The Inconceivable Life of Quinn

by Marianna Baer

  Her mother came up behind her. “Sure you’ll be okay?”

  Quinn nodded. “Better than staying here.” She’d checked out the window on the way down to breakfast—the sidewalk was already a jumble of people huddled under umbrellas.

  “Your father talked to the office at school again,” Katherine said. “They’re confident no press or other people can get in the building. They had to deal with this type of security on a lower level for Elizabeth Chu.” Oliver’s sister, an actor, had starred in a couple of movies before graduating last year, and there’d been occasional paparazzi around her.

  “I don’t understand why I can’t walk,” Lydia said, putting on her raincoat while Quinn and Katherine waited. “No one’s going to take my picture. Or try to touch me.”

  “Every other rainy day you beg me to drive you,” Katherine said. “I’d think you’d be thrilled.” She slid open the door. The wind blew a spray of cold drops through the opening.

  “Oh, yeah,” Lydia said. “I’m thrilled everyone thinks my family is a bunch of freaks.”

  Quinn bit back her reaction. Her parents had asked her to be patient with her sister; supposedly, her hostility was from guilt about having talked to the reporter, that Peter Vega guy. Quinn understood why a ten-year-old would have done something like that, but she still had to restrain herself sometimes.

  To leave, they did the same maneuver Quinn and her mother had done on Saturday for an appointment with Dr. Jacoby: out the kitchen door, through their garden, into the backyard of Jesse’s building, in the back door with the keys Quinn used when dog-sitting Hugo, through the building, and onto Jesse’s street, where the car was parked. Like criminals.

  They made it safely to the getaway car, let Lydia off first at the Lower School building, then drove a few more blocks to the Upper School. Katherine pulled into the small parking lot at the back, to avoid any reporters or people with cameras out front, then called the office. A minute later the fire-exit door opened. The front-desk assistant stuck out his head and waved.

  “Call me if you have any trouble,” Katherine said as Quinn got out of the car.

  Quinn knew her mother really did want her to call if she had to. She also knew that she was probably praying she wouldn’t.

  Invisible girls didn’t have trouble.

  Inside the building, the first cluster of kids she walked past didn’t seem to notice her. She searched the hall for a friendly face, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw some sophomore boy make the sign of the cross when she passed. The guys around him burst out laughing and copied the motion. Anger and humiliation swelled inside her, but she forced herself not to react, to keep walking, the same blank expression on her face. Invisible.

  Instead of going to her locker, she went straight to advisor check-in, hung her raincoat on her chair, and kept her eyes on her notebook as the seats around her filled up. Sadie sat next to her and murmured, “Holy Mother of insanity.”

  “Yup,” Quinn said, nodding slowly.

  Jesse was the last person to arrive and had to take the chair on her other side. He didn’t speak to her, maybe because Mr. D was starting to talk already. Quinn stared at the floor. He was wearing his Chucks. The green ones they’d bought after walking the High Line last spring, the weekend after they’d first kissed. Her foot ached to nudge his.

  After check-in, which Mr. D ended by telling people not to let events out of school be a distraction during classes, Jesse seemed to hesitate before standing, but before Quinn could say anything, Sadie swooped in and ushered her into the hall where Isa was waiting. They flanked her like bodyguards.

  “It’s the craziest thing ever,” Isa said. “You’re famous! And I can’t believe your parents took away your phone. How are you even functioning?”

  “I barely am,” Quinn said. “We had a huge fight about it.”

  “And did you know that our phones have to stay in our lockers all day now? No phones or even tablets outside of your locker ever. So people can’t take pictures of you or anything. They’re changing whole school policies because of you!”

  “Sorry,” Quinn said, not sure if that was the right response.

  “Why did you touch that kid?” Isa asked. “The one they think you cured?”

  “I didn’t,” Quinn said. “I just handed him back something he’d dropped.”

  “You didn’t even touch him?” Sadie said.

  “Why don’t you tell the press that?” Isa said.

  “My dad doesn’t want me talking to them,” Quinn said. She reminded herself to breathe; their curiosity was sucking the air out of the hallway. “The press twists everything you say.”

  “But there are all those people,” Isa whispered. “In front of your house.”

  “I know,” Quinn said, more loudly than she meant to.

  “We’re just worried about you,” Sadie said. “It seems like . . . like you’d want to just tell everyone who the father is so it all stops. Wouldn’t anything be better than this? I mean, the rumors are out of control. Some people think you really believe you’re a virgin! Like . . . some people here . . .”—she glanced to either side of the hallway—“think you believe that. Like you really think your baby is the next Jesus.”

  “Isn’t it kind of asking for attention, the way you’re being?” Isa said. “Letting people think you believe it?”

  Luckily, they’d reached the door of their math classroom. “I shouldn’t even be talking about this,” Quinn said. “I’m sorry, you guys.” She went inside, anxious to sit and become just another student. And even though she didn’t understand any of the numbers or symbols that Mr. Evans was writing on the board, focusing on something so far removed from her life, with no one looking at her, was a relief.

  She was feeling slightly more relaxed when she went to English.

  “I hope you all enjoyed the weekend,” Ms. Bain said. “Unfortunately, for most of you, that warm and fuzzy feeling stops now.” She flapped a sheaf of papers in the air. “Your quizzes from last week.” She started walking around the large oval table, passing them back. “Do you want to go to the library and take it?” she asked quietly when she reached Quinn, who had been out of school on quiz day because of the second Herald article.

  “I could use a bit more reading time, if that’s okay,” Quinn said.

  “No problem. You can have until tomorrow.”

  After sitting back down at the head of the oval, Ms. Bain asked the class to go around and share their proposed paper topics and theses for Tender Is the Night. Quinn flipped through the unread pages, distracted by a series of especially enthusiastic kicks from the baby.

  “Noë?” Ms. Bain said after Kevin finished a confusing explanation of his ideas. “What topic has Fitzgerald inspired you to investigate?”

  “The virgin/whore dichotomy,” Noë said.

  Quinn froze, eyes locked on her book.

  “Noë,” Ms. Bain said sharply.

  “What?” Noë said. “I want to discuss Rosemary as the virgin, his wife as the whore, and their influences on Dick’s downfall. Obviously, the virgin/whore dichotomy is as prevalent today as ever, so I think it’s a pertinent topic.”

  Quinn willed herself not to blush, but the heat was spreading impossibly quickly.

  “Noë,” Ms. Bain said again. “Keep other people’s feelings in mind. I’ll let you submit a new topic tomorrow. Oliver, let’s move on to you.”

  “Quinn’s feelings, you mean,” Noë said. “Why do we have to act like she isn’t here? I’m not trying to make her uncomfortable. I’m validating her experience.”

  Quinn was trying to sink into a crack between the floorboards. She stared at the sliver of dark space, praying for it to happen.

  “No one’s private life is a matter of discussion in this class,” Ms. Bain said.

  “It’s all happening in public,” Noë said. “The demonization of female sexuality. It scares them so much that she’s a sexual being that they’re willing to believe she defies the laws of natur
e.”

  “But Quinn’s the one who said she’s a virgin,” a girl named Ryan chimed in. “She’s demonizing her own sexuality!”

  “No, she didn’t,” Noë said. “She never said that.”

  Please shut up. Please shut up. Quinn would have said it out loud if she hadn’t already disappeared into the floor crack, going down, down, down, to a safe, dark space, like the depths of the ocean, like in her dreams.

  “She did!” Ryan said.

  “This discussion is over,” Ms. Bain said loudly. “Let’s move on to Oliver—”

  “But it’s not over,” Noë said. “It’s going on all around us.” She pushed her chair away from the table and stood. “Isn’t this what our curriculum philosophy is about? Analyzing current events and society in light of what we’re reading and studying?” She hoisted her bag off the arm of her chair. “I’ll take the unexcused absence. You’ve made a completely unfair attempt to stifle conversation.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “She’s right,” Ryan said, standing up. “So I guess I should leave, too.”

  “Sorry, Ms. B,” someone else said. “But I’m with them.”

  A couple of other people followed. Quinn knew that not one of them cared that Ms. Bain had “stifled conversation”—well, aside from Noë, maybe. It was a joke to the rest of them. A story to tell later. A story about Quinn the freak. Or Quinn the slut. Take your pick.

  * * *

  During her free, Quinn went to the library and headed to the computers, her fingertips burning with the need to search for all sorts of things online. She knew there’d be posts making fun of her and calling her a liar, calling her crazy, and it wasn’t like she wanted to read them. But obviously everyone else had, so she wanted to get an idea of what was being said. Something was wrong with the computers, though. She tried two, and both said her student ID login was invalid. She went up to the librarian at the desk and asked about it.

  The librarian paused uncomfortably before answering. “The thing is, we’ve been asked to facilitate your computer use for a while.”

  “You’re doing that for everyone?” Quinn said, confused.

  “No.” He shifted in his seat. “Just you. At your parents’ request, I think. Kind of a pain, I’m sure, but you should think of it as a silver lining. I’m a whiz at making research as speedy as possible. Want me to come over there now? What were you trying to look up?”

  Quinn couldn’t even meet his eyes. “That’s okay,” she said quickly. “It wasn’t important.”

  The crowded, chaotic lounge spread in front of her like a minefield; the handle of her lunch bag was moist in her sweaty hand. Fortunately, she spotted a seat next to Caroline at a table with a few of her art friends. Jesse was nowhere to be seen. She mustered courage, navigated between tables and bags and chairs until she reached Caroline. “Okay if I sit here?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Caroline said, scootching her chair over a bit to make room. “You okay, bunny?”

  Quinn nodded, willing back a sudden threat of tears.

  “I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it . . .” Caroline’s voice was soft and low. “But I’m just going to say one thing: Those people outside your house are not representative of us normal, rational Christians.”

  “I know,” Quinn said, although, honestly, she hadn’t given it much thought. She hadn’t even specifically thought of them as Christians—just as Them.

  Quinn forced down a bite of her avocado sandwich. She didn’t remember what it felt like to be hungry, despite the fact that all the pregnancy books said that at twenty-three or so weeks, her appetite should be huge. The emptiness inside her couldn’t be filled by food.

  In the corner of the room, a group of rowdy senior guys diverted her attention. One of them turned her way and stared at her with squinted eyes and a slight sneer. Another put a napkin over his head, like Mary’s hood, and said something Quinn couldn’t make out. The guys at the table leaned back in their chairs, hooting with laughter. Quinn’s face heated up again. They were laughing so hard. Looking at her and laughing like whatever he’d said was the funniest thing they’d ever heard, like she was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. The heat burned all the way into Quinn’s brain now. Her chest rose and fell more quickly.

  “You okay?” Caroline asked.

  Head burning and a roaring inside her ears, Quinn slid back her chair and walked to their table. She stood, arms crossed. She felt all the eyes from nearby tables on her, too. Screw invisibility.

  “What?” one of the senior guys said. “No room at the inn?” The guys laughed again, and the heat in her head surged through her entire body. No response came to her, though, and she didn’t even know why she’d come over here. She couldn’t just stand here like an idiot!

  “Hey,” another said, “I’ve got wicked bad pain. Wanna cure it for me, Virgin?” He grabbed his crotch. Brett, his name was.

  “Sure,” Quinn heard herself saying. “Stand up.” She was trembling, but her voice was steady.

  “Huh?”

  “You want me to cure you? Stand up.”

  The Brett guy looked nervously at his friends and then, with a laugh, stood up and came closer to her.

  “Where’d you say it hurts?” Quinn asked.

  He grabbed his crotch again. When he took his hand away and glanced back at the table with a smile, she took her opportunity.

  Her knee landed right between his legs.

  He doubled over with a groan, and all of a sudden, one of the other guys was up and in Quinn’s face, pushing her away, and she was stumbling back and his hands gripped her shoulders. “Are you crazy?” he said. “Jesus, bitch. You are. You’re fucking crazy.”

  She twisted out of his arms and ran from the room.

  Driving home with her mother. Burning with shame.

  And the shame brought her back to that memory, that car trip with her father to the doctor on Southhaven.

  What is wrong with you?

  Your grandmother died in the ocean, Quinn! Drowned. Do you want that to happen to you? Do you want to be like her? Do you want to end up like her?

  When we get to the doctor, don’t say a word, Quinn. No more lies!

  What is wrong with you?

  Do you want to be like her?

  Quinn was like her grandmother. She was a bad person, making that scene, being the very opposite of invisible. Whether or not the guy deserved it, all she’d done was make her situation worse, giving people something else to talk about. Making them think she was crazier than they already did.

  She couldn’t control herself—kissing Marco, kneeing that guy, swimming when she wasn’t supposed to . . . Her father had seen it way back then, when she was just a kid. Bad, just like her grandmother.

  And what about her dreams, of going down, down, down in the ocean?

  It was where her grandmother had gone.

  She went into the room she used as a closet, pushed past her rack of clothes into the storage area, where her parents’ cardboard boxes and plastic storage bins were piled high. She edged in as far as she could and scanned what was written on the sides, finally finding a series of large Rubbermaid containers labeled “Southaven” in her mother’s handwriting.

  The first bin she opened was filled with dishes and miscellaneous stuff: a radio, a flashlight, a bicycle pump; the next had towels and sheets with cans of cat food (really, Mom?) sandwiched between them; another had seemingly random books and folders containing tax returns and financial information from Katherine’s gardening business on the island. In her mother’s typical style, there was no order to what was with what. Quinn didn’t know what she was looking for, anyway. Stuff of her grandmother’s, yes. But what? Something to prove that Quinn wasn’t like her? Or that she was? If this were a movie, she’d find an old journal of Meryl’s filled with secrets. Filled with answers.

  She knew so little about her. She knew that she’d grown up in the house on Southaven and that her father died of cance
r when she was little. Knew she’d gotten married and moved to Cincinnati, where her baby daughter died from SIDS. Had Quinn’s father and then moved back to Maine, leaving her family. Killed herself. That was all. (And most of it Quinn had only learned because of her father’s interviews over the last year.)

  By the time Quinn opened the final bin, she still hadn’t found anything that might have belonged to her grandmother. The only things she’d set aside as being of any interest were a few framed photos. She brought them out of the closet room into her bedroom to see them better: her parents dancing at their wedding, young and happy and glamorous; Gabe graduating from Columbia Business School; Katherine holding Ben in front of their house in Cincinnati. The last one was of Katherine standing in the main living area in the Southaven house, toddler-age Quinn on her hip. Katherine’s hair was long and in two loose braids, her face fuller than now. Behind her was a wall with a framed painting hanging on it. Quinn sharpened her focus, remembering it. A watercolor of the ocean.

  A still morning sea . . .

  The words came into her mind in her mother’s voice. Clear as if Katherine were standing here now, as if she were reciting a poem or reading a book, like she’d done at Quinn’s bedtime for years.

  A still morning sea, deeply asleep, ’til warmed by the sun, it rolls up the beach. The words brought a memory of snuggling with her mother, wrapped in the satiny, ink-blue comforter that had been on Quinn’s bed. And somehow the words were connected to that painting in the photo. Maybe they were from a poem or story Katherine had made up to go along with it? When they went to museums, she liked to linger in front of works and make up stories about the people in the paintings.

  Quinn propped the photo on her bookshelf. A still morning sea, deeply asleep, ’til warmed by the sun, it rolls up the beach . . .

  Late in the afternoon, Quinn was pretending to read Tender Is the Night at the kitchen table while her mother was typing on her laptop. Luckily, in this back part of the house, the only discernable sound from the scene out front was the occasional whoot of a police car.