How We Roll

  “Mom,” Quinn said louder. “Pull over. I’ll walk.”

  Mo sighed. “Q, please … It’s your first day. I want to bring you.”

  “You can bring me tomorrow.” The thought of arriving at Gulls Head High School with her brother hitting himself and screaming “tea and cakes” from the backseat was more than Quinn could bear. She reached down and grabbed her backpack. “Just let me out here, okay? I know where I’m going.”

  Quinn did know. All week she had been riding around on her skateboard, exploring, looking for a decent court.

  “Eee, eee, eee!”

  Here came the book.

  “Julius,” Mo said, dead calm. “Stop.” She was pulling over, not to let Quinn out, but to remove Guinness World Records 2017 from her brother’s hands before he broke his own nose. He’d done that before. Twice.

  “Honey, wait,” Mo said, climbing into the backseat. “Just give us a minute.”

  But Quinn was already opening the door. Outside, the air smelled briny and sharp. She took a good, deep swallow, filling her lungs. “I’ll see you later, Mom.”

  “Are you sure?” Mo was wrestling the book from Julius’s grip.

  “I’m sure,” Quinn said.

  Even though she wished she were wearing sneakers instead of these stupid wedge sandals that she’d only worn once to her cousin Nadine’s wedding, and even though she would probably get blisters, it felt good to walk away.

  CHAPTER

  2

  QUINN WAS TRYING TO BLEND in with her new habitat, but Mr. Kellar’s homeroom had assigned seats, and her desk was dead center. All through attendance she could feel the eyeballs on her. It was mostly sideways glances, no outright stares, but still. The feeling of so many eyeballs made the skin on Quinn’s neck prickle. It made her want to reach up and pat Guinevere, just to be sure. Were five pieces of wig tape enough? What if she started to sweat? Quinn willed her hands to stay down. She focused her attention on the #2 pencil in front of her. Its smooth yellow coating. Its perfectly pink, never-before-used eraser.

  Tabula rasa, Quinn thought. Blank slate.

  Back in Colorado, there had been a dry-erase board on the wall in Quinn’s kitchen. Every morning, before her dad left for work, he would write some random Latin phrase on the board for Quinn to contemplate. Carpe diem. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Vincit qui se vincit.

  When Mr. Kellar began walking around the room, handing out schedules, Quinn slipped her phone out of her pocket and texted her dad:

  Never got my quote this AM.

  Fortes fortuna adiuvat, her dad texted back. Fortune favors the brave.

  It was his first day of school, too. He was the adjunct professor of classics at some college Quinn had never heard of. She wondered if he missed UC Boulder. She wondered if he was nervous. She pictured her sweet, dorky dad, standing alone at the front of some lecture hall, holding a stub of chalk, clearing his throat.

  “McAvoy?”

  Quinn looked up. Mr. Kellar’s face was as round and white as the moon.

  “Yuh schedule. Put it in yuh bindah.”

  He might as well be speaking Latin.

  *   *   *

  First-period PE. Ten laps around the gym. If this were 408 days ago, Quinn would not have minded. She was born to run.

  Quinn’s mom loved to tell this story, about the first day she brought Quinn to diaper dance class at the parks and recreation center. Quinn was two years old. Paige and Tara were two years old, too. That was how they all met, in the multipurpose room at parks and rec, the three moms with their Starbucks cups, the three girls in their tutus and ballet slippers. Except Quinn had wanted nothing to do with ballet. As soon as she walked in the door, she spotted one of those rubber playground balls, stripped off her leotard, and began tearing around the room, bouncing the ball. Paige and Tara had thought Quinn was hilarious. They’d stripped off their leotards, too, and started running after her.

  In first-period PE at Gulls Head High School, Quinn was the opposite of her two-year-old self. She was trying not to stand out. She was trying to keep everything on. Nice and easy. Slow jog. No sudden movements.

  So far, the wig tape was holding. So far, no one had called Quinn a freak, or an alien, or, her personal favorite, “penis head.”

  The girls running laps behind her were talking rapid fire. “Oh my gawd, did you see Nick at Ivy’s lockah? He was totally waiting for her.”

  “That is, like, so sad. Is he still texting her twenty times a day?”

  “More like fifty.”

  “My cousin Angela? When she broke up with her boyfriend? He wouldn’t take no for an answer and he kept, like, texting and calling and showing up at her house? She had to get a restraining ordah.”

  “Oh my gawd, are you serious? Do you think he’ll, like—Ivy! Ivy, oh my gawd, did you see your stawkah? He’s back.”

  Apparently, Ivy had arrived.

  “Don’t call him a stawkah,” Quinn heard her say. Then, “I feel bad. I’ve been avoiding him.”

  Immediately they jumped to her defense. “Don’t feel bad. You broke up forever ago.”

  “You don’t owe him anything. You brought him, like, fifty care packages this summah.”

  “It’s not your fault he can’t move on.”

  “I heard he could totally be walking by now but it’s, like, all mental.”

  “Wait—walk walk? On his hands?”

  “No, dummy, on fake legs. They’re called prosthetics.”

  “Like that surfah who got shark attacked?”

  “That was her arm, not her legs. Bethany Hamilton.”

  “Wasn’t she in that movie?”

  Soul Surfer, Quinn thought but did not say. She knew better than to join the conversation. She knew, without even turning around, what kind of girls they were. She could tell by their oh my gawds. In the hallway, she could tell by the way they tossed their hair over their bare, tanned shoulders, by the way their lip gloss shimmered in the light. Even though Quinn had never cared about being popular—had always found Paige and Tara’s obsession with coolness seriously weird—when one of the girls jogged up beside her, Quinn’s chin automatically lifted, her stride lengthened.

  “Hawahya?” the girl said. She was wearing a blue tank top. She was small and golden skinned with brown, curly hair gathered on top of her head in a big bouquet.

  “Fine,” Quinn said.

  “You’re new, right?” She was at least five inches shorter than Quinn, but she matched Quinn’s pace.

  “Yeah,” Quinn said.

  “Ivy D’Arcy.” She held out one tanned hand with fuchsia fingernails and a bunch of silver rings.

  “Quinn McAvoy,” Quinn said, taking it, even though shaking hands sideways felt like they were running a relay and she was receiving the baton.

  “Quinn,” Ivy repeated.

  “It’s my mom’s maiden name. Weird, I know, but it could be worse. My brother was named after the drink she craved the whole time she was pregnant.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. Orange Julius.”

  “Your brothah’s name is Orange Julius?”

  “Thankfully, no. Just Julius.”

  “Oh.” Ivy snort-laughed. “I was gonna say.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Youngah or oldah?”

  “Younger. He just turned nine.”

  Quinn passed under one of the basketball hoops, wishing she could stop and shoot a hundred free throws. She didn’t want to talk about her brother. Trying to explain Julius was like trying to describe color to a blind person. Paige and Tara understood. They’d known Julius since he was born. But Quinn had seen enough strangers stare at her brother in public. Most people had heard of autism spectrum disorder, but very few had seen a kid like Julius in action. Quinn could already picture Ivy’s face closing up, her polite nod taking over.

  “Hey.” Another girl appeared on Ivy’s left. Long black hair, red lips, crop top and short-shorts. “I’m Cahmen.”

  Cahmen? Carme
n. Right.

  “I’m Lissa.” A third girl materialized. Stick thin with silver leggings and corn-silk hair.

  “This is Quinn,” Ivy said. “The one all the boys are talking about.”

  Quinn squared her shoulders, waiting for the punch line. In Boulder, the boys had been even worse than the girls. Quinn’s so bald you can rub her head and see the future. Quinn’s so bald Mr. Clean is jealous. After a while, Quinn had learned to ignore them. She’d learned to make her face completely blank, like a Botoxed celebrity, as though nothing they said could penetrate. This was a skill Quinn called upon now. Her face was prepared for anything.

  “You’re pretty,” Ivy said, squinting up at Quinn. “Isn’t she, girls?”

  “For real,” Carmen said. “You have the nicest hair.”

  Quinn almost tripped over her own feet.

  Lissa said, “Is it natural?”

  The spit in Quinn’s mouth had formed a paste so thick she wasn’t sure she could answer. But somehow she did. “Yes,” she said, which was not exactly a lie. Estetica human hair wigs came from real, natural, human heads.

  “Couldn’t you just kill her?” Ivy said, but she was smiling, touching Quinn’s arm like they’d been friends forever.

  Across the gym, a whistle blasted. The gym teacher, a huge, mustached man in shorts so tight they looked painted on, hollered, “All right, people, circle up!”

  *   *   *

  Between first-period PE and fifth-period lunch, Quinn met three Emmas, two Avas, a Kacey, a Kylie, a Kelsie, and a Chelsey. She met a Jack, a Zach, a Mason, a Carson, a Tyler, and a Darius. She met a Mr. Fenner, a Ms. Chin, a Mrs. Wengender, and a Mrs. Winternitz. Every time someone told Quinn their name, she forgot it. There were so many faces. Everyone talked so fast. “Nice to meet you,” she said, over and over. And “Boulder, Colorado.” And “Yeah, it’s really nice here.”

  In fourth-period art, over a tin of shared watercolors, one of the Emmas said to Quinn, “You must feel like a movie stah.”

  “A movie star?” Quinn shook her head, embarrassed. “Why?”

  “Because you’re new. And nothing new evah happens in Gulls Head. It’s, like, the most boring town on the planet.”

  *   *   *

  As soon as Quinn walked into freshman lunch, there were the girls from PE: Ivy, Carmen, and Lissa.

  “Come on,” Ivy said. She literally grabbed Quinn by the arm and pulled her across the room. “You’re sitting with us.”

  So now, here she was, sitting at a table with Ivy, Carmen, and Lissa, unwrapping her peanut butter and honey sandwich and answering more questions. Where did she live in Gulls Head? What kind of music did she like? Did she cheerlead? Did she play field hockey? Was that the new iPhone? It was wicked cool.

  Wicked. They liked that word a lot.

  They also liked lip gloss.

  “Balmy Weathah,” Carmen said when Lissa asked what kind she was wearing.

  “Bikini or Sangria?”

  “Bikini,” Carmen said, slicking some onto her lips with her little wand.

  “Balmy is the bomb,” Ivy said.

  “Balmy is the bomb,” they all agreed.

  Quinn took a bite of her sandwich and said nothing. Because she had nothing to add. The glossiest thing she had ever put on her lips was ChapStick. If Julius were here, he would launch right in with one of his records. The most lipstick applications in one hour is five hundred and thirty-five. Thankfully, Julius was not here. Thankfully, no one at the table seemed to notice Quinn’s makeup deficiency. They were more interested in where she’d bought her skirt (Buffalo Exchange) and whether or not she had a boyfriend back in Colorado (not). Which brought them full circle to the conversation Quinn had overheard while running laps.

  “You see that boy ovah by the window?” Ivy whispered. “In the wheelchair?”

  Quinn turned around.

  “Don’t look,” Lissa said.

  Quinn turned back to her sandwich.

  “That’s my ex-boyfriend,” Ivy said.

  His name, Quinn was told in hushed tones, was Nick Strout. Brother of Tommy Strout, junior, quarterback of the varsity football team. There were two more Strout brothers who’d graduated. Football royalty, all of them. Tommy Strout was the most gorgeous specimen of all. Nick Strout, on the other hand, was a real-life tragedy.

  “Why?” Quinn said.

  “Because,” Ivy said solemnly, “he was the best football playah Gulls Head has evah seen. Even in eighth grade.”

  “And now he has no legs,” Lissa whispered.

  “Gone.” Carmen snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

  Sitting there in the cafeteria, Quinn felt every cell in her body standing at attention. She remembered Dr. Hersh’s words: The hair could grow back, or it could fall out completely. We’ll just have to wait and see. She turned to Ivy and said, “What happened?”

  “Snowmobile accident. Rollovah. He got crushed.”

  “Crushed,” Lissa repeated.

  “He almost died,” Ivy said.

  Carmen pointed her finger at the ceiling and held it there.

  “Don’t mind her,” Ivy said.

  “What is she doing?” Quinn said.

  “Pointing up at God,” Lissa said. “Like Big Papi.”

  “Who’s Big Papi?”

  Everyone stared at Quinn.

  “You’ve nevah heard of Big Papi?” Carmen said.

  Quinn shook her head, feeling stupider by the second.

  “He’s only the best baseball playah evah.”

  “Evah.”

  “You have heard of the Red Sox, haven’t you?” Lissa said.

  “Yes,” Quinn said. “I’ve heard of the Red Sox.” Did they think she was born under a rock?

  “Anyway,” Ivy said. “Nick was my boyfriend. But now he’s not.”

  “Now he’s her stawkah,” Lissa said.

  “He is not my stawkah,” Ivy said. “He’s just having trouble moving on.”

  By the time the bell rang, Quinn had learned two things about Nick Strout and Ivy D’Arcy:

  1) They’d gone out for four months, three months before and one month after the snowmobile accident that crushed his legs.

  2) Ivy dumped Nick not because an infection forced doctors to amputate Nick’s legs, but because Nick (who used to be fun and cute and crazy talented) seemed to have undergone a personality amputation. Which was way worse than losing his legs. Now he was bitter and needy and, well, not the Nick Strout that Ivy had once loved. Like, at all.

  This was what Quinn was contemplating on her way to sixth-period study hall: Nick Strout’s chopped-off personality. You could probably call it ironic that the first person Quinn saw when she got to room 203 was Nick Strout. Unless this was some other boy in a wheelchair stuck on the doorjamb.

  Quinn didn’t decide to help him. It was instinct. She just bent down and tried to unwedge his wheel.

  “What are you doing?”

  Dark hair, dark eyes, ticked-off expression.

  “Sorry,” Quinn said when she realized she was staring. He had no legs. Well, he had legs. They just stopped at midthigh, poking out of his khaki shorts and covered in these white stocking things. “I didn’t mean … I was just trying to…”

  “What?” he snapped.

  “I…”

  “Do you have a staring problem?”

  Quinn shook her head. She knew what it felt like to be stared at. She knew better than anyone. It started with a warm tingle in your cheeks that spread like gangrene down your neck and chest, and into your belly, where it took up residence, growing hotter and hotter, until your whole body was smoldering. She’d felt it all the time last year. At restaurants. At the grocery store. In line for the movies. What’s wrong with that girl? Why doesn’t she have hair?

  Quinn wanted to tell Nick that she understood. But she couldn’t. He was looking at her like … if he were holding a pencil he would stab her in the stomach. But he wasn’t holding a pencil. Neither of
them was. Because Quinn’s pencil had dropped out of her hand and rolled under the wheelchair, and all she could do was stand there, stammering like an idiot. “Sorry … I didn’t mean … I guess I’ll just…” Her voice trailed off and she bent down to retrieve her pencil.

  “Yo, Nicky!”

  From her crouched position, Quinn turned her head. There was another boy down the hall. He had the same dark hair as Nick, but he was older and thicker looking, wearing a football jersey and holding up a cell phone.

  “What?” Nick said.

  “Mom’s been texting you. Did you forget your phone again?”

  Tommy Strout, Quinn thought. Junior.

  Nick said nothing.

  “You have a PT appointment at twelve thirty. She says she’ll meet you out front.”

  Tommy Strout, Quinn thought. Quarterback of the football team.

  The bell rang. She had no choice but to scramble up from her awkward position, clutching her pencil.

  “Hey there,” Tommy Strout said.

  “Hey,” Quinn said.

  He smiled, slow and sweet and lopsided. It was the kind of smile that weakened knees and stopped hearts. And it would not be happening to Quinn McAvoy of Boulder, Colorado, she could promise you that. Despite the fact that she had fairly nice legs, which she was pretty sure he had noticed. In Boulder, all anyone had noticed was her head.

  Gleam-o.

  Baldilocks.

  Shaquille O’Neal.

  Quinn had half a mind to rip Guinevere off, kick her wedge sandals into the air, and yell, April Fools! But she didn’t. She was Quinn McAvoy of Gulls Head, Massachusetts, and she was going to make a dignified exit into study hall. As dignified an exit as a girl could make in platform heels and a wig that might or might not be sliding off.

  Quinn considered apologizing again, but Nick Strout wouldn’t even look at her. He was shooting his death stare at the floor. And anyway, she had already apologized twice. Quinn McAvoy of Boulder, Colorado, would apologize three times. She would chastise herself and feel like crap for the rest of the day.

  But Quinn was not that girl.

  Not anymore.

  CHAPTER

  3