The Select

by F. Paul Wilson

  But somewhere inside she wanted a hug, needed one. And the understanding, the shared pain, the sympathy she saw in her mother's eyes tore something loose in Quinn. Inner walls cracked and crumbled. Everything she had dammed up, the agony of the months of waiting, the hurt, the crushing disappointment, the fear and uncertainty about what was to come, all broke free. She clung to her mother like a drowning child to a rock in the sea and began to sob.

  "Oh, Mom...what am I going to go?"

  She felt her mother's arms envelope her and hold her tight and she cried harder, cried like she hadn't since her dog Sneakers had died when she was ten years old.

  *

  "You're secretly glad I was turned down, aren't you?"

  Quinn said it without rancor. She'd pulled herself together and now she was sitting at the battered kitchen table while Mom brewed them some tea.

  Mom looked at her for a few seconds, then turned back to the whistling kettle.

  "Now why would you be saying such a thing, Quinn, dear? Glad means I take some pleasure in your hurt. I don't. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I feel your hurt like my own. I want to go down to that Ingraham place and wring somebody's neck. But, well, yes, deep down inside some part of me is... relieved."

  Over the past couple of years Quinn had sensed in her mother an unspoken resistance to her dream of becoming a doctor. Now she felt oddly relieved that it was out in the open.

  "Why...why don't you want me to be a doctor?"

  Mom brought the teapot to the table and set it on a crocheted potholder between them.

  "It's not that I don't want you to be a doctor—I'd love to see you as a doctor. It's just that I..." She paused, at a loss for words. "Oh, Quinn, I know you're going to be thinking this sounds crazy, but I'm worried about your going to medical school."

  Quinn was baffled. "Mom, I've been away at U. Conn for the past four years and—"

  "Oh, it's not the going away that bothers me. It's just this...feeling I have."

  Uh-oh. One of Mom's feelings.

  "Sure and I know what you're going to say, how it makes no sense to let these kind of feelings affect your life, but I can't help it, Quinn. Especially when the feeling is this strong."

  Quinn shook her head. No use in arguing. Mom sometimes thought she had premonitions. She called it "the Sheedy thing." Some turned out true, but plenty of others didn't. She tended to forget all the ones that didn't, and cling to the ones that had panned out. Mostly they were just apprehensions, fears of what might go wrong. She almost never had premonitions of anything good.

  Mom seemed to think this sort of sixth sense ran in the family. If it did, it clearly was one more useful gene Quinn had missed out on. She wished she could have seen that letter coming. She would have prepared herself better.

  Watching Mom pour the tea, she decided to play along, just this once.

  "What's it like, this bad feeling about med school?"

  "Nothing specific." Her eyes lost their focus for a moment. "Just a feeling that you'll never come back."

  Is that it? Quinn thought. She's afraid of losing me forever to some faraway medical center?

  "Mom, if you think I'll ever forget you and Dad or turn my back—"

  "No, dear. It's not that sort of thing. I have this feeling you'll be in danger there."

  "But what danger could I possibly be in?"

  "I don't know. But you remember what happened with your Aunt Sandra, don't you?"

  Oh, boy. Aunt Sandra. Mom's older sister. The two of them had been teenagers when the Sheedy family came over from Ireland. Aunt Sandra was always having run-ins with "the Sheedy thing."

  "Of course." Quinn had heard this story a thousand times. "But—"

  "She awoke one night and saw this light in the hall outside her bedroom..."

  Mom wasn't going to be stopped, so Quinn leaned back and let her go.

  "...The glow got brighter and brighter, and then she saw it: a glowing hand, and clutched in that hand was a glowing knife. It glided past her bedroom door and disappeared down the hall. Three nights in a row she saw it. The third night she tried to wake your uncle Evan but he was sound asleep, so she got up alone and followed the glowing arm with the knife down the hall. It glided past your cousin Kathy's room and went straight to your cousin Bob's, passed right through the oak door. She rushed inside and saw it poised over Bob's bed. And as she watched, it plunged the knife blade into Bob's stomach. She screamed and that woke everybody up. But the hand was gone as if it had never been. Your uncle Evan thought she was going crazy, and even Bob and Kathy were getting worried about her." As she always did, Mom paused here for effect. "But the next day, your cousin Bob was rushed to the hospital and taken to surgery where he had to go under the surgeon's knife for a ruptured appendix." Another pause, this time accompanied by a meaningful stare. "Thank the Lord everything turned out okay, but after that no one ever doubted your Aunt Sandra when she had one of her premonitions."

  Silly, but the story yet again gave Quinn a chill. The thought of being the only one awake, sitting in the dark and seeing a glowing, knife-wielding hand float past your bedroom door...

  She threw off the frisson.

  "Mom, you haven't had any, uh, visions about me, have you?"

  Mom stirred honey into her tea. "No. Nothing like that. Just a...feeling. Especially that Ingraham place. Giving you everything free. That seems...unnatural."

  She was sounding a bit like Matt.

  "Well," Quinn said, "I don't think you have to worry now. Nothing bad is going to happen to me at med school."

  Saying those words, med school, triggered a pain in her chest. Crying it out, talking it out, having a cup of tea with her mother had helped her put aside the crushing loss. But only for a moment.

  "I've got to call Matt," Quinn said around the newly formed lump in her throat. Which was the last thing she wanted to do. She hadn't made it and he had. So had Tim. She felt humiliated, ashamed. But might as well grit her teeth and get it over with. "He's waiting to hear from me."

  *

  Tim sat in Matt's bedroom and watched his friend hang up the phone. He stared at it accusingly, as if it had lied to him. After a moment he turned and faced Tim.

  "They turned her down," he said, his voice hushed. "The Ingraham fucking College of fucking Medicine turned down Quinn Cleary. I don't believe it."

  Tim already had gathered that from what he'd just overheard. He felt a pang, almost like a soldier who'd just lost a comrade. His hurt, he realized, was a little selfish: He'd been looking forward to spending some time with Quinn.

  "Doesn't seem right," Tim said. "I mean, I don't know her as well as you, but she strikes me as someone who was born to be a doctor."

  "Damn right," Matt said, his lips thinning as he spoke—Tim could tell he was getting angry now. "What the hell's wrong with them, anyway? Turning down Quinn—what kind of bullshit is that? Where are their heads? What are they thinking about? Do they have any idea what they've just done to her life?"

  "Probably not," Tim said. "They—-"

  Matt stood up and kicked his wicker wastebasket against the far wall, then began to stalk the room. No mean distance, that. Matt's bedroom was the size of the living room in Tim's home, which wasn't exactly a shack.

  "Damn, this pisses me off! I've had reservations about that place from the start, all their prissy rules and regulations, but this ices the cake! If they don't want Quinn Cleary, I've got to ask myself if The Ingraham even knows what the hell it's doing."

  "And what's worse," Tim said, silently tipping his hat to Groucho Marx as he tried to lighten things up a bit, "they accepted me. I'm not even sure I want to go to a medical school that'll take me as a student."

  Matt didn't smile. "I'm not kidding, Tim. I'd like to turn those bastards down, just for spite."

  Tim saw that he was serious, and the seed of a scheme began to germinate in his mind.

  "Hold that thought," he told Matt.

  SUMMER

 
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  Medical Tribune

  CHAPTER SIX

  "Ingraham Admissions, Marge speaking. How may I help you?"

  "Hi, Marge. It's Quinn Cleary."

  "Quinn! How are you, dear?"

  "Still hanging in there. Any word?"

  "No, honey. I'm sorry. Nobody's called. As I told you, it's very rare that someone turns down an acceptance here. I've been here ten years now and I can only remember two. And one of those had a serious neck injury that was going to lay him up for a year."

  "I know. But I can still hope, can't I?"

  "And we're hoping right along with you, sweetheart. Listen, you know if it was up to us we'd have you in here in a jiffy."

  "That's nice, Marge. Thanks."

  "It's the truth. Look. You keep calling, you hear? I can't call you—I have to account for my outgoing long distances, and they'd kick my butt out of here for something like that— hell, they might even do that yet if they find out I told you your spot on the wait list."

  Quinn had been crushed to hear she was eleventh on the list. Even if she were first or second her chances of getting in were slim to none. But eleventh...

  "They won't hear it from me, Marge."

  "I know that, dear. But there's no law says you can't call again. So don't you hesitate a minute."

  "Thanks, Marge. I appreciate that. Talk to you soon."

  "Any time, Quinn, honey. Any time."

  Quinn shook her head as she hung up. Couldn't be too many applicants who got to know the Admissions Office staff on a first-name basis. She'd called so many times since spring break she actually felt close to those secretaries. Couldn't hurt. Just too bad they didn't decide who got in.

  August was boiling the potato fields outside and baking her here in the kitchen. She yawned and rubbed her burning eyes. She was beat—mental fatigue more than anything else. She was working her usual two waitress jobs plus hustling after student loans from anyone who had money to lend. She'd even tracked down a Connecticut Masonic Lodge with a student loan program. She spent her free hours filling out applications and financial statements until she was bleary eyed.

  Money was tight. The bankers she spoke to said student loans had been easier years ago, but with the economy the way it was and the ongoing trouble some of the Government programs were having with deadbeats, a lot of the funds had dried up. And they all told her the same thing: All the purse strings would loosen considerably once she reached her third year in med school; she'd have passed through the flames of the first two years when the shakeout occurred, when those who couldn't cut it were culled out, and would then be considered an excellent financial risk. But that didn't do much for her now.

  There was still the Navy. It was beginning to look as if they were going to approve her for their program. If so, they'd pay her way through med school, but in return they'd want her to take a Navy residency in the specialty she chose plus a year-for-year payback—one year of service for every year of medical education they funded.

  So that was Quinn's situation on this steamy summer morning. If she was approved for the Navy plan, she'd get her degree in exchange for six-to-eight years of her life. A stiff price, but at least it was a sure thing.

  The other course was riskier: gamble that she could scrape together the tuition for the U. Conn school on a year-by-year basis through work, loans, and anything else she could think of, and come out of medical school seventy-five or eighty thousand dollars in debt.

  The panic and heartbreak of March were gone. She'd got her act together and devised a plan. Her dream had not been snatched from her as she'd thought on that awful day, merely pulled further away. She'd get there; she simply was going to have to work a lot harder to reach it.

  But getting into The Ingraham would be so much better. She'd be able to devote all her efforts to the massive amount of learning that had to be done and not worry about chasing after tuition dollars. Or she wouldn't be stuck in a Navy uniform, doing whatever they told her to do, going wherever they sent her.

  She sighed. The Ingraham...she still got low when she thought about what she'd be missing. Here it was the middle of August and no one who'd been accepted was going elsewhere.

  Better get used to it, she told herself.

  *

  "I'm not going to The Ingraham," Matt said.

  Tim sat up and stared at him.

  "Bullshit."

  They were stretched out on white and canary-yellow PVC loungers beside the Olympic-sized pool in Matt's back lawn. Each had a tall gin and Bitter Lemon on the ground beside his chair, a pile of fresh-baked nachos cooled on the Lucite table between them. Tim had been drifting slowly away on a soft golden mellow wave.

  "No, I mean it," Matt said, keeping his eyes closed against the glare of the sun. "I told you there were all those things I didn't like about the place. But I sloughed them off. I mean, The Ingraham is such an ego trip. Then the other night my father sits me down and says he and Mom really wish I'd consider going to Yale."

  "Yeah, but Yale isn't offering you any incentives."

  "They don't care. My father went to Yale and Yale Law, my grandfather too, and I hadn't realized how much the place means to him. And my mom...I think she just wants me closer than Maryland."

  Tim felt bad. Hot. Suddenly the sun was getting to him. Hell, he was so comfortable with Matt, and now the guy was dumping him, which he knew was not really the case.

  Tim tried to imagine his folks telling him to kiss off over a hundred thousand bucks worth of tuition, room and board just to attend NYU where his father had gone to night school. Fat chance.

  "What did the Ingraham folks say when you told them?"

  "Haven't yet," Matt said. "I've been trying to figure a way to slip Quinn into my spot. Think I could demand that they substitute Quinn for me?"

  "Yeah, right," Tim said. "That'll work. They'll jump her over ten names on your say so."

  "You got a better idea?"

  "I might." A half-formed scenario had been lurking in the back of his mind since the spring.

  "Well, let's have it. I need the input of that devious mind."

  "Give me a minute."

  Tim lay back and closed his eyes.

  The Ingraham...he'd really been looking forward to having Matt around, even finagling him as a cadaver partner. All down the tubes now. But that did leave...

  Quinn.

  He'd spoken to her twice this summer. She'd seemed a little friendlier each time, but still reserved. Perhaps on guard said it better. He'd tried to wrangle a date but she'd always been too busy with her jobs or her tuition hunting. If he could come up with a way to get her into The Ingraham...

  What had she said during that last call? Something about how she'd become best friends with the Admissions Office staff, how they were all pulling for her.

  He bolted upright on the lounge.

  "I've got it!"

  Matt opened his eyes, squinting up at him.

  "Yeah? What do we do? What do I tell The Ingraham?"

  "The first thing is you tell The Ingraham nothing. The second is hand me that phone. I have to call Ms. Quinn Cleary."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Quinn felt awkward, uncomfortable, scared too about this off-the-wall scheme, yet she felt she had no choice but to accept Tim's offer to drive her down to Maryland. He raced along 95 in a gray 1985 Olds Cierra that he seemed to love. He even had a name for it.

  "Griffin?" she said when he told her the name. "Why a griffin?"

  "Not a griffin. Just 'Griffin.' The gray 1985 Olds Cierra is the invisible car. GM sold a zillion of them, or Buicks and Pontis that look just like it. I've park
ed this car in some terrible neighborhoods and it's never been touched. Nobody wants to steal it or bother it—nobody even sees it. So I named it Griffin, which, if you know your H. G. Wells, is the—"

  "Name of the Invisible Man." She smiled. Griffin—the Invisible Car. She liked that.

  After checking Tim's name on a list, the guard in the gatehouse raised the gate and admitted him to The Ingraham's student lot. Stiff and achy as she was after almost six hours of confined sitting, Quinn didn't move from her seat when they pulled into a parking slot. She stared ahead at the tight cluster of beige brick and stone buildings that made up The Ingraham. She hardly recognized the place. The trees had shed most of their leaves the last time, now the oaks and maples were lush and green. She watched a couple of new students hurry up the slope to register.

  They've got to take me, she thought. They've just got to.

  "Here we are," Tim said, glancing at his watch. "Right on schedule."

  "Do you think this has even a slight chance to work?"

  "Of course. The plan was designed by the Master Plotter. It cannot fail."

  "If you say so."

  Quinn didn't want to hope, couldn't allow herself to hope.

  Matt had said Tim had cooked up this whole scheme. Why? What was his angle? She'd actually cried when Matt told her how he was trying to help her get his spot at The Ingraham, but she hadn't been all that surprised. This was the sort of thing Matt would do.

  But Tim...What was Tim Brown getting out of this?

  "All right," Tim said, gathering up his papers. "Registration's in the class building. That's where I'll be. You head for the Admissions Office and do your thing. I'll catch up with you there."

  Quinn still couldn't move. Now she was terrified.

  "What if this doesn't work?"

  "It will. Ten to one it will. But even if not, what have you lost? By tonight you'll either be registered here or right back where you were two weeks ago when we cooked this thing up. And you haven't risked a thing."