The Virgin Ceremonies Ch. 08

"I said that because I thought it would never happen, and I was being nice. Of course, you can't meet up!"

"So, you had no faith in me at all, and you were just patronizing me? You're just the best friend ever."

"You have no fucking idea how good of a friend I am being right now."

"Whatever. Just eat your pizza. I'm done with lectures for the night."

I stormed off, crossing the dozen steps to my room. I slammed the door. I put my back against it and breathed. We never fought like this. I heard her slam her bedroom door a minute later.

I felt so defeated. Beau was truly out of my reach now. I thought I'd put him in the past, but now that I knew he was waiting for me, he felt so close, yet so far. I wanted to take out a stupid newspaper ad in those missed connections sections. I used to read those for laughs, and now my life was one giant screwed up missed connection.

It was after 9:00pm when I finally got hungry enough to go back for a slice of pizza. It was lukewarm, but I chewed on one anyway, thinking about my night, obsessing over all the faces I saw at the fountain. I still felt like he had been there. I felt like if I was still thinking about him all this time, maybe he was thinking about me too. Maybe he'd seen me and said nothing. Maybe he didn't see me at all. Of course, I also admitted I was being crazy. No one would keep coming to a park for six straight weeks.

Quinn's door opened, and Sergio walked out. He was wearing underwear, just that, nothing else.

"Oh, sorry," he said.

I averted my eyes, looking at the mail pile, flipping through it, still in the kitchen with my pizza. I had a very strict no-eating-in-the-bedroom policy I'd been raised with, and even a half-naked man could not get me to break it.

He fished a slice out of the box. "By the way, sorry for the thing I said this morning. I was just joking."

"Oh, it's fine," I said. God, the one topic I never wanted to bring up again.

He nodded, chewing. "How's your boyfriend?"

"Good. Thank you."

"You called your friend Beau?"

The cold pizza turned to ice in my hand. I dropped it on the kitchen counter, turning to look at Sergio full on. "Pa-pardon?"

"Beau? Is that his name? Is he French?"

I was in shock. "Quinn told you about him, his name? I, I can't believe she would do that. How could she? It's a secret. Are you serious?"

"Huh? I just meant from the postcard."

I was confused. "What are you talking about? What postcard?"

"The postcard. I was looking at it this morning, remember?"

"You mean the postcard from Quinn's sister, Ophelia?"

"No, this card was from some guy named Beau. I was jealous, but Quinn said it was for you, not her."

My heart was thumping wildly now. "Beau sent me a postcard?"

"Quinn didn't give it to you?"

"No. No, wait, are you serious?"

"About what?"

"You're not joking?"

"What's the joke?"

"What did it say? The card? What did it say?"

"Just a phone number, signed: Love, Beau."

"That's it?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Where is it?"

"Quinn said it was yours, said she'd give it to you. Maybe I'm wrong?"

I was reeling. Beau, my Beau, my mystery man, had sent me a postcard? And Quinn kept it from me? I spun around, grabbing the rest of the mail, tearing through it like a mad woman. No postcard. I charged across the room and opened Quinn's door. She was lying on her tummy, her bare back exposed, the sheets around her waist.

"Quinn!"

"Huh?" she said, turning around, holding the sheet to her chest. "What? What's wrong?"

"Beau sent me a postcard?"

She put her hand over her face. "Fuck."

"Fuck? Fuck what? Are you fucking serious? Tell me right now what's going on!"

She looked at Sergio in the doorway. "You asked her about the postcard?"

"Was it a secret?" he said. "You didn't tell me."

"You just couldn't keep your mouth shut? Why? You didn't trust me when I said it wasn't mine?"

"Hey!" I said, raising my voice. "You two can fight later. Tell me now, did Beau send me a postcard? Was it the card you said Ophelia sent? Did you seriously lie to my face?"

"Ginny, please take a breath. You're freaking out."

"Of course, I'm freaking out! My man sent me a postcard, and you're hiding it from me? Are you fucking kidding me? Where is it?"

"Okay, do you hear yourself? Your man? He's not your man, sweetie. He's a stranger."

"He's, he's... Did he really send me a card? He did, didn't he? You have it, and you're hiding it from me. I can't believe this. I can't believe you would do this. I mean, I seriously can't. It's you. It's Quinn. You'd keep this from me? Me? No fucking way."

"Sergio," Quinn said, "can you go for a walk, have a smoke? This is a private conversation."

"Okay, okay," he said, taking his pants and t-shirt and jacket. Quinn and I stared at each other until we heard the front door open and close.

"I am beside myself right now," I said, still catching my breath. "I want my postcard this instant, and then I want an explanation, in that order. Quinn, I am dead serious."

"Let me explain first."

"No, my card."

"Are you going to calm down if I give it to you?"

"I am calm. If you don't give it to me right now, you're going to see me very un-fucking-calm."

Quinn sighed, letting the sheet fall as she got out of bed. She grabbed her tank top from the floor and pulled it on, and then took a pair of shorts and pulled them up. I was so impatient, so many thoughts flying through my head. This was unreal. A postcard from Beau, and I was stuck here waiting for it from my friend, my cousin, my lifelong true sister. I felt completely betrayed. I couldn't even believe she did it. I had to see the postcard was real before I could believe she would stab me in the back like this.

Quinn turned on the light in the room and then opened the bottom drawer of her dresser, digging around. She pulled out a folder, opened it, and there inside was the postcard. She took it out, and I snatched it from her hand. I stared at the picture on the front, New York City, with Central Park as the focus. There was even a small black circle in the middle, right where Bethesda Fountain was. I turned it around with butterflies in my stomach.

"212-555-2328. Love, Beau. To: Ginny & Quinn."

To think, I'd carried this around in my purse all day last week, looked at it more than once and never turned it over. I felt like a fool. I looked at Quinn. "How could you?"

"My name was on it too. He sent it to me too."

"Are you serious? You're going to play that with me?"

"Let me explain."

"Yes, explain, you fucking traitor!"

She pulled her neck back. "Excuse me?"

"How could you keep this from me? Me? Am I a stranger to you? You know what I've been going through, and you hid this from me?"

"Traitor? I am the one, the only one, who is looking out for you right now!" she said, raising her voice and stepping toward me. "I hid it because I fucking love you! Because you're my sister, and I would bury a body for you! Don't you dare call me that!"

"Then tell me why? I'm going out of my mind, and you could save me, and you hid this from me. Do you have any idea what this means to me?"

"Yes, I do, and that's why I hid it. Why do you think I kept it from you, Ginny?" she said, grabbing my shoulders. I shrugged her off. "If you call that number, your life is over."

"What are you talking about?"

"Use your head," she said. "You can't meet him, ever. It was fine when it was a fantasy, wondering what his little meetup riddle meant, pretending you two might have had something, but this, he broke the fucking rules sending you this."

"Forget the rules."

"No! No, you don't forget these rules! Think! If you call that number, if you meet him, if our parents find out---"

"I don't care!"

"Listen! Your mother would find out. My mother would find out. It would expose us. Two hundred years of this. Imagine what your father, my father, the fucking news would say about the Duclark family. It would destroy our lives, not to mention the company."

"Why does anyone have to find out about that?"

"Because he is a stranger, and we can't trust him!"

"I can ask him to keep it a secret!"

"It doesn't matter if you did! Your mother would never allow you to be with him. My mother would hammer him with SLAPP suits just to destroy his life. You'd hate her for it, and she'd hate you, and you and I would be torn apart, and the entire family would disown you. Don't you fucking get it yet? The truth would come out. Someone would talk. Him, maybe you, fuck it, maybe even me to protect you. One way or another, your father would find out. Your parents would cut you off. Your life as you know it, university, tuition, spending money, this ridiculously expensive apartment, all gone. You'll be on the street. You'll be exactly like him, selling your body for money."

My eyes started to water. "He's not some prostitute."

"You have no idea the nuclear bomb you are holding in your hand right now. If you call him, you set it off. Your life will implode, disintegrate. If I had one ounce of sense, if I didn't love you so much, I would have burned it, but I said to myself, maybe one day, one day, when she's married and has two kids, I can tell her that Beau really cared about her, and by then it won't matter, but I'm a fucking moron, and I love you so much that it's going to destroy both of our lives."

I blinked and my tears rolled down my face. I started crying. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a hug.

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry," Quinn said.

"I have to call him."

"God, no."

"Just once, I swear," I said, sniveling into her shoulder.

She sat me down on the edge of her bed. "Look at me, look at me. Do you understand how dangerous this is? If my mother finds out I knew about this and didn't tell her, she'll kill me, or at least punish me so severely, my life will be destroyed. You're gambling with both of our lives, you get it?"

I wiped my blurry eyes. "I get it, okay. I'm sorry I said all that. You're right. You should have burned it. You should've told Sergio to keep his mouth shut. But you messed up, and now I can't go back. I have to call him. If your mom finds out, I will swear to my dying breath you didn't know anything about it. She can be angry at me."

"Damn it, no, Ginny. Look, I am begging you. I beg you, do not call him."

"Just once. I have to tell him I would have met him if I knew."

"Goddamn it, don't you get it? You could never have met him, ever. If you tell him that, he'll give you a new time, a new place, and you'll go, because, you dummy, you're in love with him."

I didn't speak for a moment. I had to find my voice. My throat felt impossibly tight. "I'm not," I whispered.

"Then prove it. Burn that card."

I wiped my eyes. "I can't."

"Damn it."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I do love him, I don't know. I just miss him so much. It's driving me crazy, like there's this hole inside me I can't fill. I'm so tired of thinking about him all the time. I just want to talk to him for a minute and say goodbye."

"You're going to fuck up everything," Quinn said. "You're ruining your life. I feel like I'm watching you take drugs, and I can't stop you."

"Wouldn't you take a risk for a guy you loved?"

She scoffed at me. "Have you been paying attention? I love Sergio, but I know I can't be with him. He's an immigrant, here on a student visa. It doesn't matter if he's successful. He's not filthy fucking rich, and that's what my mother wants for me. If my grades slip, B is for boys, C is for celibate. And A is for after I finish university, it's over. Knowing that hurts, but I have to accept it, because our lives aren't in our control, Ginny."

"At least you have Sergio. I don't have Beau. I don't know what it's like to be with him. Right now, if my mother said I could have Beau until I finished university, I'd take that deal. All I am asking for is a chance to see him one more time."

She put her face in her hands. "Damn it. Why didn't I burn it? I'm so dumb." She looked at me again. "Promise me you won't meet him in person."

"Quinn..."

"Please. If you're going to call him, it might be okay if you just keep your distance, but promise me you won't meet him in person. Promise."

My heart thumped heavily. "Don't make me do that, please."

"I'm trying to save your life, you idiot! If you promise me, I know you'll keep your mouth shut. If you don't, you'll want to meet him. Please, for your own good, for everything I've ever done for you, promise me you won't ruin your life and go to him."

I closed my eyes and fresh tears fell. "I promise." I did need to promise, because I knew she was right. I would run to him, consequences be damned, and I couldn't do that to Quinn, to my family, to two hundred years of women who kept this ridiculous secret.

"Just one call?" Quinn said.

"I promise not to meet him," I repeated. "I'm not promising only one call."

"Fuck, Ginny."

I stood up, wiping my face off. "Don't lie to me like that again, please."

She stood up. "You're a trainwreck, and you don't even see what's coming on the tracks."

"I'm trying my best here."

"I know, just give me a hug, you dummy."

I hugged her. "I love you."

"I love you. Don't meet him, ever, please, for both of us."

I crossed the apartment and closed my bedroom door. I plugged my headphones into my ears and stared at the postcard. A glance at the clock told me it was 10:00pm. I dialed. My heart was so loud, I could barely hear the ringtone.