Quinn (21 page)

Quinn kept finding excuses to delay her departure. First she decided to take the late bus back Sunday night. Then, as Sunday afternoon wore on, she began to talk about how she could work on her Religion term paper in the Medham library and go back to school later in the week. She waited on Ann constantly, bringing her cup after cup of tea, fetching magazines Ann hadn't asked for, and hovering either at bedside or just outside the door.

While Quinn doted, Ann grew increasingly anxious. No one in the family had ever achieved a college education. And here Quinn was so close. Ann saw her daughter's degree being sabotaged, perhaps forever. On the other hand, every moment spent together felt precious now.

At eight o'clock that evening Ann said to Quinn, “Pack your bag.”

“What?” Quinn said. She had just plunked herself down on the end of the bed to read Ann another chapter from
Travels with Charley.

“Get off my bed and pack. You're going to be on that ten o'clock bus and make no mistake about it.”

Quinn stretched out her hand imploringly. But Ann's face did not yield. Quinn dipped her head.

“Go on,” Ann urged.

Slowly, wordlessly, Quinn crept off the bed and left the room. When the door clicked shut, Ann clasped John's pillow to her face and wept.

John drove Quinn to the bus station. The atmosphere inside the Ford was relaxed, the steam from their argument having evaporated out of a shared concern for Ann. This morning as Quinn had watched John go off to mass in his best blue suit with his hair slick from the shower, she vowed to restrain herself from further outbursts against God. If religion offered him consolation, she wasn't going to spoil it.

Quinn tossed her suitcase on the bed at 1:00 A.M. and without unpacking sat down to write Ted Manning a letter turning down the job. She felt no conflict, only gratitude that there was something in her life worth sacrificing.
If I lay this lamb at your feet, God, will you give me back my mother?
The pain felt good.

Her reading assignments sat neglected on her desk in piles that looked like the Manhattan skyline. For the past two weeks everything had seemed so pointless. The only thing that mattered now was somehow enduring until graduation, grabbing her diploma, and hurrying home to care for Ann.

Wednesday evening she was on the garage floor under a broken fuel line when Gus appeared to tell her there was a phone call. She stood up and wiped the grease off trembling fingers.

Carefully Gus said, “It's Vanessa.”

“Oh.” Quinn had never spoken with Gus about not seeing Will anymore, but he knew.

“You've had a call from Springfield General,” Van said. “It's Harvey.”

Quinn's heart began to thump. She clung to the phone, dreading what she would hear, yet frantic for information.

“There's been some trouble at home and he was hurt. Will's there and wants you to meet him in Pediatrics.”

“Do you know the floor?”

“Five. Quinn, he's all right.”

“Thanks. I'm on my way.”

Quinn stripped off her overalls and borrowed the campus pickup truck. She took the highway rather than the more direct route through the residential streets. Stop signs were intolerable. What she wanted was speed.

She tried to prepare herself. A dismayed expression on her face would frighten Harvey. She wanted to comfort, not inflict more pain.

Simmering beneath her fright was the realization that she would see Will. Soon. Despite her effort to suppress it, there was a stirring of hope.

Just inside the Emergency entrance was a narrow slot marked “Official Vehicles Only.” She pulled in. The university insignia on the truck was official enough.

The nurse at the fifth-floor reception desk directed her to Harvey's room with an admonition to keep it short. These were not formal visiting hours.

Three of the four beds were unoccupied, with Harvey a small lump in the other. Will's back was toward Quinn, but she could see that he was holding the boy's hand. She moved to the bedside. Harvey seemed to be asleep. His left eye was bruised purple, and swollen to the size of a fist. The long eyelashes were invisible. An ugly slash down his cheek had required eight stitches, and a plaster cast on his shoulder forced his right arm to jut out at a bizarre angle.

“God,” Quinn said. Will turned and she saw his face through a watery blur. “What happened?”

“Leroy.” Will's voice was strange. She must have forgotten the sound of it. She stared at him numbly without understanding.

“Leroy did this,” he repeated. Quinn realized now that the unrecognizable color in his voice was something she had never heard there before. It was hatred.

“Why?” she asked.

“He was drunk.”

“What about that eye?”

“They say it'll be okay. Everything's superficial.” Quinn understood the bitter irony. There were internal injuries that would never heal.

“He was so scared,” Will said.

Quinn's stomach felt as if it had been kicked hard. She put one hand on her solar plexus and reached out with the other to touch Harvey's soft kinky hair. “Baby,” she whispered. He was so small. His feet made little points in the sheets halfway down the bed.

“Where's his mother?”

“At the police station trying to get Leroy off.”

Quinn shook her head. “How'd he get here?”

“They brought him in a cab, and the hospital called the cops.”

“But how did you find out?”

“The resident in Emergency called the school. Apparently he kept crying for me and wouldn't let anybody near him. They couldn't stitch him up until I got here.” He gazed out the window into the dark, remembering. “What a mess. Thank Christ they took the other two away before I got here. I would have murdered them both.”

She believed him. The quiet voice did not dilute the ferocity of his rage. Her own anger lifted a little in the presence of his, and she was able to think about what they should do now.

“Can we get him out of that house?”

“I don't think so.”

“Then we've got to find a way to keep him safe. Somebody's got to scare the shit out of Leroy.”

“He was so blasted I don't think he even knew what he'd done.”

“What if we take him away for a little while. Medham … somewhere.”

Suddenly she stopped herself. There was Quinn and there was Will, but there was no longer a “we.”

“We'll think of something,” Will said. The tiny particle of hope quivered again. Quinn noticed he was wearing the Christmas sweater she'd knit for him.

A nurse swished into the room. “You'll have to leave. It's past visiting hours, and we only made an exception because the patient was so upset.”

Will sat. Quinn knew no one could pry him out of that chair until he was ready to leave.

“I don't want him to wake up and be alone,” Will said.

“He won't wake up, sir. He's had a sedative.”

“We can take turns sitting with him, just for tonight,” Quinn said. “We'd be very unobtrusive, and there's nobody else in here.”

The nurse smiled. “I know it's hard to leave him. But listen, I'll look in every fifteen minutes all night long. I promise. I can also promise he won't wake up until it's light.”

Reassured, Will got to his feet. He swayed a little.

“You okay?” Instinctively, Quinn touched his arm. With the physical contact she recoiled as if he were electrified.

“I don't want to go,” he murmured, mainly to Harvey.

“Please,” the nurse urged them. “I won't let you down.”

They left the room and walked down the hushed hallway to the elevators.

Will and Quinn were back together again. Neither of them wished to examine the reasons, since what had changed was that Harvey now wore a shoulder cast and a nasty scar on his face. Nothing else.

Quinn had received a personal letter from Ted Manning, offering Quinn his sympathies regarding her mother and a job with an affiliate news program in Boston. He assured her that the door was open whenever she felt ready to come to New York. Quinn waited several days before she mentioned the letter to Will, and when she did, it was without joy.

On Thursday afternoon, two weeks after Harvey's hospitalization, Will and Quinn were drinking coffee in the union. Will was about to head for the bus to the North End.

Quinn grumbled over her newspaper. “Would you look at what Johnson's doing to his dog? Somebody ought to pick
him
up by the ears.” Suddenly she cried out. “Hey! Guess who's coming to Ferguson's this weekend.”

“Mm.” Will was engrossed in his philosophy notes.

“Will, listen, the entire cast of Harvey's favorite TV show,
Infinity.
They're making a promotional tour for the movie. Wouldn't Harve go ape?”

“That's the cartoon thing,” Will said absently, outlining a sentence with yellow Magic Marker.

Quinn snatched it from his hand. “It's a regular science fiction program. Harvey'd give up hot fudge for life if he got a chance to see those guys.”

Will was paying attention now. “When?”

She folded her paper open to the advertisement and read. “Uh … Filene's Friday, Ferguson's Saturday. This Saturday afternoon.” She looked up. “Let me take him by myself. I want to do something special for him, and Thursdays are shot now with the cafeteria job.”

“I think he'd be ecstatic.”

“Tell him I'll pick him up at one, and he should wear his Sunday best. We'll go out to dinner afterward, a fancy date.”

“Did you get this worked up to go out with me?”

She forced a smile. “Saturday night without you ain't champagne, believe me.”

“Root beer?”

“Flat root beer, with a lousy aftertaste.”

“I know the feeling.” He regarded her for a moment. Finally he said, “Are we ever going to talk?”

“Not if I can help it.”

He shook his head.

“Let's just drift for a while, okay?” She grabbed her stomach. “I'm still trying to stick my guts back inside.”

“I suppose the solution is a lobotomy for us both.”

“Good,” she said. “We could sit on the front porch in our rocking chairs, holding hands and gazing blankly into space. Forever.”

“What am I going to do with you?”

“Sure and it's damned if I know, lad.”

“Lad?”

“Did I say that?”

“You did indeed.”

“I used to do that with Jake sometimes when I wanted something. Colleening around. ‘Ah, and it's me, Daddy, your own girl Quinn' and all that.”

“What're you after now?” Will stretched his hand across the table, slipped it behind her neck, and drew his fingers up through her hair. Her eyes were deep blue, with the glistening black flecks he had noticed in Ann's. Maybe Quinn was becoming more like her mother.

“Your ass,” Quinn said.

Will laughed. Then again, maybe she wasn't.

“What?” she asked.

He shook his head and began gathering his papers together. “Steve's waiting at the bus stop.” He gave her a quick kiss on the mouth and strode toward the door. She watched him leave, thinking that when he really wanted to move, he could be plenty fast on his feet.

The clock over the exit told her she had twenty minutes before leaving for the cafeteria. Twenty minutes to think, and nothing safe to think about.

“Hi,” Stanley said, plunking down his books.

Quinn flung her arms around his waist. “I love you, Stan,” she said.

He laughed. “They all do.” Extricating himself, he took a close look at her. Then he set about cheering her up with stories of mayhem in the Markowitz family regarding the Great August Disaster, which was how the wedding had come to be known. How the Markowitzes wanted to hold the ceremony in a kosher hotel in the Catskills and how the Huntingtons insisted it transpire in their living room, where they could serve watercress sandwiches instead of chopped chicken liver.

The twenty minutes flew by.

On Saturday morning Quinn put on her best sweater—pale lime-green cashmere—and her gray wool skirt. As she slipped into high heels she felt a twinge, hastily quelled, remembering the last time she'd worn them, for the interview with Ted Manning in New York. Well, anyway, the mirror said that today was a particularly good day. Her hair had dried just right, and this morning's phone call to Medham had left her feeling optimistic about Ann.

Van walked in while she was contemplating her reflection. “Well, Vanity, and where are you going, may I ask?”

“I've got a hot date this afternoon. Don't I look smashing?” Quinn reached into the recesses of her closet for the treasured green topcoat, carefully bagged in plastic. “Harvey Jackson and I are going to meet some very important television stars. And then we are going out to supper at a chic spot where they serve wine and Shirley Temples.” She planted a kiss by Van's ear and breezed out the door. “Don't wait up,” she called.

It was a brilliant cool spring day that even the litter-strewn streets of the North End could not eclipse. She was a little early, but Harvey was already waiting for her in the doorway of his tenement. From a block away she could see him peering through a pane of broken glass. She walked briskly past a group of black teenagers who were bouncing a ball off the roof of a stripped automobile. Harvey emerged from the doorway and approached her with the dignity befitting his formal attire.

“You look wonderful,” she said. He was wearing the shoes Will had bought for him, navy blue and polished to a glassy shine. His slacks, hand-me-downs from someone on the block, were gray, his shirt white with tiny blue stripes, his tie Black Watch plaid, and his jacket deep green.

“We even match,” Quinn said. She pirouetted for him. “What do you think?”

“Nice,” Harvey said. The flesh around his left eye was still yellow. The stitches had been removed from the cut on his cheek, but the scar's track was clearly visible.

“I look like Frankenstein, right?” he asked.

“You're too glamorous for Frankenstein.” She touched his shoulder carefully. “Where's your cast?”

“They strapped me up in a Ace bandage.” The jacket was a size too big and hung loosely.

“You're going to need a coat.”

“No!” Harvey said fiercely.

Quinn realized he did not want to spoil the effect of his outfit with a baseball jacket. There was no other coat in his closet. She drew him close to her as they walked down the street.

“I'll keep you warm,” she said.

“Did you catch the show this morning?” Harvey asked. “Leroy let me watch and I didn't even do the garbage.”

At the mention of the name, Quinn felt her back teeth clamp together. Leroy had been released the morning after Harvey's hospitalization with a warning from the police department. Ever since, Quinn had found herself constructing fantasies of revenge. She imagined Leroy being mugged by a gang of toughs who would torture him before beating him senseless. The final blow, administered with a heavy fist to the left eye, was always accompanied by a howl of angry voices raised in unison.
This one's for Harvey.
Once at night Quinn dreamed that she broke into Leroy's closet and systematically ripped up all the fancy finery that provided his self-respect. Hatred had never been a part of Quinn's nature; she resented Leroy all the more for introducing her to it.

Harvey machine-gunned a trash can. “You shoulda seen Marfax. Oh, man, he was great this mornin'. There's this monster after Golon, y'know, the chick, and he was this real greasy, re-VOLT-in' snaky thing …” He wriggled away from her and skipped up ahead, making grotesque faces and clawing the air with his hands. “An' Marfax, he jus' hangs in there cool, bidin' his time with them magic eyeballs, ready to zap anythin' that breathes, and … eep, erng, erng, here comes the monster with Golon hangin' out of his big slimy claw, and she's screechin' her brains out, and WHAMMO! Magic eyeballs to the rescue! And the monster, man, he drops Golon like she's electrified, and then he kicks it …” Harvey performed his rendition of a monster succumbing. “Ungh, ooo, uhh … ahhh.” He started to drop to the pavement but caught himself just in time to preserve the Sunday best. Then he flashed Quinn a smile of such gentle complacency that she grabbed his sleeve and captured him in a hug.

Harvey's limit for such demonstrations was three seconds, tops. When she released him, he marched beside her, matching his strides to hers. “You really think Marfax is gonna be there himself?”

“Yup.”

On the bus trip downtown Harvey provided her with a historical overview of the
Infinity
adventures, beginning with the very first program two years ago through this morning's show. The gaps due to Leroy's intervention had been filled in by detailed cross-examination of Harvey's friends.

The ground floor of Ferguson's Department Store was crowded with Mother's Day shoppers. As Quinn and Harvey passed the lingerie counter, a saleswoman eyed them curiously. Quinn was trying to imagine the speculations she and Harvey must be engendering, when up the aisle shuffled a robot. Harvey spotted him first.

“Zindar!” he shouted. “Quinn, hey, look, man! It's Zindar!”

The robot stopped, whirred, and projected a stiff hand toward Harvey. A pair of brown eyes glistened behind the aluminum helmet.

“Oh-humanoid-you-come-to-observe-Infinity,” the robot intoned.

Harvey was overwhelmed. He gazed up at Zindar, speechless.

“You-shall-encounter-Marvax-on-Eight,” Zindar said. “I-will-shake-the-hand-of-the-female-humanoid.'' He picked up Quinn's hand with his silver gloves. One brown eye winked at her.

“Thanks, Zandor,” Quinn said.

“Zindar!” Harvey howled.

“I beg your pardon,” Quinn said humbly.

The robot bowed in little rigid lurches and made his way, ticking and humming, toward a group of children half hidden behind the glove counter. Their faces were fascinated and terrified.

“Infinity-on-Eight, Infinity-on-Eight,” intoned the receding Zindar.

“Wow!” Harvey breathed. “Come on! Marfax is up there. Shee-
yit
!” He tugged on Quinn's hand. “Man, I hope he brung them magic eyeballs.”

On the eighth floor a replica of the
Infinity
spacecraft had been constructed against one entire wall. Above the huge model the word “Infinity” flashed in pulsating red light bulbs. The show's soundtrack boomed and throbbed. A young man in astronaut gear guarded the display. He wore a button on his chest that announced:
I work for Ferguson's. Let me help.

“Hi,” Quinn said. “Where's the crew?”

The astronaut peered inside the rocket. “Don't know. I just came on.”

“Zindar said they were on Eight,” Quinn said. Harvey slipped his hand into hers.

“Who?”

“Zindar. The robot on the ground floor.”

“Just a minute.” He headed for the service desk.

Quinn looked at Harvey. The boy's face was heavy with disappointment.

In a moment the guard returned with a sheet of paper. “Says here
Infinity
crew … hm, hm … yeah.” He checked his watch. “Should of been here a half hour ago, and stayed till three. Try Nine. They were scheduled for noon up there in Children's Shoes.”

“Okay. Thanks.” They hurried to the escalator, but Harvey's excitement had become tentative. Quinn was tugging at him now.

The salesman on Nine said
Infinity
had passed through his department about twelve thirty. It was now one fifty. Weren't they supposed to be on Eight? Quinn explained. The salesman fingered his
Let Me Help
button.

“Well, try the Cafeteria on Five. They were down there earlier. The kids went crazy.”

“Let's take the elevator,” Quinn said.

Harvey was quiet. His scar formed a rough exclamation point that punctuated the yellow stain beneath his eye. Quinn resisted an impulse to kick the elevator door.

A serpentine lunch line had formed on Five outside the cafeteria, but there was no
Infinity.

“Stay here,” she commanded Harvey. “Excuse me,” she said to the cashier, “but do you know if
Infinity
is going to be here?”

“What's that, miss?” The cash register clanged open.

“
Infinity
,” Quinn repeated. “From the television show.”

“Don't know anything about that. Better try Eight. That's where they have all the kiddie stuff.”

Quinn marched back to Harvey. He checked her face for good news, then dropped his eyes as they began to fill with tears. She ushered him toward the escalator, taking care not to jostle the injured shoulder. She stalked up the moving stairs with Harvey scrambling along behind.

Ferguson's astronaut stood where they had left him, his face alternating steadily between pink and white with the flash of the
Infinity
lights above his head. He watched the twosome approach: attractive redhead, real classy and trim, probably from one of those towns like Lincoln or Wellesley. Working in a place like Ferguson's, you got to know the type after a while. What in hell was she doing with the little skinny colored kid? Beat up like he was in an accident or something, and looked like he was crying.

Quinn backed the guard up against the spacecraft and halted six inches from his face. She narrowed her eyes at him and said, in a low but menacing tone, “Where the fuck is
Infinity
?”

The young man's jaw dropped.

“I said,” Quinn repeated, decibels building, “where the
fuck
is
Infinity
?”

His mouth opened and shut silently.

“This little kid has had a miserable couple of weeks, and this is the best thing to happen to him in his whole life. Now I want to know where the
FUCK
is
Infinity
?”

“I'm sorry, madam.”

“You bet you are. Now I want to talk to the president of this place and I want to talk to him now. Where's the store phone?”

The astronaut pointed wordlessly.

“Come on, Harvey. We're going to find your Marfax.”

Harvey's tears had dried into two chalky streaks. His head jerked back and forth between the equally enthralling spectacles of the dumbfounded Ferguson's employee and the enraged, heroic Quinn. When she walked away, Harvey trotted along behind with eyes full of unspilled tears and awe.

Quinn picked up the phone and waited for the operator.

“Hello,” she said pleasantly. “Can you tell me the name of the president of this store, please? … Fine. Mr. Murdock. I want you to ring Mr. Murdock's office for me, please, and tell him Miss Mallory has urgent business with him.” There was a pause while she listened politely. Then she continued, “It concerns my attorney, whom I intend to telephone this minute if I can't reach Mr. Murdock. And possibly the police. Definitely the police.”

Harvey hung on every word. There was no chance of
Infinity's
matching this performance, and he knew it.

“Mr. Murdock's office? Fine. I'm Quinn Mallory; who's this? … What's your title? … I see. All right, you'll do.” She related the afternoon's adventure, beginning with Zindar's tantalizing introduction in the lingerie department. At the end of her narrative she said, “And if we're not standing in the presence of Marfax and Golon and the entire crew of the spaceship
Infinity
within five minutes, I will personally launch Ferguson's Department Store into outer space. I mean it. I am very pissed.” Then she replaced the receiver. Harvey smiled.

In three minutes and twenty seconds—Quinn monitored her watch—six members of the
Infinity
crew arrived via escalator, all present with the exception of Zindar, who was presumably still circling the bras and girdles. Marfax was a splendid green-scaled tower. He regarded Harvey with neon eyeballs.

“What is the name of this small humanoid?” he demanded in a voice like thunder. Quinn wondered if there was an amplifier hidden in the costume.

“Harvey Jackson,” Harvey croaked.

“Marfax wishes private communication with Harvey Jackson,” Marfax said, and picked Harvey up in one swift motion. Quinn winced for the wounded shoulder, but Harvey's face peering at her over the chartreuse biceps was at war between delight and terror only. Pain, if in attendance at all, did not signify.

The crew began to chant, “Harvey Jackson, leader of the humanoids,” and followed Marfax in a parade up and down the eighth-floor aisles.

Harvey nestled comfortably against the massive chest. “You got your magic eyeballs, Marfax?” he asked.

“You dare to ask such a question of Marfax?” boomed the creature. “Naturally I've got 'em.” A buzz sounded from somewhere behind the mountain of a head, and the eyes spun into crimson whirlpools.

“Shee-
yit
,” Harvey murmured. Marfax set him down outside the spacecraft.

“The humanoid leader will enter the
Infinity
ship and serve as captain,” Marfax announced.

“Captain Jackson!” cheered Golon, resplendent in skintight mauve satin tights. Blond hair spilled down her back in a tangle of polyester cirls.

After Harvey had entered the hatchway, Quinn tugged at Marfax's scaly elbow. “Where were you?” she demanded.

“Marfax takes coffee breaks like humanoids,” he answered.

“You were supposed to be here at one thirty.” She held up her watch and tapped the crystal. “See that? Two thirty.”

The monster lowered his voice. “Coffee breaks cause certain physiological changes in Marfax's creature body.”

“I don't give a damn about your physiology. You should have been here.”

“Marfax!” Harvey called from inside the ship.

“Listen, lady.” The neon eyes spun. “Do you have any idea what it's like trying to get out of this thing to take a piss?''