*****
Saturday, Oct. 7
Kate walked over to the Leesburg Tavern with some measure of dread. A part of her wanted to stay inside. Since she had been back, she had fought the urge many times to just pack her bags and head home. In her anonymous hotel room, she could convince herself she was safe. But out in the night air like this, a terrible thought kept popping up.
I’m going to die in this town.
She shook her head. It was nonsense. Understandable, given her history, but stupid. Besides, faced with another night watching terrible cable in a hotel room, what choice did she have? If she was going to live in this town, she would have to put aside her fears and at least try to be social. Otherwise, she worried she would go crazy.
When she pushed open the door and stepped inside, she was immediately hit by a gigantic waft of smoke and the smell of stale beer. Despite the dim lights, she could see the place was outfitted like a kind of hillbilly version of T.G.I. Friday’s—there were signs, photos and knick-knacks covering the wall. Most of them, Kate noted, were off-color in taste. “Big Butts welcome, so sit your ass down,” said one near the door.
She sighed. Maybe this was not such a good idea.
It took her only a moment to see Quinn, Bill and Janus sitting at a table near the front. Bill waved frantically at her and she moved toward them through the haze of smoke.
“Hey Kate,” Janus and Quinn both said when she sat down.
“How are you?” Quinn asked right after.
“Good,” she said, and smiled at him.
She didn’t know quite what to make of Quinn. The first time she had seen him she had wondered if he was some type of stalker—staring at her from across the Starbucks like that. But by now, he seemed like one of the few people she really knew in the town. She had thought about their conversation in the graveyard and at the Phillips Farm meeting a lot during the day. She didn’t know quite what to make of him yet, but she liked him. That much she knew.
“You got here just in time,” Quinn said. “The band is just about to show up. As soon as they do, they’ll be a line out front.”
She nodded. “What band is it?”
“A group called Eddie from Ohio,” he answered. “They’re local—well, sort of local, at any rate.”
“They’re brilliant,” Janus said, and looked around the table as if daring anyone to disagree. “Kind of a folk-rock thing, like a mix of Janis Joplin and Pearl Jam.”
“Pearl Jam?” Bill asked, and snorted. “Did you pull that out of a hat? More like a cross between Janis Joplin and Sheryl Crow.”
“Yes, guys, let’s do have this debate again,” Quinn said, and glared at them.
“Anyway,” Janus said, pulling a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lighting it with a silver lighter he fished out of his jacket. “They are one of the best bands that plays here. Second only to the Urban Hillbilly Quartet. Now that’s an incredible band. Like a mixture of Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd.”
“Okay, now you are just trying to piss me off,” Bill said. “Neither one of those is right. They’re more free form than that, like a mix of...”
“Please drop this,” Quinn said. “Kate has been here for five minutes and you guys are already degenerating into the same argument you have all the time. They’re like a bitter married couple.”
“Fuck off,” the two said in unison.
Kate laughed.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s been awhile since I've had a debate about music.”
Janus shot Quinn an “I told you so” look.
“Believe me, this is less of a debate and becomes more of a soapbox tourney,” Quinn said.
“It’s a pissing match,” Janus replied, and took a drag on his cigarette, holding it a moment before blowing a puff of smoke in Bill’s direction. “One I always win.”
“Get bent,” Bill said, using one of Janus’ favorite expressions.
“It’s easy to win a pissing match when you are as large as I am.”
Bill rolled his eyes.
“Rebecca is right—you really are a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen,” Quinn said.
“Americans are so uptight,” Janus said.
“How long have you lived here?” Kate asked him.
“Don’t let him fool you,” Quinn said. “He’s been here long enough that he drinks coffee, not tea, and he makes fun of British people too.”
“I make fun of English people,” Janus said. “There is a difference, you know. The English are prats.”
“My Dad is English,” Kate said. The conversation stopped, as everyone stared at Janus.
“Well, I guess… maybe not your…” Janus sputtered.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I was only kidding.”
It took a minute for that to sink in. Quinn and Bill started to laugh. Janus waited a second before joining in.
“Well, look at you,” he said. “Here only a few days and already making fun of me.”
Kate smiled at them. “When in Rome…” she said, and spread her hands.
“You’re all right,” Janus said. “Now Bill, why don’t you get off your rather large exterior and get us a drink?”
“Charming, just charming,” Quinn mumbled.
“Why do I have to get the drinks?” Bill asked. “I got them last time.”
“Do Quinn and I look daft to you, ya wanker?” Janus asked. “We remember perfectly well last week. We bought rounds and you didn’t.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Bill retorted. “I did so.”
“You’re embarrassing the lady,” Janus said.
“Actually, I…” Kate began, but Janus cut her off.
“See?” Janus said. “Look. She’s beet red. Now be a good photographer and get us some drinks.”
Bill sighed deeply.
“Okay,” he said gloomily. He took the drink orders and went off to the bar.
“You know, he really did buy the round last time,” Janus told Kate. He absentmindedly crushed his finished cigarette in the ashtray at the table.
Quinn rolled his eyes again, but chuckled.
“Don’t feel too bad for Bill, Kate,” he said. “Janus may have tricked him this time, but he does have a habit of sneaking out on paying for drinks.”
By the time Bill returned, the band had taken the stage and begun.
To her surprise, Kate found herself enjoying the whole evening. It was true that neither Bill nor Janus were exactly gentlemen, but they were fun guys. A half dozen times during the evening they started arguing, with topics ranging from which country had the best soccer team to the best restaurants in Leesburg.
Quinn, meanwhile, took turns occasionally joining in and then mocking them to Kate right afterward.
For a moment, she felt like she had always been there, sitting at the table, watching the three of them make jokes. It was a remarkably warm feeling, like she belonged here. Like she had never left. She smiled to herself. Maybe this had been why she came back—to escape the ghosts of the past.
But the feeling receded like a wave and she shivered in the hot, smoky room. What had happened she wasn’t sure, but suddenly, Kate didn’t want to be there anymore.
“Want another round?” Janus asked when the band had finished its set. “Numb-nuts here will buy.”
“I swear to almighty God if you call me that again, you short little…” Bill said.
“You’ll what? Come on, you’ll what?”
Quinn sighed and looked at Kate.
“Seriously, do you want anything?” he asked.
She shook her head and looked at her watch.
“Actually, I should get going,” she said.
“See what you did,” Janus said, and looked accusingly at Bill.
“Well, if you hadn’t been acting like a jerk, I’m sure she would have stayed,” Bill replied.
“It’s been a great night, guys, it really has,” Kate said, and stood up. She lifted her jacket off the chair back.
&n
bsp; “Well, I was thinking of leaving, too, you mind if I walk with you?” Quinn asked.
Janus nudged Bill in the stomach and both men chuckled. In a not-so-subtle move, Quinn extended his middle finger and scratched his eye with it. They took the hint, but chose to ignore it.
“Sure,” she said, and glanced only briefly at Quinn.
“See you guys later,” she said. Quinn waved and the two walked out the door.
Kate pulled her jacket closer to her and shivered in the night air.
“God, it got cold,” she said.
“Yeah,” he responded.
“You don’t need to walk me home,” Kate said, though in truth she felt like some company.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I could use the exercise.”
He paused a minute.
“So I hope you had a good time tonight,” he said.
“I did,” she replied. “I really did.”
She opened her mouth to say something more, then shut it. She liked Quinn, but what did she really know of him? It was unwise to say too much. It would raise questions she did not want to answer.
“Good. It’s tough when you join up with a new paper. New editors, new beats. But we’re a nice bunch. At least some of us are, at any rate.”
Kate laughed. “Who isn’t very nice?” she asked.
“You don’t want to hear me gossip, do you?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said. “I’m dying for some good gossip.”
“Well, Helen you know about,” he said.
“Rebecca seems kind of controlling too,” Kate said.
“She is that, but she is also good at her job,” he said. “Helen… well… Helen is good at coming up with ideas for other people. And Ethan thinks she just walks on water.”
“Who’s Ethan?” she asked.
“Ethan Holden—the owner of Holden Inc.,” Quinn said and laughed. “You’ll meet him soon enough. He is a piece of work. He pays us shit, then demands at every meeting that we need to work harder—with substandard equipment and crappy benefits.”
“Seems like a great guy,” Kate said.
“He also doesn’t have a backbone,” Quinn continued as they walked. “Last year, I had a great story about Paul Gibson, who is now the chairman of the board of supervisors. I had sources who told me he had taken money from developers on the side, all the while promising that he would stop development in the county. But Ethan wouldn’t let Laurence run it. Or at least that is what Laurence claims…”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Paul and Ethan are friends, of course. Ethan is friends with all the local politicians. Hell, he knows Senators Mark Warner and George Allen personally. He is one of the wealthiest guys in the state and gave pretty decently to their campaigns.”
“And Laurence didn’t stand up to him?”
“One thing I should warn you—in this job, don’t expect much support from Laurence,” he said. “Rebecca will fight for you, but Laurence would lose a boxing match against a one-legged man in a wheelchair. I’ve only seen him angry a few times, and even then, he didn’t do anything about it.”
“My editor at the Gazette was a great guy,” Kate said. “I saw him yell at just about everybody—from advertising guys he felt had crossed the line by approaching reporters, to the publisher for interfering.”
“Well, Laurence isn’t that,” Quinn said.
“Why did you come out here?” she said. “People would kill for a job at the Congressional Quarterly. You didn’t say why you left the other day.”
He paused before launching into the whole sordid story.
“My parents died,” he said. “They had moved down here from Pennsylvania and just loved it. But some drunk guy from Hillsboro hit them one night and they were gone.”
“God, I’m sorry,” Kate said.
“I moved into their house for awhile while I sorted everything out and I suddenly felt I couldn’t go back. I didn’t want to be in D.C. It was too self-involved and politics suddenly lost its appeal. It just didn’t seem to mean that much anymore.”
“I can understand that,” she said.
“So I sold their place and bought an apartment,” he said. “I couldn’t think of where to go and this just seemed right. So I stayed.”
They were approaching the Leesburg Inn.
“That must have been hard,” she said, “to lose both your parents.”
“It’s one of those things that every time I think I’ve moved on, I get pulled back. I’m not sure I’ll ever really move on.”
Kate nodded.
They stopped in front of the hotel.
“Well,” Quinn said self-consciously, and looked down at his shoes. “Here we are.”
Kate stopped and looked at him. “Thanks for walking me home.”
She wanted to say something more—about her own mother maybe—but she couldn’t. She felt overwhelmed by fatigue and didn’t want to think about it anymore.
“Sure,” he said. “I hope you’ll join us again.”
“Anytime,” she said.
And then she did something unexpected for both of them. Without thinking about it, she leaned in and kissed Quinn on the cheek. Startled by her own action, she pulled back a little, so that their faces were only inches apart. It felt like something electrical crackled in the air and she pulled away as suddenly as she had started.
“Thanks again,” she said.
And then she was through the door and out of sight.
Quinn stood outside looking up. He touched his cheek reflexively. Despite the cool October air, he felt warm inside, like he had drunk a gallon of hot coffee.
He walked home in a kind of daze, not really sure what had happened. There had been something, he thought. And whatever it was, it was powerful. Something had seemed to move between them and only time would tell what.