The Emil Watts Summer Program for High School Leaders wasn't actually run by Yale University, it was just attached to the school during the summer. The students lived in Yale dorms and used Yale classrooms and the Yale library, but the program's organizers constantly made it clear that Yale was merely the host—as if the EWSPFHSL (pronounced "Oohspuffhisill") was some kind of parasite living in the belly of this great center of learning.
There was an unceasing cycle of orientation activities lectures, a library tour, a mass trip to the bookstore for textbooks, well-organized games of Twister in the dorm lounge. Every morning the students took statistics and microeconomics, the mandatory college-credit classes. Every afternoon was spent in a rotating series of seminars and discussions on government, multicultural issues, leadership techniques, current events, and effective writing skills.
In fact, Quinn barely had time to get homesick. Soon the gothic-style buildings, the large oak trees, and the chilly evening breezes were all pleasantly familiar. The only thing she couldn't get used to was her roommate, Kitty. Kitty came from Georgia and supposedly ran six different organizations at her school. She spent her time in incredibly odd ways, like practicing back bends for half an hour at a stretch or nibbling at the corks that she kept in a bag on her desk. She'd down a few caffeine pills with a can of Red Bull and then spend strung-out hours talking on her cell phone, chomping away on a cork, wearing only the tiniest pair of lingerie shorts and a low-cut tank top. This was her minor concession to wearing some clothing while she was in the room-she always slept naked.
At this moment, late on a Tuesday night of the second week, Kitty was sitting on her bed, considering a large, deeply ripe avocado. Quinn didn't know where she'd gotten it; it was just the kind of thing that Kitty turned up with when she had enough stimulants in her system. She focused her clip lamp on it and stared at it as if it contained the secrets of the universe. Her foot tapped furiously on the metal bed frame and she scratched compulsively at her neck. Quinn was sure ribbons of skin were about to come streaming down on the mattress.
"Hey, Quinn?"
Quinn didn't look up from her microeconomics textbook.
"Yeah?"
"What are you?" Tap, tap, tap, tap. Scratch, scratch, scratch.
"What?" Quinn asked.
"What's you…heritage?"
Since her mother was German and her father was Russian, no one ever knew where to place Quinn on the spectrum.
"Swedish," Quinn said.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"On both sides?"
"Yeah."
Kitty thought this over for a moment, then jumped off her bed and took off running down the hall. Quinn could hear her bare feet smacking the linoleum. Since she was sitting cross-legged, the backs of her knees were getting too warm and the heavy book was growing uncomfortable. Quinn shoved it off her lap and stretch out her legs. Then she flopped down on her back and threw her legs up against the wall and stared at her toes. It took her a minute to realize that someone was standing in her doorway staring at her. She tilted her head back to get an upside-down view.
The guy in the doorway was Joe Hart, a hard-core environmentalist from Vermont. His room was down the hall from Quinn's, and from a few glances through the open door, she saw that he lived with all the flamboyance of a monk. He'd brought only a bike, books and a guitar, some special environmentally safe detergent and light bulbs, and a small bag of clothes. He generally kept to himself and could usually be found sitting on his bed, reading, or strumming lightly on the guitar and humming softly. Even when the whole hall would go together for meals, he often sat at the end of a table and read the little laminated menu tents over and over.
"Sorry," he said.
"For what?" Quinn slid her legs down and went back to her cross-legged position. "Come on in."
"Quinn?" he said. "It's Quinn, right?"
She nodded.
"My computer is going crazy," he said. "The battery or…I don't know. Can I use your computer to check my e-mail for a second? I'm waiting for a message. There's this thing we've been doing for the Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue River and…it would take a long time to explain."
He spoke quickly, in an insistent mumble.
"Don't worry about it," Quinn said, waving a hand in the direction of her computer. "It's no problem."
Quinn pulled the book back onto her lap. Out of the corner of her eye, though, she watched him. Joe had a strong, slim build, probably from his constant biking. The red T-shirt he had on had bled out in the wash and had a few small holes, and his long dark brown dreadlocks made him look like a modern day pirate. He typed at full speed without looking at the keyboard.
Suddenly there was an enormous boom from down the hall. Before Quinn and Joe could get up to see what happened, Kitty swung through the door and shut it behind her.
"Did you hear that?" she gushed.
"Everyone heard that," Quinn said. "What was it?"
"I put it in the microwave." Kitty laughed. "It blew up."
"Your avocado?"
Joe looked at Quinn in confusion.
"She had an avocado," Quinn explained. "I guess she blew it up."
"I did." Kitty belly flopped onto her bed, which gave a threatening creak. Joe shot a glance to Quinn before going back to his typing.
"You're Joe, right?" Kitty asked.
"Yep."
"You're like a nature boy, right? And also super religious. Are you with Greenpeace or something?"
"No. Smaller group. We work with them, though. What do you do?"
"Oh, you know." Kitty sprawled herself over the bed and started braiding her hair loosely. "Food drives, stuff like that. Sort or. I lied about half the stuff on my application. They don't care, anyway, as long as you pay. It's all bullshit. You want a Red Bull?"
"No thanks."
Kitty remembered her manners and reached down into her mini-fridge and halfheartedly offered one to Quinn as well. Quinn shook her head. She didn't really feel the need to increase the number of hours she was awake with her roommate.
Joe typed. Kitty braided. Quinn watched her visitor out of the corner of her eye. He had a deep tan and just a bit of a shadow on his chin, and his face was becoming more and more intent on the screen. Then his fingers stopped moving on the keys and he turned around slowly.
"What's bullshit?" he asked.
"This. Schools. Admissions are all bullshit," Kitty said, clearly bored by the discussion already. "Schools just want money. Give them money, they let you come. Get some bullshit recommendations. Whatever."
Joe regarded Kitty with a curious cock of the head. Quinn, however, had to step in. She had to.
"It's not bullshit," she said. "I do everything I put on my application, and I'm here to learn how to run things."
"Oh," Kitty replied. She seemed completely content with her own thoughts; the opinions of others didn't affect her at all. She dropped the braid and let it unravel, then she sprang up, tugged her tiny shorts into place, and flat-footed it out into the hall.
Quinn jumped off of her own bed and firmly shut the door. She could feel her pulse racing.
"I'm not going to make it," she said. "I can't live with her for nine more weeks. Can we switch rooms?"
"Some people are like that," Joe replied.
"You mean assholes?"
"The thing is," he went on, "if you let it get to you, you can never get anything done. But you can come down anytime, if you want to escape."
"Thanks."
He turned back around to his e-mail. Quinn settled herself back down to reading.
Joe suddenly interested her a lot. Maybe it was because he had expressed a mutual dislike of Kitty. Maybe it was because he seemed real-from his conversation, right down to his worn-out clothes. Quinn couldn't even remember the last real conversation she had with Finn or Puck that didn't involve football or making out.
He thanked her quietly when he was done, and then gave another quick glance at Quinn before smiling and backing out the door.
Later on, as she walked down to the bathroom, she passed Joe in the small kitchen nook. He had the door to the microwave open and was using a piece of cardboard to scrape out the green slime that coated the already nasty interior. She stopped and watched him, but his head was actually in the microwave, so he didn't notice. There was a bottle of some kind of environmentally friendly orange cleaner on the counter, which Quinn guessed was his.
She hadn't liked what Kitty had done, but it hadn't occurred to her to clean the mess up, either. In fact, in a whole hall full of leaders and activists, Teen Jesus as many liked to call him, Joe was the only one who appeared to care about the fate of the cleaning people.
June 29
TO: BrittBritt; Quinn
FROM: Snix
Our manager, Steve, gave me my first point today because some people complained that I ignored them. (Eight points and you're fired. Either that or you get Valuable Prizes.)
I AM THE VERY FIRST BREADSTIX EMPLOYEE TO GET POINTS! I WIN!
Later on I caught Steve sitting out back by the Dumpster reading PC Gamer on his break. I had a cigarette, and he gave me one of those "ew, you smoke?" kind of looks. So I gave him one of those "sex with your Sims girlfriend doesn't count" kind of looks back.
June 30
TO: Snix; BrittBritt
FROM: Quinn
You know, on TV the people you fight with are always the people you end up dating. (;
Speaking of, there's this guy on my hall who's either v. cute and cool or totally out of his mind. I can't decide which. I think living with Strange Kitty is affecting my idea of what "normal" means.
June 30
TO: Quinn; Snix
FROM: BrittBritt
Ooh! Explain. Who is this guy?
And Steve's not that bad. He let me keep the duck sticker on my nametag.
July 1
TO: Snix; BrittBritt
FROM: Quinn
His name is Joe Hart. He's kind of very different from me, sort of an eco-warrior but really, really nice. We study together a lot now. He works really hard-harder than pretty much anyone else here. He doesn't hang out or watch TV or anything. When he's not doing work, I think he sits in his room and coordinates an environmental campaign or has mini jam sessions on his guitar.
I am getting used to the Birks and the hemp shorts and the dreadlocks because under all that he is seriously handsome and not the goonish handsome you see in a lot of guys. He's a delicate, like, even refined handsome. He's way healthy and rides around on his bike all the time, so he's got the biker legs going on.
This is really weird to me. I never thought I would like a guy who is so crunchy-not that I like him. I'm just kind of… intrigued.
Okay. Go ahead, San. Insert comment here.
July 1
TO: BrittBritt; Quinn
FROM: Snix
I smell a sitcom! Goonish handsome seriously Quinn what era are you from?