James opened a drawer in the desk and scooped out several magazines. They were outdated but in good shape as if they’d been laid in the drawer years ago, untouched until that moment. He tossed them onto the desk and they spread out, fanning away from one another so that Quinn could see the covers.
They were entertainment magazines, the kind he’d seen on television over the years. They chronicled the lives of celebrities: their work, their children, even their clothing choices in such detail that it was as if they were reporting on rare, endangered species of a rainforest rather than actors and actresses living on a California coast. The magazines were all similar in the fact that their central pictures, sandwiched between miracle weight loss diet claims and the latest fashion faux pas, were of his father and himself as a young child. His father was carrying him in a bundle, hugging him close to his chest. James was youthful and even more handsome than he was now. The distinguished gray at his temples was a lush black, and even with the harried look in his eyes, they still shone with confidence and purpose on the glossy cover. Quinn could see only a portion of his own face in the picture, but it was a miniature version of how he appeared now. The child’s features in the photo were uneven and slanted to one side, the bones already growing askew of proper balance. His brow was enlarged and one eye was shut, caught in mid-blink.
The headline over the picture read, World’s sexiest man has ugliest child.
Quinn studied them each for a moment, letting his eyes run over the words, the various photos. He reached out to touch one of them and let his hand hover before drawing it back.
“It’s just words,” he said.
“It’s not. It’s opinions, people’s thoughts, true feelings. These reporters loved taking pictures of me, telling the public what I was doing, who I was dating, what I was wearing. But the moment they saw you, they moved in like buzzards. I tried to continue normally, determined not to let what they were saying about you bother me. But it did. I loved you so much that when they began to close in on you with cameras and horrible words and disgust in their eyes, I couldn’t take it. I brought you here and hid you away and swore never to return or let them say another unkind thing about you.”
“That was your choice, not mine.”
“Damn it, Quinn!” James slapped the desk with his hand and a porcelain paperweight in the shape of a dragon jumped and toppled over. “You don’t understand. You haven’t been out there. What if they ostracize you, laugh at you, hurt you?”
“What if they don’t?”
James’s brow crinkled, and he leaned away from the desk, rubbing at his mouth with one hand. The rain tapped against the window as the day fell closer to night.
“I won’t take that risk.”
Quinn stood and righted the porcelain dragon. Its mouth snarled at him in a permanent roar, white teeth painted red at their tips.
“I love you, dad, but someday it won’t be your choice.”
Quinn turned away and let himself out of the office and only allowed the tears to cloud his vision when he was halfway to his room.
Chapter 3
Four Years Past
“I’m leaving tomorrow.”
The words were almost carried away by the wind and the sound of the pounding surf sixty feet below them. Quinn waited for Teresa to turn to him, but she kept her eyes focused on the shining sea. They sat with their legs dangling over the cliff’s edge, his feet extending almost a full twelve inches past his teacher’s.
“I know.”
“How?”
“You’ve been quiet the last two weeks, and I could hear it in your voice yesterday when you said goodbye to your dad.”
Quinn turned to the old woman, and she was old, there was no denying the fact anymore. Her hair had lost its life, and instead of wearing it in curls, she pinned it back with two tin combs etched with swirling, concentric designs in the metal. The lines in her face, merely suggestions of increasing age before, were fully embedded now, folded dark and heavy near the borders of her eyes and mouth.
“Do you think he knows?” Quinn asked.