The Inconceivable Life of Quinn

by Marianna Baer

  Another knock. What the hell?

  “Yeah?” he said again, this time pulling open the door.

  Someone shoved him. He stumbled back as Ben Cutler barged in and kicked the door shut. Marco turned to grab something, anything, to defend himself. But Ben got him from behind, yanked his arms back, pushed him forward, against a wall, shoved him up against it hard, saying, “I don’t want to hurt you. But let me be very clear. I will break your fucking hand into smithereens if you don’t answer my questions, and you will never pitch again.”

  Marco nodded, cheek rubbing against the wall, pulse racing, trying to stay calm. “Okay.”

  “And if you go running to Foley after I leave, I will also break your fucking hand into smithereens. All you’ll be doing is getting yourself in deeper shit. Get it?”

  He nodded again. His shoulders hurt from the way Ben had his arms pinned.

  “You have a sister, right?” Ben said.

  “Uh huh.”

  “So you know what it’s like to want to protect her. Meaning if you were going to bet on who’s going to go further with this, me or Foley, you’d bet on me, right?”

  “Uh huh.” Yes. If Ben hurt Nell, Marco would kill him.

  “So,” Ben said, pressing even closer against him, breath hot against his face, “what happened with my sister that night on Southaven? And don’t fucking lie to me. If you do, I swear to god, you’ll never pitch again.”

  QUINN

  The minute Quinn and Jesse stepped into the light of the main room, stage fright gripped her. Even though none of the zombies or superheroes or sexy cats were looking at them yet, all she could think was, What have I done?

  “Quinn!” Sadie’s voice rang out. It echoed off the patterned brick floor and vaulted ceiling and jumbled with the music and other voices. Quinn scanned the costumed people gathered along a row of round tables, and near the series of arched glass doors that led to a lakeside terrace, but couldn’t recognize Sadie. “Quinn!” her voice came again.

  Now people turned in their direction. For one excruciating moment, no one said anything. Just stared. Quinn wanted to run, but her feet were frozen as if she were the Virgin Mary statue in a church. She held Jesse’s hand tighter.

  “You made it!” Sadie said, finally appearing next to them, giving Quinn a side-arm hug. “Oh my god. You guys look great. I love it!”

  “Really?” Quinn said. “You know who we are?”

  “Of course!”

  “You get that it’s supposed to be funny?”

  Sadie made a face. “Uh, last I checked there was a brain in my head.”

  “Told you,” Jesse said to Quinn with a nudge.

  Quinn smiled with relief. “You look amazing,” she said, taking a moment to appreciate Sadie’s costume. She was the Bride of Frankenstein, wearing a floor-length white gown, her hair dyed and piled on top of her head in an Everest-size bouffant.

  Isa hurried up to them, dressed as a flapper. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “You guys are hilarious. Such balls!”

  “I know it’s kind of low-tech,” Quinn said, aware of the obvious bobby pins along her hairline and the tips of her sneakers peeking out.

  “Shut up.” Isa smacked her on the shoulder. “It’s awesome.”

  After Sadie and Isa filled them in on what they’d missed (Kevin got in a bike accident and wasn’t coming; Adrian was flirting with Sadie’s stepsister; Ryan had her pet snake with her), Quinn and Jesse made their way farther into the room, heading toward the table of drinks and food. Everyone came up to say hi and compliment their costumes, even people who hadn’t talked to Quinn in weeks. Apparently, Caroline’s advice had been completely right. Something about making fun of herself—flaunting the pregnancy, even—had changed the whole dynamic. She owed Caroline a huge thank-you.

  “Do you have your phone?” Jesse asked, as Quinn looked around for the shiny fabric of Caroline’s peacock costume. “Mine’s out of charge and I want to get some pictures.”

  Quinn reached under the sheet into the bathrobe pocket and brought it out. When she turned it on, a text from Ben appeared on the screen.

  Just saw Marco. Call me.

  She paced next to the algae-smothered lake, its surface of solid green lit up by the large globe lights along the edge of the Boathouse veranda. The noise from the party was loud enough that no one could hear her, but she was far enough away from it that she could hear Ben. Most people were inside the glass doorways; only a few were outside.

  “What do you mean, he saw me lying there?” Quinn said, trying to get all the facts straight, despite the pounding in her chest.

  “That’s what he said. He said he was walking along the beach and saw you lying on that big rock, naked, and that he thought you saw his flashlight. That’s all. Do you have any memory of that? Of going to the beach in the middle of the night?”

  “Well, yeah. I was down there.”

  “Doing what?”

  She told Ben about her midnight swim. “So, I mean, I was down there, and I did go skinny dipping, but I didn’t lie on the rock, and I didn’t notice any flashlight. I got in, swam, got out, and ran home.”

  “Well, he said it was definitely you. Seriously, though, Quinn. This all sounds so weird. You were swimming alone in the middle of the night? At Holmes Cove? What the fuck were you thinking?”

  For a moment he sounded like her father, and her throat tightened.

  What is wrong with you? Do you want to end up like her and die in the ocean?

  “It was nice,” she said weakly.

  “None of this makes sense.” She heard him take a deep breath. “And we haven’t even talked about why you kissed him. Are you absolutely positive he didn’t coerce you in some way? Why would you have done that?”

  “I don’t know. It just . . . happened.” A surge of laughter came from the Boathouse. “Look, it’s hard to talk about right now. But it was . . . I was happy. I was really happy that night. I know I was crazy and impulsive and I shouldn’t have done either of those things, but I don’t feel like something bad happened. I’m definitely going to think about it, and try to remember lying on the rock, but . . . I don’t know.”

  “Well, obviously you don’t remember it as well as you thought.”

  “How long did he say he watched me?”

  “Not long. But it’s not like he’d have admitted it if it was long.”

  She bit her lip and stared out at the lake. “I better get back to the party. When are you coming home?”

  “Not sure. Might have to go back to Florida.”

  “Talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said. “And Quinn? Just saying—from an outside point of view, that whole night sounds really suspicious.”

  QUINN

  When she woke up on the screened-in porch of the Southaven house that last Sunday morning in May, sleeping bag kicked down to her knees in the unexpected, unseasonal heat, Quinn had the overwhelming feeling that something special was about to happen. Almost like that Christmas-morning feeling as a kid, except way more intense. The warm air had hummed with weird electricity . . . with possibility. She lay on the air mattress, listening to Lydia’s breath from the other side of the room, and to the breath of the wind, and the whispers of the ocean, and to the cheeps and twitters of the birds. Energy filled her, starting at her toes, buzzing through her limbs, supercharging her heart. And in her still half sleep, she didn’t question it, because it was excited anticipation, not nervous.

  Something is going to happen.

  As quietly as possible, she crept out of the porch and stood with her bare feet in the spiky, dewy grass, pausing to look out at the soft blanket of fog on the sleepy Atlantic. She’d just started toward the forest when the screen door slammed and Lydia ran up beside her. (That girl had supersonic hearing, even when asleep.)

  “You promised to take me to Holmes Cove,” Lydia said, bouncing on her toes. She had no memories of Southaven, having been a baby when they moved away. “Rememb
er? Where you almost drowned?”

  “I know what the cove is,” Quinn said. It was where she’d been heading, anyway. She would have much preferred to go alone, but she knew there was no shaking Lydia now.

  Even though it had been years since Quinn had walked on it, every root and stone on the quarter-mile path through the forest was familiar. After taking a sharp turn at the lichen-covered rock shaped like a sleeping dog, the path opened up to the water. Quinn’s heart ran circles at the sight: large, barnacle-laced rocks surrounding an expanse of rough sand, small shells, golden-brown seaweed; the sweep of silvery blue-green ocean . . . All exactly as Quinn had remembered it.

  And wait . . . There was someone standing in waist-deep water, facing the horizon. A boy—or man, she wasn’t sure. Medium height, wiry. He must have been staying with their neighbors, the Cavanaughs, because no one else had easy access to Holmes Cove. He stood in the early sun, fog still lingering on the water, holding his long arms out to his sides, then dove in and swam straight out in a sure, strong crawl. “What’s he doing?” Lydia said. “Doesn’t he know about the current?” Quinn shrugged and sat at the top of the beach, a little worried for him. There weren’t huge waves in the cove unless it was stormy; the ocean’s movement and power were hidden under the surface. But after disappearing into the distance, the swimmer reappeared, and made it back to the beach without breaking his stroke. He stood and shook the water out of his hair, like a dog. Dark hair, close-set eyes, prominent ears.

  With complete certainty, it came to her: Marco. Marco Cavanaugh, that’s who it was. Their neighbors’ nephew, who had spent summers there. One of the kids she used to play with, right here at this beach, during the best hours of her childhood. She had a sudden urge to run straight into the water and hug her old friend.

  She stood and stepped forward. “Morning, Marco!” she called out with a wave.

  Marco waved back, no spark of recognition in his expression.

  “It’s Quinn,” she said. “Quinn Cutler. From . . . over there.” She pointed in the direction of the house. “Ben’s little sister.” Marco was closer to Ben’s age than Quinn’s.

  “Oh,” he said. “Right. I heard you guys were coming. Been a long time.”

  “You shouldn’t swim here,” Lydia announced, stepping next to Quinn. “It’s dangerous. My sister almost drowned.”

  Marco gave a goofy smile. “Looks like I survived.”

  Quinn smiled, too, through flashes of memory: laughter, splashing, seaweed wigs, diving for stones, swimming to the rock where the seals liked to lie . . .

  “Well . . . see you later,” Marco said, before loping toward the Cavanaughs’.

  Quinn raised her hand to his back. “See you.”

  The fog had lifted. The water sparkled. The small, steady waves spilled up the beach to meet her . . . And Quinn felt a rush of joy and excitement so strong that she turned and grabbed Lyddie in a rough hug.

  “I can’t believe we’re here,” she said, even as her sister pushed her away. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The most beautiful place in the world.”

  Something is going to happen.

  She had the feeling all day: as she and Jesse hiked in the nature preserve, biked to town for lunch and ice cream, as they visited the lighthouse and Quinn showed him all of the places she remembered from being a kid. That giddy anticipation fizzed inside her. She couldn’t stop hugging and kissing him, bursting with affection.

  The barbeque at the Cavanaughs’ began on their deck and migrated to a fire pit down near the trees that bordered the water. Foley and Marco had brought a bunch of friends from college, and the party separated into two groups—the college-aged kids and everyone else. Quinn and Jesse sat a little on the outskirts of the college group, next to Ben. Quinn’s chest still buzzed with that wild joy as she held Jesse’s hand and listened to the hum of conversations, a girl playing guitar, and the sound of the waves. The night grew a little chillier, and when Katherine came over to tell them that she and Lydia were going home, Jesse volunteered to walk them back, so he could pick up a jacket at the house.

  Alone for the moment, Quinn found herself wanting to get closer to the ocean. She followed the small path that led to the Cavanaughs’ long, narrow, rickety metal dock. Cup of lemonade in one hand and the other on the dock’s railing, she made her way down, staring out at the glittering surface of the moonlit sea. Only when she was about ten feet from the end of the dock did she realize someone else had had the same idea. Marco.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she approached, wind blowing her hair across her face.

  Marco gazed out at the water. “I don’t know,” he said. “There’s something in the air . . . like before a storm. I wanted to see if there were any signs of one. But it’s so clear.”

  Something in the air. He felt it, too.

  She was standing next to him now. She set her cup next to his on the railing.

  “Electricity,” she said.

  And then she was looking up into his eyes and he was looking down into hers, the ocean wind dancing all around, the air full of salty perfume, and she felt it again—that overwhelming rush of happiness and excitement and love. Not love for him, exactly, but for the whole moment, the time and place—all of it. And she realized that she had missed him all these years. Her legs began to tremble—or maybe it was the dock trembling as the waves crashed against it. And, like a spontaneous expression of all the emotions inside her, Quinn stepped forward, sprang up on her toes, and kissed him—a long, full-of-love kiss.

  “Whoa . . .” Marco said when they broke away. “I’m not . . . I have a girlfriend.” He looked as stunned as Quinn felt.

  “Sorry,” she said, pressing a hand to her lips. “I . . . I don’t know why I did that.”

  Without another word, Marco grabbed his cup and hurried down the dock to the shore. Quinn stood for a few minutes longer, listening to the waves, trying to calm her breaths and make sense of what had just happened. She knew it had been wrong—a horrible thing to do to Jesse. But . . . it had also been strangely beautiful, to be so full of those emotions . . . the spontaneity and tenderness of it . . . And she knew it would never happen again. Unlike her first kiss with Jesse, which had been a promise of more, she wanted nothing more from Marco. So as she walked back to the bonfire a minute later, she folded up the inexplicable, awful, lovely moment like a piece of paper and tucked it away. (Later, the guilt would hit her. But not then.)

  Back at the bonfire, she searched the group for Jesse. He didn’t seem to have returned yet, so she took her spot at the edge of the group and sipped her lemonade and kept her eyes down. Eventually, people started getting rowdier and drunker and Jesse was taking much longer than she expected, so she decided to go find him. As she was entering the forest path, she saw the beam of a flashlight approaching.

  “Got lost on the way back,” he said. “What’s up? Ready to leave?”

  She grabbed his hand tightly. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  It wasn’t that late, so instead of going to their separate sleeping spaces, they found a DVD of O Brother, Where Art Thou? in the Cutlers’ old collection and watched it outside on the deck, under the stars. But Quinn barely heard a word of it. As she lay there, her guilt still tucked away, the day’s other emotions continued to swell. And so did the sound of the ocean. The rhythmic shush of the waves filled her like a heartbeat. When the movie ended and Jesse went inside the house, that mysterious thing she had been anticipating all day became clear: She wanted to be a part of that water. She wanted to forget her fear of the ocean and swim at Holmes Cove like she had as a kid. Suddenly, this felt like the most important thing in the world. It had to happen now.

  Quinn ran down the forest path in the dark, roots and rocks letting her go without tripping her up. Once there, without even thinking twice, she shed her clothes and lowered herself into that liquid night; inch by inch, her body had disappeared, she slipped into that second skin, and she swam with stars. Everything else in life drop
ped away except for the sublime sensations of that very moment in time. When she was ready, she pulled herself out, tugged clothes over her wet skin, almost falling as she wriggled into her cut-offs, gave the water one last look, and ran home.

  When she reached the house, there was Jesse, sitting on the deck, wrapped in a sleeping bag.

  “Quinn,” he said, standing up, his face pale with worry. “Where have you been?”

  QUINN

  Quinn headed back to Sadie’s party feeling a sense of numb confusion, like her brain was waterlogged. She replayed everything that Ben had said. Replayed her memories of that night—so clear and so complete. Or so she had thought. No memory of lying on that rock. No memory of seeing Marco’s flashlight.

  “Everything okay?” Jesse said, breaking away from Oliver and Adrian, who were dressed as Star Trek characters Quinn was too preoccupied to identify.

  She nodded.

  “Want to go talk?” he asked.

  “Talk?” she said, nerves jumping at his loaded tone of voice.

  “You know what I mean.” He raised his eyebrows.

  Oh, right. They had planned to try hypnosis again, here in the park. While they had mostly given up on it, Quinn thought that maybe being in the location of the music festival would help her remember details of that specific night, that sensory input would jog her brain. It was one of the memory retrieval tips she’d read about.

  “Oh. Uh . . . sure.”

  He took her hand and they went back outside, walked northwest of the Boathouse, and veered off the path up a small grass hill. Neither of them spoke.

  Quinn was too sick about her conversation with Ben.

  She couldn’t believe he’d gone to see Marco.

  Couldn’t believe he’d known about the kiss this whole time.

  Marco hadn’t wanted to talk to him, Ben said. He’d had to “forcefully encourage” him to tell the truth. Quinn didn’t know what that meant but imagined the worst.