F. Wilson - The Select

Money was tight. The bankers she spoke to said student loans had been easier years ago, but with the economy the way it was and the ongoing trouble some of the Government programs were having with deadbeats, a lot of the funds had dried up. And they all told her the same thing: All the purse strings would loosen considerably once she reached her third year in med school; she'd have passed through the flames of the first two years when the shakeout occurred, when those who couldn't cut it were culled out, and would then be considered an excellent financial risk. But that didn't do much for her now.

There was still the Navy. It was beginning to look as if they were going to approve her for their program. If so, they'd pay her way through med school, but in return they'd want her to take a Navy residency in the specialty she chose plus a year-for-year payback—one year of service for every year of medical education they funded.

So that was Quinn's situation on this steamy summer morning. If she was approved for the Navy plan, she'd get her degree in exchange for six-to-eight years of her life. A stiff price, but at least it was a sure thing.

The other course was riskier: gamble that she could scrape together the tuition for the U. Conn school on a year-by-year basis through work, loans, and anything else she could think of, and come out of medical school seventy-five or eighty thousand dollars in debt.

The panic and heartbreak of March were gone. She'd got her act together and devised a plan. Her dream had not been snatched from her as she'd thought on that awful day, merely pulled further away. She'd get there; she simply was going to have to work a lot harder to reach it.

But getting into The Ingraham would be so much better. She'd be able to devote all her efforts to the massive amount of learning that had to be done and not worry about chasing after tuition dollars. Or she wouldn't be stuck in a Navy uniform, doing whatever they told her to do, going wherever they sent her.

She sighed. The Ingraham...she still got low when she thought about what she'd be missing. Here it was the middle of August and no one who'd been accepted was going elsewhere.

Better get used to it, she told herself.

*

"I'm not going to The Ingraham," Matt said.

Tim sat up and stared at him.

"Bullshit."

They were stretched out on white and canary-yellow PVC loungers beside the Olympic-sized pool in Matt's back lawn. Each had a tall gin and Bitter Lemon on the ground beside his chair, a pile of fresh-baked nachos cooled on the Lucite table between them. Tim had been drifting slowly away on a soft golden mellow wave.

"No, I mean it," Matt said, keeping his eyes closed against the glare of the sun. "I told you there were all those things I didn't like about the place. But I sloughed them off. I mean, The Ingraham is such an ego trip. Then the other night my father sits me down and says he and Mom really wish I'd consider going to Yale."

"Yeah, but Yale isn't offering you any incentives."

"They don't care. My father went to Yale and Yale Law, my grandfather too, and I hadn't realized how much the place means to him. And my mom...I think she just wants me closer than Maryland."

Tim felt bad. Hot. Suddenly the sun was getting to him. Hell, he was so comfortable with Matt, and now the guy was dumping him, which he knew was not really the case.

Tim tried to imagine his folks telling him to kiss off over a hundred thousand bucks worth of tuition, room and board just to attend NYU where his father had gone to night school. Fat chance.

"What did the Ingraham folks say when you told them?"

"Haven't yet," Matt said. "I've been trying to figure a way to slip Quinn into my spot. Think I could demand that they substitute Quinn for me?"

"Yeah, right," Tim said. "That'll work. They'll jump her over ten names on your say so."

"You got a better idea?"

"I might." A half-formed scenario had been lurking in the back of his mind since the spring.

"Well, let's have it. I need the input of that devious mind."

"Give me a minute."

Tim lay back and closed his eyes.

The Ingraham...he'd really been looking forward to having Matt around, even finagling him as a cadaver partner. All down the tubes now. But that did leave...

Quinn.

He'd spoken to her twice this summer. She'd seemed a little friendlier each time, but still reserved. Perhaps on guard said it better. He'd tried to wrangle a date but she'd always been too busy with her jobs or her tuition hunting. If he could come up with a way to get her into The Ingraham...

What had she said during that last call? Something about how she'd become best friends with the Admissions Office staff, how they were all pulling for her.

He bolted upright on the lounge.

"I've got it!"

Matt opened his eyes, squinting up at him.

"Yeah? What do we do? What do I tell The Ingraham?"

"The first thing is you tell The Ingraham nothing. The second is hand me that phone. I have to call Ms. Quinn Cleary."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Quinn felt awkward, uncomfortable, scared too about this off-the-wall scheme, yet she felt she had no choice but to accept Tim's offer to drive her down to Maryland. He raced along 95 in a gray 1985 Olds Cierra that he seemed to love. He even had a name for it.

"Griffin?" she said when he told her the name. "Why a griffin?"

"Not a griffin. Just 'Griffin.' The gray 1985 Olds Cierra is the invisible car. GM sold a zillion of them, or Buicks and Pontis that look just like it. I've parked this car in some terrible neighborhoods and it's never been touched. Nobody wants to steal it or bother it—nobody even sees it. So I named it Griffin, which, if you know your H. G. Wells, is the—"

"Name of the Invisible Man." She smiled. Griffin—the Invisible Car. She liked that.

After checking Tim's name on a list, the guard in the gatehouse raised the gate and admitted him to The Ingraham's student lot. Stiff and achy as she was after almost six hours of confined sitting, Quinn didn't move from her seat when they pulled into a parking slot. She stared ahead at the tight cluster of beige brick and stone buildings that made up The Ingraham. She hardly recognized the place. The trees had shed most of their leaves the last time, now the oaks and maples were lush and green. She watched a couple of new students hurry up the slope to register.

They've got to take me, she thought. They've just got to.

"Here we are," Tim said, glancing at his watch. "Right on schedule."

"Do you think this has even a slight chance to work?"

"Of course. The plan was designed by the Master Plotter. It cannot fail."

"If you say so."

Quinn didn't want to hope, couldn't allow herself to hope.

Matt had said Tim had cooked up this whole scheme. Why? What was his angle? She'd actually cried when Matt told her how he was trying to help her get his spot at The Ingraham, but she hadn't been all that surprised. This was the sort of thing Matt would do.

But Tim...What was Tim Brown getting out of this?

"All right," Tim said, gathering up his papers. "Registration's in the class building. That's where I'll be. You head for the Admissions Office and do your thing. I'll catch up with you there."

Quinn still couldn't move. Now she was terrified.

"What if this doesn't work?"

"It will. Ten to one it will. But even if not, what have you lost? By tonight you'll either be registered here or right back where you were two weeks ago when we cooked this thing up. And you haven't risked a thing."

"But I'll feel awful." And I'll have to hustle back to Connecticut and sign my life away to the Navy.

"Yeah, but you'd feel worse if you never gave it a shot."

Quinn nodded. He was right. Pass this up and she risked being plagued the rest of her life wondering if it would have worked.