Page 58 of Through Quick and Quinn
…Q
Quick:
At Least for Me
I was determined to make Quinn’s birthday a day to remember, just as she did for me. Between the Fourth of July and her birthday on the eighth, I had very little time to plan, but I wanted to get it right. By the time her big day rolled around, I was feeling fairly confident in the loose plan I formulated and even more so about the gift I picked out for her. I told her to be ready by ten o’clock, and when I rode up to her house at 9:53, she was already waiting outside. She did a little dance when she saw me turn the corner, and my face broke out into a huge grin. “She’s literally a living exclamation point,” I laughed to myself as I rolled up next to the sidewalk.
Having mastered the handlebar-riding technique, Quinn hopped right on and we took off for downtown. We had already learned that trying to have a conversation while riding was futile, so I focused on safely delivering my precious cargo while having to lean to the left to avoid her wind-blown hair smacking me in the face.
When we came to a stop sign under the entrance arch of downtown, she thought she had the whole day figured out. “+ + +oh, are we headed back to the bookstore? Getting hot chocolate?”
“Please, girl. Give me some credit.”
She laughed at my response. “What? I wouldn’t mind a do-over of that day. It was so much fun!”
“Yeah, but this will be more fun. Let’s go.” I helped her off the bike and we walked a block to our first destination. I purposefully watched her so I could see the lightbulb turn on in real time, and it thrilled me to no end when I did indeed catch a glimpse of it. She read the sign, “Rent-a-Ride,” and then slowly looked around at the small lot loaded with scooters, bikes, and even a few golf carts. It took her a second, but sure enough, her eyes became the size of saucers and they twinkled like disco balls.
“Am I going to learn how to ride a bike today?” Her face practically exploded with excitement. “I was thinking about how I need to learn how to ride a bike because it’s totally absurd that I don’t know how, and then I could ride with you places and you wouldn’t have to carry me around. But I don’t mind the handlebars so we could still do that, too!”
I smiled at her. But not so much at her or for her, but more so because smiling was something that automatically happened when I looked at her. Quinn’s enthusiasm was contagious. Her zest for life was infectious. And I was consciously aware that I wanted to spend as much time as I could drawing from that enthusiasm and sharing in that zest.
Helping her learn how to ride a bicycle was a cross between an epic disaster and a successful adventure, not to mention a total ten on a comical scale. As expected, since Quinn tended to voice whatever thought popped into her head at any given moment, there was an ongoing first-person narration of her experience. “So do I sit first or put my feet first? Does it matter which foot is on the lower pedal? Do I have to start with one pedal up and one pedal down, or is it okay if the pedals start at the front and back, like parallel to the ground? What is this lever for? Oh, is it the brake? I thought pushing back on the pedal made it stop. Wait, do bikes reverse? No, oh my gosh, I can’t believe I just said that. I would just turn around, never mind.” And all of that was before she even moved the bike an inch.
After a couple of hours, she got the hang of it. She would wobble a bit and have to slam her foot down on the ground, but she was getting from Point A to Point B. She did run into a mailbox at one point. She was so focused on not hitting it that she ended up staring at it until it basically smacked her in the face. Like I said, comical. And the way she would slough it off, laugh at herself, get right back up, and keep going? Downright admirable. And it made it okay to laugh with her when she would bail, which was a relief, because watching her learn to ride a bike was funny as hell.
When we passed by an old-fashioned mom-and-pop diner, I asked her if she wanted to take a break and have some lunch. As we parked our bikes and headed inside, my stomach did a little flip. I was slightly nervous to give her the birthday gift, even though I knew she would love it. We ordered our food and grabbed a seat by the window while we waited to eat. She was people-watching and didn’t notice that I placed a small box with a bow in front of her.
“Happy birthday, Quinn,” I said. She turned her attention to me and immediately noticed the box.
“What is this? I thought we said no gifts!”
“We never said that. I said no gifts for me. We never specified any rules about gifts for you.” I winked. That always seemed to affect her, and I loved knowing that. “I hope you like it.”
“I will love it, Quick. Thank you.” She meant it. She really would love anything. I could have given her a cracked, empty snail shell and she would have thanked me for shell-ebrating her and being her favorite partner-in-slime.
She carefully removed the bow from the box, surely because she intended to keep it. She opened the box to see a stone peeking out from under an informational tag. Silently and intently, Quinn read the particulars about the Super Seven crystal, which I learned was composed of amethyst, clear quartz, rutile, lepidocrocite, cacoxenite, goethite, and smoky quartz. I couldn’t even pronounce half of them but she seemed to recognize each name. The lady at the crystals store told me that the Super Seven was supposed to soothe one’s energy when overwhelmed by feelings, and I felt like that was a good thing to get for Quinn. She was an empath so surely she was often “overwhelmed by feelings.”
Quinn reached over to grab my hand from across the table. “I’ve read about these, Quick. Supposedly they are super helpful with charging and balancing the chakras system. And they can be channels for manifestation, too. How did you know of such a thing? Where did you find this?” The way her eyes glistened showed me how much the gift meant to her, which in turn made me feel like I was on top of the world.
“There’s a cool crystals shop on Second Street. I poked around until the woman who worked there asked me if I needed help. So I told her all about you, and that’s what she suggested.” I pointed at the stone, which was clearly her new most prized possession given the way she was gazing at it and holding it to her heart.
“You told her all about me? Like what?” she asked.
I felt my cheeks go warm. I stammered some inaudible response and she thankfully let me off the hook.
“This is the most thoughtful gift, Quick. Thank you.” She smiled a grateful grin. To know that I was the reason behind her smile was honestly one of the best feelings in the world. Maybe even the best.
“You’re welcome. I was thinking we could go over to that shop today if you’d like. I’d love to get you something else, something you’d pick out.”
“Oh, Quick, this is exactly what I would pick out.” And with that, she winked at me. Or at least tried to. She failed, and ended up twitching her face into some bizarre contortion, which of course brought about another one of our classic fits of laughter. It must have been contagious because when the waitress brought over our food, even she started to giggle.
Over lunch, Quinn brought up the fact that Mandy had been reaching out to her via text for a few months, and how at first Quinn was skeptical, but she was starting to think Mandy really did want to reignite the friendship. She must have seen the dubious look on my face because she asked, “Do you not think she’s being authentic?”
I carefully responded, “Do you think she’s an authentic person?”
I could see her wheels spinning. Without a doubt, she was questioning if it was even possible for an unauthentic person to be authentic. And where Mandy fell on the spectrum of authenticity.
“Hmmmm…I’ll have to get back to you on that one. But what I can tell you right now, Quick, is that I am super impressed with the lunch you ordered! Grilled chicken? A fruit bowl? Nice!” She reached over to grab a piece of pineapple. It was a perfect segue for me to tell her all about my latest deep dive into the secrets behind foods, more than just sticker codes and poisonous coatings, and how my job at the produce department opened my eyes to rabbit holes I did not even think twice about before. When I told her that there were dozens and dozens of foods in America that were banned in other countries, she was visibly surprised. We chatted about the possible reasons behind it, and the surprise quickly transformed into disgust. I knew the exact feeling she had in that moment, so I turned the conversation in a new direction.
