Chapter 6 #2
But Elise cut me off before I could say how Mrs. Devereaux’s only interactions with us involved complaining about one thing or another. “Her mother owns Trés Elegance.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You know, the hair and beauty salon.”
I shook my head. Joe’s Quick Cuts was my go-to for haircuts, not some fancy salon. “I didn’t know that.”
“My aunt who owns the nail salon said Quinn’s mother is working there.”
“What? You mean her mother is a hairdresser?” My whole world view shifted in that instant.
That posh Annabelle Devereaux, who drove a new Mercedes and strutted around like she was better than everyone else, wasn’t a chief executive or something but cut hair for a job?
Okay, so she owned the business, but in simple terms she was a hairdresser. And yet she looked down on us?
I wondered if Dad knew that.
“Quinn seems nice,” Elise said with a tentative smile.
“She does?” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes because apparently my dog thought the same thing. Though to be fair, Elise didn’t have a mean bone in her body.
“I think she might be shy.”
“Ha! More like snobby,” I scoffed. “But is it true she moved to Snow Ridge High just because her parents divorced?” I repeated what Brayden had told me.
“Yeah, that’s pretty sad, isn’t it?” Elise said, full of sympathy. “It’s gotta be rough for her.”
“I guess,” I muttered, feeling bad that I hadn’t considered the impact of her parents’ breakup. I still struggled with my mother leaving ten years ago. Embarrassed, I changed the subject. “You can drop me around here. I can walk.”
“Noooo!” Elise exclaimed. “You go get your motorbike thingy and I just have to pop into the bookstore. Then we’ll go for donuts. We haven’t done that for ages. You want donuts, right?”
When Elise mentioned donuts, it was impossible to decline.
Her parents owned the Donut Shoppe in the food court mall and they were the best, not just in flavors but each one was a work of art in the way they decorated them.
Because it was a freebie, I chose a standard strawberry jelly one with white chocolate drizzle, and then bought one for Mason and grabbed Dad a peanut butter flavored one.
Dad loved peanut butter and I’d often catch him scooping a spoonful straight out of the jar, which is why he bought it in bulk.
“Your mom didn’t have to give a discount,” I said as we walked back to Elise’s car.
“Special price for my friends,” Elise said, mimicking her Mom’s accent. Mrs. Nguyen had moved from Vietnam when she was a little kid, but she still spoke with a bit of an accent.
“She’s cool,” I said, fleetingly feeling my own mother’s absence, the emotional tie severed years ago but nonetheless stirring something deep within me. Sometimes I wondered what she was doing and whether she thought about me and Mason, even just for a second.
“I’ll drop you home,” Elise said gently, and I realized there had been a gap of silence, that I’d gone inside my head for a minute.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely, you’d have to wait ages for a bus,” she said and she wasn’t wrong. The bus service out our way was infrequent. “Plus, I’ll be able to get a peek at where Quinn lives.”
“And here I thought you were actually interested in the Mustang,” I said, feigning disappointment, though the mention of Quinn’s name had once again sent my heart racing.
I never invited my friends over, mainly because our house was away from town and it was kind of small and we didn’t have a giant tv or the latest gaming console or fast wifi.
I did have everyone around for pizza and donuts on my 16th birthday but usually it was only Brayden who came over when we’d go ride trails.
“Of course I want to see it,” Elise said, pulling up to the front gate. “Oh, your Dad finished the garage.”
“Yep, all done,” I said, noticing Dad’s truck wasn’t home yet.
A garage was the first thing Dad added to our house after we moved in, and of course, Mrs. Devereaux had come knocking on our door to make sure he’d gotten a building permit and then made regular visits as if she was in charge of inspections.
“Looks great,” Elise said, her eyes averting to across the street to the ostentatious brick and steel archway which was way past its prime. “So, that’s Quinn’s house?”
“Uh huh,” I said, “you gonna drop by?”
“She’ll be at soccer practice now,” Elise said, flashing me a smile. “I’ll wait for an invite.”
“Good luck with that,” I mumbled, unbuckling my seat belt. “I’ll let you take a sneak peek of the Mustang but no touching.”
Elise rolled her eyes at my fussiness. Of course I was only joking, but she said, “What if I wear gloves, can I touch then?”
The front door was unlocked and I dropped my backpack and the donuts on the kitchen table and Elise followed me down the hallway where I shouted, “Mase, you here?”
A small voice came from the closed door of his bedroom. “Doing homework.”
I tapped and poked my head in. Mason’s back was to me as he sat at his desk in the small bedroom which had just enough room for a bed, a bookshelf and a chest of drawers.
“All good on the bus?”
“Yep,” he said, busy working on his laptop.
“Hi Mason,” Elise called out from behind me.
“Hi.” Mason shouted back though I wondered if he knew who it was.
Elise oohed and ahhed over the progress of the car, though I wasn’t sure she truly understood how much work had gone into it. “You and your dad are doing a great job.”
“We’re getting there,” I said. “But I need to fix my bike so I can ride it next week. I’ve had enough of the bus.”
“It hasn’t even been a week,” Elise said with a laugh.
I lowered my voice, not that Mason would be able to hear. “I think Mase is gonna be fine. He’s got a friend he meets.”
“Well, that’s cool.”
“Quinn takes the bus too, you know,” I said. “It’s kind of weird because she has a Jeep.”
“Really?” Elise raised her eyebrows but I couldn't tell if she was shocked about the car or the fact that Quinn was slumming it on the bus.
“Yeah. A brand new one,” I added, a little snark slipping in. “But I haven’t seen it around lately.”
“Well, you know, maybe she’s just immersing herself in the Snow Ridge High experience,” Elise said, which sounded like misplaced optimism.
“By taking the bus?”
“I don’t know.” Elise shrugged good-naturedly, suggesting a simple solution. “Why don’t you ask her? You see her everyday.”
I scowled, not happy with the practical notion of speaking to her. Nor the realization that I was a hypocrite—no better than the kids on the bus, fueling gossip about Quinn.
Elise cooed with sincere appreciation after I showed her the before photos of the car. “Wouldn’t it be awesome arriving to prom in this?”
“Prom?” I faltered, a strange tingle shooting through me, because at the mention of that word, Quinn Devereaux flashed through my mind.
Like, just appeared in my brain, an image of her in the short blue and white dress and the clean, white sneakers she’d worn on the bus today, and her hair tied up like a ballerina.
Weird. Too weird.
I pointed to the passenger door, desperate to change the subject. “Just waiting for a handle to arrive,” I said. “It was a heck of a search to find one to match.”
I rambled on about how we’d had to check dozens of websites to find some other parts we were waiting on, fooling myself that Elise was even the tiniest bit interested in wiper blades and sun visor brackets.
At the first break in conversation, she said she should get going.
I was kind of relieved, annoyed with myself for babbling and annoyed with Quinn Devereaux who was somehow still locked in my brain.