by Penny Reid
She laughed lightly, a pleasant sound that made my stomach feel warm. “That’s a great skill to have.”
I began to relax into the conversation. We mostly spoke about ourselves, our likes and dislikes, our hobbies and favorite foods. She didn’t knit, but she crocheted. She also knew how to sew and was an avid quilter. I also learned that she was five years away from retirement, but hadn’t decided whether she actually wanted to.
At no point did she ask directly about Quinn nor did she say his name again. However, whenever I mentioned him or Shelly, she’d grow very quiet, almost like she was holding her breath. Then, when I finished, she’d press me for more information on whatever subject I’d just covered.
I knew that Quinn hadn’t spoken with his parents since his brother’s funeral. I also knew that Shelly didn’t speak to her parents either. I’d never pressed either of them for more information. I’d accepted the situation at face value: Quinn’s parents had blamed him for their oldest son’s death. Shelly had stopped speaking with her mother and father. I guessed this was a way to show solidarity with Quinn.
But now, after a half-hour phone call with the woman, I started to think there was more to the story. Either that or this family had been separated by tragedy and the rift had been fostered by lack of communication.
We ended the call with a plan to email about dinner, a dinner that was to take place sometime over the next two weekends, and my promise to call her again within the next several days—just to talk, she’d said. Then, before hanging up, she asked me what my favorite dessert was.
The dessert question threw me off, so I deployed evasive maneuvers, told her it was too hard to choose, but that I’d let her know when we spoke next. That night I spent several hours researching whether or not desserts, or ingredients in desserts, had any hidden symbolism. For example, I didn’t want to tell her that I liked key lime pie if it meant that she’d think I was a tart.
I finally settled on chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, mostly because I missed Quinn and chocolate was a proven, although woefully inadequate, replacement for intimacy.
***
The next morning I awoke to an empty bed and a text from Quinn indicating that he’d gone for a motorcycle ride wearing his helmet. He went on to state that he would meet Shelly and me for our usual breakfast at Giavanni’s around 10:00 a.m. I checked twice for another text message, hoped for a joke or pun. To my dismay, there was nothing new.
Quinn and I would be sharing our big news with Shelly over pancakes.
She told me the first time we met each other that everything was big news over pancakes.
She and I had hit it off immediately. She was markedly weird, prone to intermittent tangents or periods of silence, and didn’t seem to be able to sit still for very long. Her eccentricities never bothered me. I actually found her fascinating. Part of it was because Quinn was completely devoted to her—in fact, I was 99 percent certain that he supported her financially—and the other reason was because she didn’t seem to care about other people’s opinions as they related to who she was or the decisions she made.
Ever.
Not ever.
In fact, I wondered once or twice if she lacked empathy, but dismissed this theory after we spent more time together. Shelly, although detached with most people, cared deeply for Quinn and had several causes she championed, mostly to do with cruelty toward animals.
As I came to know her, I realized she was one of those people who felt more comfortable in nature than she did in society.
I, however, felt equal parts uncomfortable in both places.
Shelly sometimes spent Saturday nights in the loft Quinn had purchased on her behalf and exclusively for her use. This was the same loft where he’d taken me after finding me drugged at Club Outrageous.
Most of her time, however, was spent in a large farmhouse three hours south of Chicago. She had four horses that she boarded for a rescue foundation, three dogs of various breeds and ages, seven cats, and a parrot named Oscar who only said curse words. Apparently, his former owner had a limited vocabulary.
She was also a sculptor, mostly large-scale metalwork, and a car enthusiast.
I’d only been to the farmhouse once, but I was struck by how many vintage cars she owned in various stages of repair. After she fixed them up, she donated them to charities benefiting animal shelters.
As far as I could tell, she had no interest in men—or women for that matter—and didn’t seem to need or seek relationships outside of the weekly check-in and breakfast with her brother. This struck me as unhealthy, but I kept this opinion to myself.
I also wondered—if I had grown up with a sibling who fostered my strangeness rather than challenged it—if Shelly’s existence was a mirror to an alternate dimension version of me.
I’d been forced by necessity to go to college, get a job, interact with society. Shelly had attended the Art Institute of Chicago, but never held a job—not a real one, at least, with a boss who held her accountable for her work.
If all my bills were paid and money wasn’t an issue to my survival, would I lock myself in a farmhouse with Internet connection, or within walking distance of a library, and just gorge on information day in and day out?
I couldn’t answer this hypothetical question, because both answers—yes and no—felt dissonant with who I was and who I wanted to be.
Therefore, I embraced Shelly as a friend and found I didn’t have to try very hard when we were together. She didn’t seem to mind my presence during her Saturday mornings with Quinn—quite the opposite. I’d missed one breakfast because I thought she might want some alone time with her brother. She made Quinn call me, and refused to eat until I showed up.
Honestly, it was kind of nice to be the least eccentric woman at a meal.
On this particular morning, I was the second one to arrive at Giavanni’s. Shelly was already there and was building a tower of Styrofoam cups at the counter—but not in the way most people would do. She wasn’t stacking the cups. Rather, she’d cut them into strips and added slits, and was using them like one would build with Lincoln logs. She had used the circular portions for design elements.
As usual, the line to get breakfast was out the door and, as usual, I bypassed the line and claimed a stool marked reserved next to my soon-to-be sister-in-law.
She was dressed in brown cargo pants and a very thick brown wool sweater with large wooden buttons. On her head was a green fleece cap that barely covered a long mass of brown hair that seemed to have a mind of its own. Her blue eyes—the same shade as Quinn’s—flitted to me when I claimed my seat then moved back to her tower. Upon closer inspection, it looked more like a complicated gate than a tower.
“You’re engaged,” she said. Her deeper than was typical for a female voice held some amusement.
I nodded, studied the sharp angles of her face. Physically, she was the female version of Quinn, but without the muscles. Certainly, she was fit—likely due to all the physical labor involved in caring for animals, welding metal, and fixing cars—but she was thin, willowy, and two inches taller than me.
Tangentially I noted that she wasn’t pretty—just like Quinn would never make a pretty female—but something about her was striking, beautiful. She was like a lady-hawk. At least, I thought she was beautiful.
A very small smile curved her mouth. “It’s about time. When is the wedding?”
“June 14.”
Usually when I told people the date of the wedding, they assumed I meant June 14 in one year and several months. When I explained that it was June 14 less than three months away, they always responded with shock.
Shelly also responded with shock, her gaze moving to mine, holding it. “Three months? So long? Why the wait?”
I smiled at her typical atypical response. “I insisted on a big wedding.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Because Quinn and I get along so well. I thought it would be a good idea for us to experienc
e a degree of suffering prior to taking vows.”
She gave me a once over, her expression flat, then she grunted. “You’re weird. I ordered you pancakes.”
“Thanks. What are you building?”
“I don’t know.” She dropped her hands to the counter and frowned at the Styrofoam creation. “Some kind of gate, I think.”
“That’s what I thought it might be. It reminds me of a gate I saw when I went to the Victoria and Albert museum in London. I like it.”
“Hey.”
We both looked up at the sound of Quinn’s voice and I gave him an automatic welcoming smile, which he returned. He paired it with that softness, the dreamy quality in his eyes that I usually found so disconcerting. Today, however, after not seeing the expression for several days, it felt like a cool, soothing balm to my itchy, uncomfortable, overactive imagination.
Quinn placed his helmet on the counter then cupped my jaw with a gloved hand, kissing me. It was a socially acceptable kiss for our surroundings, yet I couldn’t help but want more.
He pulled away, his eyes holding mine, a gentle smile on his features, then shifted his attention to his sister.
“Hey, Shelly. Nice gate.”
“Thanks. I like it. I think I’ll build it for real and give it to you guys as a wedding present.”
Quinn frowned—just a slight frown—and glanced at me. “You already told her?”
“No, I….”
“I took one look at her and guessed. She looked like she was preparing to tell me some big news.” Shelly gave me a wide smile and the expression looked out of place on her face. For a second I thought she was going to tussle my hair with affection as if I was a dog.
“Ah….” Quinn nodded and took the stool next to me.
His leg—hip to knee—pressed against mine. It was the closest we’d been in days. He smelled good, like Quinn. If we’d been alone I would have attacked him.
“How was the drive up?” He signaled for Viki, our usual waitress, as he addressed his question to Shelly.
“Fine.”
“Are you staying tonight?”
“No.”
“Did you order already?”
“Just for Janie and me. I didn’t know if you were going to eat pancakes with us or stick to that egg white omelet crap.” Shelly said this with no malice. In fact, for her, it was almost tender.
Viki approached, gave us all a wag of her unibrow, then rested her eyes on Quinn. “What’ll it be, handsome? The usual?”
“I’ll have the same as Janie. Blueberry pancakes, right?”
Viki nodded, scribbled on her notepad, poured coffee into our cups, then left.
I assumed all engagement talk was over and was about to change the subject to Shelly’s horses. But she surprised me—likely both of us—by asking, “Are you going to tell them?”
Quinn stiffened. I felt the change in him where our legs were pressed together. Then I watched him stall by sipping his coffee more slowly than usual. Finally, with no other way to avoid responding, he asked, “Who?”
“Mom and Dad. Are you going to tell them about Janie?”
I opened my mouth to inform them of my conversation with their mother, but Quinn spoke before I had a chance to. “Yes.”
“Don’t.” Shelly shook her head, her expression hard. “Don’t tell them.”
“Why not?” I blurted, leaning back in my seat so I could watch them both at the same time. “Why not tell them?”
Shelly didn’t look at me when she responded, her glacial glare boring into Quinn’s profile. “They don’t deserve to know.”
Quinn’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep sigh, though his back straightened. “You need to let it go, Shell. Des, the funeral…it was a long time ago.”
Her expression grew dark, agitated. “They disowned you, Quinn—at our brother’s funeral. You said they told you to leave, they kicked you out of the family, said you were dead to them. Why would you even consider sharing Janie with those people?”
Shelly’s words made me flinch, and my heart hurt for Quinn as unbidden images of him suffering surfaced in my mind’s eye. Quinn, no older than twenty-one or twenty-two, being kicked out of his brother’s funeral; a brother he loved; a brother whose death he felt responsible for.
I tried to reconcile Shelly’s words with the woman I’d spoken to on the phone, the one who taught high school calculus, who wanted to know what my favorite dessert was and insisted that we schedule dinner as soon as possible. The woman who wanted me to call her on the phone, and requested that I refer to her as Katherine.
Quinn’s eyes flickered to mine, then to his coffee cup. “It’s up to Janie.”
I studied them both, horrified with myself, wondering why I’d never thought to ask Quinn about the circumstances surrounding his prolonged separation from his parents before now. I wanted to hug him, kiss his neck, and tell him how I loved him. I wanted him to know how much he meant to me.
So I did.
He grew rigid again when my arms tightened around his torso, but he relaxed when I placed several quick kisses on his neck and whispered in his ear, “I love you, Quinn Sullivan. You are precious to me, and I will love you always. And if I die before you, I plan to haunt you.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder, his eyes sad but warm, and stole another quick kiss from me. “Ditto,” he said.
I ensnared his gaze and suggested, “Perhaps you could learn to make pottery so that posthumously we can use the wheel together in a sensual, mystically transcendent display of affection.”
I was rewarded with a grin and an expression that was considerably less melancholy when he responded, “Consider it done.”
***
I waited until Shelly used the bathroom to tell Quinn about my conversation with his mother. Shelly usually took fifteen minutes or more, which I felt was odd. I wondered what she did in there. It felt like a big mystery. I’d never asked her about it.
She excused herself, leaving cash on the counter for all three of our meals, “Can you watch my hat, Janie? I’m going to leave it here.”
I nodded. “Your hat is safe with me.”
“I know.” She said, then turned and walked away.
I watched her go then slipped my hand under Quinn’s arm into the crook of his elbow. “I have to tell you something. I was going to tell you last night, but you came home so late. Then, I was going to tell you this morning, but you left early.”
“What’s up?” he asked, not addressing his coming home late or his leaving early.
I decided to ignore both for now and just get to the point. “I spoke to your mother yesterday.”
His face went completely blank and something shuttered behind his eyes. After a beat, he said, “I see.”
“Was that okay? I thought it was, because on Wednesday you and I discussed it and you said ‘fine,’ which I figured meant ‘yes, that’s fine.’”
“Yes. It’s fine. You said you were going to do it.”
I released a breath and studied him; still no expression in his eyes or inflection in his voice. He may as well have been a robot.
“Do you want to know what we talked about?”
He shrugged, like he really didn’t care. “If it’s relevant.”
“Relevant?”
“If I need to know.”
“You never told me that she’s a math teacher. She teaches calculus.”
He nodded, just once. “That’s right.”
“Quinn….” I twisted my mouth to the side, my eyebrows pulling low as I searched his face for something, anything other than complete ambivalence. “Your mother and I scheduled a dinner; it looks like maybe two weeks from today. Is that okay?”
His eyes moved to my right, to the wall behind me. “That should be fine. I have some projects in Boston I should check on any way.”
I frowned at him, at his complete lack of emotion, then reached for his hand with both of mine and pulled it to my lap. It was warm even though his countenance was
cool.
“We don’t have to do this, you know. I didn’t realize about the funeral; I didn’t understand about Des, what they said to you. I could just cancel and tell her I made a mistake.”
His eyes came back to mine then moved over my face in that way he frequently employed as if he was memorizing every detail. “It’s fine. We should do it.”
I was about to give him another out, at the very least a suggestion of postponement, when he used the hand I was holding to tug me forward and give me a kiss. This kiss was less appropriate than the one he’d given me when he arrived. He removed his hand from mine, gripped my hips with both of his, and pulled me forward until I was standing between his legs.
His mouth devoured mine, right there at the counter of Giavanni’s Pancake House, as if he was starving. I knew he wasn’t starving because he’d eaten all of his pancakes and half of mine.
When he finished, and we were both breathing with some difficulty, I hid my face on his shoulder and wrapped him in my arms.
“That was really nice,” I said. My voice was a little shaky. It was more than nice. It was necessary. After a week of almost no touching, it felt like a moral imperative.
He cleared his throat, but he didn’t respond. I felt his fingers dig into my hips.
“I thought you said you weren’t going to seduce me,” I whispered against his neck.
“I said I had no plans to seduce you.”
“But now you do?”
“No.”
“So what was that?”
“Just a kiss.”
I huffed a laugh. “That was not just a kiss.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. That was a big, hot, wet kiss—with lots of tongue. I think there was even some groping. If judges were present, they would rule that a seduction attempt.”
“And where does one hire a seduction judge?”
“Well,” I glanced to the right and considered the logistics of a seduction judge; “I don’t think there is any central authority, but-”
Quinn shook his head, cut me off with his movements, and gently pushed me a step away. He guided me onto my stool. His eyes were cautious, but most definitely simmering with something that resembled wicked delight.