Quinn

by Sally Mandel

  The crew began to chant, “Harvey Jackson, leader of the humanoids,” and followed Marfax in a parade up and down the eighth-floor aisles.

  Harvey nestled comfortably against the massive chest. “You got your magic eyeballs, Marfax?” he asked.

  “You dare to ask such a question of Marfax?” boomed the creature. “Naturally I’ve got ’em.” A buzz sounded from somewhere behind the mountain of a head, and the eyes spun into crimson whirlpools.

  “Shee-yit,” Harvey murmured. Marfax set him down outside the spacecraft.

  “The humanoid leader will enter the Infinity ship and serve as captain,” Marfax announced.

  “Captain Jackson!” cheered Golon, resplendent in skintight mauve satin tights. Blond hair spilled down her back in a tangle of polyester cirls.

  After Harvey had entered the hatchway, Quinn tugged at Marfax’s scaly elbow. “Where were you?” she demanded.

  “Marfax takes coffee breaks like humanoids,” he answered.

  “You were supposed to be here at one thirty.” She held up her watch and tapped the crystal. “See that? Two thirty.”

  The monster lowered his voice. “Coffee breaks cause certain physiological changes in Marfax’s creature body.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your physiology. You should have been here.”

  “Marfax!” Harvey called from inside the ship.

  “Listen, lady.” The neon eyes spun. “Do you have any idea what it’s like trying to get out of this thing to take a piss?’’

  “Oh,” Quinn said.

  “They don’t make zippers on Planet Orbicom.”

  “Oh,” Quinn said again. “Okay. Maybe you could tell somebody next time.”

  “Right.” Marfax began to thunder again as he disappeared under the doorway, bumping his head in the process. “Harvey Jackson, humanoid captain of the primary star force! Marfax desires communication with you!”

  Quinn didn’t see Harvey again for half an hour. By then a horde of eager Infinity fans had accumulated outside the spacecraft. Now and then a crew member emerged to mollify the crowd. Finally Harvey stepped out, his hand invisible in Marfax’s giant paw. Golon planted a kiss on his cheek, and Harvey rejoined Quinn. The crew stood at attention and with Marfax conducting shouted together, “Farewell to Harvey Jackson! Farewell to our beloved captain!”

  The other children stared at Harvey with faces radiating envy. “I bet they think I’m on the TV show,” Harvey whispered to Quinn. He took her hand. “Thanks … thanks for …”

  “A pleasure,” she said, stepping onto the escalator. “You know something, Harve? Standing there next to Marfax just now, your eyes were as bright as his. I think maybe yours are magic too.”

  They were both so hungry that they ate dinner in the first restaurant they could find with tablecloths and candles. There were no hot fudge sundaes on the menu, but Harvey didn’t seem to notice.

  Chapter 30

  In Will’s mind he and Quinn were closing in on summer as if they were doing a headlong dash on tiptoe. It wasn’t easy to maintain the awkward gait, and both felt the strain.

  On a Saturday afternoon two weeks before graduation, they were studying in Will’s room. Outside, a gray sky sulked close to the ground, heavy with its burden of rain but unable to release it.

  Quinn closed her notebook. “Was that thunder?”

  “No.” Will was stretched across his bed, trying to absorb Professor Buxby’s final lecture on Thomas Hardy.

  “I wish it would pour,” Quinn said. She tapped her foot restlessly. Will’s T-shirt had shrunk, exposing an inch of skin above his jeans. She stared at it. “Can we take a break?”

  Will looked up. Her face held a familiar suggestion.

  “Sure.” He collected his papers and piled them on the floor beside the bed.

  Conversation was dangerous, so their lovemaking had become a silent rite. Quinn’s body performed a languid dance under his hands as if too full of sensuality for motion. His orgasm was early and explosive, but Quinn made a long, slow climb. He reached into her with his fingers, the mingled liquid of their bodies warm as she strained toward him, then pulled away, then arched again. He felt her flesh swell, then begin to pulsate, and suddenly she was sobbing through her climax. She tried to muffle the deep cries against his shoulder.

  “What is it?” he whispered. But he knew.

  The tears slid out the edges of her eyes to make dark streaks in her hair.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re the one who’s big on action. Tell me what to do.”

  As she reached for the tissue box, her shoulder pressed against his face. Her skin tasted faintly of salt.

  “I’ve been giving the matter some thought,” she said, mopping her face. “Somewhere I read that every seven years or so your body replaces all its cells. Maybe it’ll happen to us. We’ll be total strangers and it won’t matter anymore.”

  “I don’t know if I want that.”

  She blew her nose. “No. Except sometimes.” She allowed herself to look directly into his face. His mouth barely curved in the strange smile that seemed to contain both apology and amusement.

  “I’m sure my cells would still lust after your cells,” he said.

  She choked out a kind of laugh. “Pitiful, isn’t it?”

  It had finally begun to rain. The sky was as dark as late evening. Quinn’s hair looked almost black in the shadows, but her eyes shone up at him like chips of aquamarine. “The way I figure it,” she said, “we’ve got until the wedding. I could kill them for moving it up. I liked the August plan a whole lot better.”

  “Their families won’t be speaking by the end of June.”

  “They haven’t even met and they’re not speaking.” She blew her nose again, tossed the wadded tissue at the wastebasket, and missed. “Oh, well. This way Mrs. Markowitz only has time for one heart attack and the Huntingtons think everybody’s so busy with graduation nobody’ll notice their daughter is marrying a Jew.”

  “It’s going to be tough to celebrate, honey.”

  “At least somebody’s getting married.”

  Will sat up on the edge of the bed. She ran her hand down the hard ridge of his backbone. “I should have known you were going to be a stubborn bastard, with your fucking iambic pentameter. God, how I wish I didn’t have to do the things I have to do.”

  Will dipped his head to peer at her over his shoulder. “Ain’t it the truth?” Then he got up and began to get dressed.

  Quinn listened to the rain, its soft, comforting swish against the window, and snuggled down under the blankets. She never wanted to leave this room with its sweet dusky smell of intimacy. If only it would keep raining forever.

  Chapter 31

  On Thursday afternoon, while Quinn labored through her last exam, Will set off on the bus to say good-bye to Harvey. He had made repeated attempts to prepare himself, but dread still sat like a sickening mass in his stomach. Once, in the middle of the night, cowardice had overcome him and he composed a letter that began, Dear Harvey, I’m sorry I couldn’t say good-bye in person. My exam schedule is so brutal that … and so on.

  Mercifully, the boy was participating in a school concert this evening. Their last afternoon would be brief. Will knew a plan was obligatory, otherwise they would simply drift through the two hours in mutual misery. Once again he opted for the pool table. If nothing else, Will’s ineptitude would remind Harvey of how accomplished his successor was.

  The day was steamy hot. Harvey waited by the school steps with the heat from the pavement shimmering all around him. He wore jeans and a too-large T-shirt that was the same pale blue shade as Will’s. Will watched Harvey note the coincidence and then avert his eyes.

  Two games of pool elapsed without conversation, but with each of them sneaking long looks at the other. Will stared at the scar that sat like an ugly worm on Harvey’s cheek. If it happened again,
would Harvey call for Steve, or would he, in pain and fear, forget and cry Will’s name?

  Will put down his cue. “Harve.”

  Harvey took a good look at Will’s face and set his stick down too. He stood straight, a fragile soldier child, realizing that the time had come to be brave.

  Will shook his head. “You are some kid, you know that?”

  “Sure, I know it.”

  “You make me a promise, tough guy?”

  Harvey shot him a look of mock suspicion from under the thick lashes. “That depends.”

  “You ever need me, you call collect. I expect you to write plenty of letters, but there’s the phone, too. Okay?” He cupped the small brown chin briefly.

  “Yeah. Okay.” Harvey turned toward the table. “Can we play now?”

  “You break this time.” Break my heart, you little monster. I’m going to grab you and stuff you in my suitcase.

  Will escorted Harvey to his building without saying any of the things that filled his head. Nor did he deliver his declaration of faith, a speech carefully worked out last night, about Will’s confidence in Harvey’s future, in his ability to bust free of ghetto futility and make a life for himself. Will had planned to wind up with a stirring grand finale about how people could be together in important ways even if they weren’t together physically. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, as spake the Siamese monarch in The King and I who abandoned everybody in the end.

  They stood inside the doorway, graffiti encircling them like old friends whose profanity had finally become endearing.

  “Well, Harve,” Will said. Harvey stared up at him with a face full of questions. “I’m going to miss you a shitload.”

  Harvey’s chin began to quiver. He stiffened the muscles around his mouth, trying to deceive. Will watched, and wondered if his greatest cruelty had been in befriending this child. The small face gave way and crumpled. Will dropped to his knees on the filthy floor, and Harvey was in his arms. The wiry body heaved against him in three violent sobs. Then Harvey wrenched himself away, shoved inside the door, and clattered upstairs.

  Will was left kneeling like a supplicant in prayer. His heart shouted through the broken panes of glass and up after the stumbling footsteps: But I didn’t tell you!

  Like a whipped dog, Will limped to the bus stop. The only thing he wished for now was that the bus would drive him straight to the airport for the first flight west. No more amputations.

  Chapter 32

  Quinn’s last exam was Thursday morning with graduation the following Monday. She had decided that each hour would be so full and rich that time would slow from the sheer weight of condensed experience. Somehow, though, she slipped into Friday before she could absorb the departure of Thursday. Already the morning had been gobbled up with packing. Quinn sat on the stripped bed and stared at her watch, wondering how it could possibly be eleven thirty. Last she’d looked, it was ten-oh-eight. At least one hour misplaced, unaccounted for, as if she had been knocked unconscious or had been anesthetized. She looked around the bare room at the cartons, mostly closed, taped, and neatly labeled with marking pen: Linens; Religion Notes; Lit. Books; Junk; and so on. Somebody had packed them; it must have been she. So she’d been here the whole time after all, except for her soul, which had spent the past hour hanging around over at the men’s dorm.

  Quinn got up stiffly and began to fill the last box. In went four years of letters from Margery. In went four years of newspaper clippings from her mother. Next were the notebooks from Professor Buxby’s class. She hesitated, then began to riffle through them. Their margins were copiously decorated with doodles, a living record of the many months of cartoon correspondence with Will. The pages seemed as elaborate as the illuminated pages of antique manuscripts they kept in glass cases at the library.

  She taped the box, then shoved it into the hall to join a mound of luggage just outside. From the doorway she gazed back into her empty room. Paradoxically, with her belongings cleared away, it seemed smaller. Sunlight streaked through the window and bounced off the bare white walls, making her blink. The only inhabitants were dancing, swirling dust motes. I lived here, Quinn protested with a sudden twinge of sympathy for Kilroy. Remembering her first day, freshman year, unpacking her suitcases in another room in another hall, she felt more than four years older. That girl with the quick smile and easy confidence had gradually been displaced. Just like the room, she had once been sunny and uncomplicated. It seemed appropriate to be relinquishing her cubicle just as she was relinquishing that laughing girl. She turned her back and closed the door behind her.

  As a graduation present Gus loaned Quinn and Will a truck to transport Quinn’s paraphernalia to Medham. Quinn drove while Will sat in the passenger seat with one foot on the dashboard and one resting on the carton marked Misc. Memories.

  They had travelled in silence for about half an hour when Will suddenly exclaimed, “Hey!”

  Quinn glanced at him.

  “What about Harvey?” he asked.

  “What about him?”

  “You think he’s okay with Steve?”

  “Uh huh, but he’s going to miss you.”

  “He’ll miss you, too.”

  “Oh, he’s coming to Medham for the weekend once a month, as long as it’s okay in terms of Mom. Marylou from the cafeteria says she’ll put him on the bus, and I’ll pick him up in Boston.”

  “What if you end up in New York?”

  “I’ll stay with the Boston job until I’m sure Ann’s in a real remission. Anyway, even if I go to New York, I’ll be coming home on weekends. Harvey can come too.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t tell me,” Will mused. Quinn kept glancing at him to try to decipher his expression. Finally he gave her a wry smile. “I’m jealous.”

  “Who of?”

  “Both of you.”

  “You’ve got visitation rights,” she said.

  “You’re pretty blasé.”

  “You bet your ass. It’s the only way to make it through.”

  “Okay. Sorry. I know you’re not blasé.”

  She took one hand off the steering wheel and pointed her finger at him. “I’m going to ask you one question, and then I want you to promise we won’t talk about it ever again.”

  “How can I promise if I don’t know the question?”

  “I won’t ask it, then.”

  “All right. I promise to try.”

  “That’ll do. I want to know, do you think we’ll ever see each other again, after Van’s wedding?”

  He gazed out the front window. His eyes flickered involuntarily as they captured speeding images and then let them go. “I don’t know, babe.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the best I can do.”

  “It’s a chicken answer. Come on, be brave. I can take it. What do you really think, in your heart of hearts?”

  “I think we won’t see each other again.”

  “Ever?”

  He nodded.

  “All right. Now let’s not talk about it anymore.”

  She turned up the volume on the radio and began to sing along with Mick Jagger.

  That night Quinn lay in her bed and thought about ever. The word had an important ring to it. She tried it backward. Reve. Never was better and it served the same purpose. Never, reven, raven. Quoth the raven, Nevermore. She kicked her legs restlessly under the blanket. The only way to endure the next few months would be to tell herself she would see him again, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe five years from now. That was how her father had quit smoking, first assuring himself that he’d have a cigarette in ten minutes. The ten minutes would pass, and so would the peak of his craving. Once he could make it through several hours, he began telling himself he’d smoke one tomorrow. Then he extended it to next month, then to next year, until finally he didn’t need the pretense anymore. He said it took about four years to truly kick it. Well, maybe by 1969 she’d have ri
d her system of the William Ingraham habit.

  1969. It seemed so far off. Would Ann be with them then? After so many false hopes the doctors now said she was in true remission. She was even planning to attend graduation. The atmosphere in the house had changed; it seemed to be sighing with gratitude. John’s relief had caused him to relent on the issue of Aunt Millie, who was coming to tea next week. Quinn sent silent thanks in the direction of the ceiling. It was a habit left over from childhood when some aching wish had been fulfilled, like the Christmas ice skates that weren’t even hand-me-downs but were all stiff and new with the tag from Filene’s stuck to one blade. In those earlier times she had voiced her gratitude to particular names, like St. Theresa or St. Christopher, but they had since become as impotent as figures out of childhood mythology—Rumpelstiltskin or the Tooth Fairy. Only the impulse was left, like knocking on wood.

  Downstairs, Will tried to arrange his body on the living room sofa in a position that might permit sleep. Soft light from a streetlamp outside filtered through the curtains, illuminating the picture gallery against the far wall. Will’s favorite, Quinn’s sixth-grade portrait, beamed at him with braids, freckles, and a grin that displayed teeth too big for the preadolescent mouth. Already evident in that saucy face were the qualities that had attracted him in the first place: curiosity; optimism; adventurousness; generosity. As a young woman, however, she had developed certain extras, among them an astute intelligence and a tantalizing, robust sexuality. Will shook his head. Quinn’s twelve-year-old face seemed to shake hers back at him, mocking.

  He wondered what she would be like at thirty-five. Quinn’s adult personality seemed less predictable to him than his own. Will assumed that he would remain the same. The person he had been at six was mostly what he was today. But Quinn was a changeling. She slipped away, eluding the categories he provided for her in his compulsive effort to possess her somehow, even if only within the cold, echoing chambers of his intellect.