Quinn (5 page)

As the bell rang, Dr. Buxby's oration faded into the clamor of notebooks slamming shut, pens dropping, coats zipping. Van, felled by a virus, languished at the infirmary with Stanley in attendance, and Quinn hurried out of the classroom alone. Preoccupied with obligations, she wove her way quickly through the throng of slower students. There was her last-minute commitment to fix a motorbike for Gus. Then there was cafeteria duty and another class, with just enough time, if she really hustled, to deliver fresh orange juice to Van. Quinn thought it was a miracle that they managed to cure anybody in the infirmary with the kind of vitamin-deficient slop they spooned into their helpless patients. Poor Van had looked so peaked and miserable last night. Quinn flew down the corridor, organizing her immediate future, when suddenly a hand closed around her arm and brought her to a halt. Will Ingraham pulled her toward the wall, out of the stampede. His face was weary. Quinn looked up at him curiously.

“I hope I'm not too late to apply,” he said. He held out a plain white envelope.

For a moment Quinn looked baffled, but then she reddened. “Oh …
that.
Well …” she stammered, feeling the color climb all the way to her forehead. She took the envelope automatically, but when Will released it, it dropped to the floor with a plop and slid away from their feet. Quinn said, “Oh,” and stared at it dazedly. When she raised her eyes again, Will was halfway down the hall. He turned, gave her a friendly wave, and disappeared out the door at the far end.

That evening Quinn moved restlessly about her room, shedding clothes. Every few moments, she glanced at the white rectangle on her desk. Then she averted her eyes and took off something else, tossing the discarded items onto her bed in a heap. Finally, down to a pair of cotton bikini underpants, she pulled a T-shirt inscribed with “Property of Alpha Delta Phi” over her head and snatched the envelope angrily off the desk. Then she settled cross-legged on her bed and stared at her name printed on the front with a black felt-tip pen. The letters were square, neat, but not fastidiously formed. The dot above the
i
was sloppy. It looked like the accent for a French word. Quinn wondered if the contents were printed in the same strong, relaxed letters. Maybe it was script. She held the envelope up to the light, but the paper was too opaque.

She tried to remember Will's face in the hallway this morning. He'd smiled at her, but there had been something odd about his expression. Challenge, perhaps? No, nothing that strong. Something almost tender, like apology.

She should have let the damn thing lie there. But what if someone had picked it up and read it? God only knew what was inside. She could always destroy it. Or give it back. She pictured herself meeting with Will on Monday morning and returning the envelope to him unopened. That was the thing to do. After all, he hadn't been invited to participate in this thing.

She stared at it again, and turned it over to confirm what she already knew. It wasn't sealed.

Suddenly she was almost ripping the enclosed page in her haste to unfold it. A surprise—it was typewritten. She ran her eyes rapidly over the page, then began at the top and read again, slowly. After that she let the paper slide to the floor, stared blankly at her knees, and muttered, “Oh, shit.”

Quinn opened Van's door softly, crept in, and sat on the edge of the bed. Van was asleep, breathing noisily through the debris left over from her bout with the flu.

“Van …” she whispered. There was no answer. “Van, are you up?” Van stirred in her sleep. Quinn grabbed a foot and began to shake it gently.

After a moment Van opened her eyes a slit. “Pardon?” she mumbled.

“I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.”

“Anything the matter?” Van sat up halfway. Her stuffy nose made the words sound like
adythig the badder.
She fingered the neck of her long-sleeved flannel nightgown.

“Don't worry, you're respectable,” Quinn said. “I've got something to show you. I tried not to. I mean, you've got this awful plague and everything, but I couldn't stand it.”

“Go turn on the light. No, not that one, you'll blind me. The desk.”

Quinn switched on the desk lamp, twisting the shade away from Van's puffy, reddened eyes. “You look awful,” she said, perching at the foot of the bed again.

“I'll look worse in the morning. I heard you came to see me at the infirmary.”

“Yeah, I broke the world sprinting record bringing you orange juice and Janice Friedman was in your bed.”

“Thanks for the thought, but am I ever glad to be out. What're they?”

“Applications,” Quinn answered.

“I thought they were all in.”

“Yeah, well, one was unsolicited. This is Jerry's.” She held up a page by one corner and then released it deliberately so that it fell on the bed. “Your basic list of references, all his happy customers, who, by the way, include thirty percent of the women's dormitory. Did you know he screwed Barbara Tyson?”

“He says.”

“Yeah.” Quinn hesitated.

“And the other?” Van asked, eyeing the remaining page on Quinn's lap.

“Sure you want to hear it?” Quinn teased.

“You woke me up, for God's sake. Besides, I'll admit to a certain prurient curiosity.”

“Listen,” Quinn said, and began to read:

Van stared at Quinn in silence for a moment. “Who?” she asked finally.

“Will Ingraham.”

Van's eyes widened. “Uh oh.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't know.”

“Serves you right.”

“It's even iambic pentameter, the bastard.” Quinn looked at Van's smiling face. “Don't smirk at me, you … postnasal drip.”

Van reached for a Kleenex and tried to blow her nose with ladylike discretion. After several unproductive sniffs into the tissue, Quinn said impatiently, “Damn it, just blow, will you? I won't listen.” Quinn stared vacantly at the elegant Bachrach portrait of the Huntingtons that stood on Van's desk.

“All right, then,” Van said. “Why don't you just tell him he's too late?”

“It's a winner.”

“But he wasn't invited.”

Quinn fell silent, then got up and switched off the light. “Thanks for listening. You'd better get some rest.”

Van smiled into the darkness. “Sleep tight.”

Quinn heard the delight in her friend's voice. “Oh, shut up,” she said, and closed the door behind her.

Quinn was delayed in the garage on Saturday and had to hurry in order to pick up her mail before kitchen duty. Racing across the campus, she suddenly spotted Will ahead of her. He was walking with a girl—a pretty sophomore Quinn recognized from the cafeteria line. They were taking their time despite the frosty air. Quinn stopped short, intending to make a quick detour, but instead found herself staring curiously as Will bowed his head to better hear his companion. Then he laughed, threw his arm around her shoulders, and gave her a squeeze. What could that dark-eyed little underclassman have possibly said to elicit such appreciation from the cool Will Ingraham? She wrenched her eyes away from the couple and trailed behind them, determinedly forcing her feet to a slower pace. Finally they disappeared into Lenox Hall. She broke into a trot until the cold air whipped the image of Will and the girl out of her mind.

On Sunday, Van and Quinn sat in the dining room lingering over their desserts. It was Quinn's day off from her cafeteria job, and usually she enjoyed relaxing through her lunch. But today she felt impatient. Van's mealtime ritual had begun to grate on her. Each slice of turkey got carved into morsels of identical size to be transported to Van's mouth, one piece at a time, with the same compact gesture. She chewed each bite carefully, jaws meeting in a slow, relentless rhythm. After every two swallows she took a sip of milk. By the time she had finished her meat and started to subdivide the beets, Quinn had already cleaned her plate. She tried not to watch as the second of two forkfuls of beets disappeared down Van's throat. When Van reached for her glass, Quinn felt a shriek bulging under her larynx. She forced herself to stare out the window until the lump dissolved, but her foot was rapping out a tarantella under the table.

After she had gulped down the last spoonful of chocolate ice cream, Quinn wailed, “Oh, no. I forgot to taste that. I was looking forward to it all the way through the turkey and I don't remember any of it.” She craned her neck around the sunny dining room, hoping to spy an untouched abandoned dessert.

Van disrupted her ritual to ask, “Something on your mind, dear?”

Quinn shot her a venomous look.

“My thought is that you really want to do this thing,” Van declared.

“What thing?” Quinn asked. The tapping foot was now audible over the dining room clatter.

“The Noble Sir William thing.”

“Oh, come off it.”

“You don't have any obligation to go through with—”

“It's a matter of ethics,” Quinn interrupted.

Van broke out laughing.

“God damn it.” Quinn wadded up her napkin and tossed it onto her tray.

“Has anybody ever pointed out that you've got a problem with control?”

“Yes, Vanessa, ad nauseam. Why don't you just quit Fine Arts and be a shrink?”

“You'd make a great case study. Really, this whole contest thing is fascinating. You've set up all these controls as precedents for
losing
control. I mean orgasm, of course—”

“On second thought,” Quinn interrupted irritably, “better stick with Fine Arts.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Quinn's freckles had grown perceptibly darker. “You're mad at me,” Van said.

“It's just that you are constantly psychoanalyzing everybody.”

“Not everybody. Just you.” Van tried out an apologetic smile. “I'm sorry. I'll stop. Well, I
can't
stop, but I'll keep it behind closed mouth.”

“Much appreciated.”

“Do you think it's a sin? Sex, for you, I mean.”

Quinn shook her head slowly. “I'll tell you one thing,” she said, “eternal damnation's gotta be more interesting than virginity.”

Van laughed, and they finished their coffee amid speculation regarding Jerry Landring's alleged conquests, two of whom were sitting together at a table near the window.

Monday morning, Quinn lingered at the garage until finally Gus asked her if she was feeling all right. When she arrived at Lit class, she slid into a seat at the back of the room nearest the door and tried to concentrate on Dr. Buxby's remarks concerning Jane Austen. Her attention strayed around the room, and came to rest on the back of Will Ingraham's head. His hair was light brown with pale, sunny streaks. Amazing, really, for the beginning of December. It waved slightly, particularly at the neck, where it curled over the back of his collar. She wondered if it was coarse or soft. It looked soft, even though it seemed very thick.

“Miss Quinn Mallory?”

Her eyes flew to Dr. Buxby's face. Everyone seemed to be waiting for her to say something. “I'm … sorry, I guess … I didn't hear the question,” she stammered.

Dr. Buxby frowned at her and snapped, “Mr. Ackley.”

During Ackley's response Will turned to look at Quinn. She felt his gaze and stared straight ahead. When the bell rang, she bolted from her seat, down the corridor, and out the heavy wooden door onto the quadrangle.

Although in fact she managed to avoid him, her imagination found him everywhere. Lying on her back beneath a crippled truck on Tuesday, she concocted reasons for him to appear at Gus's tiny glassed-in office. Maybe Will needed a job. Maybe he wanted to borrow a special tool to fix something in his room, like … She stopped hammering on the muffler line and invented. Like his emergency generator. Surely he had a generator stowed away in his closet just in case the lights went out while he was studying for a crucial exam.

Gus's feet appeared, two sturdy shadows in the slice of light beyond the truck's underside. “Your friend's here,” he said.

Quinn heard pounding in her ears.

“She's got your books.”

Quinn scrambled out and blinked at Van in the sudden brightness.

“It's a good thing I happened to stop by your room,” Van said. “You left everything on the bed. Aren't you going to Religion?”

“Yeah.” Quinn reached for a clean rag. “I guess I just forgot them. Thanks.” She took the books from Van.

Van stared at Quinn's smudged jeans. “Aren't you going to change?”

“She forgot her overalls, too,” Gus said. He turned to Quinn. “You losing your grip, or what?”

She didn't answer.

“Got a lot on her mind,” Van said quietly. Quinn grabbed her friend by the elbow and pulled her toward the door.

Quinn sat through the Religion lecture without hearing the completion of a single sentence. When the bell rang, she nodded a dazed good-bye to Van and walked out of the classroom like a somnambulist.