Quinn

by Sally Mandel

  “A glass tea,” Mr. Markowitz said.

  “In this heat?”

  Quinn fled upstairs.

  They stood in the doorway and watched the festivities. The brightly colored clothing of the Markowitz contingent was sprinkled liberally among the muted garb of Vanessa’s family like tropical birds chattering with barn swallows. Quinn spotted Stanley leaning against the mantelpiece talking to Dr. Huntington. The groom held a champagne glass in one hand and gestured expansively with the other. He looked a little drunk. Dr. Huntington wore his habitual expression of benevolent irony. Quinn waved to catch Stanley’s attention. He set the champagne glass on the marble shelf and went to fetch Van.

  Quinn took Stanley’s arm. “I saw you doing your George Sanders routine over there,” she chided him.

  “Don’t leave,” Van pleaded.

  “I’d rather not,” Will said.

  The two couples smiled at each other in silence for a moment.

  “You two—” Stanley began.

  “No!” Quinn exclaimed. “I won’t get through it. Just say good-bye.”

  “Good night, Gracie,” Stanley said.

  “Will.” Van stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. “It’s hard to know what to say.”

  “Then don’t say anything,” Quinn begged. “I’m getting a terrible stomachache.” She embraced Stanley, then Van. “Have a wonderful trip, Mr. and Mrs. Markowitz. Say hello to the Champs-Élysées for me. Tell ’em I’ll get there some day. I love you.”

  “We’re on the flight path,” Stanley said to Will. “Dump some rice out the window when you fly over.”

  Will held out his hand and Stanley grasped it in both of his.

  “Quick, Will,” Quinn said in a strangled voice.

  They bolted for the door.

  Van watched them climb into the Huntington limousine, and leaned against her new husband. “I hope I live long enough to throw rice at them,” she said.

  “You’d better live to be a very old lady, Vanessa.”

  The ride to the airport was mostly silent, with Will holding her against him in a comer of the backseat. As they emerged from Callahan Tunnel into the sunshine, Quinn said, “Reincarnation, that’s the answer.”

  “Grasping at straws, babe.”

  “Any straw will do. Why are we doing this?”

  He didn’t answer.

  They walked stiffly through the airport. Their faces wore the expressions of children on their way to the principal’s office to be punished. When they arrived at the gate, Will looked down at her.

  “You shouldn’t have come with me.”

  “Nope,” she said.

  He reached into the zipper pocket of his duffel bag and drew out an envelope. In the upper left-hand corner was the Arlington Copley logo. Quinn remembered the crumpled paper balls in the middle of the night. She started to open the envelope, but he put his hand over hers.

  “No. Later.”

  A uniformed attendant said, “Sir, are you on Flight 305? Better get a move on.”

  Quinn forced a ghastly smile. “Well, it’s been aces,” she said.

  Her freckles were like sand across the tops of her cheeks, eyes dark, deep blue now, like her mother’s. I love you, girl. Out loud he said, “Okay, keep in touch. Take care of our little boy. And your mom.”

  “Oh, shit.” She buried her face in his chest and held on hard. Then she released him. “No, don’t kiss me.” She gave him a little push and he started walking. She waited until he was through the door, just in case he glanced around at her. But he didn’t, and when he disappeared, she gave way. Then she wiped her face with the back of her hand and marched down the long hallway toward the exit, clutching her envelope.

  In the limousine she heard a plane take off. She craned her neck toward the back window and watched it arch out over the harbor and head due west. Then she opened the envelope, slowly, taking care not to rip its contents. The lines on the hotel stationery were scrawled in Will’s bold, careless print:

  Your soul brushes mine

  So briefly—a butterfly kiss.

  I look away for one moment

  Feeling your warm breath

  On my shoulder.

  And when I turn back,

  You are gone.

  A butterfly. An airplane. She watched her hands grow shiny and wet, hands like her mother’s, glistening as they’d stroked her grieving father’s hair.

  The limousine shot downtown toward the noisy crush of the city. She held Will’s poem in an embrace and remembered the tall pines and rugged mountain ranges. So remote, so out of touch with the world’s business. There was no reason why Boise, Idaho, shouldn’t have a fine educational television station like New York or Boston, to bring political debate and culture into the boondocks. One of these days she’d check it out. You never know.

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