Chaste

by Angela Felsted

  I look around the room. There’s a filing cabinet, some music stands, a hanging triangle, a drum set and a gong. I don’t see any chairs, though. Not unless I want to sit on a stool behind a bunch of drums.

  Mr. Walker seems to know what I’m thinking.

  “Wait upstairs,” he says. “You can watch TV. Help yourself to the food in the kitchen. I’ll be up in twenty minutes.”

  The man doesn’t even know my name. I could eat him out of house and home, steal his television and run off with his son.

  “Are you sure?” I ask.

  “Go ahead.” He gestures toward the stairs. How can he be so trusting? This might explain why Quinn refuses to let anyone come to his house, but this is nothing. Quinn should meet my mother.

  I take a deep breath and head for the main floor. It’s blocked by a door, but the handle turns easily enough. I step into the kitchen and my mouth goes dry. The hardwood floor is swept, the sink is empty of dishes, the cream-colored counters are washed clean. After knocking on a rusty front door, this is the last thing I expected.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d think Quinn and I lived in opposite-land. Me, in my beautiful mansion stuffed to the gills with dirty junk. Him, in this run down colonial that’s clean and polished and gorgeous on the inside.

  I take Mr. Walker’s advice, open the refrigerator and pull out a gallon of milk. But instead of closing the door, my hand stops in mid-air. Milk hovers above the hardwood floor as I try to figure out what’s in the baby bottle on the door.

  The substance is a funny color, not white but not yellow either. A couple ounces of thin liquid rest on the bottom while three full ounces of cream float on the top. It has to be breast milk. I know because, what else could it possibly be? But why would Quinn have breast milk in his refrigerator?

  I put the cow’s milk back, no longer in the mood to drink anything produced by a mammal. Maybe water would be better. I open a cupboard and find baby bottles lined up in rows. Wrong cupboard! I open the one next to it and find white plates with blue flowers on them sitting beside a few plastic kid-sized bowls.

  I groan. Quinn’s mother must have had another child. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

  After opening the third cupboard down, I finally find a glass. It’s smooth and cold to the touch. I fill it with water from the sink. Bubbles dance around the rim as I take a sip. When I put it down, I see a note on the counter.

  Quinn,

  Our boy needs diapers. Would you mind terribly picking more up after grandpa gets home from his Beethoven concert?

  Me

  And just who is “me”? The word Grandpa makes me think Quinn’s mother didn’t write this note, though I guess it’s possible Quinn’s grandfather lives here too.

  I shake my head, trying not to think about it, forcing myself not to jump to conclusions without evidence. But the words our boy keep coming back to me, poking me in the ribs, waving like a big red flag.

  Back when my dad actually talked to my mother, he’d made it a habit of referring to Roland as “our boy.” So the thought that boy really means son is stuck in my head. What if Quinn isn’t as moral as he pretends? What if he’s a big fat hypocrite?

  And to think, I was worried when he didn’t show up at George Mason.

  I hear footsteps on the stairs and turn as Mr. Walker steps through the door. His eyebrows raise when he sees me.

  “You okay?” he says.

  Am I that transparent?

  “Did your wife have a baby recently?” I ask, keeping my voice cool and even. Worried I’ll say something stupid, I put the glass of water to my lips and take a long sip.

  Mr. Walker takes a few steps closer, cupping a hand around his ear as if I’ve mumbled something inaudible.

  “What did you say?”

  I put the glass down. “You heard me.”

  He shakes his head. “Humor me, please.”

  If he thinks playing dumb will keep me from finding out the truth, he’s more than naáve, he’s just plain stupid. I pick the note up off the counter, wave it in the air and let my angry voice take over.

  “Explain this!” I snap.

  He looks down at his shoes. “Please don’t judge my family. People make mistakes.”

  I feel betrayed, like I’ve swallowed battery acid. I can’t believe Quinn got some girl pregnant, yet he has the nerve to strut around pretending to be so moral. And while a part of me wants to punish Mr. Walker for his son’s failings, another part feels bad for a man filled with so much shame he’s yet to take his eyes off the floor.

  “Tell Quinn that Kat stopped by,” I say, unable to get out of there fast enough. I storm past him, knocking over a chair as I leave.

  That boy needs some humbling, and I’m just the one to do it.

  17

  Quinn

  Amy walks into Elijah’s hospital room holding two Hostess fruit pies in her hand: one lemon, the other cherry. I haven’t eaten for at least twelve hours. So I snatch the lemon pie, take a few steps toward the trash can and rip the wrapper open with my teeth.

  My sister clears her throat.

  I bite into the pastry and pretend not to hear. “Mmmm,” I moan.

  “Thank you, I got it from the vending machine myself,” she says.

  I glance at Elijah, who’s sleeping with an oxygen mask, arms and legs splayed out like an X, lips pursed as if dreaming of sucking. Even though he’s stopped coughing like a seal, my nephew still looks pale. Usually I like watching him sleep, but his constant wheezing worries me. What if his fever never goes away? What if he gets sicker and sicker until there’s nothing I can do? Feeling helpless is the worst.

  When I glance at Amy, she’s looking at Elijah, her face ashen. It’s the first indication I’ve seen that she’s truly worried. Ever since she’s arrived at the hospital, she’s behaved as if I’m overreacting.

  First it was, “Quinn, relax. Elijah will be fine.” After that it changed to, “Have some faith. Nothing bad is going to happen to my boy.” Then an hour ago, she found a new non-comforting phrase, “You don’t need to worry, Quinn. I’m worried enough for both of us.”

  I had to hold my tongue when she said that. Yeah, right!

  “You’re not working tonight, are you?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “What kind of mother do you think I am?”

  I look her straight in the eye. “That wasn’t an attack.”

  She shrugs before sitting down in a corner chair. I know the seat is rock hard because my butt is still sore from sitting in it half the morning. Do they make these rooms uncomfortable on purpose? I take another bite of pie and swallow it down.

  “Who’s Kat?” my sister asks.

  “She’s my physics partner,” I say, choosing not to mention that she’s also Pastor Jackson’s daughter. No point in starting a discussion I’d rather not have. Then it hits me. “Wait … who told you about Kat?”

  “I just talked to Dad. He called here wanting an update. Apparently your ‘physics partner’ stopped by the house.”

  She scrunches up her face like she thinks I’ve been lying to her by holding this information back.

  Whatever.

  “Why did you just put ‘physics partner’ in air quotes?” I ask.

  “Dad says she stormed out of our house. Walked off in some kind of huff.”

  And that’s when I remember: I forgot to call Kat this morning.

  I imagine her pacing in front of the Johnson Center in high-heeled shoes, her blood getting hotter with every minute I’m not there. I think of my mother. She always says there’s nothing worse than throwing away another person’s time. She hates it when people flake, and I’ve done just that. What does that make me, an insensitive jerk? I throw the pie in the trash. No wonder Kat’s angry.

  “We used to talk about everything,” Amy says. “Remember when you skipped school to go to the movies? When you sneaked out in the middle of the night to go to Preston’s house? When that snotty girl—Dana—rejected you, and I b
egged you to let me beat her up?”

  Her voice is rising with every word, so I walk around Elijah’s bed and shut the door.

  “I took the rap for your accident!” she accuses.

  I freeze. How can she bring that up? Does she have any idea how awful I feel for lying and letting her take the blame? She knows I regret it, so why?

  “Please stop,” I say, holding up a hand.

  “I will not!” she says, banging the armrest of the chair.

  She blinks and tears gush down her face. Maybe she’s taking Elijah’s sickness harder than I thought.

  I shut my eyes and try not to get angry, try to remember she’s hurting and not to take it personally. She’s worried and upset and needs to blame someone. But I still feel betrayed. After getting her son to the hospital this morning, she’s going to sit here and lay the blame on me? I want to hit the wall, scream something nasty back at her or kick the door. But I don’t because I refuse to lose control again.

  Instead I do the one thing that will catch her off guard. I cross the sterile floor and pull her into a hug. When Amy is angry, she hates having anyone touch her, so imagine my surprise when she buries her face in my shoulder.

  I wrap her tight in my arms and feel her shake against me, struck by the realization that Amy isn’t angry after all. She’s frightened, scared of losing Elijah.

  18

  Katarina

  I‘m sitting on a puke-stained couch. Music is blaring from somewhere to my right. The people around me are slurring their words. And I can’t stop thinking of Roland and how I didn’t drive him home. How I’d been too angry to go with him to the party. How if I’d been there, he never would’ve died.

  There’s a pain in my chest, hollow and aching, a voice screaming in my head. “Your fault,” it says. “If only you’d stayed calm, thought it through, not been stupid.”

  I want to drink the voice away, use beer to surround it with fog and choke it out. For once, I understand the appeal of drugs, but I’m not stupid enough to take them. Not after seeing Roland in a velvet-lined casket with long black stitches on his forehead. My brother reduced to a helpless shell.

  My left eye is watering. I wipe the moisture away as a pair of jean-clad knees appear in front of me.

  “Beer?” John asks.

  “I’m the designated driver, remember?” This is how I make amends. All my friends know, especially John. I glance up at his genial smile and remember Quinn’s straight white teeth. Why is my mind playing tricks on me?

  “It’s Pepsi,” he says, his smile vanishing. “Do you really think I’d do that to you?”

  He puts the cup in my hand and downs half his beer in less than twenty seconds. I watch as it drips from his chin to his shirt. Gross. Why do I come to these things?

  I take a sip of my drink. “Thanks.”

  “I think Mike messed with your head,” he says.

  “I thought you liked Mike.”

  He sits beside me, knocks his knee into mine. “You’ve lost your faith in men. Like Quinn—”

  I punch him in the shoulder. “Don’t talk about Quinn!” I guzzle my Pepsi, smash the plastic cup on the table, and then change my mind and throw it across the room.

  “I don’t care if you’re mad. You’ll listen, Kat. Mike sweet-talked you into sleeping with him. Then he treated you like shit. Now you plan to do the same thing to Quinn.”

  “You make me sound like a heartless bitch,” I say, crossing my arms over my stomach. If I’m going to hurt someone, it might as well be Quinn. He’s played me for a fool.

  “This scheme is going to blow up in your face.” John wiggles his eyebrows. “Come on, admit it. You like him.”

  Quinn’s a lying prick. “I need him for the bet, that’s all.”

  John flashes me one of his smug smiles. So I know he’s about to assert his unwelcome opinion. He puts his plastic cup on the table.

  “Is there a reason you always lie to yourself, Kat? Because I see how you look at him. Hell, the whole school sees it. And just for the record, Mike and Quinn are nothing alike.”

  I want to punch him in the face. Instead I dig my nails into my palms, squint at the lights and look away from John. He’s right about one thing. Mike and Quinn are nothing alike. Mike has wicked, hungry eyes, whereas Quinn has open sky-blue ones that make you believe he’s totally innocent. Will they look like that when I touch his—

  Damn. What am I thinking? If it weren’t for my camera, I’d stay as far from Quinn Walker as humanly possible. He lied to me. So why can’t I get him out of my head? I need a distraction. Now.

  Through the maze of people, I see Mike talking to Tasha. She’s flipping back her long blond hair, batting her lashes and leaning toward him. He’s leaning away, yawning, and stealing glances at me. Hmmm, a distraction.

  Before I can change my mind, I cross the room and snake my arms around Mike’s waist. He turns and looks down at me, a gleam of triumph in those wicked, dark eyes. My emotions may be fogging up my brain, but dark is familiar. Light is changeable and scary, but dark is honest about its nature. It wraps me in its arms and lifts me off my feet, claims me with searing lips, a hungry tongue, a groping hand.

  It helps me forget about light, about the face I can’t get out of my head. So what if I let him swallow me a few months ago, engulf my heart, plunge me into hopelessness? I’m wiser now; I know better than to trust him.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m lying on the roof with the stars gleaming down at me. They make me think about becoming an astronaut, walking on Mars, floating in space. Not that this will ever happen, at least not while I’m sitting on a roof. But the thought is still appealing. There’d be no stupid physics project, no messed up parents, nobody with light eyes looking down his nose at me.

  A face, round like the moon, blocks my view of the sky. “Why so quiet, Alley Kat?”

  “I’d like to be an astronaut,” I whisper to the heavenly body that just called me by my old pet name.

  The moon puts his hand under my shirt, cups my breasts, kisses my neck. I know it’s dangerous kissing a floating rock without a heart, but I don’t care. I make a rasping sound in the back of my throat because it feels good.

  “Okay,” he laughs, low and dirty. “If you’re an astronaut, I’m the planet you explore.”

  Ironic, since he’s the one doing the exploring. Did he just unhook my bra?

  “Mike!” I snap, noticing the dark-eyed moon has managed to push my skirt up to my waist. That my panties are on displayed for the stars and any curious eyes that might look through the window.

  “Relax,” he says and kisses me.

  I have to admit it feels good, even with the slight angle of the roof and the shingles against my bare legs. That’s the thing about the moon. He fills my head with fog and makes me forget. He molds my body with his hands, pushes himself against me and I let my hands roam under his shirt, over his chest, my fingers tracing the jagged scar on his stomach. He moans and I imagine it’s Quinn moaning.

  Damn! I take a peek over my shoulder. The window is open, music is blaring and people are laughing. “Mike is the man!” I hear someone whoop. Humiliation washes over me. My face prickles with the wrong kind of heat. Have I gone insane?

  I take my hands out from under the moon’s shirt and hold my fingers up like a talisman between us.

  “No more,” I say firmly, taking a breath. I fix my skirt, sit up and refasten the clasp of my bra. Mike helps me to my feet. We climb through the window.

  Once inside, I rest against a wall, but my ex has other plans. He loops an arm around my waist, brings me to his chest and puts a possessive hand on my ass. It’s as if he can take me or leave me whenever he chooses, like now I belong to him. Does he really think I want this? The walls come closer until I can’t breathe.

  “I hate you!” Tasha screams from across the dim room.

  Her eyes are bloodshot as she storms toward us. Her teeth glow and her hair stands up straight. If I didn’t know better, I’d think s
he’d been struck by lightning.

  “You!” She points at me with shaking fingers. “You think every man on earth should bow at your feet. You’re a whore, a thief, a backstabbing little bitch!”

  With every hateful word she flings in my face, I smell beer. She didn’t attack me twenty minutes ago when I lured Mike away. Tasha’s an angry drunk.

  I frown up at my Mike. This is his chance to show what he’s worth. Fling himself in front of me and tell Tasha to calm down. Instead he laughs like this is funny.

  I shoot him a dirty look and he kisses me. Hard.

  “You’ll win this one, Kat. I know you will,” he says, pushing me toward Tasha.

  There is no more light, only darkness. No friendship, only betrayal. I squeeze my hands into white-knuckled fists, move back and forth on the balls of my feet, duck when she tries to claw at my face and take aim at Tasha’s perfect nose.

  19

  Quinn

  My dad gave Elijah a blessing earlier. I watched as he put a dab of olive oil in my nephew’s hair and consecrated the anointing in the name of God.

  If I were eighteen, I’d have the Melchizedek priesthood instead of the Aaronic. Then I could have helped my dad with the blessing instead of helplessly standing between Amy and Molly as my father called Elijah by his full name and asked God to take away his fever.

  Hours later I pace the small square of Elijah’s hospital room as I wait for Amy and Molly to come back with food. Elijah’s fever still hasn’t broken, and my dad knows I’ll likely stay here tonight. He doesn’t expect me home any time soon. But Molly has been pressuring me, insisting I need sleep, saying Amy has it covered and I should go home.

  My redheaded friend walks into the room and hands me an egg salad sandwich, a Snickers bar and a plastic bottle of orange juice. Classic vending machine fare.

  “Where’s Amy?” I ask.

  “Talking to the nurses.”

  I nod. “Thanks for the food.”