Page 35 of Finders Keepers
I’ll admit that I’ve never completely stopped caring about Quentin, unable to fully give him up no matter how many years passed without a word. There’s part of me that wants to lay a hand on his arm and ask him what’s going on. If I’ve done something wrong. But I need to keep my distance. I can’t let him start to mean something to me again.
“See you next week,” I say. I’m deciding right now that I will not intentionally see Quentin until I absolutely need to for treasure-hunting purposes. This boundary feels necessary, not only to keep Quentin from thinking I want to spend time with him, but to protect myself. Because if I’m not careful…Well, that’s how I got hurt seventeen years ago, isn’t it?
Which is why, even though I linger downstairs until after my parents go to bed, and even though I press my ear against the wall their house shares with Quentin’s, and even though music drifts ever so slightly through the layers of plaster andwood separating our living rooms and I can hear Quentin singing along enthusiastically, and even though he’s probably standing on a ladder, back muscles tight as he reaches up to run his paintbrush over the edge of the blue tape cordoning off the wall from the ceiling, I do not give in to the urge to go over there and offer him my assistance. Because unlikesomepeople, Nina Hunnicuttcanlearn a lesson.
15
My Monday morningstarts off inauspiciously, with a rejection email from a long-term boarding school sub job I had high hopes for arriving minutes after I wake up.Unfortunately, you do not meet our minimum qualifications, it says, which is not only disheartening but baffling because I’m pretty sure I exceeded all of the ones listed in their posting. Then there’s a text from a former Malbyrne history department colleague around nine, expressing her distress that my contract wasn’t renewed and that they gave me such late notice of the fact. Which is kind of her, I guess, but it also reignites my anger over the whole situation, which had taken a back seat during the whole Cole debacle and, until now, had mostly presented itself as disappointment and worry. So I thank her when she says she’s going to put in a good word for me with a friend at Williams—a nice but futile gesture. Then I throw my pillow across the room. It knocks a porcelain ballerina figurine my grandmother gave me when I was six from its spot on the edge of a shelf, andI watch the girl’s head come clean off as it hits the floor at an awkward angle.
On my way to the basement to deliver the broken figurine to my dad in hopes he can glue it back together, I overhear my mom on the phone with one of my aunts, talking about how I’m home now and probably will be through the summer “at the very least.” I’m annoyed by both her lack of faith in my prospects and how correct she probably is, which prompts me to close the fridge a little too forcefully in annoyance after getting the almond milk out for my cereal, resulting in being reprimanded like I’m thirteen again. And, to be fair, I am acting like a teenager, so I don’t really blame her. It doesn’t stop me from rolling my eyes and stomping back upstairs anyway.
I need to go to Sprangbur with Quentin for our second tour today, even if my brain is telling me it would be better to stay in bed and alternate between napping and catastrophizing. Because there’s a chance that we’ve already cracked this, that the treasure will be beneath the area where the Whale portrait used to hang in the Star Parlor. Depending on what we find, it’s possible we can be done with this. Then I will have a bit more money to get out of this town and rebuild my life. The thought isn’t quite as rejuvenating as I’d hoped, but it’s enough to get me downstairs and outside to meet Quentin.
“Nice car,” I say as I climb into the passenger seat of the shiny black Audi A7. I don’t know anything about luxury vehicles, but I’m assuming this is one based solely on the fact it has multiple touchscreens. I only mention it to make conversation about something innocuous. Well, and also because I’m only slightly less nosey than my mom. How did Quentin wind up with such an expensive ride? This can’t be the car he had whileliving in France, can it? How much would it even cost to ship over here? And if it’s a newer purchase, or a lease, why? Does Quentin have the kind of savings that allows him to afford something like this while unemployed? Just how much money is in international business law anyway? Inquiring (former) low-paid college professor with ten-year-old Hyundai Elantra minds want to know.
“Yeah,” he says after a brief silence in which he monitors three young children chasing a cat across the street ahead, making sure to slow down to allow them safe passage. “It’s actually my sister’s. She’s letting me borrow it in exchange for babysitting whenever she needs me for the next ten years.”
“How is Lexi these days?” I don’t addbesides financially comfortable enough to have a high-end car that’s apparently so nonessential to her daily life that she can lend it to her younger brother for a few months, though it’s definitely what I’m thinking.
“She’s good. She’s a software engineer and her partner is a VP at a tech startup that’s in the process of selling for a decent chunk of change. Two-year-old twins and a baby on the way. Lives in Pittsburgh right now, but they’re talking about moving back to Maryland soon.”
“Wow. So she’s doing like the exact opposite of how we’re doing,” I joke.
He sighs. “As my mother enjoys reminding me whenever we talk lately.”
Ouch. Poor Quentin. It isn’t difficult to imagine Dr. Bell being critical of his current circumstances. I remember her being almost coldly logical. Probably a helpful attribute for a research scientist, but it didn’t make for a particularly affectionate or understanding partner or parent. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she doesn’t believe in things like bad luck, only cause andeffect. Surely, in her mind, Quentin must have done something to bring this all upon himself. She probably thinks he didn’t work hard enough to keep his job. Didn’t love hard enough to keep his fiancée.
“Hey,” I say softly, and my hand starts to rise of its own accord, wanting to land somewhere comforting. But I know that’s a dangerous instinct, so I let it fall back to my lap, then brush away an imaginary speck of lint from my shorts.
“No, it’s fine. That’s just how she is. I came to terms with it a long time and about a hundred therapy sessions ago.” There’s a notable period of silence as we navigate through downtown. He doesn’t want to talk about his family anymore. Which is fine, because we’re here to find some treasure, not have the types of intimate conversations friends have.
Yet by the time we turn onto Carmichael Chapel Road, I’m desperate to clear the tightness from his jaw. Before I even think it through, I turn my head and say, “So, is this baby fast?”
I can’t believe I just said that. I have never once referred to a car as a baby in my life. It feels wrong coming out of my mouth. Which is probably the real reason why a slow smile spreads across Quentin’s face.
“Fast enough, I’d imagine,” he says.
“Bet you won’t go above a hundred.” I can’t believe I’ve said that either. In what world do I dare Quentin to drive dangerously?
The challenge must take Quentin by surprise too, because he turns to look at me for a split second, eyebrows raised, before looking back at the road. And then he floors it.
We’re both jerked back as the car accelerates quicker than either of us is ready for. The digital speedometer climbs to one hundred and one as we hit the longest straight stretch of the road, then falls as Quentin coasts us the rest of the way to Sprangbur.
He clears his throat and pulls into a parking spot along the edge of the grounds. And that’s when I realize that, at some point during that silly little dare, I grabbed onto Quentin’s leg, right where the hem of his shorts ends and the wiry hair of his thigh begins.
Oh my god. I even left pink crescents in his skin with my fingernails. “Oh. I’m…sorry about that.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I, uh…You made a really fun sound I’ve never heard before. Kind of…Eeeeeeeeep. Like a Muppet.”
“I did not.”
“I would say I’ll floor it again on the way back to see if you’ll repeat it, but honestly that was way more harrowing than I expected.”
“Yes, let’s not,” I agree as I get out of the car, my legs wobbly as if they aren’t sure what speed to expect when I start moving. “I don’t know what I was thinking. We could have died.”Hey, at least we would have died with my hand on Quentin’s thigh and a smile on his face, an incredibly fucked-up voice in my head says. That must be Unhinged Nina. I am in no way interested in spending time with her right now. I direct my focus to the Castle, trying to will my hand to stop doing a Darcy-esque flex in memory of having touched him. “It’s still surreal that we actually get to go inside this place now. Legally.”
“It’s really something,” Quentin says, staring at the towering asymmetrical building. “Somehow exactly and nothing like I expected.”
After Fountain’s death, his mansion—under the care of the newly established Sprangbur Conservancy—was used as the local library for about a decade before the much larger current building was constructed downtown. It then did a short stint as the town’s historical society before the Conservancy, hoping toincrease their income, decided to rent portions of the Castle out as offices to various other nonprofits. Except the upkeep was way too expensive to be paid for with what they could reasonably charge as the aging building became less and less desirable (especially after the blizzard of ’96 caused the Conservatory’s roof to cave in). The tenants all left at the end of their lease terms, and the place fell into utter disrepair. There was a brief legal battle in the late nineties, when a developer tried to buy the land. That drew attention to the property for the first time in a while, and a new generation of leadership at the Sprangbur Conservancy began making plans to renovate the Castle to its original splendor. That’s when they teamed up with Aera-Bev to offer the reward. But they’d hit a lull in their fundraising when Quentin and I were hunting for the treasure the first time around, having raised enough to keep the gardens and outbuildings in order but not enough to tackle the house yet.
