“What else?” Quinn presses me. “Where are you from? Where did you go before Dalloway?”
“Jesus, Quinn,” Ellis says, her tone sharp—still ruffled by Quinn’s taking her down a peg, I imagine. “What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” I say.
Quinn allows me a slight smile from across the room. Maybe I’ve won myself some credit with them after all.
“I’m from Colorado originally,” I tell them, “but I went to the Fay School before Dalloway. That was a long time ago now; I’m a senior.”
Senior plus, really, but Quinn doesn’t need to know this is my second attempt at finishing my prep school career. Assuming Ellis hasn’t already informed them of my flaws.
I decide not to give Quinn the chance to guide the conversation, by asking the next question. “My mother’s Cecelia Morrow. Of the Boston Morrows.”
Not that it needs to be clarified; my mother’s flight from the East Coast, unmarried and pregnant by a stranger, had been what passed for a scandal back in the aughts. Everyone knew all the nasty little details, no matter how fiercely my grandmother had tried to obscure them.
Quinn performs a dramatic shudder. “New Englanders.”
“You’re such a snob,” Ellis says affectionately. She has curled up on the sofa, long legs flung out along the floor and crossed at the ankles. Her trousers hitch up high enough that I can tell she’s wearing sock garters.
“What about you?” I shoot back before Quinn can resume the interrogation. “I already know where you went to university. But I don’t know what you studied.”
“Statistics.”
“Quinn’s a poker player,” Ellis elaborates.
“If my trans-ness didn’t murder our parents, the gambling certainly would have.” Quinn’s slow smirk suggests they don’t mind that at all. “Ellis has always been the darling child, although I can’t imagine why. She’s just like me.”
Ellis rolls her eyes, but it seems good-natured. She leans over, and Quinn hands her their cigarette.
“I think it’s almost time for bed,” Ellis says, blowing her smoke toward the ceiling. “It’s getting late, and you had a long drive.”
“Kicking me out already?” Quinn’s grin is slow and mischievous; I don’t have the impression they mind being bossed around by their little sister.
But I am surprised Ellis is attempting it in the first place. I get the sense she’s trying to reassert some kind of dominance after Quinn called her out for the fake whiskey habit.
“Oh, we’ll see quite enough of each other over the next few days, I’m sure,” Ellis says. She stabs out the cigarette and gets to her feet, finishing off her cocktail in a few long swallows.
It means I have to gulp down the rest of my old fashioned as well, and I waver a little when I stand. I tell myself that’s fatigue; I’m not such a lightweight as to be thrown off balance by one drink. “It was nice meeting you, Quinn. I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Bright and early,” they say, clapping Ellis on the shoulder one last time before heading for the door. “I’m staying at a hotel in town. Not far at all; feel free to call if you need anything.”
And then they’re gone, as quickly as they arrived. If I were alone, I might wonder if the whole thing had been some bizarre drunken fever dream.
Ellis stands in the hall with her arms crossed, staring at the space where Quinn had stood.
“What?” I say, a teasing edge creeping into my tone. “Sick of them already?”
Ellis shakes her head. “Of course not. Although I do wonder why they bothered to come all this way if they’re only going to make fun of me.”
A sharp sound bursts out of my chest, almost a laugh. “Ellis, they weren’t making fun of you. They were perfectly nice.”
“Oh, yes, that’s Quinn. Perfectly nice.”
She stalks back into the common room, and I follow, sitting next to her on the sofa and—after a moment—patting her knee.
“Well they aren’t staying in Godwin, at any rate, so you’ll have plenty of breaks,” I say.
She sighs and tips her head back against the upholstery. Her cheeks are still pink. Maybe it isn’t embarrassment; maybe she doesn’t have nearly the alcohol tolerance she leads us to believe. “Yes,” she says. “Even so, perhaps we should have gone down to Savannah instead. My parents’ house is massive—you could get lost in those halls. We’d have had all the privacy we desired.”