Part 33
Quinn found the coffee store, and bought the coffee without speaking English.
She liked how nice the people were about her speaking Russian. They usually said she was doing well. She knew she might be close to incomprehensible. So she went slow and wrote things down. Her writing seemed to impress them most.
She liked writing it; it was like a sort artistic thing for her.
She took a wrong turn on the way back and got lost. Two boys, about 12, Sasha and Borya, took her back, all the way to the building, block and apartment.
Zander gave them a cup of hot chocolate. They talked about school.
"I could get used to this," Quinn said. "It's nice. Fun."
"I'm glad. I was just thinking about how a normal guy might take you to a tropical beach."
"Well, you're not normal. But that's not bad. Not at all."
Sean went to the bar in the Port Charles Hotel.
He saw Skye sitting at the end of it.
"You're not supposed to be drinking," he said to her.
She looked at him with eyes of sarcasm.
"So where's Emily?" she asked him.
"She went to a fitting for Elizabeth's wedding. What are you up to?"
"None of your business."
"Do you have a job?"
"I'm a daughter of privilege."
"That's great for you. But what do you do all day?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Emily doesn't know what you do all day, either."
"So you asked her. Funny, you and she. She doesn't seem your type."
"What's her type?"
"I really couldn't say."
"I'm not her type. I don't think I am. I've been trying forever. But no go."
"What does the little brat want?"
"I have no idea. Sometimes I think maybe she's a little bit frigid."
"I don't know, I think Zander managed it. What an ego you have! That's what it means that a woman's not all over you?"
"No, not that. I talked to her. She never gets into it. I asked her. In the last couple of years, her entire sex life is this: one night with Zander and one with a student at the University of Kentucky. Now for somebody that pretty, it's odd."
"Maybe she just has her standards."
"They must be awfully high. Only two guys have managed and neither of them got any further than one night. Quinn even told her I wasn't half bad. Still, no real interest."
"Who is Quinn?"
"My girlfriend from college and law school. She's a nurse here; she's from this town."
"So Quinn is a nurse, who went to college and law school wherever you did?"
"Yes. Well, just college, for her. I was in law school the last two years she was in college."
"And you happen to come to this town with Emily?"
"We talked, and I knew it was the same town. Emily asked me to be her date at a wedding. It was worth checking out."
"So you really came to see your old girlfriend, Quinn?"
"Well, I wouldn't put it like that."
"I would. And so you are staying here to pursue this Quinn. Emily doesn't even realize that."
"Emily I think really likes Zander. Now as luck would have it, Quinn's dating Zander. So Emily wouldn't care."
"So you and Emily are a couple that exists only to come between Quinn and Zander?"
"I wouldn't put it like that."
"I won't even ask you how you would put it."
"Well, have a drink with me, because I found out I passed the New York Bar Exam."
"I thought you said I wasn't supposed to drink."
"You can have a Shirley Temple."
He ordered himself a martini, too.
"So you don't care about Emily and never did," commented Skye. "You came here because of your ex-fiancee."
"Don't care is a little strong. Quinn wasn't my fiancée, either. I tried, but she turned me down. I like Emily. Though she's doing a terrible job of drawing off Zander. I may need to replace her with someone more sophisticated." He flipped the ends of Skye's hair.
"Why would I want to do that?"
"Do you have anything better to do?"
"If Zander won't go for Emily, he won't go for me!"
"You don't know that! He never knew he had the chance."
"You are beyond ridiculous. And you like women who turn you down. The only two you've mentioned have done it."
"Quinn didn't turn me down nearly so entirely. We dated a long time."
"Why would she go back to you now?"
"Hey, if you can't appreciate my charms, that's OK, but-"
"Obviously I'm referring to the fact she already broke with you once before."
"She didn't. She didn't want to break up. Just not get married. I jumped the gun. Than I pushed her. That was a bad gamble. She came back here."
"And since then, no other girl has stolen your heart."
"Something like that."