Page 6 of Finders Keepers
Quentin stares at me, his lips slightly parted. He looks…stunned. Did he truly have no idea I’d still have some lingering emotions around what happened between us? Or maybe he assumed I would never let them show. It reminds me of theconversation I had with Cole when I confronted him. How he seemed so taken aback that I was upset about his gigantic lie by omission. Bewildered that I cared enough about our relationship to go through the trouble of ending things.
Maybe everything that happened between us didn’t matter that much to Quentin, but surely he can’t bethatsurprised to find out it mattered to me.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“For what exactly?”
“For…” His sentence stalls out, as if he isn’t sure how to describe exactly what happened.For saying it was all a mistake. For ghosting you after I moved away. For reappearing in your life at one of the very worst possible moments.So many ways he could complete the thought, and yet he chooses a noncommittal gesture, a half-hearted wave that seems to imply the brushing aside of the past as if it were nothing but a tiny, annoying gnat.
“Very convincing apology,” I say with an eye roll.
His eyes drop to his feet—which I’m now noticing are bare—before coming back up to meet mine. He doesn’t say anything more.
I don’t have the emotional, mental, or physical energy left to continue on this journey to a destination I don’t really need to revisit anyway. “Good to see you too,” I lie briskly. “But I better get going. Had a long day. Good night.”
And, as I go back into my parents’ house, I let the old storm door slam behind me—the sound acting as an audial punctuation mark, ending the conversation.
4
Iawaken in themorning, immediately aware of two things: My eyelids—along with most of the rest of my face—are puffy and painful, and I am buzzing with a renewed sense of determination to put Pathetic Nina away and start figuring out how to get my shit back together. For pride reasons.Notso I can get out of town ASAP to decrease the likelihood of having to talk to Quentin again.
I figure a splash of cool water will help with the former until I can get to Target and purchase several heavy-duty face masks to restore a bit of the moisture I’ve been shedding willy-nilly.
As far as the latter, well, I guess the first step is to figure out where Ambitious Nina has run off to. She’s the version of me who is determined, driven, and mature. She makes lists and plans, and her goals are always Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. She’s successful and intelligent and absolutelynotsomeone who cries multiple times a day. That’s the person I’m used to being, the one I’ve been for mostof my life. Even if she’s currently difficult to locate, I’m sure there’s still enough of her somewhere inside me to get the ball rolling on the whole getting-out-of-Catoctin thing.
After getting dressed, I open my bedroom door to head to the bathroom and am greeted by my mom’s distinctive laugh—a twinkly, melodichaHA!punctuated with an incredible gooselike honk—drifting up the stairs. Yesterday, that familiar sound might have felt like a kick in the teeth—a reminder of the very long chute I’ve slid down in the Chutes and Ladders game called life (which is also the name of a game, so actually that’s kind of confusing). But this lovely early June morning, fully convinced that I may only be a single lucky spin away from another ladder that will take me straight back up to the top of the board, Mom’s laughter brings a smile to my face. Because now, with every intention and hope of getting back on track, I can think of this as simply a nice and admittedly overdue visit with the lovely people who raised me. A vacation of sorts.
Just as I wouldn’t allow a storm to ruin a weekend at the beach, or a lost suitcase to keep me from enjoying a trip to Madrid, I’m not going to let my circumstances—and especially not Quentin Bell’s sudden reappearance next door and torpid non-apology—cast a shadow on this quality time with my family, however unexpected.
So, while brushing my teeth, I imagine all of the places I might encounter Quentin and how to coolly handle each hypothetical situation. Washing my face and applying copious moisturizer, I settle on a potential greeting: “Hi,” but delivered with scathing disinterest. The need to find the exact perfect combination of hostile yet detached words to show him how little I care gives me an excuse to take an extra few minutes to adddefining cream to my blonde curls instead of throwing my hair up into yet another frizzy bun. My full speech is finalized by the time I put on my glasses and apply a swipe of tinted lip balm.
The version of myself in the mirror this morning looks a lot more like the one I remember being before everything started going wrong. Quentin’s presence (or lack thereof) had no effect on the life I worked so hard to build, and it doesn’t need to have anything to do with my ability to rebuild it now. What does it even matter if we’ve found ourselves temporarily living beside each other again? It doesn’t mean we have to be friends. If I can’t avoid him, I’ll treat him with the same icy politeness I would a door-to-door salesman.
And while I put away Pathetic Nina and await the eventual return of Ambitious Nina, maybe I can be an interim version of myself, one made for this particular moment. I can be Badass Nina, who wears real clothes and washes her face and isn’t at all hung up on the distressing things that happened to her this past week, much less the ones that happened a lifetime ago.
I hold my head high as I descend the stairs. Because Badass Nina is cool, calm, and collected. She is a duchess making her entrance at the season’s grandest ball. Grace personified. A goddamnswanof a woman.
Mom sits at the dining room table, a floral stoneware mug cupped in her hands. It looks a little off-kilter, like something she must have made herself at one of the many art classes she’s been taking since she retired last December. She smiles beatifically as I appear. “There she is,” she says.
“Here I am,” I respond in a matching singsong voice.
“There you are,” Quentin says.
Wait, what?
I blink a few times. I must be hallucinating. Or dreaming.But no, Quentin’s still here, in real waking life, sitting opposite my mother at the table and cupping a slightly wonky mug of his own. Quentin in the dining room is even more surreal than him on the porch last night, a sort of fun house mirror reflecting a distorted version of the past. He used to sit in that exact chair whenever he would come over for dinner or to work on school projects. Back then he was slender and not much taller than me, wearing two-sizes-too-large band tees with hair so shaggy he was constantly having to swipe it away from his eyes. He wasn’t this…this…man, with his meticulous grooming and button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up and pale, freckle-dusted forearms taking up an unnecessary amount of space in my house.
I mean, myparents’house. That I am visiting. Briefly.
Luckily, Badass Nina prepared for this moment. Not for Quentin being in the dining room when she walked down the stairs, of course, but the general strategy still applies. I open my mouth, ready to deploy my uninterested “Hi.” Instead it comes out as “Ho…there? Howdy. Good morning.”
Fuck.
Well. Rest in peace, Badass Nina. June 8, 8:50 a.m., to June 8, 9:15 a.m. The lights that burn brightest truly burn fastest.
Quentin manages to keep a straight face despite the absolute nonsense I’ve just blurted out. “Ho there, howdy, and good morning to you as well,” he says with the solemnity of a faith leader greeting his congregation.
Okay, okay. New plan! It isn’t perfect but it will have to do: yawn wide, state my immediate need for coffee and food, and hide in the kitchen. Forever.
