Chaste (11 page)

I glance at my watch. It’s eleven-forty nine. Why isn’t he here?

John wanted me to hang out with him this morning. He’d wanted to play his latest song for me, to see if I wanted it for my vlog. I should just forget about this meeting and go. But a part of me wants to know why Quinn didn’t show. He doesn’t seem like the flaky type. And even though a part of me feels disrespected, I can’t help but wonder if he’s okay.

Maybe he slept in. Quinn had acted like his church’s 6 a.m. Bible class made him tired the day I hurt my ankle. But then he got all irritated when I suggested he didn’t have to go. If he wants to stop being tired, he should stop letting his religion jerk him around. It isn’t as if anyone’s twisting his arm.

So what if his parents get angry? At least they care. If I stopped going to church, I doubt my dad would bat an eyelash. More likely he’d send me to another shrink. Apparently, the point of mental health professionals is to take the place of too-busy parents. Maybe Quinn can’t imagine anything worse than having his father yell at him.

Whatever. I’m done walking in circles around this campus. I’m getting in my Jeep and driving to Quinn’s house. He’s about to wake up and face the music.

Quinn lives in one of the more rundown neighborhoods in our school district. The only reason I know this is because I pried it out of John a few days ago.

I pull my Jeep into his driveway and walk up to his porch. The storm door creaks, the tan paint along the frame is peeling off, the knocker is rusted and I can’t exactly ring the bell. It’s been replaced by a bunch of stripped wires. I take a moment to breathe. What am I going to say to him? What if he thinks coming to his house is too aggressive? Ridiculous, he’s the one who stood me up. I shake off my fears and knock on the door.

No one comes. So I knock louder.

Where’s the nice Mormon boy when you need him, huh? I can feel myself fuming, and that’s when I hear it: a xylophone. I know it’s a xylophone because the notes are going up and down in a scale like when John practices the piano, except the resonance is different—more ringy and kind of hollow, like someone is pounding felt sticks against a bunch of hanging wind chimes.

I put my ear against the door, but the sound seems to come from behind the house. As if someone is standing out in the woods back there, playing to the trees.
You have got to be kidding me!
Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I cut between a white-barked tree and a row of boxwood bushes. My tennis shoes sink into mud as I round the corner and stop in front of a sliding glass door.

The sound stops and the door opens. A gray-haired version of Quinn stands there in tattered jeans, a wrinkled T-shirt and thick-rimmed glasses.

“Can I help you?” he asks with way too much friendliness, flashing a smile that reveals two crooked front teeth.
Quinn must have had braces.

“Is Quinn home?” I say, stepping past him into the room.

My father would call this rude, but I’m not one to waste time. I stop short when I see a nerdy boy behind the xylophone. He rubs his eyes as if he thinks I’m a mirage.

“This is Jordan,” Quinn’s dad says from behind me. “He’s a freshman at West Springfield. He also has an audition coming up.” Mr. Walker steps in front of me. “I’m sorry, but I’m right in the middle of a lesson. You’re going to have to wait.”

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 begged 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.”