The Writer

WHEN Quinn came to Italy, it was a strange and upsetting time in Rachel’s life. She had not acted in months and the rural tones of the country were taking its effects on her life. At heart, she was a city girl and without her vice, she seemed to be crumbling. It was only a year, her father had protested on the move outward, but she was beginning to feel she was growing alongside the country. She had moved to Italy a young sixteen-year-old, and now was turning nineteen a different girl entirely. She was saddened deeply, and knew the lethargic European lifestyle was not for her. Her fathers seemed to enjoy themselves and were happy with leaving to do hours of writing in a small Italian office, but Rachel could not manifest those emotions within herself. She even was seeing someone, but even he seemed to bring no joy. She knew something was wrong that summer.

Quinn arrived on a Friday morning to a bright and warm sky and the delicate smiles of two writers on the grass of a little town house somewhere in northern Italy. She was a writing student, fluent in English, Spanish, and Italian and with more brains than she knew what to do with. Rachel’s fathers had invited her to do some work in the country, as they had done every year they had been here, and she was to be staying in the small barn outside the house for the six weeks of pertinent summer that lay ahead. Usually, the student in the barn was a vaguely attractive American male who imagined they knew too much but knew far too little and like to overact. Quinn was different, they had never had a woman in the home before.
She had greeted their family in the entryway of the home as Rachel and Dominic hung their heads out the window to watch her.
“Lo scrittore” He was chuckling, but Rachel was taken aback.
“A woman?”
“You were expecting a man?”
“The writer has never been a woman before.”
Dominic leaned back into the window and lit a cigarette, smiling as he watched the girl linger outside the window frame and clamber to get a better view of the usurper. She was greeting her parents in Italian.
“You feel threatened?” He asked her from the distance.
“Be quiet.”
Perhaps it happened then that Rachel fell in love, although it seemed unlikely to have happened in a small window frame three floors away from each other and without even knowing that the other fully existed and in what capacity. Quinn had not even seen her at the time, but the love may still have been present.
“Rachel.” He spoke gently, approaching her with the cigarette in his jaw and his shirt hanging from his belt. He grappled her shoulders and began rubbing his thumbs into her back. “Don’t stress, my love.”
She did not reply but brushed him off to run downstairs and greet the new arrival. All the way down the stairs she thought about the blonde hair tied up into a small ponytail, the sunglasses positioned perfectly on the bump of a thin nose, and a beautifully defined neck off of which the Italian summer lights had shone. Rachel caught view of her just ahead of the sun, looking like an angel.
“Rachel.” Hiram smiled, placing a hand on the blonde’s shoulder. “This is Quinn Fabray. She’ll be staying in your room for the next six weeks.”
“My room?” She gasped.
“I’m sorry.” Quinn leaped forward with an outstretched hand. She smelt like sea salt and daisies. “Did you not know?”
“I apologise, writers normally stay in the garage.” She spoke, looking over at the small green barn that attached to the home by a single set of outdoor stone stairs
“When they’re men, I don’t think it’s appropriate for them to be around my daughter. I don’t see Quinn here as any impending threat to you.” Hiram laughed again. He did know Rachel was already falling in love as she stood.
“Forgive me. I’ll stay in the barn.” Quinn spoke gently. The deep American twinge in her accent reminded Rachel of home and wanted nothing more than to have Quinn talk to her about anything and everything for as long as she could.
“No, no, you shouldn’t.” The brunette smiled. “You’re a guest in my home. It wouldn’t be polite.”
Quinn was taller than Rachel by a few centimetres and removed her sunglasses to meet the girl. Her eyes were hazel and sweet, just as she had imagined they would be.
“Your American accent is amazing, you’d think you’d been speaking it all your life, huh?”
“I have, we moved from America when I was sixteen.” The brunette spoke enthusiastically.
“Ah, lucky for some.” Quinn chuckled.
As she finished her sentence, Dominic clambered out the door in the midst of pulling his shirt back on his body and offering air kisses all the way to his bike. Rachel watched him disappear down the path that lead away from the home into the small city beyond, but Quinn remained fixated on her. The way she moved her hair from her eyes to see, and the way she anxiously bit her lip until the boy was disappeared completely, it enthralled her to see.
“Idiota.” LeRoy scoffed, causing his husband to brush his arm gently out of what they both knew to be true. Dominic was an idiot, but he was the only boy for miles in the city who was no adamant about art and poetry, and who did not want to be a painter. A break from the arts was what Rachel so desperately needed.
“Let me show you the study.” Hiram insisted, dropping Quinn’s bags at Rachel’s feet and wandering off to the other side of the estate, followed closely by his husband. It was so strange to see her walking about the grounds as if she had always been there and as if she knew it inside out as Rachel did. If she had lived in the city, Rachel’s life would not be so daringly boring.

With the help of an Italian housemaid from the house next door, Quinn’s clothes lay spread on the floor of Rachel’s room in two suitcases, letting the scent of her perfume flood the cavities of her body and the holes in the walls so that she suspected she may never be rid of it again. It would stain her very soul. How was such affection to be developed within the hour, the girl pondered? It was almost impossible and yet there it was, bright and yellow like some headlights in which Rachel was but a helpless animal looking for shelter. All her clothes were canvas, buttoned or swimsuits and almost nothing had been packed for the possibility that it should soon turn very cold and winter might take the country by storm. It had never happened in her lifetime, and Italian summers tended to be hotter than even she could handle. The housemaid sighed at Rachel and spoke broken English, something about the look of love and what Quinn could possibly want with this estate and that she didn’t understand why anyone came from the city from here. Although Ohio wasn’t exactly the most urban place in the world, anything was better than here. The fields seemed to stretch for miles in green at lengths to kiss the sun, and Rachel only knew of several more people who existed in the same place as her. There was Dominic, his sister Maria, followed by a family of a mother and several young children. That was all. The group of people she associated herself with lived in the town just over, and even they were Dominic’s friends. They barely wanted anything to do with her at all and only tolerated her annoying American persona for their friend. Even so, all they seemed to do was drink and smoke and enjoy life, none of which Rachel could get a grasp on.
“Rachel?”
The girl was snapped out of her thoughts by a body stood in the doorway, leaning one arm high above her head and the other holding a pair of expensive sunglasses in its hand.
“How do you know my name?”
“How do I know your name?” Quinn laughed, walking towards the small brunette and letting her body linger over her. “Your father introduced us before.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“I like your room.”
“Your room.”
Quinn smiled, watching the eyes of the young brunette twinkle under the false light of the room. It was her room, but Quinn could feel the discomfort welling. It had become their room as quickly as it belonged to either one of the girls.
“Only for a couple of weeks then you can have it back, you’ll like that, won’t you?” She offered, sitting down on the bed between the cases.
“You’ve travelled from Ohio today?”
“Yes.” Quinn spoke politely.
“You must be exhausted.” Rachel was getting nervous and sweaty in ways she had only read about in books and seen in movies. Her hands were clammy and her throat dry. She wanted to ground to swallow her up where she stood.
“Oh, no more than anyone else around here.” Quinn laughed, but Rachel wouldn’t see the humour. Her cheeks were flushing, and she was embarrassed even to be alive.
There was silence between them, one of very many that would come that summer. Rachel couldn’t bare it, Quinn found it quite peaceful. The brunette knelt to the floor and pulled two draws from opposite sides of Quinn’s feet. She was suddenly enthralled to be below the women. Rachel knew Quinn was older. She had a job, a freelance writer somewhere, and probably even had a fiancée back home who she couldn’t wait to see again. There was something in her that enjoyed not being part of the blonde’s plan. She wanted to disrupt.
“You can keep your clothes in here.” She gulped.
“Thank you.” Quinn leaned forward and whispered. “I think I’m going to take a quick nap right now if that’s okay with you.”
“You…you don’t have to ask.”
“I know.” Quinn rose and gently touched Rachel’s face in a friendly sort of way that boys often did when saying something true. She was laughing and her sugary breath sent Rachel into a whirlwind of despair and arousal. “It’s a joke. Don’t be so European about things, jeez.”
The girl only blushed and helped her counterpart moved the suitcases from the bed onto the floor ready to be unpacked.
“We usually have dinner about eight.” She followed. “A couple of the village boys will be coming around, they usually do. I hope that’s alright.”
“Is your boyfriend coming?”
“My who?”
“Your…..how do you say it? Your fidanzato? Is that right?” Quinn pondered, pulling back the covers to realise Rachel had slept there that night. In that bed. Her body has been all over it.
“Oh.” She replied. “He’s not my…well…. It’s very complicated. I don’t know if he’s going to. Sometimes he does, sometimes he eats at home.”
“Either way, please tell your father I’ve decided to sleep through dinner.” She smiled. Rachel was leaving before it got any worse and she would not be able to help but ripping her clothes off in that instant. “I’ll have an early lunch with him tomorrow. Cool?”
“Cool.”
“Okay, cool. See you tomorrow.”
Rachel took from the room without a second thought, leaning up against the closed door as she left. There was no pinpointing where it began but it had already started by then. She was in love. The kind that happened almost too quick and no one had any time to catch it before it was wreaking havoc. The very notion of love was melting inside her as she stood there. Quinn. How lovely she was. How American also. Had Rachel really said ‘cool’? Her fathers would have killed her if they knew. Quinn lay in bed, not knowing Rachel stood less than a doors width away and smelt the sheets. She was thinking of Rachel’s body and the sun in Italy. How funny she would find them both paired together. It would be her demise, but she drifted off to sleep, there was nothing to think about but gentle coffee skin and big hazel eyes. Rachel Berry. la ragazza più bella del mondo.