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corner of her eye Quinn caught sight of Will Ingraham’s legs as he very deliberately crossed one booted foot over the other. He inclined his head in her direction as if loath to miss a single syllable. She smiled in admiration at his gift for communicating such profound rearview arrogance with such minimal effort.
    â€œShe vacillates between her sexual passion for Heathcliff,” Quinn continued, “and her greed for prestige and money as exemplified by what’s-his-name, Edgar.”
    â€œI assume that Miss Mallory prefers the virtuous Jane Eyre,” Will said, no emphasis on the word “virtuous.”
    â€œJane refuses to compromise her belief in what’s right for anybody, even the man she loves.” She felt her voice rising.
    â€œSo she abandons Rochester because she’s too weak to buck polite society. Nice lady,” he said.
    â€œThat is
not
what I said.” Quinn leaned forward now, fist clenched. “You’re missing the point. People just can’t do what they damn well please. They have to set up standards for themselves and have the guts to live by them.”
    Will turned around now and looked at her. His eyes were blue, lids almost half-mast, lazy. “That sounds like something Jane would say.”
    Quinn glared at him. “Thank you,” she said. Will shook his head slightly, as if to say he thought she was getting pretty worked up about all this. “Well,” she sputtered, “I’m not saying I don’t believe in freedom. Everybody should have freedom, especially to love …”
    â€œThat’s a relief,” Will said with a quick grin.
    There was a murmur of laughter, and Quinn stared at him furiously. “You are very smug.”
    He tilted his head to her in apology. “Sorry,” he said. “Cheap shot.”
    â€œChildren, children,” Buxby said, clearly delighted with the exchange. “Let’s not allow our, uh, literary enthusiasm to create factionalism in the classroom, pleased as I am that our, uh, assignments have made such a, shall we say, personal impact. We shall confine ourselves to the issues at hand. Now, Mr. Hartley, I want you to, uh, contrast for us, if you will, the imagery in the two novels.”
    The rest of the hour Quinn found her mind drifting. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Stanley’s hand fell casually to Van’s knee and crept halfway up her thigh. Van’s face seemed impassive, but Quinn noted the flush on the usually pale cheek. When the bell rang at last, jolting her from her daydreams, Quinn waved Van and Stanley off, promising to meet them at dinnertime. She dawdled collecting her books. Suddenly she realized that she was delaying until Will Ingraham had left the classroom. She’d had no intention of walking down the corridor with that complacent smile burning a hole in her back.

Chapter 3
    Quinn’s room in the women’s dormitory was moderately neat, due to the day’s cleaning binge. Each month, exactly twenty-four hours before her period arrived, Quinn became ferociously tidy. She folded clothes, straightened drawers, sorted socks, dusted surfaces with maniacal energy. The urge disappeared the following day, not to return for another four weeks. By the time she was fifteen, she had learned to take full advantage of her compulsion or the piles of books, clothes, souvenirs, and half-eaten Hostess Twinkies would collect underfoot until the next time around.
    She had livened up her cubicle with warm colors—a bright patchwork quilt on the narrow bed, a secondhand rocking chair that she had fitted with yellow pillows, and beside the chair a straw basket that held three giant paper flowers—red, yellow, and orange. On the linoleum floor were three bath mats from Woolworth’s bargain table—again, red, yellow, and orange. The walls were decorated with posters: John Kennedy barefoot on a Cape Cod beach; Ike and Tina Turner in