Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
I finally responded to my sister’s email on Saturday afternoon after a great deal of procrastinating.
I slept in ‘til nine thirty, then laid on the futon for another twenty minutes thinking about Quinn Sullivan’s lips of magic and mystery.
I decided, on an odd whim, to go for a run along Lake Michigan.
The weather was still nice, especially for late September, and the wind felt clarifying.
I distracted myself with sights of Millennium Park, the Aquarium, the Natural History Museum, and I reflected on my city.
There is something really special about Chicago.
Chicago is the proverbial middle child of large U.S.
cities. Some might consider this analogy only in reference to Chicago’s geographic location in the middle of the country.
However, the analogy is multifaceted; like most middle children and like books between elaborate bookends, Chicago can sometimes be easy to overlook.
It is smart and genuine, but it is always compared, for better or for worse, to its older and younger siblings, New York and Los Angeles.
It’s the less notorious but smarter sister to New York; it’s the less ostentatious but considerably more genuine sister to Los Angeles.
It is breathtaking and beautiful and yet somehow caught in the blind spot of popular consciousness.
I’ve always wondered if Chicago prefers to shy from the onerous and usually dysfunctional limelight of notoriety. I hypothesize that it is more than content to be smart, genuine, and breathtaking, without attracting the attention that plagues cities that are notorious and ostentatious.
On my way back, I picked up coffee from Starbucks and indulged in my incessant Quinn Sullivan obsessing.
Eventually, I stopped outside of Utrecht Art Supply and accomplished window-shopping.
When I arrived home, I found Elizabeth cleaning the kitchen.
I felt a little disappointed; I had been planning on spending time procrastinating by tackling that exact chore.
Instead, I took a shower and shaved everything that could be shaved.
I plucked my eyebrows then decided to give myself a pedicure.
Elizabeth eyed me with suspicion as I sat on the couch and propped my foot on the coffee table. I attempted to ignore her pointed gaze.
After a period of tense silence, she said, “So, what do you need to do that you don’t want to do?”
I huffed, liking and disliking that she knew me so well, and confessed. “Jem sent me an email.”
“Jem?” Elizabeth didn’t suppress her surprise. “When?”
“On Thursday.”
“What does she want?”
I uncapped the nail polish remover and applied a liberal amount to a cotton ball. “She wants to visit.”
“Who?”
“I’m guessing me. She said she wanted to see me.”
She shook her head. “This is so strange. She doesn’t even like you.”
I shrugged. “I know.”
It was true. My own sister didn’t like me.
It wasn’t that we didn’t get along; Jem just didn’t seem to like anyone.
Sometimes she pretended to like people but only for as long as was necessary to obtain what she needed from them.
I felt that there was a distinct possibility that she was a sociopath.
Abruptly I placed the cap back on the nail polish remover and pulled out my laptop. I needed to rip off the Band-Aid of fretfulness and just answer her damn email. I responded:
Jem, I’m in town all next week, but will be gone part of the week after for a business trip. When do you plan to arrive? How long are you staying? Do you want to see or do anything in particular while you are here? Let me know the details when you are able. Talk to you soon, Janie
It seemed benign enough, but I was pretty sure it would annoy the hell out of her. She didn’t like confiding her plans even when they directly affected someone else.
That issue settled for now, I decided to email Jon about dinner. Even though Steven couldn’t make it, I felt compelled to keep my dinner arrangements with Jon, especially after cancelling two times in a row. As I began composing an email, something in my vicinity began to chime.
I stopped typing and looked to Elizabeth in confusion. “What is that? It sounds like an ice cream truck.”
Elizabeth paused loading the dishwasher, holding a dripping plate. “It actually sounds like a cell phone. Is that your new phone?”
I started, remembering the phone, and began ransacking the living room trying to find the blasted thing. At one point, it stopped ringing, but then seconds later, it began again. I was cussing and was mid-single-syllable, four-letter word when I found the cursed contraption.
I answered breathlessly. “Yes! Hello?”
“Hey.”
Outwardly, my body stiffened; inwardly, my bones dissolved. “Oh, hi-hi-hello! How are you?”
“Good. How are you?” Quinn sounded like he was smiling. An image of him smiling flashed across my consciousness, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to prickle.
“I’m well. It’s, uh—” I glanced over at Elizabeth. She was making suggestive gestures with her still wet hands. I gave her a dirty look then turned completely away. “It’s good to hear from you.”
“Even via cell phone?”
I smiled despite myself and responded, “It would be better if it weren’t via cell phone.”
“I agree. I’m calling about dinner. What time should I pick you up?”
“Dinner?”
“Yeah, dinner.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. Dinner. Tonight.”
“Um…” I frowned and glanced at the message still open on my laptop that I’d been typing Jon.
“Janie? …Are you backing out?”
“No—no. I’m not backing out. It’s just that I can’t tonight. I already have plans.” Movement from Elizabeth caught my eye, and I found her glaring at me and mouthing, What the hell are you thinking? I shooed her away.
Quinn didn’t respond immediately, so I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at the screen, attempting to decipher if I’d hung up on him. None of the symbols seemed to indicate anything of value, so I spoke into the phone again. “Quinn? Are you still there? Did I hang up on you?”
“Yeah, I’m still here.” I heard him sigh. “These aren’t the same plans you made yesterday with your ex, are they?”
Inwardly, I cringed. Then, outwardly, I also cringed. “Yes.”
His response was silence.
“Quinn?”
“I’ll come too.” It didn’t sound at all like a request.
“Uh, what?”
His voice was business-like and brusque. “You and I will go out tomorrow. Tonight I can meet your friend Jon.”
“You want to meet Jon?” Instinctively my gaze searched for Elizabeth, and I think I must have looked as stricken as I felt. She just stared at me with wide eyes.
“I want to see you.”
His words made my heart skip; I had difficulty forming a coherent thought. “Well, I guess— I mean—I suppose it’s—I mean it’s not like— maybe we could—I just don’t think that…”
“Where are we going? What time are we meeting him?”
“I was just emailing him to work out the details.”
“Ok. How about Chez Jean? I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock.”
“No, I’ll meet you at the restaurant.” I didn’t want to arrive with him. It would feel too much like a wheelbarrow date: two wheels and a kickstand.
“Do you know where it is?”
“It’s a block west of Al’s Beef, right?”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “Your landmark is Al’s Beef?”
“How can you miss Al’s Beef? It’s yellow and black and has a giant plastic cup in the center of the sign. I think they have franchise opportunities available.”
He laughed. “I’ll see you at seven o’clock.”
His laugh made me smile like an idiot. “Ok. Seven it is. I’ll see you then.”
When the call ended, I stared at the cell phone without seeing it for several moments.
I felt light, as if my feet weren’t touching the ground and I could cloud-hop if the desire so struck me.
I felt like running through a field and spinning around while an orchestra played in the background.
I felt like clicking my heels together and sliding down an impressively large and steep banister.
I felt like picking apart a daisy while reciting, “He loves me…I love him…he loves me.”
Elizabeth’s concerned voice brought me out of my meandering reveries and a bit closer to reality. “You’ve got it bad. I’ve never seen you like this.”
Goofy grin still in place, I sighed. I knew what I looked like and sounded like. A small voice in the recesses of my overactive brain screamed at me: You are infatuated! Infatuated I say!
I’d never realized before how glorious infatuation could be. Perhaps I’d never been presented with the opportunity until Quinn came along.
That night’s dinner began with one of the most awkward silences I’ve ever experienced in my life.
I had to bite both my cheeks to keep from filling the black hole of unsaid words.
After introductions were made, Jon sat next to me on the booth along the wall and glowered at Quinn.
Quinn, from his chair opposite us, smiled at Jon.
It was a smug smile tinged with a certain amount of swagger.
I didn’t know how to feel about it, so I just ignored it for the time being.
I just hoped that my excessive nervous swallowing went unnoticed.
Finally, feeling as though I was going to burst, I excused myself from the table and half-bolted to the ladies’ room.
I stayed there until I felt capable of reining in the overflowing list of factoids related to black holes that was running on a loop in my head.
When I left the ladies’ room, I noticed for the first time how really nice the restaurant was.
It smelled like garlic and roux, and the walls were a pale yellow except for the crown molding, which was a dark, natural stained wood.
Windows were framed with sheer burgundy curtains.
Beautiful oil landscapes, of what I assumed were the French countryside, added intimate elegance without making the place feel cluttered or like an art museum.