With a Twist

by Martin, Deirdre

  “Does she plan to stay here in America?” his mother asked. Quinn knew what she was angling at: always protective, she wanted to make sure her eldest son wasn’t left high and dry with a broken heart. As if he’d ever had his heart broken; usually it was the other way around.

  “She loves it here.”

  “And what, exactly, is it you like about her?” his father asked.

  Quinn would never admit it, but the question pleased him; he loved the fact that his family was interested in her. “She’s funny, smart—”

  “Beautiful,” Liam interjected, pissing Quinn off.

  “She gives as good as she gets with me,” Quinn continued. “She’s very sharp. Feisty.”

  “Well, she’d have to be to hold her own with you,” said his father.

  “She’s not the warmest soul on earth,” his mother observed coolly.

  “She’s reserved, Ma. There’s a difference. French people don’t let down their guard right away and tell their life story within five minutes of meeting someone the way the Irish do. She’s warm once you get to know her.”

  “She is,” Liam agreed. “The regulars love her.”

  Quinn glanced at Liam, surprised. He had no idea.

  “Let us get to know her, then,” said his father. “Bring her for Sunday dinner sometime.”

  Quinn wasn’t sure how to react. His parents usually held off asking one of their kids’ significant others to their sacred family dinner unless they assumed the relationship was serious. Was it serious?

  “Let me think about it.”

  “Quinn O’Brien, the man who couldn’t commit,” said Liam.

  Quinn shot Liam a quick sideways glance. He could see from his expression that Liam was razzing him, not zinging him, which was unusual.

  “Look who’s talking,” Quinn shot back.

  “I brought a girl here once: Terry O’Neill. Remember?”

  “Yeah, then you dumped her two days later.”

  “Better than your track record. You’ve never brought anyone to Sunday dinner that I can recall.”

  Quinn flashed Liam a dirty look. It was true. He’d never felt strongly enough about any of his former girl-friends to bring them to Sunday dinner. He tried to picture Natalie with his loud, boisterous family. Would she be overwhelmed? Or reserved? Clearly his mother mistook shyness for snobbishness. Not that Nat wasn’t a snob sometimes. But she was getting better, and he knew part of that came from working at the Hart. Plus, it wasn’t like she’d be meeting them for the first time. He really had to think about this.

  His parents rose from the table, rinsing their coffee cups in the sink. “You got a minute after they go downstairs?” Quinn murmured to Liam.

  Liam looked wary. “Sure.”

  “You coming down?” their father asked Liam.

  “In a minute. Quinn’s going to impart the meaning of life to me.” No razzing this time; sarcastic Liam was back.

  Quinn waited for his parents to go downstairs, and then started talking.

  “Thanks for defending Natalie to Mom and Dad,” he said.

  Liam shrugged. “No problem.”

  “I was surprised to hear the regulars like her.”

  “Oh yeah. She horns in on their conversations and puts her two cents in, especially if it’s politics.”

  Quinn grinned. “Sounds like Natalie. The French are like that. They love a good argument.”

  “You two really serious?”

  Quinn raked his hand through his hair. “I’m not sure what that word means.”

  “Exclusive?”

  “Why?” Quinn asked tersely. “You interested?”

  “If I was interested, I would have made a move by now. Besides, it was obvious from the minute you introduced her that you were crazy about her.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Not bullshit.”

  Quinn frowned. The thought that he might have been so transparent bugged the hell out of him. “Anyway, as far as exclusivity goes, then yeah, I guess we are. I sure as hell shoved Mason Clement out of the picture.”

  “No offense, but he seems like a nice guy.”

  “He’s a prick, Liam. Take it from me.”

  “If you say so.” Liam looked antsy. “Is Natalie what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “No. I wanted to thank you for calling me about PJ.”

  “No prob. How come you didn’t write it up for the paper?”

  “PJ asked me not to. He was afraid he’d get his ass beaten again, or get killed.”

  Liam seemed to ponder this.

  “Li, if you know anything else about this, you gotta tell me, okay?”

  “I heard some shit from Tommy,” Liam said guardedly.

  “I knew it. What did that piece of shit have to say?”

  “Hey!” Liam looked pissed. “He’s my best friend.”

  “Christ knows why, but anyway.”

  “He kinda boasted that something was gonna go down with PJ.”

  “Before it happened?”

  “Yeah.”

  Quinn was incredulous. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me this as soon as you found out?!”

  “Because sometimes Tommy is an asshole. He makes shit up when he’s drunk. I usually take what he says with a grain of salt.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t make this up, did he?” Quinn sighed. “Okay, here’s what I want to know.”

  Liam frowned. “What?”

  “You say Tommy is your best friend. Then you turn around and tell your reporter brother that he was talking about how something was going to go down. Why? Why tell me something that could wind up with Tommy’s ass rotting in jail when he’s your best friend?”

  “It’s complicated,” Liam said evasively.

  “So help me, God, Liam, if you’re mixed up in this in any way—”

  “I’m not! Jesus Christ, how many times do I have to tell you?”

  “Then why tell me?”

  “Because I’m trying to do the right thing, okay?” Liam’s voice was fierce. “PJ’s an eejit, but he’s our eejit. He’s family.”

  Quinn nodded. He understood what Liam felt. People always accused the Irish of being tribal. Well, tribal was just another word for loyal.

  “If Tommy tells you anything else, you’ll tell me, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Liam said distractedly. He drained his coffee cup and stood. “That it?”

  Conversation closed. When Mr. Moody didn’t want to talk anymore, that was it; you were done.

  Quinn rose, too. “Yeah, that’s it. Thanks again for the call, Heathcliff.”

  “Up yours, Jimmy Olson.”

  Liam headed downstairs to the pub, leaving Quinn staring after him. Liam was always a tight-lipped, broody bastard. But something else was up with him, which worried Quinn. Liam would come to him in his own good time. All Quinn had to do was wait.

  15

  After speaking with Liam and his folks, Quinn headed directly to the Sent. As always, his cubicle was a mess, despite his weekly vow to tidy it up. There were no messages for him and no e-mails, either, but his editor, Cindy, was there. As usual, she looked like she was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “It’s Shep.”

  “What about him?”

  “Yesterday he went out on a piece about the new clown college that opened in the Bronx. He’s gone MIA.”

  “Maybe he’s run away with the circus.” Quinn couldn’t hide his disgust. “Please tell me this idea was generated by Clement himself. Please tell me it’s not something you or any of the other esteemed editors came up with.”

  “Mal Evans at the Metro desk came up with it.”

  Before Quinn even had a chance to move in the direction of Mal’s desk, Cindy grabbed Quinn’s forearm in a death grip. “Don’t. All you’d be doing is stirring up trouble, and that’s the last thing we need right now, okay?”

  Quinn frowned disdainfully. “Drank the Kool-Aid, did we?�
�

  “Just let it go for now, please?”

  “Fine.”

  She looked relieved, but only for a split second. “Clement wants to see you.”

  “Me? What the hell for?”

  “If I knew, I’d tell you, wouldn’t I?” Quinn contemplated lobbing an equally snarky comment back but changed his mind since Cindy was so stressed she was having a hard time checking her cell phone for messages.

  “I don’t understand why Clement can’t just call me on my cell like the rest of the world,” he muttered. “When does he want to see me?”

  “As soon as you came in, he said.”

  “And what if I hadn’t come in until late tonight? What if I’d gotten a tip and was out on a story?”

  “Then I would have told him that, because you would have called in to let me know that’s what you were up to. Right?”

  Quinn just grumbled. He’d given Cindy a rough idea of what he was working on with the proviso she didn’t say anything to Clement about it yet. He wanted to wait until the story was so airtight the bastard couldn’t give him any reason not to run it.

  Cindy snapped her cell phone shut with unusual vehemence. “Shit. No word from Shep.” She began shooing Quinn away from her. “Go talk to Clement. Just get it over with.”

  “You know, Darby over in photo has a big stash of Valium. You should—”

  “Get out of here.”

  Quinn squeezed her shoulder. “I’m officially out of your hair, Cin. We’ll talk later.”

  Clement’s office door was open, which was unusual. Perhaps he’d figured out by now that everyone hated him, and he was trying to reach out to the staff and prove he was an approachable guy. Good luck with that.

  Quinn thrust his head through the open doorway. “You wanted to see me?” he asked tersely.

  Clement barely looked up from his desk as he waved his hand vaguely in the air, motioning for Quinn to step inside. “I have an assignment for you.”

  “It doesn’t have to do with clowns, does it? ’Cause I don’t do clowns.”

  Clement looked up but ignored the shot. “I want you to cover a movie premiere.”

  “What?”

  “The new Spielberg movie is premiering Friday, and as I’m sure you know, it’s got that rising young star Susan Gambor in it.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  Clement’s expression was dubious, but he continued. “I want you talking to fans waiting outside the theater to get in. I want you on the red carpet talking to Spielberg, Gambor, getting as many quotes from as many celebs as you can. Then I want you to go to the after party.”

  “Excuse me, but don’t we have an entertainment reporter—two entertainment reporters, if I remember correctly—to cover this kind of fluff?”

  “Yes, but I want you to get used to writing other types of stories.”

  “I have written other types of stories,” said Quinn, trying to keep a lid on his fury. “I’ve even done some of these bullshit celebrity stories, okay? I hate them. I loathe those people. What the hell do they do all day? What do they contribute to society? Nothing.”

  “You need to stretch your wings.”

  Quinn snorted. “You are so full of shit.”

  Clement raised an eyebrow. “Pardon me?”

  “This is about Natalie. You’re pissed she chose me over you. You’re trying to belittle me. You’re totally deluded if you seriously believe I’m going to do this story.”

  Clement’s gaze was steely. “You don’t have a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.” Quinn stared at him. “God, you’re one petty bastard.”

  “And you’re a hypocrite,” Clement sneered.

  “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”

  “You paint yourself as a man of the people, the reporter chronicling the stories of the city, so virtuous and principled, only caring about the average Joe. I’ve done a little checking up on you, O’Brien: seems to me you’ve attended lots of A-list, celebrity parties in your day.”

  Quinn was unfazed. “Yeah, so what? Usually it’s as a guest of someone from the mayor’s office or someone from the Blades. Big deal.”

  “Well, whether you like it or not, you’re what passes for a celebrity journalist in this town. Since you’re a regular at these types of bashes, you should have no problem covering one for the paper.”

  “I’m not a regular.”

  “Fine, but you know how they work. Besides, your being there raises the Sent’s profile among people who we want in our corner.”

  “Why not give this piece to Shep? You seem to be sending him out on every other idiotic story in the city.”

  “He’s working on something else.”

  “Yeah, well, so am I, in addition to being the main runner around here.”

  “I heard you’ve been poking around the mayor’s office.”

  Quinn was momentarily thrown, but hid it. “That’s what reporters do, Clement. They sniff. They poke. They dig. Sounds like you’re doing quite a bit of poking around yourself—about me, for some inexplicable reason. Oh, wait, it’s not inexplicable: you want to know about the man Natalie chose over you.”

  Loathing flickered in Clement’s eyes. “What are you working on that concerns the mayor’s office?”

  “I really don’t like to talk about investigative pieces until I’m sure I’ve really got something there,” Quinn told him, enjoying busting Clement’s balls, especially now that he sensed Clement was displeased with the fact that he was sniffing out news behind his back. “What do you care what I’m working on?” Quinn continued. “I thought all you gave a shit about was putting actresses who are dying of cancer on the front page.”

  “You keep forgetting that all I have to do is snap my fingers, and you’ll be collecting unemployment.”

  Quinn held his tongue. They’d already had this discussion, and he’d already told Clement that if he wanted to fire him, he should just go ahead. But he knew Clement wasn’t that stupid, and to be honest, Quinn didn’t want to go. It was the Sent in which he wanted his exposé to appear, because the Sent was where his heart was, the place where he’d honed his skills and learned to be the best. He wasn’t about to let Clement drive him out.

  Quinn frowned. “What time is this stupid thing? And where?”

  “Friday night at the Loew’s on Forty-second Street.” Clement handed him the invitation lying on his desk.

  Fuck, thought Quinn. The middle of the theater district on Friday night. Wall-to-wall people.

  “Who you sending down to take pictures?”

  “Randi Schimmelman.”

  Quinn nodded his approval. Randi was as tenacious as a bulldog. Shooting celebs would be a piece of cake for her.

  “No point filing Friday,” Quinn pointed out. “The paper will be in bed by the time the party’s over. You’ll have it for the Sunday edition.”

  “Good man,” said Clement, like they were old buddies. Jesus, he hated this guy more and more.

  “That it?” Quinn concluded curtly.

  “That’s it,” said Clement. “Have fun Friday night.”

  Quinn could have sworn there was a faint undertone of contempt in Clement’s voice, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Natalie never thought of herself as starstruck, but the sight of so many celebrities gathered in one place was very exciting. When Quinn had invited her to accompany him to the new Steven Spielberg film, as well as the after party, she’d initially been hesitant, especially when he told her he’d be working part of the time, “courtesy of your spiteful, brokenhearted ex-paramour, Clement.” But then she thought, when would she ever again have a chance to experience something like this? So she accepted. Besides, it would be interesting to see Quinn working, even if he had been given an assignment he loathed.

  She met Quinn at the theater, the throng both outside and inside the lobby overwhelming. He was wound so tightly she feared he might give himself a stroke as he fumed about having to talk to “idiot actors.” She hung
back, watching him interview famed director Steven Spielberg, whom he said was witty and sharp. Natalie could see he also enjoyed talking to the fans waiting on line, some of whom had been camped out for days. But the stars of the film? “Vapid, shallow, self-absorbed”—his laundry list of criticisms was endless. Thankfully, the film was wonderful, which seemed to appease him somewhat.

  The after party was held at Cipriani’s. She and Vivi had Googled it, marveling at its majestic interior and the clientele it catered to. “Maybe that’s where you should have your reception,” Natalie teased Anthony, who’d just laughed his head off and walked away. He and Vivi were still locking horns over caterers, as well as where to hold their reception. The only thing they agreed upon was where they would actually marry: Saint Finbar’s in Bensonhurst, the Catholic church Anthony’s family had been attending for as long as he could remember. Vivi wasn’t thrilled about being married in church, but it was important to Anthony, so she acquiesced. Natalie, whose only experiences with church were accompanying visitors to Notre Dame, was curious to see what it would be like.

  “What do you think?” Quinn asked as he put his hand in Natalie’s as they entered Cipriani’s. “They got any restaurants this ornate in gay Paree? I bet not.”

  “You bet wrong.”

  Quinn gripped her hand a little tighter as he nabbed a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, handing it to her. “People are turning to look at you,” he whispered, nuzzling her ear. Heat warmed her body, but she wondered . . .

  “Aren’t you working? Isn’t it unprofessional for me to be here with you?”

  “I don’t think anyone gives a rat’s ass.”

  “Charming expression.”

  “Oh, has the crude New Yawker offended mademoiselle’s delicate sensibilities? I really don’t believe anyone will be perturbed. Is that better?”

  “Much.”

  They found a place to stand and chat. It astounded Natalie how many people sought out Quinn rather than the other way around. She hadn’t realized how well-known he was. There was just one embarrassing problem. Every time he introduced her to someone, they inevitably asked her, “What do you do?” She had no choice but to answer honestly, then watch their expression deflate as they uttered a polite “Oh” and redirected their attention to Quinn, who always, always, made the point to tell them that she had been in the French government, and her working as a waitress was part of a career change toward restaurant management. She was grateful for his explanation, yet part of her wondered: Was he embarrassed that she was a waitress?