Page 62 of Parallel
“Just start over,” she says. “Start from scratch. It’s allwrong.”
I gape at her. She expects me to throw two weeks of work in the garbage and re-do it all five days before we go to print. “That’s not possible,” I say flatly. “We go to print on Tuesday. There’s just nottime.”
She gives me a short, bitter smile. “Then it looks like you know how you’ll be spending the weekend, doesn’tit?”
There’s nothing wrong with the layout. She’s just punishing me. Maybe for the dress, maybe because of my infuriating insouciance all day. Jeff would ask me why I antagonized her in the first place, but Nick would ask me why I’m still here, and why the hell I ever let someone treat me so poorly. Questions I’m asking myselfnow.
I slide the layout back to her. “I’m not redoingthis.”
Her eyebrows go to her forehead. “You seem to be forgetting who signs yourpaychecks.”
I wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, but instead the end will be simple and absent any drama. “Then don’t sign them anymore,” I reply without emotion. “Iquit.”
I’ve never seen Dee shocked into silence. I head toward my desk and she follows me. “You can’t do that,” she sputters. “We go to print nextweek.”
I grab my belongings, grateful that almost everyone is at lunch so I don’t have an audience. “Well, I’ve noticed that you’ve been playing around with the layout when I’m not in the office,” I reply, “so maybe you’ll be able to figure itout.”
With that, I head straight out the door. Late July in D.C. is miserable—air so thick it’s a struggle to breathe and heat that has your clothes stuck to you the moment you step outside— but right now, to me, it’s perfect. Right now I’m not Quinn, the twenty-eight-year-old who might die. I’m eighteen again. A girl with dreams, about to escape the farm and go to the city, with her whole future ahead of her. My father encouraged me back then. I’m not sure what changed when he got sick, what made him so desperate to keep me safe and small with Jeff. But I like this version of me better, and I think he wouldtoo.
I pull out my phone and make a call before I can change my mind. Nick answers on the first ring. “Quinn? Is everythingokay?”
He sounds slightly panicked. I like, far too much, that he worries about me. “Yes, it’s fine, I just… Is this a badtime?”
“No, not at all,” he says. “Hang on.” I hear background noise, then a door shuts and there is silence. “Okay. I’m in my office. What’sup?”
My mouth curves into a smile. “Guess who just quit herjob?”
“Are you serious?” he asks. I love him for sounding thrilled rather than concerned. “That’s fantastic. Was your bosspissed?”
“Sopissed.”
He laughs. “God, I wish I’d beenthere.”
I lean against the wall, under the shade of an awning. “It was pretty sweet. I’d say it almost made it worth staying there as long as I did, but that would obviously be alie.”
“I’m proud of you,” he says. “I just wish you’d done it yearsago.”
“Yeah, me too.” Why didn’t I? Why the hell did I let Jeff decide what I’d do about school? My only answer is that I trusted my father’s opinion about things more than I trusted my own and allowed Jeff to assume that position once he was gone. “Anyway, I guess I’ll be seeing you in a while at the meeting with Dr.Patel.”
“Is Jeff actually attending this one?” he asks. There’s no mistaking the hostility in histone.
“Yeah.” I sigh, brushing a hand through my hair. “But speaking of Jeff, I, um, haven’t told him I quit. So, if you could maybe not mention that, I’d appreciateit.”
There is a beat of silence. “You told me before you told your fiancé?” he asks. “Interesting.”
I groan. “No, it’s not. I just…” I really have no excuse. The truth is that, in just a few weeks, Nick’s become my person. It’s him, not Jeff, that I want to turn to with all my good and all my bad. I want to hand him my problems in a tidy package and have him help me carry the weight. I want him to hand me his. “I’ll see you later,” I say, ending the callabruptly.
I close my eyes, wishing I could just push a pause button on my life for a week. Long enough to get things straight in my head. Nick’s taken, I’m taken. Even though we’re arguing, I love Jeff. I picture how devastated he’d be if I were to suggest cancelling the wedding and feel this unbearable lurch in my stomach. He’s loved me and trusted me for most of our adult lives, and I can’t just throw it all in his face now, weeks before the ceremony. I just can’t be thatperson.
* * *
I wanderthrough the city and arrive at the hospital an hour later. Jeff is in the waiting room when I walk in. He rises and wraps his arms around me. “I’m sorry about last night,” he says. “I shouldn’t have taken off likethat.”
My eyes close and the air slides from my chest. “I’m sorry too.” I’ve always hated any kind of friction between us, so I’m not sure why I merely feel resigned rather thanrelieved.
A nurse takes us back to Dr. Patel’s office, and as we are introduced, a joke I heard somewhere long ago comes to mind:Why do they have to nail coffins shut? To keep out the oncologists.In other words, if you’re faced with an oncologist who doesn’t seem optimistic, who doesn’t have a long list of options for someone who is obviously beyond hope, you are reallyscrewed.
And Dr. Patel does not seemoptimistic.