Chaste (10 page)

“Can’t tomorrow,” he says.

Whatever. He’ll probably be playing kissy face with Molly in the parking lot.

“Thursday night,” I push.

“Evenings are bad.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.

Does he spend every spare moment with that girl? It may not be my business, but even
I
saw how she tried to strong arm him earlier. She acted like fluttering her lashes would cover for it. Actually, he behaved as if he didn’t notice. Ironic. He’d never accuse her
of manipulation.

“Fine then,” I say before letting out an exasperated breath. “What do you suggest?”

“Meet me in front of the Johnson Center at eleven on Saturday?”

“Whoa.” I stick out my chin to challenge him. “You want me to drive all the way to George Mason and pay to park in the garage?”

He nods. “Look, I know it’s a hassle. But I can’t think of any other way to make this work. It’s just … “ He drags a hand through his hair. “I have a lesson Saturday morning. And for what I have in mind, we’ll need my cello.”

I have the urge to ask what’s wrong with his house, but remember Molly did the exact same thing.

“Sounds good,” I say. It’s a start, I guess.

Ms. Torres is on the phone with my mother. At least I think it’s my mother since it sounds like a woman’s voice.

Quinn walks to the door, mumbling something about how he needs to get my stuff, talk to Mrs. Williams, blah, blah, blah. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what he’s doing. It’s just that every time I look at him, I see that impenetrable façade of his.

“I’m not letting you off the hook. You know that, right?” I ask.

His eyes glaze over. “Huh?”

“You owe me a
real
kiss.”

His eyes bore into mine and a muscle under his eye jumps. Those strong arms of his ripple like The Incredible Hulk’s minus the green skin. It’s like his emotions are beating against his insides, a thwarted child throwing bloodied fists against a closed door.

I wonder how passionate he’d be if he ever let loose.

15

Quinn

Kat may be clever, but there’s no way I’m giving her a
real
kiss.

Fortunately for me, she backed off her siren act the rest of the week. When she copied the basics of our project from my binder, she didn’t dare touch me. She even stayed silent during Mrs. Williams’ lessons, gluing her eyes to the board like a dutiful student instead of playing up the hurt ankle thing.

I try to push her from my mind as I put on a clean shirt for my date with Molly. It’s Friday, and I’m supposed to pick her up at three-fifteen. I need to hurry because it’s already three o’clock.

After straightening the pale blue collar on my polo shirt, I walk to the bathroom, brush my teeth, floss and flex my muscles in the mirror. When I head downstairs, Amy’s nursing in the TV room. There’s a wall between us but I can tell the baby is eating because I hear Elijah chowing down.

“You’ll be back by five-thirty, right?” my sister calls.

“Yes, Mom.”

“I’m not trying to be bossy, Quinn. But I need to be at work by six. Dad is playing a Beethoven concert tonight, which means he’ll be exhausted by the time he gets home.”

“I’ll be back in time, I swear.” With a sigh I pluck my keys from the hook by the door and stuff them in my pocket. Then I leave.

When I’m safely in my old, beat-up car, I think of the warm gooey brownies Molly brought to school for me today. They smelled so good, it was pointless to wait until lunch to eat them. I rub my stomach, wondering if Kat ever cooks for Mike. She probably sizzles in a different way. Starting the engine, I imagine what Kat would look like in nothing but a smile and high-heeled shoes.
Bad Quinn!

I pop in a CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, trying not to think about my lab partner
aul naturale
. If I show up to Molly’s with an image like that in my head, things will only get worse between us. She already thinks I’m avoiding her, which is why I need to tell her about Amy and Elijah.

The brakes squeak as I pull up in front of Molly’s house. She lives in a split-level with a brick front and bicycles strewn across the lawn. I walk over the crumbling path from the driveway to her front porch, shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans and try to pretend I’m not nervous. She opens the door with her purse on her shoulder.

“Ready?” I say.

She nods and follows me out. Once in the car, I ask about her family. Her mother, who’s been feeling tired lately; her dad, who works a sixty hour week; her four younger brothers, who help her with a four a.m. paper-route.

“How can you stand to wake up that early?” I ask.

She puts her hand over mine and rubs warmth into the spaces between my fingers.

“It’s not a big deal,” she says. “I’ve been doing it since I was fourteen. My mother helps sometimes. It’s kind of like a family business. The only drawback is the smell.” She squeezes her freckled nose shut with her thumb and forefinger. “If you breathe the newsprint too long, salt rises in your throat, and you feel like throwing up.”

“Nasty,” I say.

“Yeah, it’s pretty gross. That’s why I always take a shower before seminary.”

I pull into the parking lot of Olive Garden. Molly loves pasta. Me, I’m more of a meat and potatoes guy. My stomach grumbles. If only pasta were filling.

As I open the door for Molly, her perfume makes me sneeze. Why do girls think smelling like a giant peach makes them attractive? If anything, it makes me even hungrier.

A waitress with puffy blond hair seats us at a corner table. She speaks with a southern accent, as if she’s from the deep south instead of Northern Virginia.

“Whatcha like, hun?” she drawls.

“Ladies first,” I say, glancing at Molly.

“We’d like a salad to share, breadsticks … uh … and two waters,” she says, winking at me.

I feel my eyes getting wider by the second.
Water … Salad … We?
Before I have a chance to change my order, the waitress grabs the menu from my hand and marches away.

She rolls her eyes and mumbles something like, “Back with your water shortly,” but what I hear in the tone of her voice is, “What a bunch of cheapskates.”

My stomach grumbles louder than before. Molly lifts her finger to make a point. “After those brownies you ate today, it’s a good thing we ordered salad. You don’t need extra calories, trust me.”

Being as skinny as a blade of grass,
she
doesn’t need more calories. I’m another matter. But before I can tell her that, she smiles and her blue eyes sparkle into mine. I can count every single one of her lashes. The words die before they leave my mouth.

Besides, it shouldn’t surprise me that Molly has strong opinions. She’s the oldest in her family, which means she’s been in a position all her life to do some bossing around. The waitress comes back with a basket of breadsticks, water, plates and a huge bowl of salad.

“Mmmm, salad,” I say in jest as I stack half the breadsticks from the bowl on my tiny plate, cut one in half, slather it with butter and stuff it into my mouth.

“So,” Molly clears her throat. “Amy’s home. Care to tell my why?”

I swallow mid-chew, almost choking on the gooey mass of starch.

“Yeah.” I stare at her pale pink mouth, wanting anything but to look into her searching eyes. “She had a … a baby last June.”

Molly breaks out into a big smile, and relief floods me. I look up at her smiling eyes. The tension drains from my shoulders.

Then she giggles.

“Very funny, Quinn. Can’t believe you thought I’d fall for that one.”

“Uh,” I say like a brain-dead corpse.

She drops her fork. “You’re serious.”

I nod.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her face turns so red her freckles disappear. “I thought we were friends, Quinn. Friends don’t hold back vital stuff like that. Did you think I’d spread it around? I can’t believe you don’t trust me!”

She drops her eyes to the table as if looking at me will make them wither.

Great, I’ve just alienated the one girl I care about. “Molly,” I say.

She doesn’t look up.

“Come on, Molly.”

She taps her short nails on the table, making one of the most irritating clicking sounds I’ve ever heard. Normally, I’d ask her to stop, but right now I don’t dare. Heat creeps up my neck, and I start to sweat.

After five minutes of agonizing suspense, she finally speaks.

“You,” she says in a venomous voice. “Have a lot of explaining to do!”

My mind reels. What am I supposed to say? I mean, I guess I could tell her the truth. That trust has nothing to do with this. That I’m the one who holds the shame, the dreaded secret, the belief that this makes my family flawed.

But I know better than to try the whole “It’s not me, it’s you” routine.
Even if it does happen to be true. So I look at my laces, one in a double knot, the other untied and say the only thing that comes to mind.

“Molly, I’m sorry. I know I should have told you. Forgive me, please?”

There’s so much space between us that the words sound flat. Her mouth is set. I can’t imagine those words will make a dent in the white-hot wall of her anger. I’m wrong, though. One moment I’m hanging my head and the next her fingers are closing around mine.

I let out a long breath and look at her. She’s blinking too fast, as if she’s embarrassed. The line of her mouth has softened. “Do you mean that?” she asks.

“Of course I mean it.”

And just like that, she’s babbling at me as if I’m forgiven, peppering me with questions and listening to me talk about my dad burning cheese toast. It doesn’t take long for me to open up and talk about the specifics of the arrangement I have with my sister, Elijah’s funny reaction to rice cereal and why my mother went back to work.

“Do you think maybe Amy wouldn’t have gotten pregnant if your mother had been around more?” Molly asks.

I shake my head no.

Molly forks some lettuce and a cherry tomato into her mouth. With her free hand, she motions for me to go on.

I sigh. “Amy conceived Elijah between her freshman and sophomore year at college. First she came home and found a summer job waiting tables. Then she started spending time with this coworker named Ray.”

I skip ahead to the present. “She works as a night guard now because she thinks working in an isolating job will help her stay faithful to him. The man can do no wrong in her eyes. She’s convinced he’ll come back and resume their relationship.”

I shake my head before continuing. “Ray has less chance than Pinocchio of turning into a real dad.”

“That’s too bad.” She sounds so solemn as she wipes her fingers on a napkin. “But even being trusting, she must’ve known better. Did I tell you I used to look up to your sister? She always knew what to say when you were having a bad day. Such a kind, good person. I guess everyone changes, huh?”

I reach my hand across the table and weave my fingers into hers. “She’s still good, Molly. She’s just having a crisis of faith. She hasn’t come to church for over a year. And even though she won’t admit it, I think she’s ashamed.”

***

I wake at three-thirty the next morning with Elijah squirming on my chest. At first I don’t think anything of it. But when I put my hand on his back, he coughs and a seal’s bark comes out.

“Elijah?” I ask, sitting up on the couch with the little guy on my shoulder. I twist to flip on the lamp, cradle his head in the palm of my hand and pat his back as he lets out another seal-like cough.

His diaper is full, his eyes are watering, his nose is swollen shut with snot. None of this alarms me, though. What scares me is that when he inhales, I hear a whistle. This is bad. This is very, very bad! Frantically, I open the snaps at the bottom of his yellow onesy, pull it over his head and stare at the skin of his chest as it gets sucked into the outline of his ribs.

Crap! The boy can’t breathe.

Holding him over my left shoulder, I jump from the couch and run up to my father’s room. Instead of knocking, I barge in and turn on the light.

My dad sits up. “Quinn?” he says in a groggy voice.

“I need your car. I’m taking Elijah to the ER. Oh … and would you call Amy and let her know?”

I run to my room before he can answer, put the boy on my bed and slip on my shoes and coat. Elijah needs to be bundled, so I wrap him in blankets before grabbing his insurance card off my dresser.

It will take me half an hour to get to Fairfax Hospital, six segments of five minutes that pass much too fast when I’m eating a good meal, but seem like an eternity as I glance at my nephew’s slightly blue lips.
Please God, help me get there fast enough.

The numbers on the insurance card dig into my fingers as I run down the stairs with my nephew on my shoulder.

“Quinn?”

I turn. My dad is standing at the top of the stairs with the cordless phone in his hand.

“Amy wants to talk to you.”

I shake my head. “She’s gonna have to trust me.”

“Elijah’s her kid.” He holds the phone out over the top step.

I want to yell at him to bring his lazy butt down the stairs, but I know better than to talk to my father that way. So with the insurance card in one hand and Elijah clasped to my shoulder, I take the stairs two at a time. Then I trade the phone for the baby.

“What’s wrong?” my sister asks.

“Elijah can’t breathe,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“So he has a little cold—”

“I said he can’t breathe!” I scream, surprised by my own outburst. My knees have started knocking together. Swallowing my worry, I hold the receiver up to Elijah’s mouth, letting her hear his whistling breath, his seal-like cough, his shaking cries.

When I put the phone back to my ear, I don’t even wait for her to speak. “I’m taking him to the ER, Amy. That’s final.”

16

Katarina

I‘ve been standing in front of the Johnson Center for forty-five minutes. Fine, I admit it’s been closer to an hour. At a quarter to eleven, I strolled into George Mason’s gift shop and pretended to be interested in baseball hats and a couple ugly sweatshirts. At eleven I went back outside, leaned against the giant bronze statue of George Mason, and pulled out a nail file to keep my hands busy. I didn’t want Quinn to see me looking over-eager. At eleven-thirty, I started walking in circles between the buildings while keeping my eyes open for any sign of my lab partner.