More Ferarum

Chapter Three

He also had nicknames for Quinn, calling him "Quinnchilada" and "Quinndolin."

It was a few days of him doing it before I said something. I had just donned my scrubs and was turning the crockpot off when I heard Devin talking to Quinn in the other room. I stuck my head around the corner and found Quinn hammering away at his xylophone while Devin peeled an orange onto a paper plate.

"What's this Quinndolin business? Is it because his hair makes him look girly?" Quinn's hair was wisping down to his shoulders and Bettie's opinion was that it needed to see some scissors. But I liked it; I knew he wouldn't have that soft baby hair forever. There was plenty of time for him to be a little boy.

"What?"

"Quinndolin. It sounds like Gwendolyn."

"No Katie. It's Quinn and Mandolin. He's my little musical bro." He looked up at me. "You're Italian, right?"

I laughed and made a buzzer sound to indicate an incorrect answer.

He squinted an eye at me. "French?"

"Mutt. American mutt."

"But where do you get that skin tone from?"

The color he was referring to was olive on a good day and sallow on a bad one. In the summer I could boast a honey glow that pulled the green undertone from my pale skin. In the winter I looked like a corpse.

"Armenian. And French. You were right there. And a bunch of other stuff. Where do you get your skin tone?"

"Choctaw. Mostly."

"Like... enough to be registered?"

"I think so, but we're not."

His skin was golden brown and soft looking, together with his near-black hair it made his blue eyes pop right out of his face.

I really looked at him in that moment.

"You're handsome Devin. I bet the girls like you."

I'd gotten used to feeling old, but when I said that, I felt ancient. I felt like my grandmother, and could see her face clear in my mind, with her bifocals cutting a sharp line through her watery red eyes. The way she'd looked when she told me I was blossoming into quite the young lady. She'd lived in New York, and I'd met her a handful of times growing up. The last time was right before my father died. I think she'd been as fascinated with my new breasts as I'd been.

I didn't normally blush, and Devin didn't either. But I could tell he felt awkward, looking down to his battered, duct-taped shoes and shrugging.

"Mmm. Older women think so."

I laughed. "Case in point." I gestured to myself. "No luck with girls your own age, then?"

"Not yet."

I tried to make amends. "Well. Teenagers are stupid. As you probably know."

He laughed, meeting my eye again. "Case in point," he said, gesturing to himself.

...

Autumn was, if possible, hotter than summer had been, with a frequent hot wind that Devin called The Diablo. It blew fierce into Sacramento, scattering garbage and working the dust up into little dervishes on the roadsides.

The kiddie pool finally popped in late September and for a few weeks we turned to water balloon fights and sprinkler dance marathons for relief.

And then, almost overnight, the leaves dropped from the trees.