Part 54

Joe took them back to the Connors' house for dinner. "That's Brad," Joe told Zander, of a boy in his early teens, who was playing basketball in the driveway.

In the back yard, a man was watering the lawn. "That's Danny," Joe told him.

They went in the back door.

Kathleen was working on dinner.

"Can I help?" Peter asked.

"Help by getting yourself and all of them out from underfoot," she said with a smile.

In the hallway, there were a lot of photographs on the walls. Zander lingered there, looking at them. "That's the wedding photo," Pete said to Zander. "Mr. and Mrs. Connor."

"I can see that," Zander answered.

"This is Joe," Peter pointed to a larger version of Quinn's desk photo.

"I know."

"This is Q's prom picture," Peter pointed to a picture that was obviously one of those prom pictures. "This is Q's high school graduation, and this is her nursing school graduation." He went over to the next row, "this is Joe holding a baby Q., this is Q at about 10 holding a baby Brad, and Tim is the one sitting on her right. Here she is when she's about 3, with her grandparents; those are Mr. Connor's folks. This is the whole family when she was 16, so Tim is about 9 and Brad is about 6. See, Brad has no teeth," he continued, as if he were trying to prove Brad's age to a jury."

"Are you licensed as a tour guide?"

"Yes," Peter said, going along. "Any questions? Just ask."

They had spaghetti for dinner. Zander realized Q. was not coming. "Where's Q?" he asked. "Quinn, I mean."

"She's got her own apartment," Peter explained.

"Are you the family spokesman?"

"He is," Danny said. "He's a good one."

Joe Quinn smiled.

Later, Peter showed Zander around the house, as if it were a mansion, though it was a rather medium sized house. He showed Zander upstairs, where there was one bathroom, a master bedroom, another bedroom with two beds, belonging to Tim and Brad, and another one with one bed, obviously belonging to Quinn, though it was apparently now designated "the guest room." Tim either never succeeded in getting it for himself or had never tried.

Peter had this room. It wasn't too girlish. The colors were neutral, and though the bureaus were white, they were straight edged and didn't have a lot of girls' junk sitting on them, at least, not anymore. There was a bookcase, where Zander saw 4 volumes of the Mercy High School Yearbook and 4 volumes of the Notre Dame Yearbook.

There was a frame on the wall; one of those frames in which you can put a lot of different photos. Zander looked at these, and Peter came over, even able to lecture on this. "This is Atlantic City, or Ocean City, when Q is in her teens, this is the guy in her prom photo with her; she went out with him in high school and part of her freshman year at Notre Dame. That one where she is sitting on a stone wall is on the campus of Notre Dame, and that guy is Sean, who is a law student now, in Kentucky. That is them at the Kentucky Derby, and here they are outside the capital building of Kentucky. This is some party, and those girls are friends of hers from Mercy High School. Then over here," Peter went to the other side of the room and showed Zander a framed picture of an entire cheerleading squad, whose jerseys proved they were the Mercy High School Cheerleading Squad. Peter dared him to pick Q. out of this group, which Zander was able to do fairly easily.

"How did you learn all this stuff?" he asked.

"Everybody," Peter answered. "Mrs. Connor especially, when they've been in here talking to me."

Peter then showed Zander his books for the year. There was Algebra, Psychology, Religion, Russian ("cheater," Zander said), Chemistry, English Literature, World History, and a book called "Real Life Economics." This latter purported to teach the student how to open and checking account and take out a mortgage and other such actions of the adult and mature person in an advanced economy.

Pete fell silent a second looking at one section of this book. Zander sat next to him, and looked absently at the page, and heard the sound of laughter and conversation coming from downstairs.