish at losing her mother. It was easy to understand. With the image of Ann’s face in his mind, he began to float off into sleep.

  Suddenly there was a change in the air inside the room, a breeze against Will’s exposed arm. A warm body crawled into bed beside him.

  “Jesus, what are you doing?” he whispered.

  “I got lonely,” Quinn said.

  “Your father’ll be in here with a shotgun.”

  “They’re asleep.”

  “Uh huh,” Will said dubiously.

  Quinn pulled her T-shirt over her head, slipped off her bikini pants, and stretched out on top of him, curling her legs around his, and tucking her feet underneath him. She felt his erection grow against her bare stomach.

  “This is the bed of your childhood. We can’t do this,” he protested.

  “I’m not a child now. I’ll redecorate.” She kissed him. “It was so spooky and dark downstairs. I was scared.”

  “No, you weren’t.” He ran his hand down her spine; her vertebrae made a delicate ripple against his fingers.

  “Promise me you’ll never leave me,” she whispered. He wanted to cry, but instead smothered the urge against her shoulder, enfolded her, kissed her almost ferociously, on her mouth, her cheeks, her neck. They made love, tumbling about the bed with no regard for John and Ann, who lay awake in the bedroom down the hall.

  “In our own house. Mother of Jesus.”

  Ann snuggled next to him. “Shh,” she said.

  “How could he, the snake in the grass. And her, too. I blame her as well. They won’t get away with it …” He started to get out of bed.

  “No.” Ann’s voice was clear and sharp. John was so startled that he sat back down on the edge of the bed and peered through the darkness at her.

  “You let them be, John. It’s not our concern.”

  “In my house it is,” he retorted.

  “If they want to make love, well, that’s wonderful.”

  “And this from my sweet Old Country convent lass.”

  “A lot of things don’t seem as important as they did once.”

  He was silent for a moment. The tension from his body had set the bedsprings quivering, but now it escaped from him like a sigh and he slumped against the pillow. Ann’s hair brushed his arm and she curled against him like a child.

  “Annie …”

  “Mm.”

  “I don’t want you to leave me.”

  “I know.”

  “If you did, I’d want to go with you
.”

  “You can’t think that way.”

  “I know I couldn’t leave her alone. But there’s nothing for me without you.” His voice sounded thick, and she reached up to touch his mouth.

  “That would be a sin,” she whispered.

  They lay quietly together, listening to the rustling noises from down the hall.

  “She looked fine tonight, didn’t she?” Ann said.

  “Same as always.”

  “She’s so full of fire.”

  “Is that what it is? I thought it was piss and—”

  “John, she’s almost a woman. She’s not your tomboy kid anymore.” John thought that over. Now Ann sounded wistful. “It’s hard to remember being that young. I was once, wasn’t I?”

  John bent his head to kiss her. “You’ve never been more beautiful than you are right now,” he said. “And I want you.” The last was added in a voice that held many questions. Her illness had made them hesitant.

  She responded with deep kisses. After a while she said, “It won’t be the last time, John, I promise.”

  Chapter 21

  Van’s voice over the phone quavered and buzzed like the upper-register strings inside a piano. “We’ll send the car for you. About five, okay?”

  “How’s it going?” Quinn asked, responding to the strangled hum in her friend’s tone.

  “I’ll be awfully glad to see you. Stan, too.”

  They hung up. Quinn whooped to Will, “Hey, slip on your spats! They’re coming to fetch us in the Silver Ghost!”

  At five o’clock sharp, as faces pressed against windows up and down Gardner Street, the Huntingtons’ Rolls-Royce glided to a stop outside the Mallory house. Quinn and Will dashed to the car. Neither of them owned dress coats, and preferred to brave the cold rather than drape their army-surplus-style jackets over their best clothes. O’Hara, the chauffeur, ushered them into the backseat. Quinn settled back with a sigh. There was a subtle breath of warm air as O’Hara adjusted the thermostat to their coatless condition.

  “Oh, my God, is this heaven?” Quinn whispered. Then she giggled. “Why am I whispering?”