Traffic was light on this side of campus but she waved at several other residents of her apartment complex as they drove by. When she’d first moved in, several of her neighbors had stopped to ask if she wanted a ride and always seemed confused, almost offended, when she turned them down. They couldn’t figure out why she’d want to walk, especially lugging a backpack that looked like it could be used as a weapon of mass destruction if the situation called for it. The campus shuttle made the short trip out to their apartments and a couple that were further down so even if she didn’t want to accept a ride with her neighbors, she had options. But that was okay. Why would anyone want to drive when they lived close enough to walk? Especially on nice days. Between all the running and walking she did, she knew the neighbors thought she was kind of strange. But the truth was, walking and running helped her stay calm and put the brakes on the constant whirlwind in her head. Plus, buying a car wasn’t really an option for her. For anyone looking, large purchases provided a solid link that could be traced back to the buyer and she wasn’t about to willingly leave that kind of trail. Renting an apartment was easier, especially if you could find one that accepted cash and asked no questions. Smaller, older places tended to look less closely than the big chain complexes did. But a car was a liability and if, or when, she needed to walk away, she wanted to leave as little evidence behind as possible.
Quincy slid into her seat in the back of the classroom with a little less than five minutes to spare. It was a full class and occupied a large lecture hall in the engineering building on the far side of campus. Most of the seats were usually full but there were always a couple around her left open. Since she was just auditing the class, she didn’t feel obligated to participate in class discussion and the few times her classmates had attempted to start a conversation, she had kept her answers short, seeing no reason to encourage familiarity. The less people noticed or remembered her, the safer she was. She could hear nervous whispers around the auditorium and forced herself to feel a touch of nerves, too. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so cavalier about studying. If everyone else was worried about the test, maybe it was going to be harder than she thought? But no. The professor started passing out the test at 8:00 on the dot and she glanced briefly over the pages. All the questions seemed straightforward and reflected both the reading material and the lectures - which she knew by heart. She turned back to the first page and settled in.
Chapter 2
Quincy
The coffee kiosk was practically deserted when Quincy ordered a hot chocolate with a shot of caramel. She had been one of the first to finish the test and when she’d handed it to Professor Michaels, he’d glanced at her name and then quietly asked if she wouldn’t mind to drop by his office sometime in the next few days. He would like to speak to her privately during office hours if he could. He didn’t say what they needed to discuss that would require so much privacy, but it weighed on her. Quincy thanked the barista when she handed her the drink then turned and slowly made her way toward the quad. Professor Michaels’s request had caught her off-guard. Since she was an auditor and not on his official roster, she hadn’t had any real contact with him other than handing in tests and homework assignments and getting her grades, but that mostly happened through email and the campus intranet. So why he wanted a private chat was anyone’s guess but she really doubted it was anything good. In her experience, being noticed never ended well.
She found the bench she was looking for and tossed her bag on one end before settling onto the other. She pulled her legs up in front of her and let her feet rest on the very edge of the seat while she blew on her hot chocolate and took a long, slow sip. Glancing around the quad, she noticed a few others between classes or just killing time. She had seen the skater kid around a few times before. Today he was sprawled across the top of the brick railing dividing the walkway from the grass with his earbuds in and his board propped up beside him. He had his eyes closed and whatever he was listening to must have had some serious beat because his feet were tapping erratically and his hands were drumming along enthusiastically. There was a couple on a blanket in the grass a few yards away. The girl looked young, 18 maybe, and she had her boyfriend’s jacket pulled tight around her to block the light breeze. She was leaning against him with her head on his shoulder and both were laughing at something playing on his phone. They looked happy and carefree and Quincy glanced away before they noticed her watching.
She sighed. The thing about Professor Michaels was, he was the kind of teacher that made his students a priority and they knew it. He welcomed one and all, no matter the problem, no matter the time. Ironically, he was a quiet man who loved to talk. If the thing he was talking about was mechanical engineering. How anyone could feel so strongly about math and mechanics, she wasn’t sure. But he had a passion that came through in his lectures and, despite the subject, his students were hooked from open to close. So, from a distance, Professor Michaels was great. Quincy thoroughly enjoyed the class. She made excellent grades, but she was just one name in a sea of names. And she wasn’t on his official roster, which should have meant he wasn’t paying her any attention. College professors were busy enough - why was he noticing nobodies?
Quincy knew it was a mistake to put the professor off. She would fixate on the request, running possible scenarios through her head until she could concentrate on nothing else. It was her m.o., as it were. But she needed time to process. To decide what she was going to do. The last time someone had paid her extra attention, she’d had to blow town fast, no-showing at her bar tending gig, which had bummed her out because the owner, Gus, might have been a gruff old guy but she had a sweet spot for him and him for her and it had felt like a betrayal. So before she showed up at Professor Michaels’s door, she needed to run through her options. There weren’t many. Three, to be exact. The first was simple - she could disappear right now. She’d done it before and she’d no doubt have to do it again eventually. She had always known this place, this beautiful, quiet little town where she could breath, at least a little, wasn’t forever. It was just another stop over. Like Boise. Like Chicago.
Option two was a little riskier. She could show up at Michaels’s office early, staking it out before anyone else got there. See if he was alone or had company. Maybe try to spot anyone that might be out-of-place lurking about. She’d done that before too. Then, if it seemed safe, she could go to the meeting as requested and gather as much information as she could from the professor. See if he kept things academic. She was pretty sure she’d know if he was working on someone else’s dime. And then, after the meeting, she could still disappear. It was safer to stay away from campus if someone was looking for her but it was also smart to gather as much intel as she could before leaving. Escape and evade was a game that relied on brains as much as on skill or luck.
And then there was the third option. She could stay. No deliberation, no paranoia. Just stay. She could go to the meeting like a normal student would, check her issues at the door, and hear what the man had to say. Then, if she was really lucky, she would be free to grab lunch on her way to her shift at the library. But who was she kidding? If she was lucky, she wouldn’t have had to disappear twice already. She wouldn’t have to become someone new for each new city she landed in. She would have a car, or at least a bike. She would have a checking account instead of carrying all her cash so she could bolt at a moment’s notice. But she wasn’t lucky. She hadn’t been lucky in a long, long time. There was no sense grieving over what she didn’t have. Sheraton was a nice little town, sure. She loved her perfectly circular running loop. She loved the flowers and the birds and the butterflies and the children that practically lived in the downtown parks like tiny little garden gnomes. And she loved the old buildings and quaint atmosphere that surrounded them. She loved Sit-A-Spell and PaddyO’s. Each taken individually, they weren’t really anything special. She had seen places like them in other small towns. But mash them together, wrap them in a neat little bow, and you have som
ething extraordinary. And she didn’t want to lose that. Not just yet.
A shout shook her out of her thoughts. Right in front her, a game of Frisbee was going on in the middle of the quad. Very aggressive Frisbee. Frisbee as a contact sport. Football Frisbee, maybe? She had never seen anything quite like it. A group of guys, upperclassmen by the look of it, were diving and running and throwing and generally having a jolly good time. She watched as one guy, a tall, gangly redhead, flipped the frisbee to a buddy, a large, broad-shouldered athletic type, who jumped the sidewalk and dodged one of the oak trees scattered around the lawn before slamming into a guy who was apparently on the opposite team. Both guys went down in a tangle of arms and legs and lay on the ground, laughing and shoving each other until the rest of the group helped haul them to their feet. The frisbee had landed a couple yards from her and when the big guy spotted it, he came jogging over to grab it. As he came nearer, she could see he wasn’t a kid like the rest of them. He was older than the other guys, early to mid-30’s maybe. He was wearing a set of dog tags. No, two sets of dog tags. So, military. There were numbers on the tags. 3725625897 and 6752459581. She wondered which was his and who the other set belonged to. Someone he had lost, probably. He bent down to grab the frisbee and when he straightened, he glanced up at her. He smiled and she noticed his eyes were a deep, dark blue, which embarrassed her because she wasn’t the type to notice a guy’s eyes. Usually. But he did have nice eyes. And a really nice smile. She broke her own rule without even thinking, giving him a small smile back as she lifted her cup for another drink. He grinned and turned back to rejoin the game. She sat for a few more minutes, enjoying the weather and the entertainment, and completely forgetting her concerns over Professor Michaels and their upcoming meeting.
Chapter 3
Quincy
Okay, maybe a few extra minutes was a minor understatement. She sat drinking her coffee and watching the game, completely zoned out, until it started to break up and she realized she only had five minutes until the start of her shift. Classes had already let out and the sidewalks were full of people rushing from building to building. It was normally a leisurely 15 minute walk across campus to the library so she was going to have to hurry. But since she was always 15 minutes early to work anyway, she already felt late. She grabbed her bag and swung it across her shoulders, hustling down the sidewalk as fast as she could without making a scene. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the big blonde guy from the frisbee game watching her speed walk away but she didn’t have time to worry about that now. Peggy, the afternoon manager, was a real hard case when it came to their hours and she loved nothing more than busting late arrivals. As Quincy was always early, Peggy had never had the particular pleasure of Quincy’s humiliation and would no doubt have the staff lounge staked out to bust her when she walked in.
When Quincy got to the building that housed the library, she pulled open the heavy wooden doors and rushed inside, bypassing the main library entrance for the smaller side door that led directly to the staff area. She was hoping she could grab her name tag out of her locker and sneak out to the reference desk before anyone noticed she wasn’t there. But when she pushed the door open, the nightmare became the reality. Peggy really was in the lounge, sitting at the beat-up, stained little table where most of the staff took their breaks, going over what appeared to be staff schedules for next week. Quincy gritted her teeth and prepared to make her apologies but she needn’t have worried. Peggy never even lifted her head as the door slammed shut and Quincy walked around the table to her locker. Weird. She opened the locker door, letting it bang against the other lockers. Still nothing. Her lanyard was hanging on a hook in her locker so she grabbed it and pulled it on over her t-shirt. Okay. Now it was a point of pride. Could work schedules really be so fascinating or was she just that invisible? She wandered over to the ice machine, grabbed a styrofoam cup from the cabinet, and filled it up, making as much noise as possible. Finally, she cleared her throat.
“Hey Peggy,” she started. “Did I miss any announcements or anything when shift started?”
Peggy finally looked up, a bit startled. “Oh, Quincy, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.” Clearly. “Did you need something?”
“Nope,” Quincy said after a beat. She held up the cup. “Just came in for some water.”
“Oh, well, alright. But you’d better get back to the desk in case someone needs help.”
And just like that, Quincy was dismissed. Okay, so only crazy people actually wanted to get busted by their boss but seriously, had no one noticed that she hadn’t shown up for work? That was...depressing. She knew it shouldn’t have been. It was ludicrous to feel that way since she went out of her way to engender that exact sentiment. She should be thrilled it was working so well. But seeing proof of the attitude she had worked so hard to earn just made her feel empty. Unsettled, somehow. She wandered through the main floor of the library, past the unused history books and the dusty political collection, to the wide spiral staircase that led up to her department. It was a pity, really, how often books went unused these days. Technology had made them all but obsolete, which almost depressed her as much as her own invisibility. She felt a sort of kinship with the outdated, heavy volumes. Her and the books, she thought wryly. Both had their uses, but neither were actually useful.
The second floor housed multiple departments, including circulation, career resources, and reference, which was her area. She waved to Hattie, who was helping a student at one of the computers in career resources. Hattie gave a little nod and rolled her eyes at the kid beside her, who seemed to be having a miniature panic attack as he pounded on the keyboard. Quincy grinned. Most visitors to career resources were seniors who had put off thinking about future employment until the last minute. Four years of freedom and all-nighters and suddenly they realize they’re about to be kicked out into the real world. Not enough parties in the world to make those student loans disappear.
She took a quick lap through the reference department, making sure aisles were clear and the shelves were orderly. While Hattie had to deal with anxiety-ridden seniors, Quincy’s busy season came mostly around midterms and finals. Reference was a good place to study in peace-the shelves of giant, musty, leather-bound books dampened sound and lent an air of awe to the place. There were resource computers at the end of each row of books that students could use to access a large variety of online databases; since most research and study resources could be found online these days, the resource books suffered the same fate as the history and political science books - mostly unused but still shelved for historical reasons and the odd journal article that couldn’t be found electronically.
There were large square tables and individual desks scattered around the massive bookcases, giving students the ability to take advantage of the quiet and also provide them easy access to the books and reference computers. During the middle and end-of-semester rushes, it wasn’t unusual for every available seat to be full but now it was practically deserted. There were a couple of regulars but everything seemed quiet. Exactly how Quincy liked it. She circled back around, tossed her bag on the floor behind the giant desk, and dropped into her chair. She logged into her work station and checked her assigned tasks for the afternoon. She automatically crossed the first item off her list. She spent a good portion of her shift roaming the aisles, straightening and re-shelving books that had been used and left on tables or on the cart in front of the desk so she never worried too much about that one. But a new shipment of up-to-date World Encyclopedias had come in overnight so she would need to deal with those. While she was a little surprised printed copies were still being produced, she didn’t complain because it was an easy task. Mundane and repetitive, but she rather enjoyed the monotony and rhythm of it. She would log each book into the catalog system and print out bookends for them before pulling the old copies off the shelf and putting the new ones in their place. It would take a couple of hours but again, it wasn’t busy and it gave her someth
ing to focus on. Plus, she needed to flip through each volume to check for obvious signs of damage before shelving and would probably pick up on a couple of new topics she could explore later. Yes, she could just as easily log into the databases the library allowed her to access but if the last 20 minutes had taught her anything, it was that she had a soft spot for hard copies. They were tangible, something she could feel and smell and hold. They soothed her. And they were so rarely unavailable.
Shattered Highways Page 3