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Chapter 14 - We’re Doing This!

After the  Awards Ceremony the rest of the afternoon and evening went by much more smoothly, for which everyone was eminently thankful.

Quinne talked ‘her’ father into almost immediately heading off campus to go see some of the sights of downtown Colorado Springs. Stella went with them to serve as the communications liaison just in case. The remainder of Team Justin got to take a well deserved break and, for those whose families had begun to arrive as well, they took the time to hang out with their own people.

It took Brian a little bit longer to restore his wardrobe and hair to its usual level of stunning magnificence. When he finally emerged from the men’s room his anger had abated enough to grudgingly accept Trevor’s apologies. Qianna and Christa tried really hard not to show any inkling of amusement at the situation, but QiQi feared she might not have succeeded completely when she caught ‘her’ Pops glaring at her. Channelling her inner-Quinne, she smiled and shrugged as nonchalantly as possible. Brian merely shook his head at her and let it all slide. And then the group headed off to give Brian the tour of the dorms that Justin had already received earlier.

“So, where’s this amazing roommate of yours, Kiddo? The one you’ve been babbling about all summer? From the way you talked about her, I thought the two of you were practically joined at the hip,” Brian asked almost as soon as they walked through the door of the girls’ dorm room.

“She’s off with her dad. I think they were going to do some sightseeing and have dinner or something,” Qianna advised, while trying not to be nervous at the direction Brian’s questions had taken.

“That’s too bad. I would have been glad to meet her. And maybe even her dad - didn’t you say he was gay too? We could have all had dinner together,” Brian commented with a suggestive waggle of his brows.

“Yeah, I’m sure that would have gone well. I’m not going to sit around making polite conversation while you ogled your next conquest, Pops,” Qianna stated, trying to sound like her sister.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time for you, would it,” Brian chuckled as he sauntered around the small room, looking at all the various nick-knacks the two girls had accumulated to decorate their small living space over the summer.

He only stopped when he passed by Qianna’s messenger bag draped over the back of her chair. The bag was decorated with a brightly colored image of one of Justin’s most beloved and well known animation characters. And, while it wasn’t unusual to see merchandise bearing the character’s likeness, it wasn’t often that the item was personally autographed by the artist who’d designed and drawn the character. Justin’s sprawling and very distinct ‘JTaylor’ signature was clearly evident on this bag, though. Brian paused and reached out to trace the lines of the mark with his index finger, his face betraying a moment of some undecipherable emotion for that one brief instant, before he recollected himself, smiled and then moved on around the room. Qianna, who was watching Brian like a hawk, hadn’t missed the attention to Justin’s work or the strange expression, but she didn’t know what it meant.

“Well, I can’t say dorm rooms have changed much from the last time I lived in one, Spark,” Brian averred with a smirk. “At least you didn’t have to try and cram a year’s worth of personal possessions in here. Your brother’s been going through his shit all summer, planning what he’s taking to school, and seems to think he’s going to be able to get half the house into HIS dorm room come fall. Maybe you’ll be able to talk him down. He’s only going to be about ten miles away, for fuck’s sake - he doesn’t need to take everything he fucking owns.”

“I’ll beat some sense into him for you, Pops,” Qianna promised, internally squeeing at the very thought of finally getting to meet her ‘brother’.

“So, you want to get the hell out of here and go get something to eat? I couldn’t eat the slop they tried to pass off as food on the flight out here,” Brian announced. “You’d think that the price of a first class ticket would at least get you something edible. And why airlines can’t just serve you fresh salad without you having to pre-order, I’ll never understand.”

“Sure, Pops. Sounds great. I was too excited waiting for you to get here to get much lunch myself. Do you mind if we ask Christa to join us though? Her ‘rents aren’t due until tomorrow so I figured we could offer her dinner,” Qianna asked, trying to find a way to finagle her Team Captain and Logistics Expert an invite.

“This the same ‘Christa’ you told me you asked out for coffee a couple weeks ago?” Brian asked with an obvious wink.

Qianna paused, unsure how much her sister had shared with Brian about the budding attraction between her and Christa. “Maybe . . .” she hedged, with a blush that wasn’t at all Quinne-like but which the more demure Qianna couldn’t control even if she’d wanted to.

“Interesting. Never seen you blush over anyone before, Spark. Should I be worried?” Brian teased, shooting a knowing look at his ‘daughter’.

“Stop, Pops,” Qianna ordered. “If you need to be worried, I’ll tell you.”

“Fine. Just nice to see another of my children following in daddy’s footsteps, is all,” Brian joked.

“I said, ‘Stop’, already.”

Brian just chuckled and smirked with his tongue pointedly poking out his cheek. “Of course we should invite this Christa along for dinner, then. I’m looking forward to checking her out.”

Qianna grumbled under her breath about annoying fathers as she ushered him out the door and down the hall to pick up her supposed new love interest. If only there was some way to get out of what was bound to be an uncomfortable dinner. But she needed Christa with her in case there was a need to share info with the other team, so Qianna just held her tongue and hoped Brian would dial down his usual sexual-innuendo-laced conduct for the duration of dinner.

Not that that was at all likely.

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Quinne arrived back at the dorm room a little after seven that night to find her sister already there and waiting for her. She’d had a really pleasant afternoon with Justin. They’d found several eclectic little art galleries in the downtown area to tool around in, actually meeting several of the artists and talking to the owners, all of whom were thrilled to meet Justin Taylor in person. After wandering through the galleries for several hours, with Justin making a couple of small purchases along the way, they’d gone out for a nice meal at a hole-in-the-wall Salvadoran restaurant that they stumbled across by accident. The food had been absolutely delicious and she was so stuffed by the time they left that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to walk.

Quinne found her sister in their room, lying across the bed with her feet propped up on a chair. Qianna looked exhausted. “He took you shopping, didn’t he?” she asked sympathetically.

“I know you tried to warn me, but I just didn’t understand . . .” Qianna replied, looking at her sister sheepishly.

“Do NOT let him get his head when he’s off on a shopping spree. That’s, like, a total rookie mistake, Sis. And if you do agree to shop with him, you need to be prepared. Stay hydrated. Bring snacks to keep your energy level up. Wear comfortable shoes. Oh, and I’d also suggest bringing a book or something to help entertain yourself for when he gets lost in the shoe department,” Quinne lectured as sympathetically as she could, moving Qianna’s feet so she could sit on the chair herself and rub at the poor girl’s tired toes.

“He said he just wanted to go get something to eat and the next thing I knew he’d found a Prada outlet. I didn’t even know they had one here,” Qianna sounded dazed.

“If there’s a designer label anywhere in ten miles, Pops will find it. I think he can smell the shoe leather or something,” Quinne joked - well, mostly joked, since there was at least some truth to her words. “You need to be firm with him, though. Sometimes you just have to put your foot down and tell him ‘NO Shopping!’ and stick to your guns.” Qianna sighed so deeply that Quinne almost started laughing at the pitiful sight. “Did he remember to feed you?”

“No. Which had Christa super annoyed, by the way - she actually bailed on us after only an hour and your dad had to pay for a Lyft to take her back to campus. But I’m too tired to eat now anyway,” Qianna moaned, cringing as she shifted her weight to try and sit up straighter. “How was your dinner with Dad?”

“Delicious! I wish I’d known about your afternoon - I’d have brought you a doggie bag from the Salvadoran place we found. The owner’s wife was the cook and she kept trying to shove more food at us till I thought I’d explode. Fuck it was good.” She rubbed at her still-full stomach. “I had no idea your dad could eat that much. Actually, I didn’t know ANYONE could eat that much. How does he do it and not weigh, like, a thousand pounds.”

“Dad’s got amazing metabolic powers. Just don’t get between him and his dinner plate unless you want to lose a finger or two,” Qianna kidded, feeling a little better now that she had company to laugh with. “But even my dad can’t eat for five straight hours. What did you do with the rest of the time?”

“We went through a bunch of really sweet art galleries downtown. Your dad is so cute when he talks about art and stuff. He gets so excited. It’s adorable,” Quinne concluded. “He bought me this.” She showed off the beautiful leather-bound notebook with the hand-painted cover that Justin had purchased. “And all the gallery owners went practically gaga over him as soon as they found out who he was. It was crazy.”

“Yeah, that happens a lot. Dad doesn’t mind so much when it’s other artists, but he hates dealing with the public at large.”

“So, how’d it go with Pops when he first saw you? I caught a glimpse or two of you guys during the awards thingy. It looked like he bought it was you. Any problems?” Quinne asked, eager to gauge how well their scheming was going.

“Piece of cake. He didn’t say anything except to give me shit about the hat all afternoon long,” Qianna advised, looking pleased with herself and her Quinne performance. “Of course, I think he was a little too distracted by Trevor dumping a gallon of water on him and then by the shopping to really notice me much.”

“Don’t let his shopping obsession fool you - Pops notices EVERYTHING, even when you don’t think he’s noticing,” Quinne explained. “You can’t let your guard down. Not even when he’s shopping. He’s tricky like that.”

“Got it. Thanks for the warning. How about you? Did Dad say anything about how tall you got over the summer?”

Quinne grinned. “You totally nailed it. He was, like, ‘you grew’, and then he complained that I looked too skinny before going off on the hat too.” The girls laughed together at their hat woes. “But I think he bought it. The only thing that had me worried was when he started to brag on me to the artists we met and asked me to show off some of my drawings. Which was when I realized I’d goofed and had neglected to bring along one of your sketch pads. I covered by saying I was so excited to see him that I forgot it back at the room. But what am I going to do when we get to California and he asks me to draw him something? He’s definitely going to notice if his daughter suddenly loses all interest in her art.”

“Damn. We didn’t think about that,” Qianna sat up straighter and began to nibble nervously on her thumbnail. “You can’t just conveniently forget to bring a sketch pad along with you all the time - knowing Dad he’d just run out and buy you another. Hmmm . . . Maybe you could say you’d hurt yourself or something? I mean, it won’t hold him off forever, but maybe it would give us a couple weeks or something?”

“That’s not a bad idea. I could say I hurt my wrist goofing off with friends after he dropped me off tonight.”

“Oooo - what if we pop over to that all-night pharmacy on the corner and see if they have one of those wrist support braces or something? That way it would make it seem more real. And you wouldn’t forget and all of a sudden pick up something with your ‘injured’ hand,” Qianna suggested wisely.

“Great idea, Sis. Come on,” Quinne got up and started to head for the door.

“Ugh!” Qianna groaned as she tried to stand to follow her twin. “I’m not sure I can walk that far. Carry me?”

“You’re pathetic; you know that?” Quinne laughed and threw a pillow off the bed at her sister. “You’re gonna have to toughen up if you want to be a Kinney. We Kinneys don’t crumple from a mere shopping excursion. We’re made of stronger stuff than that.”

“Well, we Taylors are delicate, fragile creatures, unfamiliar with the rigors of marathon shopping sprees, so don’t expect too much,” Qianna groaned as she limped after her sister.

“Poor baby - it’s your first shopping hangover,” Quinne sympathized. “Come on and I’ll buy you an energy drink to help get you past the worst of the symptoms.”

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The girls successfully got to the pharmacy and back, picking up a wrist brace for Quinne along with enough junk food to get them through the rest of the night. Since it was the last night of the camp, the students were holding a movie marathon night. It was a great way to enjoy one last fun activity with the friends they’d made that summer. Qianna flittered around from group to group, hugging all, and exchanging email addys with practically the whole group. Nobody really minded that there was too much chatter to actually hear the movies half the time. And, at the end of the night, Chase escorted Qianna up to her room to say goodbye, giving the girl her very first kiss in the process. Quinne showed up a couple minutes later, Christa holding her hand and looking well kissed herself. The twins said their final FINAL goodbyes before heading into their own room a little after midnight.

The last thing that Quinne did before snuggling into bed - a habit she’d picked up from watching her Pops for years - was to quickly scan through any last minute social media notifications and her email accounts. This time she was very, very, glad she’d done it, too. There in her inbox was one email the twins had been waiting for with much anticipation.

“OMG! It’s here! QiQi, it’s here!” she screeched giddily.

Qianna, who’d already been in bed and halfway asleep sat up, staring around herself as if looking for whatever it was that had invaded their room. “What’s here?”

“The email from that Devon guy from the DNA service,” Quinne explained. “He finally wrote us back . . .” She took a minute to read through the message and then hollered, “YES!” loudly enough that it probably disturbed the sleep of their next door neighbors. “I think we found her!”

Qianna crawled into her sister’s bed so she could read over Quinne’s shoulder.

DevonDart2000@mymail.com:  ‘Hi, Cousin! It was really a surprise to hear from you. It’s so sad that you and your sister have had such a hard time looking for your birth mother, but I’m glad that we seem to have finally connected in this roundabout way. I do indeed have an ‘Aunt Lizzy’ who sounds like she might be your mother. She’s my father’s youngest sister. She is now on her third marriage - which, happily, seems to be the one that might finally work out - and goes by ‘Lizette Forbes’. Aunt Lizzy was a bit of wild child when she was younger and she basically disappeared for a number of years, so the family would have no information for you about whether or not she actually ever gave up two children for adoption. I spoke to my father about it and he was clueless but said it wouldn’t surprise him. I’m afraid I’m not comfortable just giving you Aunt Lizzy’s contact information but, if you’re okay with it, I would be happy to relay your info to her and ask that she contact you directly. And in the meantime, if I can be of any other help, just let me know. I hope it’s true and we really have found new relatives we didn’t even know were out there. Welcome to the family!’

“We found her!” Qianna crowed happily when she’d finished reading. “We actually found her!”

“Yeah. Now, let’s hope she’ll actually write us back and answer some of our questions,” Quinne said as she quickly typed out a reply to Devon, giving him the go ahead to send her email on to ‘Aunt Lizzy’.

“We can also try to do some more research on our own while we’re waiting. Now that we have a name, it should be a little easier,” Qianna added.

“True.” Quinne hit the send icon and then laid aside her phone. “She can’t hide from us forever.”

“Let’s hope,” Qianna responded with a yawn before she gratefully fell into bed once more.

Only to be awakened far too early the next morning with the unpleasant prospect of packing to leave.

As Qianna folded the last of her clothing into her suitcase, she looked around the tiny room they’d shared for the past ten weeks and sighed. “Is it wrong that I’m so sad about leaving today? I mean, I’m excited to go to Pittsburgh and meet all of your crazy family, but I’m going to miss this. I’m going to miss US.”

“I know. Me too, Sis,” Quinne paused in her own efforts to sort through which of her own books she just couldn’t live without even though she was going to pretend to be Qianna for the next however-long, and looked up at her sister. “While we were here it was just us; we got to know each other and really be sisters. I don’t want that to end either.”

“What if this all comes crashing down around our ears?” Qianna worried, slumping down onto the floor next to Quinne. “Shit, when our dads finally figure out what we’re doing, they’re going to be so mad. Are we nuts to try this? What if it backfires and they get so angry they never let us see each other again?”

“That’s NOT going to happen,” Quinne insisted, reaching for her twin’s hand and squeezing hard. “We won’t let it. They can’t keep us apart. We’ll have phones and email and . . . we just won’t let it.”

“I’m going to miss you so bad, Q,” Qianna sobbed, leaning into her sister’s shoulder as the tears she’d been struggling to hold back just wouldn’t stop.

“Same,” Quinne felt a few tears escaping down her own cheeks as she hugged her sister hard. “But it doesn’t matter. Even if we’re a whole continent away, at least now I know you’re out there and that someday we’ll figure out a way to be together again.”

“That’ll be our next plan,” Qianna asserted, sitting up and swiping at the wetness dripping down her chin. “We’ll plan out how we’re going to live together - or at least close by each other - and have our own families and see each other all the time and never, ever, be apart for long again.”

“Sounds like a wonderful plan to me.”

“Me too,” Qianna echoed, finally getting herself back under control as she returned to her packing. “Okay, all my clothing and stuff is packed up for you. I only kept a couple of my favorite t-shirts and some books. Oh, and one small sketchpad that I figured I could hide in my room when I get to your house - I can’t go more than a few days without something to draw on, you know.  But other than that, I think I’m ready to go into Quinne-Mode full time. How about you?”

“I’m feeling very Qianna-ish already,” Quinne agreed with a smile as she slipped the fake wrist brace on her right hand. “I can’t wait to see San Jose.”

“Make sure to give Winston a big hug for me and tell him I still love him.”

“Winston? You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend, QiQi!” Quinne pretended to be shocked. “Does Chase know about this?”

“Winston is my cat, you dweeb. You know that!” Qianna finally cracked a smile.

“Fine. I’ll hug the fur beast for you.”

“And then you can kick the ass of the other fur beast - Alex - for me,” Qianne offered. “Or, at the very least, try to make sure my dad isn’t being totally taken advantage of by the creep.”

“Don’t worry. I’m on it.”

“Well, okay . . .” Qianna looked around the room one last time but didn’t see anything they’d forgotten. “Then you should probably get out of here so you’re not around when Brian gets here to take me home.”

“Yeah,” Quinne grabbed Qianna’s bags and hefted the carryon to her shoulder. “Damn, I wish I could at least hug Pops once before you go off with him. It felt so weird not even saying ‘hi’ to him yesterday. You promise to take good care of him and not give him too much shit about his shopping problem?”

“Of course. You make sure you give my Dad lots and lots of hugs from me too, okay?”

“Alright . . . *sigh* . . . So, we’re really doing this, huh?”

“Yep. We’re doing this,” Qianna nodded with a resigned smile.

“We’re fucking crazy to try this, you know?” Quinne stated bluntly.

“I know. But, what the fuck, right?” Qianna replied with her best Quinne cursing impression.

“Right.”

“Love you, Sis, and thanks for . . . well, for everything.”

“Ditto, Sis.” Quinne reached out her arms so Qianna could get one last hug in. When they finally let go of each other, a glance at the clock told them it was time to put the final step of their plan into action. “Okay. I’m off to go hide in the lounge until after you and Pops are gone. Text me when you’re in the car on the way to the airport. And again when you land in The Pitts.”

“You too. And good luck. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

And then Quinne pulled her beanie hat over her auburn mop of hair, grabbed the handle of her suitcase, and waved one last time before she left the room. Qianna slumped back onto the now bare bed. She hadn’t expected this to be so hard. She was already missing her sister and having second, third and maybe even fourth thoughts about the wisdom of this plan of theirs. But it was too late to back out now. She needed to just shake off all the misgivings and try to think like her sister. Quinne was always confident and bold. She wouldn’t let her fears hold her back. Yeah. Qianna could do this. She could BE Quinne. At least she thought she could.

About fifteen minutes later there was a knock on the door and, when she called out a cheerful ‘Come In’, Brian’s face peeked through the opening. “You ready to blow this joint, Spark?”

“Definitely, Pops!” Qianna replied, jumping up to trot over and hug ‘her’ father hello. “I can’t wait to get to Pittsburgh and see everybody!”

“I don’t think anybody’s ever been that enthusiastic about Pittsburgh before,” Brian laughed as he hugged his daughter back. “Everyone will be glad to see you though. It’s been a quiet summer without you around. So let’s get this show on the road, hmm?”

“Let’s!” Qianna picked up her messenger bag and allowed Brian to take charge of the big rolling suitcase.

And then they were gone, with only one last look back at the room where so much had changed for two young lives in only one short summer.

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