Part 90

"How do we do something to thank a guy who has so much money?" Joe asked Quinn, when they met for a lunch in the hospital cafeteria. "We can't give him anything. We can't take him anywhere."

"I have an idea," she answered. "I took my camera and took some pictures. We can put the pictures together in a album. That gives him a memento of the Daytona 500 for this year, but more important, it gives him some up-to-date pictures of Zander. I even have one with both of them in it. You're in it, too. I wish I had thought to take one of the two of them only."

"Maybe you can take me out. Brad might be able to do it on the computer."

"I'll ask him. In a pinch, I have some experience with cutting someone out of a picture," she grinned. She took her picture of Paul out of her purse and showed it to him.

"Best to get rid of that before somehow Zander knows you have it."

"That's a good thought. It does make it look like I want to keep a picture of Paul, doesn't it? What would I do without you for advice on male thought processes?"

"I really don't know."

"It was by my desk, of him and me, and I liked the shot of me, so I cut him out to keep myself. I was going to trash it. Then I thought maybe Paul would want it."

"I'll take it to him next time I go to the hospital, if you don't have time."

She handed it to him. "Thanks Joe! What would I do without you?"

He smiled at her, and took the torn off photo of Paul.

Zander called Quinn while she was on the swing shift, in the evening. She got his message on cell her phone. When she took her "lunch" break at 10:00 she debated a moment whether it was too late to call back.

She called, and was glad he answered. "It's a little bit late, but I took a chance you don't go to bed this early."

"No way would I ever go to bed this early."

"You get up really early to study," she pointed out.

"You can call me in the middle of the night, if you want."

"Be careful. I could get bored next week on the midnight shift."

"I know you like the midnight shift least," he said. "But I have been thinking about this swing shift. I can hang out with you in the evening on the midnight shift. But this shift covers all evening. So I hate to disagree with you, but I like the midnight shift better than the swing shift."

"You know, I agree with you. Now I like midnights better than this one. It never bothered me before. Paul had some off hours, especially if he was out at Ferncliff. But I didn't ever miss him this way."

"You know how to be a flatterer, don't you?"

"Nope. Not at all. I never did have a boyfriend before who I couldn't skip a day seeing and not notice. Don't laugh! I'm serious, I swear! Can you take a lunch break? Meet me tomorrow at Kelly's."

"My boyfriend had this idea of doing an exhibit," Elizabeth told V. as V. drove them away from Ferncliff, where they had been checking out the space on the walls and talking to a few of the doctors and social workers about putting art work up there. They had also had an interesting run-in with the new patient, Carly Corinthos. "Rent some space and just put up an exhibit, even if only for one day. If you're interested, maybe we could do a joint one. I had a brilliant idea for a place for it. There's this box car out in the woods, off Gordon Road. Lucky, my ex-boyfriend, used to stay sometimes in this old box car. It would be perfect for a little exhibit. I'm not sure he'd like it. But he doesn't own it."

"That's county parkland, I think," V. said. "Nobody owns it but the county. Nobody must be concerned about this box car, or they'd have done something about it while he was living in it."

"So you think the county wouldn't let us do an exhibit in it? Or we could use it, because no one is concerned about this box car? I may have to check it out, though. Lucky has his own place now, but who knows? Or some other high school kid may have found it."

"If anyone uses it, the use is probably less desirable to the county than our plan."

"Yes! You're right, V.! The county – the government, would really love this sort of thing. Local artists, yadda, yadda. Let me show it to you. Do you have time to go over there?"

"Sure. I'll turn around to get to Gordon Road."

"What is Dad doing with these new corporations?" Zander asked Alexis at the office the next day. "Don't tell me they aren't his. Why are they both named after Pete and I?"

"Oh, it's only business," Alexis said. "He's getting into some things around here. You don't mind that, do you?"

"No. If he is hanging around in town, I like it. I never understood what he was doing, anyway. Neither of them."

"They should teach you sometime. It's the family thing. Like the Quartermaines who can always work at ELQ. Your Mom could show you the ropes at Deception, it's a simpler business set-up."

"Maybe I'll get her to one day," he said.

"Has she been home more, that you've noticed?"

"Yes. I don't know if she really is or not. When you are a little kid, it probably seems like they are gone longer when they go somewhere."

"Could be. But she's generally been around. Sergei, he's been gone, but I've always been able to reach him by phone. See, these modern cell phone deals and email - you can keep you in touch with them better than you could as a kid."

"Thanks for thinking of that, and telling me, Alexis. I could keep better track of them than I do. I just may do that. Know what they are up to. Now you, is Sergei giving you too much work? You aren't getting out enough, again."

"I should be doing OK, doctor," she laughed. "When the snow clears up a bit. Right now, I'm trying to learn more about the immigration laws. To see what happened to your mom's petitions for her relatives. She says they have been pending for years!"

Zander's eyes lit up a bit. "You mean, she's trying to get some of the Yesatkins to be able to come here from Yekaterinburg?"

"Yep. It's taking forever."

"I know about that!"

"She has to prove she is a US citizen, and that Nikolai and Anna are her parents, and that Mikhal is her brother, Yelena her sister, and so on. You wouldn't think that would be hard. There's her US passport. That proves she is a US citizen right there, on the ground that you have to prove you are one to get a passport. The State Department issues these in the US, then its very own office in Yekaterinburg needs proof it did so. So I'm going to try her Certificate of Naturalization. That's actually the main proof she is a US citizen."

"Then how does she prove to them her mother is her mother?" Zander said. "It doesn't sound difficult to the average person. But I've been in those consul's offices. I know they make it hard to prove that blue is blue and green is green."

Alexis laughed. "The federal bureaucracy strikes again! And people think the IRS is bad! There is her birth certificate and your grandparents' marriage certificate. They have to be translated. And her siblings' birth certificates."

"How hard is that? How can it take years? Does the Russian government take years to give people their own birth certificates?"

"Not that I know of, but the State Department worries about faked documents. I wonder if DNA tests would help. The parents are OK anytime. But the brothers and sisters have to wait literally years. They take brothers and sisters of US citizens, but only so many per year, so the line backs up for years. Fortunately, Oksana filed for them a long time ago, so their turn approaches. But now they want a million other documents, to prove they've never committed any crimes, that they are financially sound, and a hundred other security checks!"

"Not a surprise to me, anyway. When Dad took us there without US passports, we had to prove to that consul we were born in Florida, and we had to have birth certificates that were signed, stamped, beribboned and officially blessed forty ways. Then we needed affidavits of the doctor who delivered us before they would believe we were born here. If they make it that hard for a citizen, I can only imagine how much harder they make it for an alien! Which is what they call foreigners. It cracks me up. The consul in Moscow kept telling me I was an alien. It was almost worse than being called a deviant."

"I don't believe you!" Alexis laughed. "Nothing is worse than having Edward Quartermaine call you a deviant! Or a miscreant! That Svengali," Alexis lowered her voice, imitating Edward's as best she could. She wagged her finger at Zander the way Edward Quartermaine did. "Don't you come near this house again, you deviant!"

He laughed and wagged back at her, able to do a better Edward-imitation with his male voice: "I won't have your clients moving into this town and trying to help that deviant, you shysteress!"

They dissolved into giggles. They thought a client had come to the door, and straightened up quickly. It was only Oksana.

She smiled. "Must be a good place to work. Not too serious," she said.

"We were talking of your immigration petitions, in fact," Alexis said. "And this is where it led us. Come in, and Zander and I will look at them."

"I don't come to see you on them, or on business," Oksana said. "Something I want to talk to you about. Sander must not hear. It's about his birthday."

"When's that?"

"March 18."

"Oh, don't make a fuss of that," Zander said. "No reason to bug Alexis with it."

"Are you crazy?" Alexis said. She took up a set of motion papers, and rolled them up, then hit him on the head with it. "That's for not telling me last year when it was your birthday. Come in, Oksana, to my office, where we can discuss this out of my employee's hearing."

"Do you like auto racing at all, Jerry?" Zander asked Jerry when he and Quinn were at lunch, at the Outback. "Do you ever get a day off?"

Jerry smiled, and said, "Running a restaurant is one of those rewarding businesses, but hard to get away from. I've seen a few auto races. Over the years. Every once in awhile my brother takes it into his head to sponsor somebody."

"Quinn's a driver, in the local races," Zander said. "You should come and see her sometime."

"I would really like that," Jerry said.

"That's good!" Quinn said, when he was gone. "And of course we'll get Alexis there too, right?"

"Yes," Zander answered. "They have to run into one another someplace other than this. He's always at work when he's here."

"What did you work on today?" Quinn asked.

"History, and Economics. Last night, I helped Pete with algebra and chemistry. Mom keeps complaining, and I keep explaining that when I do that, I remember it much better. Amanda said it is OK. That you learn what you teach much easier."

"Well, that's good. How does it go otherwise?"

"Sometimes I look at a paragraph, and it looks long, and I can't get started on it. Other times in the middle of the paragraph, my mind goes somewhere else. Amanda said take it one sentence at a time, or get up and take a walk."

"Does that work?"

"Yes."

"Could that happen in the test?"

"I don't think so. In the test, I feel like I'm doing something. If I explain it to Pete, I feel the same. It's the reading that feels like nothing is going on."

"What does your mind wander to?"

"Anything. The room, and outside, anybody in view. The Daytona 500, the Notre Dame football team, what my girlfriend might be doing, anything. Even another study subject."

"Which subjects do you like most?"

"Math is all right, once I get the hang of it. I can figure out the answer to the problem. English grammar. Literature isn't too bad, once I can get into the story or the way the language is. History kills me. I don't feel like there is a problem, or a story, or any set up to look at. It drones on and on with fact after fact that I feel sure I won't remember."

"Do you remember the fall-out of the battle in Quebec City?"

"I remember that. I saw the battlefield. I can picture it. That helps."

"We'd better take you to Gettysburg! And to Independence Hall, too."

"Amanda showed me some pictures of Independence Hall. And a picture of the Declaration of Independence. The original one, in fancy writing, on an old yellow parchment."

"But how to remember what is in it? Can you picture that?"

"That's an idea," he took a book from his backpack at his side, and opened it to start looking at the Declaration of Independence. Quinn watched his eyes move back and forth as he read it.

"OK," he said. "The King, sitting at a desk, saying no. Refusing to assent to the wholesome and necessary laws and refusing to establish a judiciary power."

"Picture the crown on his head. And Thomas Jefferson with a paper that has the laws on it, trying to get the King to agree to it."

"OK! Thank you, Quinn! That's a good detail to add."

"Let me see," Quinn said, reaching for the book. He let her take it.

"How about - 'He has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither.' Picture the consul – put a crown on his head – refusing to give you your green card."

He laughed. "You make my bad memories into good ones."

"You could talk to Rosa about those stories she told you. Maybe she remembers them. Pirates, didn't you say? That sounded like a good memory."

"It was. Thank you for going there, Quinn. The whole thing came from your idea, the whole trip down there. It was a good memory itself."

"To me it was, too. You were wonderful in that surf. I thought you'd stay with me longer. I was going to invite you into your old room before you left."

"I know you don't like to be rushed into all that stuff."

"You're very sweet. I'm fine. Take your time. You don't need to be rushed either. But you're not rushing me."

"You're beautiful," he said. He took her hands and reached across the table to give her a kiss, and then another, and then another.

Someone was clearing their throat loudly.

They both looked up to see V. and Elizabeth.

"Why hello," V. said. "Is this a casual lunch date?"

"It was," Zander said. "but sit down anyway."

V. sat next to Zander and Elizabeth sat next to Quinn.

"I'm glad we ran into you," V. said, then jokingly, "though I'm sure you aren't. I have a message for you, Zander, it so happens."

"We are working on a project to help people at Ferncliff," Elizabeth put in, helpfully, "putting art work up. The shrinks help us design what they think will have a calming effect on the patients. So we ran into the notorious new patient, you know, your shooter, Carly? She saw V., and got the nurse to let her speak to her."

"After she had duly insulted Elizabeth," V. said, grinning, "there's some bad blood there, apparently – she told me she wants you to know – that she is very, very sorry, and she hopes you are fully recovered."

"I don't know if she deserves any credit for that," Zander observed, "She could be sorry I was not AJ. It only counts if she says it to him."

"Probably. That I don't know about," V. answered. "She looked sincere, for what it's worth, that she's sorry she hurt you, anyway."

"I'm all right," he said. "The one really getting the bad deal is her son."

"Michael? No doubt about that. Someday he'll have to know about all this."

"Zander understands about the custody battle," Quinn said. "His parents had one."

"I didn't know that," V. said. "I'm sorry about that. I guess you were in the middle. Well, if AJ has any sense, he'll listen to you. If Carly gets out, she is likely to try to see Michael or even try to get him back AJ is likely to try to keep her from seeing him at all. That's understandable in this case, but not really a good thing, overall. I've seen people bring their children to jail to see their parents. Somebody was saying that was awful, and some social worker told us this theory that it is still better for the child, because he knows where his parent is. Something like that."

"It's even worse than our case," Zander said. "At least my parents didn't shoot at each other."

"Michael will always be with the same people, in the same country, though," Quinn said.

"What other country would the Quartermaines go to?" Elizabeth asked.

"Quinn is referring to my brother and I," Zander explained. "My Dad taking us to live in another country against the custody orders."

"You lived in another country?" Elizabeth asked. "Which one?"

"Russia, when it was freed from the Soviet Union. Dad didn't mind going back there to get away from Mom and her custody order. They both escaped from there originally."

"You lived there? How long?"

"About two and a half years."

"No way! You can speak the language?"

"Of course."

"I never knew that! I would never have guessed that in a million years! You can speak another language? Wild."

"Don't look that amazed! I can't come off as so dumb that I can't learn a language with two parents who speak it and then living in the country itself a couple of years!"

"Well, I don't know," Elizabeth grinned. "I figured deviants don't learn second languages. But how old were you?"

"Thirteen, to sixteen."

"Where was your mother all that time?"

"In Florida. Looking for us, but she didn't find us until I was 16."

"AJ could take Michael to see Carly in Ferncliff," V. said. "He'll know who and where she is. He could do some supervised visitation afterward. She'll never get custody again after what she's done and the finding that she is insane. Now in that way, Michael will have more stability. He will always have AJ, and never have Carly."

"That's true, V.," Quinn said. "Michael will have it the same, rather than being shuttled back and forth, which was what happened with Zander and Peter. They didn't see their Dad, then they didn't see their Mom, then they didn't see their Dad again. They went from one house to another and from one country to another. Michael will be in the same house with the same family no matter what."

"But think of the family he'll be with," Zander said.

Elizabeth said, "Yeah, that's not so good. They'll be bickering the same way for all of Michael's childhood."

"I've heard about them," V. said. "True, but that's a different thing. They'll be themselves. If you are a Quartermaine you've got to deal with that anyway. It's better than being moved around."

"It will be very stable indeed," Elizabeth said. "The same bickering by the same people in the same houses. Giving each other the same insults."

"Maybe stability isn't everything," Zander said.

They thought about this for awhile.

"What are you studying?" V. asked, seeing Zander's book.

"The Declaration of Independence," he answered. "Quinn was trying to help me picture it. It helps me remember."

"That was what you were doing when we came by?" Elizabeth smiled a little. "How does that relate to the Declaration of Independence?"

"Maybe that's what they were doing sometime before we came by," V. laughed too. "You mean, you remember it better by picturing it? How can you picture what's in the Declaration of Independence?"

"Hard to explain all of it," he answered. "I picture Thomas Jefferson bringing a scroll with a necessary and wholesome law to the King, who sits on this throne and refuses to sign it. Somehow that makes it possible to remember one of the grievances. That the King refused to assent to the necessary and wholesome laws."

"I see," V. said. "Here, give me your paper and a pencil."

He did, and she started sketching on it. Quinn smiled, liking V. more, for doing this.

Elizabeth took a pad of paper and an artist's pencil out of the portfolio she had with her, and looked at the book.

V. showed her sketch to Zander. "What is it?" she asked him.

He smiled, looking at it. "For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us." He handed it to Quinn. V. had drawn a very large soldier, who tossed a very big quarter.

Quinn watched Elizabeth's drawing, it was of a tired looking colonial on a tired looking horse, at the end of a long road, and in the distance was a tiny square with the label: "Depository of Public Records." Zander, upon seeing it, recognized it for the grievance where the King called the Legislatures to meet at inconvenient places far from the colonial Depositories of Public Records, for the sole purpose of "fatiguing them into Compliance with his measures."

"Not bad," Quinn said. "Artists' study guides."

"Our box car exhibit," Elizabeth said to V., "there's an idea. We can get our inspiration out of history."

"Like do some drawings that fit this theme?" V. asked.

"Why not? We help Zander study this subject at the same time. It's a good challenge, too," Elizabeth added. "How many colonials have I painted? None."

"We could do some research there," V. said. "Use paintings of the era, or descriptions, to determine what they would have worn, and looked like, and all that."

"This text book even has some," Zander said.

V. and Elizabeth looked at the textbook. Elizabeth had to look upside down, but that didn't seem to faze her.

"Redcoats," V. said. "I'd like to paint a few of them.

"And Indians," Elizabeth said. "I'd like to paint Indians."

V. turned a few pages. "Here's a painting of a redcoat. General Wolfe, expiring right on the Plains of Abraham. Where's that?"

"Quebec City," Zander and Quinn said, together. They looked at each other then, and laughed.

"This could work," Quinn said, looking back to the two artists. "What box car were you referring to?"

"Back in the day," Elizabeth said, "way back in the day, Lucky discovered an old abandoned box car in the woods. We were thinking of having our exhibit there, if Lucky doesn't get in the way."

"If he complained, you could let him in on it," V. said. "Isn't he a photographer?"

"Yes," Elizabeth said. "Though we'd have to get him in on our theme. Photos of models aren't going to fit in."

"True," V. said. "Maybe he can do some old historic houses. Or we could get a model to dress in colonial costume."

"Hey that's not bad," Elizabeth said. "I like that one a lot. We could paint this model, V. We could get somebody who likes to sew, to design one."

"There's those re-enactment people out there," Quinn said. "They would know how to put the costumes together."

"Oh, like those people who dress up on the weekends in civil war costume and pretend to fight battles?" V. asked.

"Sure. They come in Revolutionary varieties," Quinn answered. "I've seen them, when we've gone to that kind of place for school trips or family outings. Once on vacation, we were camping in Pennsylvania somewhere, and saw them, at the location of the Battle of Someplace-or-other. I'll look in the family album to see the name. Then there's the Old Fort Niagara - that's close. My mother takes her students there on a field trip every year."

Jerry came, "well, hello," he said. "Miss V., how are you? Who is this beautiful lady?"

V. smiled. "Hi Jerry. This is Elizabeth Webber, my fellow artist. Elizabeth, this is Jerry Jax. He owns the Outback, and he's Jasper Jax's brother."

"Are they joining you?" Jerry asked Zander.

"They may as well," Zander said, looking at Quinn.

"Oh, no," V. said. "We'll leave you two alone."

Zander gave Quinn another look, which seemed to ask her what she thought. "Yeah, you may as well stay," she said to the other two. She reached over and took Zander's hand. "I'll get him alone again sometime later."