Fortunate One
©2004 The Angst Guy
(theangstguy@yahoo.com)
Feedback (good, bad, indifferent,
just want to bother me, whatever) is appreciated. Please write to:
theangstguy@yahoo.com
Synopsis: When Quinn Morgendorffer
moves with her family to Lawndale, she tells her new friends that she is an
only child—but she secretly suspects this was not always so. Did she once have
a big sister? What happened to her? Where did she go? And was her sister named
. . . Daria?
Author's
Notes:
“Fortunate One” appeared as a serialized tale on PPMB between late March and
early April 2004. It began with a twist on the opening scenes in the first
episode of Daria, “Esteemsters,” then was further developed as a multiple-ending
story, with two very different resolutions. (The author once wrote
multiple-plot books for a game company and was curious to see how it would work
in Daria fanfic.) It gave birth to a long science-fiction serial, “Who Once Was
Lost” (based on one of Quinn’s thoughts in chapter eight), and inspired a
fanfic by another author, Galen “Lawndale Stalker” Hardesty’s “Over the River
and Through the Cemetery,” a crossover tale.
The main story here is the most popular version, using the second ending from its original online appearance. The first ending is appended for the curious. The title is derived from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s song, “Fortunate Son,” which becomes relevant later in the story. Flashback scenes of young Daria and Quinn came from the opening scenes in the episode “Monster” (from scripts available on Outpost Daria at http://www.outpost-daria.com) and from “Masochist’s Memories” in The Daria Diaries, though some scenes are unique to this story.
Acknowledgements: I am grateful for the large
number of responses that came when this story appeared online, encompassing a
wide range of reactions. All of them gave me food for thought and worked toward
improvements in the final edition. Corrections, additions, factual notes, and
valuable feedback for the original story were supplied by: Thea Zara, Renfield,
Angelinhel, Mike Nassour, Kara Wild, and Cimorene, among others. The reactions
of many others to certain parts of the story helped determine its direction.
*
All was right with the world, for a
few moments at least. Fourteen-year-old Quinn Morgendorffer relaxed in the
passenger seat of the blue Lexus and closed her eyes of robin’s-egg blue. The
pop-music radio station played a Joni Mitchell song from way too long ago. Quinn
bore it, as it wasn’t so bad and the next song was sure to be better.
“Think you’ll be okay today?” her
father asked, maneuvering through morning suburban traffic. “Your mother and I
realize it’s not easy, moving to a new town and a new school at the same time,
and right after school’s already started. Sorry about that, couldn’t be helped
because of your mother’s job, you know. It’s quite a change, we realize, this
being your first day as the new kid, and we—”
“I’ll be fine, Daddy,” she murmured,
and added—though she knew it was pointless—“Don’t worry.”
“I won’t,” said her father. “I mean,
maybe a little. Can’t help it, you know, being a parent. Say, if you need
anything, just call us. You have your number on your cell phone. It’s
programmed in with all the other numbers. Don’t forget.”
Quinn nodded, trying to stay in the
flow of the music: Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what
you’ve got till it’s gone?
“Fourteen is a difficult age,” he
went on. “And this is high school, too. Being a freshman is a completely
different thing from being in middle school. It’s, uh . . . the difference is
like . . . um, different. It’s not like elementary—I mean, middle school. The
polar opposite, in fact. It’s . . . you know. It’s really different.”
Exhaling long and slow, Quinn opened
her eyes and looked out the side window. She shook her head, but not enough for
her father to see. Another song came on the radio, one more to her liking.
“Yes, sir,” said her father, warming
to the topic, “different as can be. On the good side, Lawndale has a lot more
opportunities than Highland ever did. I mean, Highland was okay, you know, but
Lawndale—now we’re East Coast, right by the Interstates, close to everything.
Think of the shopping! Just don’t max out our credit cards! Ha, ha!” He
coughed. “I was kidding. Get what you want, of course. Make yourself happy.
Just . . . you know, let us know if you want to get something big, if you
could.”
“Don’t worry, Daddy.”
“Oh, I’m not. There’s the high
school.” He turned the car into the semicircle drive to the school’s front
doors, slowed, and stopped by the curb. “Don’t forget your backpack. Oh, wait!”
He reached into his shirt pocket under his suit jacket and handed a roll of
bills to her. “Just in case.”
“I already have money, Daddy.”
“Sure, sure, but you never know!
Just use it if there’s an emergency. Or whatever. Doesn’t matter. Here.”
Knowing it was pointless to argue,
she smiled at him, took the money, and got out of the Lexus with a casual toss
of her long mane of orange-red hair. She wore stylish beige pants with an
eggshell blouse, under an open camel vest. Feather earrings, gold bracelets and
rings, a jeweled choker, and dark brown boots completed her outfit. On a
stylistic scale of one to ten, she was a bleeding-edge thirteen.
“Call me if you need anything!” her
father shouted after her. “I’ll call you about ten or so to check in! Leave
your phone on!”
“I can’t answer phones in class,
Daddy. They don’t let you do that.”
“Oh! Okay, then, well—call me as
soon as you can, okay? During lunch? Or between classes?”
“Gotta go, Daddy! Goodbye!” Shutting
the car door, she waved him off, though he drove away slowly and kept looking
back in the rear-view mirror. She headed for the building to get out of sight,
or else he’d drive back and ask her what was wrong.
A cute girl her age with pigtails
approached. “Hi! You’re so cool!” she said, bubbling over. “What’s your name?”
“Quinn Morgendorffer,” Quinn said,
smiling her most perfect smile.
“Cool name!” said another girl, who
looked Quinn over with visible envy. As cute as this new girl was, she didn’t
hold a candle to Quinn and clearly knew it. “I’m Sandi Griffin, President of
the Lawndale Fashion Club. It’s very exclusive. Want to join? We have a vacancy
for vice president.”
“Um, sure!”
Several boys crowded in. “Will you
go out with me?” one cried to Quinn.
“No, me!”
“Go steady with me, please!”
“Can I start your fan club?”
“Marry me!”
“We’d best go in before the bell
rings,” said Sandi, glaring at the eager males who ignored her. “God, boys are
such immature animals. My two little brothers are. You got any brothers or
sisters?”
“No,” Quinn said as she shook her
head. “I’m an only child.” Remembering her father’s parting words, she reached
into her pants pocket, felt for her miniature cell phone, and turned it off as
she walked into school.
The Morgendorffers’ new residence in
Lawndale was a pleasant two-story home of red brick, with plenty of space.
Quinn’s mother, Helen, took over the guest bedroom on the first floor and
converted it into an office from which she could handle legal matters. Her
father, Jake, ran his consulting firm from a rented office in a nearby business
park, but he was proficient at operating right out of his briefcase, too, and often
made business deals sitting at the dining room table during dinner. Helen
frequently spoke with her boss, Eric, on the portable phone at the same time.
From Quinn’s point of view, this
arrangement was like eating by herself. She knew everything her parents were
doing, as they hardly left her company from the moment one of them picked her
up from school to the time they dropped her off again the next morning. She
doubted that either parent had a clue as to what she was up to, despite their
company and their questions about her day.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” her mother
exclaimed, shutting off her phone and setting it by her plate. “Thanks to all
this technology, we can have dinner together like a regular family!”
“Mmm-hmm,” mumbled Quinn, poking at
her lasagna.
“Wait, George,” said her father to
his cell phone, “I’ve got another call coming in. Hold on.”
“How was your day at school,
sweetie?” asked her mother.
“It was okay,” Quinn said.
“Did you get to meet a lot of other
kids?”
I’m not a kid, Quinn thought.
When will you stop calling me that? “It was okay.”
“That’s wonderful. Were there any
problems?”
Why do you always ask me if I’m
having problems? What’s up with that? “No.”
“Any good news?”
Quinn rubbed her nose and thought of
her new position with the Fashion Club. “Um, yeah. I guess.”
“Oh! What happened?”
“I met these other girls,” Quinn
began, “and they—”
Helen’s phone rang. Without missing a beat, she put down her fork, picked up the phone, and thumbed it on. “Morgendorffers’ residence. Oh, hi, Eric!” She put a hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s work again. I’ll be done in a moment.”
Quinn sighed and pushed her plate
away. “I’m not hungry anyway,” she said, getting up.
“Sweetie, you need to eat
something!” her mother called after her, then looked startled at something she
heard over the phone. “Oh, no, not you, Eric!” she laughed. “I wasn’t calling you
sweetie! I was talking to my daughter. What’s up?”
Quinn went upstairs, intending to
finish her homework in her room. However, she stopped with her hand on the
doorknob and looked down the hall to the door at the end, on the left. After a
moment, she released the doorknob and walked to the other door, opened it,
flicked on the light switch, and peered inside.
The dark room was horrid by any standards.
The previous owner had put her schizophrenic mother there in a desperate last
attempt to avoid putting her in a nursing home. Despite two cleanings, the dark
carpeting still smelled of urine, and the bars over the windows had not been
completely sawn off. The padding over the walls was scratched and badly worn in
places. The long handrail along one wall was coming loose, too. It was an
interior decorator’s equivalent of a nightmarish fixer-upper. It was perfect,
though, for storing things one would not need for months or years to come.
Quinn swallowed, feeling her gorge
rise because of the odor, but she forced herself to walk in. All around her,
against the walls, were piled the extra boxes of things they’d brought with
them from Highland, Texas. Many of them were stuffed with sports equipment her
parents had once meant to use, until the pressures of work erased most of their
planned vacations. Cartons of books and papers with labels like “TAXES 1994”
and “STATE LAW, VOL. XII-XVI” arose on either side, mingled with grocery sacks
filled with Christmas decorations and broken things her parents had always
meant to have fixed, but never did. The movers had filled the room the weekend
before, when the Morgendorffers had arrived.
Boxes of Quinn’s baby and adolescent
clothing were kept here as well. She recognized many of the containers, like
the one that held all of the baby shoes she’d ever worn, or the complete
collection of her pajamas from her birth year to 1990. Her fingers traced the
words on the thin box with her ballet outfit from third grade. She wondered if,
when she went away to college, her parents meant to start a museum devoted to
her.
Why don’t you give this stuff to
Goodwill or something? she had several times asked her mother and father. I
can’t use it anymore.
Oh, we couldn’t do that, they
always said. These are our treasures. Our memories. We always want to
remember you when we’re old and you’ve moved away. And you might need these for
your kids, you know.
I’m not having any kids for years,
I hope, she always said. This stuff is just sitting here getting moldy
and dusty and out of style. Why not sell it or give it away?
We couldn’t, they always
said. Just leave it. We want it here.
It was nice to know she was popular
and wanted, but it was overdone to the point of being weird. She had long
suspected there was something more to it, but she wasn’t sure what it was.
In the dark and secret places in her
mind, though, she had an idea.
Quinn’s eyes darted over the stacks.
The boxes she was looking for were not visible; that much, she had expected.
However, behind one particularly large stack of heavy boxes was a closet door.
What she sought was undoubtedly in there. If she tried to get in there now, her
parents might hear her moving boxes around, and they’d figure out what she was
doing, come up, stop her, and find something else for her to do. Later, they’d
secretly remove the things she was looking for, and she’d have to start hunting
for them all over again. It had happened like this once before, three years
ago.
She had been patient. The first part
of her search completed, she quietly left the room and went to her own. She
checked the house phone, found her mother still talking to her boss at the
legal firm, and hung up. Pulling out her cell phone, she dialed a number.
“Hello,” said a woman’s voice on the
other end. “Barksdales.”
“Hi, Aunt Rita,” Quinn said in
relief.
“Quinn!” the woman on the other end
of the phone said with delight. “How’s my favorite niece?”
Rita Barksdale was cheery and
talkative, one of those never-ending sources of warm support no matter what was
going on. She had been divorced twice but had never given up on love, to which
her long string of boyfriends attested.
“I’m okay,” Quinn said, in response
to her aunt’s question. “Same old, same old.”
“But you’re in a new school now,
aren’t you? Tell me about it.”
“It’s okay. I made friends with some
girls in a fashion club here. They made me the vice president.”
“Vice president? That’s my Quinn.
You’re going to outdo your mother in no time. What exactly does the vice
president of fashion do?”
“Well, the president, Sandi, she
said it was mostly a ceremonial post. I have to track fashion trends and report
on them at our monthly meetings, though.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” said
Rita. Quinn heard a liquid pouring sound in the background. Ice cubes clinked
in a glass. “You have any excellent sense for that sort of thing, just like
Erin.”
“How’s my favorite cousin?”
Rita sighed heavily. “She’s still
seeing that Brian. I’m a little . . . well, I’m sure it will work out. He’s
charming, certainly. I’d be happier if I knew a little more about his finances
or his actual job. I’d hate for her to rush into anything. She’s only
twenty-one, and she’s got more than a few assets. You can’t be too careful.”
“I know what you mean,” Quinn said,
but she rolled her eyes. Rita had never been known to give any of her
boyfriends an in-depth look. She knew Erin hated her mother’s choice in men,
once confiding to Quinn that a few of them had made passes at her. The best of
them were moochers, the worst of them actual criminals, like Bruno, currently
serving ten-to-fifteen at a federal corrections facility in New Jersey. How
Rita could pick them was a mystery to everyone.
“How my sis and Jake doing?” Rita
asked. Ice cubes clinked against the sides of a glass, and Quinn heard Rita
take a sip of something.
“Okay. Still working on business
stuff.”
“Kind of late for that. I’d think
they could take a break now and then, you know? When was the last time you went
on a vacation with them?”
“We went to Disney World last year.
That was okay. We had to come home early because Dad got a new client, but it
was okay while we were there.”
A sigh. “I don’t understand that.
You’d think they’d want to take you and get away from it all.” Quinn heard Rita
take another drink. “I can remember back when . . . anyway, you’d think they’d
want a little fun. Helen was always like that, though. I love her, don’t get me
wrong, but she does tend to overdo it.”
Quinn nodded, but she wasn’t
thinking about her mother’s workaholic aspects. “You said you remembered
something,” she said.
“What?”
“You were talking about Mom and Dad
wanting to get away from it all, and you remembered something, but you didn’t
finish what you were saying.”
“Uh . . . oh.” A glass clicked down
on a marble countertop two hundred miles away in Leeville, Virginia. “Oh,
nothing. Never mind. Helen and Jake used to go out more, that’s all.”
“Why did they stop?” I think I
know why. Tell me I’m right.
A nervous sigh. “I don’t know,” she
said, her voice unsteady, and Quinn knew at once that Rita was lying. “Things
just changed. I don’t know. Who knows.”
Quinn thought for a moment. “Is Erin
around?”
“No, she won’t be back until late
this evening. She’s at her attorney’s place, going over the papers over about
her trust. Do you want me to have her call you?”
“Sure, if you could. Thanks, Aunt
Rita.”
“Was there any particular reason you
called, dear?” Rita asked.
“Um . . . no, I guess not. I just
wanted to say hi. Oh, how’s Roger?”
“Roger? Oh, he’s fine. He’s doing a
special jump next week, trying for a skydiving record. I forget what it is, a
halo something or other.”
Quinn had a feeling that risk-taking
Roger would not be long in Rita’s love life. “Wish him luck from me,” she said.
“Good talking to you.”
“I love hearing from you, too, dear.
Tell your mother I said hello. See if she can fit me into her schedule and call
me one of these days, before the turn of the century if possible.”
“Sure. Oh, have you heard anything
from Aunt Amy?”
“Who?” Rita laughed again, but there
was an edge in her voice. “I haven’t heard from her in months. I don’t know
what she’s doing anymore. Still working with that publishing company, I guess.”
“Why doesn’t Amy call us?”
“I don’t know, dear. She’ll get
around to it one of these days. I’ve left messages for her I don’t know how
many times.”
So have I, thought Quinn. What’s
wrong with me that she won’t answer? Does she hate us? “Love you, Aunt
Rita.”
“Love you, too, dear. Have a good
night.”
“I will. Bye-bye.”
“Bye.” The ice in her glass clinked
one more time before the line went dead.
Quinn put down the phone and lay on
her bed on her stomach, hands under her chin, and stared at her pillows. Her mother
and father made it a point to have one of them in turn leave work and pick up
Quinn from school each day, usually pulling in the line of cars and buses at
two-thirty. They said they weren’t quite ready for Quinn to walk around town by
herself yet, and why bother walking when she had a free ride from either
parent?
Tomorrow, however, Quinn planned a
slight change in schedule. She would try to catch a ride home during lunch, as
walking home would not allow her the time she needed to complete her mission.
Ostensibly, she was going home to find a missing homework paper or something
similar. Her actual goal was quite different.
As she lay on the bed, she imagined
she could see through the wall separating her room from the ugly storage room
next door, into the closet where she was sure the boxes she sought would be
stored.
Perhaps it was time to store them
somewhere else. It was long past time to work out a long-nagging mystery in
Quinn’s life.
I’m an only child, she had
told Sandi Griffin.
But she suspected that was not
always so.
Sandi Griffin was a year older than
Quinn, having been held back a year in school by her mother, but she did not
yet have her learner’s permit. Some older members of the football team had
their driver’s licenses, but Quinn did not trust one to take her home without
discovering that he expected a reward for it. In the end, she settled on
somehow finding out who drove to school that morning. She had her father drive
her to school earlier than usual so she could scout the parking lot while
chatting outdoors with the Fashion Club, on the pretext of enjoying the warm,
early autumn morning.
Luck was with her. A tall, thin girl
with black bangs and a red jacket pulled into the student lot in a beat-up
four-door that had to be twenty years old, minimum. “Who’s that?” Quinn asked,
noting the tall girl’s boots and her black, limb-fitting outfit.
Sandi gave only the briefest glance
in the girl’s direction. “Who cares?” she said.
“I was curious,” said Quinn. “It’s
always good to know who’s who in school.” She was quoting her mother, the
lawyer: Know your judge and jury.
“That girl’s not so much a who as a
what,” said Sandi with a snort.
“Jane Lane,” said the pigtailed
Stacy Rowe. “She’s supposed to be an artist. She’s actually quite good with . .
. um, never mind! Sorry!”
“Outcast,” said Tiffany Blum-Deckler
with finality, checking her lipstick in her pocket mirror.
“I think even the outcasts cast her
out,” said Sandi. She pointed in another direction. “That’s Brooke. She’s more
our level, and she’s forever asking to join the Fashion Club. She always does
this right before she makes some gauche mistake like wearing mismatched
plaids.”
“Or any plaids,” said Tiffany
in a slow voice. “Eww.”
“Where did you get your earrings?”
Stacy asked, peering at the side of Quinn’s head. “Those are gorgeous!”
Quinn noted Jane opening her car
trunk and taking out a large box. After setting it on the ground and shutting
the trunk, Jane picked up the box and headed into school. Jane Lane. Easy
enough name to remember.
“That’s the bell,” said Sandi.
“Let’s show this school who’s hot today.”
Between classes in the morning, it
was child’s play to find out Jane’s schedule from a smitten boy helping out in
the main office. The period before lunch, Quinn placed herself outside the
sophomores’ history class and waited for Mr. DeMartino to dismiss his students.
If necessary, Quinn figured she could afford to be late for her next class by
up to a minute without repercussions.
The bell rang. The classroom door
opened moments later. After the initial out-flooding of students, the tall girl
in the red jacket came out wearing a backpack and a bored expression.
“Hi!” said Quinn brightly, taking a
step toward Jane.
“Uh, hi,” Jane said in return, startled.
She started to walk away.
Quinn immediately fell into step
beside her. “You’re into art, right?” she asked.
Jane looked back and forth between
Quinn and the crowded hallway ahead. She was clearly having trouble believing
she was having this conversation. “Yeah, that rumor’s gotten around a few
times. Why?”
“Well, I have an art project I left
at home. I feel so stupid. Do you have a car? Can you drive me home real quick
during lunch so I can get it?”
“Uh,” said Jane, and shook her head
as if to clear it. “Uh, I dunno. I’m borrowing my brother’s car today so I
could bring in a box of pottery clay for Ms. Defoe, and—”
“I’ll give you twenty dollars,” said
Quinn.
Jane slowed as she stared at Quinn,
almost stopping dead in the hall. She began walking normally a moment later.
“That must be one hell of an art project.”
“It is. Can you help me?”
“For a twenty, I’d drive you to
Oakwood. When do you want to go?”
“Can I meet you at your car about
eleven thirty-ish?”
“Sure. It’s a dark blue Plymouth
Satellite, third row back, about, uh, sixth car out from the school. It’s kinda
beat up, rusting out in back.”
“Thanks!”
“Hey,” said Jane. She put out a
hand. “Pay up front.”
Without hesitation, Quinn reached
into a pocket and pulled out the bills her father had given her the day before.
Pulling a twenty from the wad, she handed it to Jane, who took it, eyeing the
roll of bills with surprise.
“I’ll be there,” said Jane, and she
waved as she left for the cafeteria.
Jane was true to her word. Quinn’s
instincts said she would be. Mercenaries usually were.
“Aren’t you worried about hanging
around unfashionable people?” Jane asked as they got into the car.
Quinn wrinkled her nose. Something
must have died in the car several months ago, leaving only its odor behind.
“No, not really,” she said, speaking the truth. She had enough charisma to get
away with almost anything, and she knew it. She had begged off from lunch with
her fashion friends, saying she had to see her mother about family business.
Not one of them had questioned that story.
Jane stuck the key in the ignition
and started the car. As she put on her safety belt, she noticed Quinn’s
grimace. “Sorry,” she said. “My brother Trent left a ham sandwich under the
seat in August. I can’t get the smell out.”
“I think if you scatter baking soda
around, it will work. My aunt Rita says so, anyway. My cousin threw up in her
car once.”
“Sounds like the trick to try, then,
assuming we have any baking soda at home.” Jane pulled out of the parking space
and started for the exit. “My mom isn’t really into baking, unless it’s pottery
in a kiln. Okay, where do you really want to go?”
“Home,” said Quinn.
“But not for an art project,” said
Jane.
Quinn hesitated only a fraction of a
second. She could tell that Jane was no one’s fool. “No, not for that,” she
admitted. “I have to get something.”
“Don’t drink at school,” said Jane.
“The principal will be all over you like stupid on a football player.”
“I don’t drink,” said Quinn with a
frown. “And not all football players are stupid.”
“Eh, okay. I guess I know one or two
who aren’t. So, where do you live?”
“Eleven-eleven Glen Oaks Lane.”
“Oh, just a block or two over from
me. I’m on Howard Drive.”
“You’re really an artist?”
Jane gave a slight grin. “As I said
earlier, that rumor’s gone around. I mostly paint, but I’ll try anything once
if the price is right.” She pulled up to a stop sign. “Is this a secret
mission?”
Quinn hesitated too long.
“Never mind,” said Jane. “None of my
business. You want me to wait in the car while you run in?”
“No. Come on in. You can get
something from the frig for lunch if you want.”
Jane’s smile grew. “Hey, now that’s
an offer I can’t refuse. Thanks.”
“No problem.” Quinn was aware her
heart was racing. She was very close to filling in a blank spot in her family’s
life. For a long time, she’d felt this day would put her mind at ease and set
her free.
Instead, she had never been so
terrified in her life. Her hands were actually sweating, and she feared she
would throw up from the tension building within her. Did I once have a
sister, one older than me? Are those little things I sometimes remember
correct? What happened to her? Where did she go? Why don’t I know her?
Her stomach knotted. Hold on,
she whispered to herself, clutching her middle. Just a little longer. Hold
on.
They chatted on the way to Quinn’s
house. The conversation eased Quinn’s anxiety, taking her mind from her
unanswered questions and their consequences. She told Jane about her parents
and their peculiarities, glossing over most of her own life. Jane was
talkative, too. She had an older brother, Trent, who was in his twenties, lived
at home with her, and played guitar in a local grunge rock band Quinn. The Lane
parents and other siblings were usually absent, off on various artistic
pursuits, embroiled in dysfunctional family issues, or both.
“Here you are,” said Jane, pulling
into the driveway on Glen Oaks. “Nice place. Nicer than mine, unless that’s a
façade over an outhouse.”
Quinn threw open the car door, eager
to escape the stench of the long-decayed sandwich. “Let’s go,” she said,
running for the front door. “I don’t have much time.”
“This gets more interesting by the
minute,” said Jane, shutting her car door and hurrying after Quinn.
Quinn unlocked the door with her key
and pushed it open, immediately running up the stairs. After a pause, Jane came
in, shut the door behind her, and stomped up the stairs behind her.
Boxes covered most of the windows in
the room, dimming the light even at noon. Snapping the lights on, Quinn hurried
over to the place where the closet door was half-hidden behind a wide stack of
boxes. “Oh, damn it!” she hissed, trying to force the stack aside. She noticed
Jane coming into the room after her. “Can you help me with this?”
“You didn’t tell me where the
kitchen was.” Jane walked over, looking around. “What kind of room was this?
Smells awful.”
“I’d think you’d be used to bad
smells, with your brother’s car and all,” Quinn said. “Here, help me push this
over a little.”
“Is that a closet or the stairway up
to the attic?” asked Jane. She braced herself and grabbed the stack of boxes.
“Don’t know,” said Quinn. The stack
of boxes suddenly shifted and rocked. Jane was stronger than she appeared.
Quinn steadied the stack and pushed with Jane until it was safely to one side.
“Thanks,” she gasped. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I figured I owed you a little more
for the twenty.” Jane indicated the door. “Don’t forget the frig, though. You
first.”
Quinn took a breath and grasped the
doorknob. It wasn’t locked. She pulled the door open.
On the other side was a small,
nearly barren closet. The walls were painted a dull, dusty gray. Someone using
a sharp instrument had chaotically scratched hundreds of words into the paint. Quinn
read two lines in the semidarkness and made a face. “Eww!”
Jane peered at the writing while
Quinn turned her attention to the closet’s other contents. “‘Feel my barren
corpse pressed naked against the moon if you would love me,’” she read,
quoting. “Huh. I bet my brother could make a song out of that.”
“It’s gross. Don’t read it and I
won’t barf.”
“Find what you were looking for?”
“Yeah,” said Quinn. She grabbed for
three stacked boxes on the closet floor. Two of them she recognized, which set
her heart thumping. The middle box, the third, was unfamiliar and thus
frightening. She hauled the boxes out and put them on the floor of the storage
room. “Shut the door, and let’s shove this stuff back into place. Make it
exactly as it was.”
“Did you hide that stuff in here?”
“No, my parents did. Let’s go!”
“Okey-dokey.” Again, Jane proved
equal to the task. They left the room a few moments later with the boxes in
Quinn’s arms, their tracks covered.
Having accomplished her mission,
Quinn suddenly realized she didn’t know where to put the boxes. “Let’s go to my
room,” she said.
“This isn’t one of those drug
things, is it?” Jane asked, shutting the storage room door behind her.
“Oh, right!” said Quinn in
exasperation. “Give me a break! Close the door to my room when you come in.”
“Why? Is anyone else home?”
“Uh . . . oh. Forget it, then.”
Quinn set the boxes on her bed. “Sorry. Nerves.”
Jane looked around with mild
interest. “I think your wardrobe costs more than my parents’ house. Can you put
me in your will?”
“Sure. It’s nothing,” said Quinn.
She picked off the top box and carefully undid the tape on the top.
“Nothing,” Jane muttered to herself.
In a louder voice, she said, “Need help?”
“No. Just a minute.” Quinn finally
peeled the tape off and pulled the cardboard flaps apart. She peered in as
Jane, by her side, leaned over to take her own look.
Quinn swallowed. She carefully
reached down and pulled out a small, forest-green T-shirt, sized for a toddler.
She held it up, turning it from side to side. On the shirt’s front were the
words, “50% MOM, 50% DAD, 100% TROUBLE” in little white letters. She remembered
it from the last time she’d been in the box.
“Baby stuff,” said Jane. “Yours?”
Quinn slowly shook her head. “No,”
she whispered.
Jane looked at Quinn’s face in
silence for a long moment.
Setting the tee aside, Quinn delved
further into the box. She knew some of its contents from the time three years
ago when she’d accidentally discovered it in her parents’ bedroom closet in
Highland. She had been playing with the baby shoes inside when her mother came
in. Quinn still remembered Helen’s agonized cry, the speed with which her
mother had snatched away the box and the shoes, the angry shouts to never get
into her parents’ private things again.
But she had always thereafter
remembered the box.
Things came out of the box into the
open air of the bedroom. A teething ring with a Smurf on it. Three pairs of
white and pink infant shoes, and two pairs of toddlers’ shoes. Many small pairs
of socks, of every color. A pink, partly burnt candle in the shape of the
numeral one. A folded, powder-blue dress for a one-year-old. A small yellow
teddy bear with most of the fuzz worn off. A brown plastic horse that had teeth
marks on its head. A ticket to a children’s music concert. One pair of black,
elastic-waist, short pants for a toddler, big enough to encompass diapers. A
set of six Disney children’s books, three with purple crayon defacing the
covers. Five pink balloons. A glossy black pencil with the tip broken off,
teeth marks on it. A plastic cat in a colorful plastic racecar, a toy from a
fast-food restaurant. A pair of black, round-frame eyeglasses, sized for a very
small child, in a black leather case.
Three half-melted candles from a
birthday cake, wrapped in a small plastic bag.
Oh, my God! Quinn actually
staggered back a step and put a hand to her chest, staring at the three
candles. Her heart almost jumped
through her blouse.
The three candles. The birthday
cake. She remembered it. It was true.
Jane carefully reached into the box
while Quinn’s attention was diverted. She pulled out a small set of strung
beads, alternating pink and white in color, and held it up to her face. Quinn
looked over and immediately recognized it as a baby bracelet, of the kind
sometimes given out by the birth units of hospitals.
Frowning, Jane looked from the
bracelet to Quinn.
“Who is Daria?” Jane asked.
Quinn snatched the baby bracelet
from Jane’s hand without a word. She held it up in the palm of her left hand,
and with her right forefinger, she rotated the pink-and-white beads until the
alphabetical letters on them were in a neat row.
DARIA.
“Sorry,” said Jane. She took a step
back and waited.
Quinn stared at the bracelet and
licked her lips. “Daria,” she said hesitantly, pronouncing it “dare-e-ah.”
Jane shrugged. “I thought the first
syllable rhymed with car,” she said.
The bracelet was becoming difficult
to see in Quinn’s vision. She wiped her eyes with her right wrist and tried to
focus. Her throat hurt terribly. With infinite care, she laid the bracelet on
the bed, then picked up the candles, examined them, and set them down, too.
Bits of dried frosting still clung to their sides. Still in the box were more
assorted T-shirts and clothing items, carefully folded on the bottom. She
pulled the top one out—a bright orange tee with the legend “#1” on it in bold
white print—and on impulse held it to her nose. The smell was familiar. She
remembered it from the time three years earlier when she’d first discovered the
box.
“Someone you know?” Jane asked in a
low voice.
Quinn closed her eyes and inhaled
again, the tee pressed to her face. It had not been washed after it was last
worn. She could smell someone now. The scent flooded into her sinuses, into her
head, ran wild throughout her. It was a person, a child who smelled faintly of
scented bath soap and sour milk.
After a long moment, she lowered the
tee and looked at it blankly.
“My sister,” Quinn said, her voice
hoarse.
Jane looked down at the items on the
bed. “I thought you were an only . . .” She lost her voice, her face going
slack as she looked back at Quinn. “Oh,” she said.
Without expression, Quinn picked
lint from the tee and sniffed back a runny nose. She could feel her face
getting red.
“We should go soon,” Jane whispered.
“I’m not hungry.”
Quinn nodded. She folded the tee,
put it back in the box, and in moments had everything else in the box on top of
it. She put all three boxes under the bed, resisting the urge to open the
mysterious third box, which rattled a bit. Quickly, she threw some of her worn
clothing under the bed as well, to hide immediately discovery of the items.
Five minutes later, they were out of
the house. Quinn locked the front door and got into Jane’s car. She could hardly
smell the decaying odor, as her nose was completely stopped up. She felt for a
tissue in a blouse pocket but found none.
“You okay?” Jane asked, shutting her
own door, keys in her hand.
Quinn closed her eyes and shook her
head no. She put her right hand over her eyes, her elbow on the armrest on the
door, and sniffed in hard. In moments, the first sob broke free. More followed,
building until her body shook down to her feet. She howled, hands clutching her
face or digging into her scalp and tugging her hair.
Jane drove aimlessly for a time. The
landscape was a forgettable blur. Just before one o’clock, they went back to
the school. Quinn wiped her eyes on a handkerchief Jane gave her. She felt
something drop in her lap and looked down. It was a twenty-dollar bill.
“No,” said Quinn. She gave it back
to Jane, then got out of the car and brushed back her long orange-peel hair.
Dabbing a last time at her eyes, she walked around the car to Jane, who had
also gotten out at that moment. “Thank you,” Quinn said, handing back the
hanky.
“Sure,” said Jane, tossing the hanky
into the car’s back seat. “Anytime. Um, we’re pretty late.”
“Come up to the office with me,”
said Quinn. “I’ll fix it.”
Quinn fixed it. The principal, a
no-nonsense Asian woman named Ms. Li, melted under Quinn’s tale of how Jane had
given Quinn a ride to her mother’s place of business to ask if Helen could give
a special donation to Lawndale High’s Halloween Party fund. Quinn made a mental
note to ask her mother about the donation later, for real. No punishment was
assigned—with the understanding that a donation would indeed be forthcoming.
Ms. Li, apparently, would do anything for a contributor to the high school’s
many funds. She didn’t even ask why Quinn hadn’t asked for the donation at home,
or why she didn’t use a phone to call her mother.
Quinn and Jane then left the office
together and did not speak until they were two halls away.
“Do you take acting lessons?” Jane
asked.
“I used to,” Quinn said.
“You’ve got my vote for next year’s
Oscars.” Jane stopped at an intersection between two corridors. “I know you
can’t know me after this, but thanks.”
“For what?”
Jane shrugged. Her eyes met Quinn’s.
“Treating me like a regular person.”
Quinn looked at her for a long
moment, then nodded. “Thank you, too,” she said, and she started to leave for
her next class, already in progress.
“Let me know if you need another
ride,” Jane called.
Quinn turned and flashed a brief
smile. “I will.”
Focusing on schoolwork was
impossible. While her teacher talked, Quinn took a pen out in her English class
and wrote the words “Daria Morgendorffer” in her notebook, to see how it
looked. She wrote it a second time, then a third and fourth and soon had filled
the page with those two words. She mouthed the words as she did, feeling how
strange they were on her lips and tongue. Daria. What an unusual name. True,
Quinn’s own name was unusual, too. She didn’t know of anyone else named Quinn.
But why had her parents picked out Daria for her sister’s name? And what in the
name of God had happened to her sister?
Quinn stared into space and soon
fell backward in time.
She remembered the birthday cake.
As her English teacher droned on
about participles and their great value in modern language, Quinn sat at her
desk and retrieved one of the earliest memories she had. She did not know her
age at the time, but she was sure it was before she was three. She sat in a
high chair—she knew that because of the white tray in front of her. On a table
farther away was a birthday cake. She had the idea that there were dark stars
on the cake, perhaps as frosting decorations. On top of the cake were three lit
candles in a row.
It was not her third birthday party,
however. Her blonde Aunt Rita had been present for that, as had an assortment
of other three-year-old girls. Quinn had seen photos taken by her parents of
her third birthday party, and she had often wondered at the strained look on
her mother’s face in one of the pictures. Perhaps one of the other children had
been acting up.
Quinn’s birthday cake, however, had
been white with pink and blue flowers on it, not brown stars. The photos showed
this clearly. And her candles had been placed in a close triangle on top of the
cake, not in a line.
The first cake was thus someone
else’s. Quinn had once thought it was the birthday cake of a three-year-old
nursery-school friend she no longer knew. She did not believe that any longer.
Quinn remembered more of the
episode. She recalled a feeling of excitement on seeing the cake with the
stars. She knew that candles were placed on a birthday cake in order for
someone to blow them out. She wanted to be the one to do it.
Then someone else leaned over to
blow the candles out, someone on Quinn’s right. Little Quinn got up in her high
chair and blew first.
And she blew out the three candles.
Someone yelled in protest. It didn’t
matter. Quinn had blown out the candles. She’d won the race, and the victory
had felt quite good.
How old was I, then? Adrift
in timeless space, Quinn studied the faded images. Before three, perhaps before
two. What could she trust of her memory? Given the three candles in the plastic
bag, perhaps she knew more than she thought she did.
Other images swam to the surface.
She was very small and dancing for her father, who held a camera, but someone
else nearby was angry about it and did something with the camera. In another
memory was an open door from the dark indoors to the outside world. A bright
spring or summer day lay beyond a long series of steps leading down from the
door. Someone held the door open for her, but then her mother appeared in a
rush to shut the door. Don’t let her outside! her mother had shouted—at
whom?
Was that you holding the door
open for me, Daria? Were you trying to help me get outside to see the world?
Were you my sister? What happened to you? Was that your birthday cake I blew
out? If it was, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I took that from you. I’m so—
“Miss Morgenstern?”
Quinn blinked and looked at the
English teacher, who had appeared out of nowhere. He appeared very blurry.
“Miss Morgenstern,” Mr. O’Neill repeated, concern written over his face. He
lowered his grammar book. “Are you all right?”
“Hay fever,” said Quinn, wiping her
eyes on her sleeves. “I get it all the time. May I go to the restroom and wash
up, please?”
She was gone for ten minutes. Her
face and eyes were still red when she returned. Everyone stared.
I am so sorry I did that. Can you
forgive me, Daria? Where are you? Where did you go?
Her mother picked her up at
two-thirty sharp that afternoon. Quinn remembered her promise. “A donation for
a Halloween party?” Helen repeated, then shrugged. “Oh, I suppose. Most public
schools are strapped for funds these days. We could afford a little something.”
“A hundred at least,” said Quinn
quickly. “Better yet, two. We need drinks and snacks badly. I’ll get them to
put your name on something as the donor. And your legal office, too.” And
the Fashion Club’s name as well. Can’t forget them.
Helen brightened. “Eric would like
that!” she said. “It’s like advertising directly to our future customers! Such
as it were. We’ll do it!”
Quinn’s nerves began to fray as they
arrived home. “Time for homework!” she said with forced gaiety. Giving her
mother a fast hug, she casually walked up the stairs to her room, then locked
and bolted the door behind her. Seconds later, she had the three boxes out from
under her bed. After a bit of thought, she put two of them back. She knew the
largest box held more clothing. It could wait.
She sat on her bed with the third
box on her lap. It was a long time before she got the nerve to pry the packing
tape from it. She broke two nails in the process and didn’t care. The tape came
loose, ripping up the cardboard. There was no way to hide the damage. It didn’t
matter.
The box came open. It seemed to be
full of folders and papers.
On top of everything, however, was
an unmarked black videotape. Beside it was a small color photo, two inches wide
by three inches high.
Quinn picked up the photo, her mind suddenly
blank.
A small girl looked back at her, a
child about three years old with a solemn round face and dark, owl-eye glasses.
The girl’s thick hair was medium brown, cut in a pageboy style. She looked out
from the photo as if quietly waiting for someone to act. Her face gave away
nothing of who she was, what she was like, or what she thought. The T-shirt she
wore was bright orange and had “#1” printed on it in white. It was the very
same tee Quinn had lifted in her hands that afternoon.
Quinn knew the face in an instant.
She remembered it clearly now. It was the face of the person who sat on her
right when Quinn had blown out the cake candles. It was the person holding the
door open for her. It was the person who turned off the camera while Quinn was dancing.
With trembling fingers, Quinn turned
the photo over in her hands. On the back, someone had written a note with blue
ink. The precise handwriting was her mother’s. The note read:
Daria Morgendorffer, age 3½
Quinn was born in May 1983. Daria
had thus been a year and a half older.
“My sister,” Quinn whispered. “My
little big sister. What happened to you?”
A loud series of knocks rang out
from the bedroom door. Quinn jumped, and the box slid from her lap and hit the
carpeted floor. Even as the box came to rest, however, Quinn had snatched it up
to keep the papers and videotape from scattering in a mess across room. The
doorknob rattled—but the locks held.
“Wait a minute!” Quinn yelled in a
panic. “Wait!”
“Quinn?” called her mother, right
outside. “Are you all right?”
Quinn shut the box and jammed it
under her bed, hastily rearranging things to hide the box. She got to her feet,
ready to let her mother inside—and spotted the little photo of Daria, sitting
forgotten on her bedspread. Quinn snatched the picture, grabbed for her
oversized wallet, and stuck the photo in a picture slot between two other
photos, hiding it from view. Daria’s mine now, Quinn thought as she
snapped her wallet shut. You can’t take her from me again. She’s mine,
forever.
“What, Mom?” Quinn shouted.
“Open the door, please!”
Quinn snapped the locks open and
swung the door open just wide enough let her body fill the open space. “What,
Mom?” she said again.
Helen blinked, taken back by her
daughter’s tone. “Nothing, dear. I just wanted to know when you want supper.”
“I don’t care. Anytime is fine.”
“Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine, Mom. Everything’s great.
I’m doing homework.”
Helen looked past Quinn, around the
room. “I don’t see your books,” she said.
“I’m working on it, okay? It’s all
right. Stop worrying about me. I’m fine.”
Helen nodded. “Okay,” she said.
“Dinner at seven, then. Your father will be a little late with a client. Oh,
and I’ll be late tomorrow night working on a big case, but he’ll be here.”
“Fine, great.” Quinn shut the door.
After she heard her mother descend the stairs, Quinn threw the locks again and
went back to her wallet. She took out the picture of Daria again, examined it
closely, then closed her eyes and kissed the little girl’s face. “I love you,”
she whispered, and then put the picture away.
Aimlessly, she walked around her
room, arms hanging at her sides. She could not bear to dig through the boxes
again. The shock was too much. She needed time to think about what she’d seen
and what she knew. Making a last check of her room and the area under her bed,
she went downstairs.
“Hi, sweetie,” called her mother
from the kitchen. “How’s the homework coming?”
Quinn stood alone in the family
room, looking at the dark, big-screen TV. There was nothing good on the tube,
anyway. “I’m taking a break. Mind if I go out for a walk?”
After a pause, footsteps sounded
from the kitchen and Helen came out, a sheaf of papers in her hands. “Outside?
Why, dear?”
“I just wanted to go for a walk.”
Helen looked around the room,
appearing agitated. “We don’t know the community yet, sweetie. Why don’t you
watch some TV?”
Quinn knew this verbal dance very
well, but she wasn’t in the mood for it. “Come on, Mom. I just wanted to go
out.”
“Well, maybe you and I could go for
a drive before I make dinner.”
Quinn’s irritation built rapidly. “I
just wanted to walk around by myself, that’s all. Why can’t I go?”
“Call one or two of your friends,”
Helen said. The papers slowly twisted and crinkled in her hands. “It’s okay if
they come over.”
“Can’t I go out by myself?”
“It’s really getting late, Quinn.
Just call a friend. She can have dinner with us.”
Without the energy for a fight,
Quinn gave in. “All right,” she said, and she stalked back to her room, shut
her door, and lay on her bed, looking up at the canopy. She didn’t want
company.
She wanted answers.
In her mind, she opened an imaginary
pink notebook and began to write.
What
happened to my sister, Daria?
1.
The word Dead was erased as
soon as it was written in. Quinn knew it was a real possibility, perhaps even
the likeliest one, but it was too terrible to contemplate.
1.
She was kidnapped.
2.
She was given up for adoption.
She had to think before going
further.
3.
She was adopted to begin with, but was given back to her natural mother.
4.
Aliens took her.
She made a face and erased number
four from the imaginary notebook.
4.
Something else happened.
Maybe she was hidden to protect her
from enemies. Maybe she was in a hospital on life support. Maybe . . . Quinn
shook her head. Her parents had attached themselves too closely to Quinn to
allow for any interest they’d have in another living child. Number four was
erased.
The second possibility, of Daria
being adopted out, seemed unimaginable. No reason existed for putting up one of
two children for adoption when everything else was fine in a home.
A quick review of the list cast doubt on the first possibility, too. There were no milk-carton pictures of Daria anywhere, no posters, no televised “Have you seen this girl?” spots. Her parents would never give up hope of recovering a child. Never.
Unless . . .
Unless their missing child had been
found.
Dead.
Quinn’s hands flew up by reflex to
cover her face. “No!” she said aloud. “No. My sister is not dead. She is not.
She is alive.”
She lowered her hands, wishing she
had spoken with more conviction. Dumping the rest of that line of thought, she
moved on. Logic left only the third outcome. Perhaps that was it. Quinn’s
parents had adopted Daria, so she was actually Quinn’s stepsister, but somehow
things didn’t work out and she went back to the place where she came from, or
else her real parents came and got her. No wonder Helen and Jake never
mentioned Daria. The experience must have been very painful. Daria was probably
still alive, then, somewhere else. Should Quinn try to contact her?
Or . . . this was strange, but maybe
Daria Morgendorffer was actually Quinn’s cousin, from her father’s side of the
family. Maybe Daria had stayed with Jake and Helen for a couple years, for some
reason—family problems, most likely—and eventually went back to Quinn’s sole
uncle.
However, her uncle had never gotten
married. Plus, as far as Quinn knew from family talk, he had never had kids and
had never wanted them. He never saw the rest of the family, either, being
overseas as he was. Her father was not close to his brother and thought of him
as a jerk. The Daria-as-Quinn’s-cousin idea began to come apart like every
other idea she’d had. And why would Quinn’s parents keep Daria’s clothing and
toys hidden away all this time, if she weren’t their own child?
This chain of logic led again toward
that unwritten possibility, the most terrible outcome, but Quinn didn’t want to
dwell on that any longer. She shook her head hard and ran her fingers through
her hair.
When would Daria’s disappearance
have occurred? Quinn knew that by her third birthday, she was alone with her
parents. The family was still living in an apartment complex in Austin, as her
mother completed graduate school at the University of Texas and her father
worked at several nameless business firms. They moved to Highland before Quinn
was ready for kindergarten, in the summer of 1987. Quinn’s third birthday party
was at the apartment in Austin in May 1986.
So, Daria had disappeared in Austin,
Texas, sometime between April 1985, the date on the photo, and May 1986,
roughly between Quinn’s second and third birthdays.
Quinn wiped her sweaty hands on her
bedspread. Her chest hurt when she breathed, as if a steel band were tightening
around her ribs. If her own sister could disappear like that, then what about
Quinn herself? Could she vanish like that, too? What had happened? She raised a
hand and watched it quiver uncontrollably.
“Quinn?” It was her mother, calling
from the foot of the stairs.
“What?” she shouted back, unnerved.
“Is someone coming over?”
Glad to abandon thinking for a time,
Quinn got off her bed. “Just a minute!” she shouted back, and she pulled out
her cell phone. Company wasn’t a bad idea, now. She’d do anything to give
herself a break—but who to call? Power-queen Sandi? Neurotic Stacy? Vacant
Tiffany? Or all three?
Or Jane?
“Information,” said the woman’s
voice over Quinn’s cell phone. Her mother could listen in on the house phones,
but not on the cell phone.
“Lawndale, the Jane Lane residence
on, um, uh, Howard.”
“One moment, please.” A pause. “I
have a Vincent Lane on Howard.”
“Okay.” Pen ready, Quinn copied the
number down, hung up, and dialed it.
The phone rang a long time. As Quinn
was about to give up, the phone picked up and a voice came over the line.
“Huh?” said a sleepy-sounding male.
Trent—was that Jane’s brother’s
name? “Is . . . is Jane Lane there?”
“Uh,” said the voice, and after a long
yawn he said, “Nah.”
“When will she be in?”
“Uh . . . I think, uh, later.”
“Like when?”
“Um, I dunno. When she gets here.
She’s still at school, I think.”
“Still at school?”
“Some kinda class or something.”
Another long yawn.
“Okay. Look, could you tell her that
Quinn . . . oh, never mind. Thanks.”
“Okay.” The phone clicked off and a
dial tone came on.
Defeated, Quinn snapped her phone
shut and sat on her bed. That had been useless. She opened her phone and added
Jane’s number to the directory, just in case. Looking further up the list, she
picked out a name and poked the fast-dial buttons.
“Sandi Griffin,” said a girl’s voice
on the other end.
A second phone picked up. “Mojo’s
Mortuary!” said an adolescent boy, stifling a giggle. “You stab ‘em, we slab
‘em!”
“Chris!” yelled Sandi. “Get off the
goddamn phone!”
“Bite me, Boobular!”
“I’m telling Mom! I swear to God I
am! Shut up!”
“Kiss my butt, Boobs-a-lot!”
“You’re toast, you little bastard!
You are so freaking toasted! I’m calling Mom on my cell phone!”
The other phone hung up.
“Sandi Griffin,” the girl repeated
in a lower tone, huffing. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem. It’s Quinn. Doing
anything?”
“I’m planning a murder. Two murders,
if Sam gets into my room again.”
“Wanna come over? Nothing’s going on
here.”
“Uh . . . sure. I can’t do homework
here anyway with those little toads banging on my door, so that would be like
wonderful.”
“Bring Stacy and Tiff if they want
to come, too.”
“Oh, cool! I’ll call ‘em. Thank you
so much! You’re a lifesaver—like, for my damn little brothers. I hate them so
freaking much!”
You have them, though, Quinn
thought. They’re alive and living with you. How can you hate them? “I
can’t leave the house, but Mom said I could have company over.”
“Yeah, I remember you said she was
sort of paranoid. That bites, but, like, if you don’t mind the company—”
“No, that’s great! See you when you
get here!”
“You bet! Bye!”
“Bye!”
Even at the prospect of three more
girls coming to the house, possibly for dinner, Helen seemed relieved to avoid
the issue of Quinn’s going out. Quinn was relieved to stop thinking about the
Daria mystery, which threatened to tear her sanity apart.
Sandi arrived in only fifteen
minutes, followed by Tiffany and last by Stacy, who had to finish folding
laundry. All four were happily seated on the fluffy rug in Quinn’s bedroom,
trading school stories and sharing candy and fashion advice, when a cell phone
went off.
Quinn recognized the phone as hers.
She pulled it from a back pocket and snapped it open. The caller ID appeared on
the phone’s tiny screen, using the phone’s internal directory.
LANE, it said.
“Excuse me!” Quinn quickly go