Sunday Mornings

James was glad that the minute he was ushered to a chair everyone seemed to go back to normal; people stopped staring at him, conversations started flowing again and the attention was off of him. At least the attention of everyone but Bianca, who stood behind him with a pair of scissors in her hands.

James glanced over at Riley, who was standing by Pekka at the reception desk and he was glad to see the baby monitor clipped to the waist of her jeans. All the kids had been shuffled into the employee lounge upon arrival, including Peyton. He had to admit that it was a little confusing for him; he was relieved he got a few minutes of adult time without her but at the same time being away from her, not being able to see her at all times was a little nervewracking.

Bianca pulled him out of his thoughts when she told him, "I'm really glad you came."

James met her eyes through the large mirror in front of him and he smiled gently, admitting, "I wasn't going to."

She nodded, looking back down at his hair as she cut away at the much longer than usual brown locks, she told him, "I know you weren't. I think everyone was really surprised to see you here honestly. Everyone but Riley."

"She thought I was coming?" James asked her in surprise, glancing over at Riley again once more. Their eyes met; she smiled and James smiled back.

"Yeah, everyone said she was crazy but she knew you'd be here." Bianca told him, and then she looked over at him through the mirror and quietly she asked him, "Were you planning on staying a while?"

"Maybe. We'll see how I feel after this haircut. Why?" James asked her curiously, with an amused smile on his face in an attempt to make a joke about her skills with shears.

She smiled, and then she told him, "I decided that the one thing we needed to keep doing with this event was the slideshow thing... so I took emails for a few months, and I made one... and there's a few of Quinn in it. I just... don't want to make you uncomfortable, so if you want to skip out before that feel free."

Quinn always, for months leading up to this event every year, would read countless emails sent to her and she would make a slideshow of other people's stories and pictures as a way to celebrate the people who beat ovarian cancer, and honor those who didn't. For the first time, James realized Quinn would be moved from one category to the other.

He took in a deep breath of air, and he looked over at Bianca, and he surprised her by telling her, "I'll stay."

He didn't really want to stay but he knew that if he left now it would look like he didn't have it together like he tried to make everyone believe. He could suck it up, who said he even had to watch the slideshow anyway? Maybe he could find an excuse to go hang with the kids while they did the slideshow.

That proved difficult because the minute Bianca was done with his hair Pekka took the seat to his left, Riley to his right, and Shea on the other side of her. He couldn't exactly escape now.

He tried to avert his eyes when the slideshow started, like always it started with pictures and stories of survivors. Chelsea and Bianca had always made sure to go in and edit the slideshow to include Quinn's picture every year, even in Pittsburgh. This time, James knew, he would watch that whole damn half of the slideshow without seeing her picture.

The world around him had kept spinning. People moved on, and forward with their lives around him and he was still skirting around using past tense when talking about Quinn, he was still going about his day trying not to think about her because if he thought about her then he had to deal with his emotions, and to stop acting like she was coming back. Of course, he knew, deep down, that she wasn't coming back but it was easier to not say that out loud.

Out of all the emotions, he was feeling watching and trying not to read people's stories James was the most surprised by the level of jealousy he had inside him. All these people who got to go home to their loved ones every day, women who got to see their children grow up, men who got the chance to grow old with their wives. He was so incredibly jealous of that, and he didn't know how to deal with it.

He was angry, all of the time, and now he was jealous of people that he didn't even know. It wasn't a good mix.

There was a part of him that was glad when the slideshow was finished, and then another part of him was wishing there were just a few more stories from strangers to go through to prolong the inevitable. Quinn's picture hadn't come up yet, and James knew that it would be the very last one.

He was right, Quinn's story had been shared last, and as a loop of various pictures of her on her own, with Peyton and with James, with Riley and her kids and other friends played he wished he hadn't come.

Even more so when Bianca started to talk, "Each year over twenty thousand women in the United States alone will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer, out of that twenty plus thousand it's estimated that about fourteen thousand will not survive. That roughly translates to about one in seventy-five women, and only fifteen percent of all cases of ovarian cancer are diagnosed in the early stages.

When I first started here Quinn had just finished her second battle with ovarian cancer, and a few months into my first year here she organized this event, the same as she had for years before and years after. It was something that was very important for her, and that kind of rubbed off on us here, so it seemed right, and also very important, to keep this going even if it meant that for the first time we would have to do it without her. Even if it meant that for the first time we would have to move her picture to the last half of the slideshow.

If you're here today that means that you knew Quinn, either personally, or through the salon and I think the number of people we've seen so far has shed a light on just how many lives she touched, and the kind of person she was. And she would probably kill me for even talking about her right now, because she always hated taking away from other people's stories to share her own so I'll shut up about her now and just say that we were all so lucky to have her in our lives, and that we're all really thankful for everyone who came out today, and that as usual, the money raised is going to be donated in a name from our slideshow at the end of the day. So thank you for coming."

James had never needed fresh air as much as he needed now. As if sensing that, the way she often did, Riley gave his forearm a gentle squeeze and when people began to pick up conversations again she motioned to the employee lounge. James followed her in there, and then out through the back door and into the sunny fresh air behind the building.

He leaned against the wall and let out a sigh, and Riley turned to face him and she asked, "You doing okay?"

He nodded but told her, "Not really."

"Do you wish you hadn't come?" She asked him curiously as she shifted from foot to foot on the pavement next to him.

He shrugged his shoulders and ran a hand through his hair as he told her, "Honestly, I'm not sure. Like part of me wishes I hadn't come, because of obvious reasons, but then another part of me is glad I came. This was a big thing for her, and it wouldn't have felt right to skip it."

"I'm glad you came too." Riley told him softly. She reached out and grabbed his hand, giving it a squeeze for a second before she let go. She then asked him, "Shea and Peks and I were gonna go for dinner tonight, with the kids. Do you and Peyton want to come?"

James wanted to say no. What he wanted to do tonight was wallow in self-pity and forget that the rest of the world had gone on while his stopped spinning. But he forced a smile on his face and told her, "Yeah, sure, that sounds good."

Fake it until you make it, right?

- - -

It was nearly six when James pulled into the parking lot of a department store. He was supposed to be meeting everyone for dinner at seven-thirty and he wondered if he could get what he wanted, get home to change both he and Peyton into something a little less casual and get to the restaurant on time for once. Doubtful.

Still, he was on a mission so he cut the engine and got out, remembering this time to get Peyton from the backseat before he headed inside the large building. Peyton held onto the neckline of his t-shirt, tugging and pulling at it as she babbled in his ear and James tried, he really tried, to pay attention to her as he navigated his way through the store.

He found the fragrance section with ease, he had been there enough with Quinn to know where it was like the back of his hand. What he couldn't find with ease with the little blue bottle identical to the one he had smashed against the wall earlier that month.

He looked over every shelf they had, in every aisle, and when he couldn't find it he simply stood in front of the wall of perfume he had started at in near hopelessness. It must have looked obvious on him because a moment or two after he stopped looking he was approached by a petite blonde who asked him, "Did you need a hand with anything?"

James turned to her, and he pulled up a picture on his phone of Quinn, zoomed in one the perfume sitting on the bathroom counter and he told her, "I'm looking for this, it's my girlfriends favorite."

He didn't have it in him to tell her that it was his dead girlfriend's favorite and in a moment of stupidity he had broken the whole bottle and now he needed a replacement because he couldn't sleep without the safety net of the way she smelled tucked away in a drawer ten feet away from him. No, he wasn't unloading that level of crazy on the poor girl.

She took the phone, looked at the picture and then she handed him his phone and gave him the worst news of his week thus far, "They actually discontinued that earlier this year."

It was the stupidest thing really, but James really, honestly, could have burst into tears right then and there. All he could say was, "Oh."

"But we have similar scents you could get for her or gift cards for her to pick something new out." She told him with a smile.

He shook his head, "No, but thank you anyway."

He was out of the door and into the car faster than he could have thought possible. He strapped Peyton into her car seat and got into the driver's side, and out of trying to prevent a total breakdown in a department store parking lot James immediately backed out of his parking space and headed home. Driving meant that he didn't have to think about Quinn, or how mad he was at himself in that moment.

So he took a long way home, and then he pulled into the driveway, grabbed Peyton from the backseat and headed inside. He was greeted by the dogs, who lost interest pretty quick in him. James rolled through the motions of feeding Peyton and getting her ready for bed and then putting her down for the night. He didn't have the energy to go for dinner, and he didn't have the heart to even text Riley to tell her why.

He was in the kitchen, cleaning up after his own take out dinner when he heard Nixon let out a whine and a cry from down the hall. So he stepped into the hallway behind the stairs, and when he found the dog pacing back in forth in front of the closed door of Quinn's studio space James let out a sigh.

He told him, "Nix, come on dude. Bed time."

Nixon simply looked at him, and he stopped but he didn't budge from in front of the door. Eventually, the dogs face turned back to the door and he let out another whine before he started to scratch at the wood. James let out another sigh, but instead of scolding the dog he walked toward him with full intent to drag him away if he had to. But then he got within touching distance of the door James' plans changed, instead, he reached out and put his hand on the knob and he stayed like that for a moment, until Nixon nudged his leg with his nose.

Finally, James turned the knob and pushed the door open and he stood in the doorway while Nixon went running into the room, he paced the length of the room three times before he looked at James, laid on the floor by the wall and whined again.

When the whining didn't stop James finally stepped inside of the room, and he looked around for a moment before he sat down on the floor next to Nixon, and pulled him up and onto his lap as best as he could. As he was scratching gently behind Nixon's ears James took a good look around again.

Everything was how it had been left, there was a mess of papers on the wall and desk by the computer, he thought he might box them up and bring them to Bianca. He had no use for the salon. There was a curling iron, still plugged in but turned off, not surprising. A drawer by the lighted mirror was open and James wondered what lipstick she had been reaching for at the time. Was it her favorite pinky nude, or the orangey red color she liked to wear when he took her on fancy dates?

He realized that he had to start packing up her things. Seeing parts of Quinn everywhere on a daily basis wasn't helping him move on. It wasn't making him better. But he had to grow the balls to do it, which the idea of that was harder than keeping it all in the places where it was left.

Nixon let out another whine and James looked down at him as he ran a hand up and down the dog's side and he spoke softly to him, "I know buddy, I miss her too."