The Select

Quinn.

'Doesn't seem right,' Tim said. 'I mean, I don't know her as well as you, but she strikes me as someone who was born to be a doctor.'

'Damn right,' Matt said, his lips thinning as he spoke—Tim could tell he was getting angry now. 'What the hell's wrong with them, anyway? Turning down Quinn—what kind of bullshit is that? Where are their heads? What are they thinking about? Do they have any idea what they've just done to her life?'

'Probably not,' Tim said. 'They—-'

Matt stood up and kicked his wicker wastebasket against the far wall, then began to stalk the room. No mean distance, that. Matt's bedroom was the size of the living room in Tim's home, which wasn't exactly a shack.

'Damn, this pisses me off! I've had reservations about that place from the start, all their prissy rules and regulations, but this ices the cake! If they don't want Quinn Cleary, I've got to ask myself if The Ingraham even knows what the hell it's doing.'

'And what's worse,' Tim said, silently tipping his hat to Groucho Marx as he tried to lighten things up a bit, 'they accepted me. I'm not even sure I want to go to a medical school that'll take me as a student.'

Matt didn't smile. 'I'm not kidding, Tim. I'd like to turn those bastards down, just for spite.'

Tim saw that he was serious, and the seed of a scheme began to germinate in his mind.

'Hold that thought,' he told Matt.

SUMMER

Fenostatin (Hypolip - Kleederman Pharm.) has surpassed lovastatin as the number-one selling lipid-lowering agent in the world. In long-term clinical studies it has consistently lowered LDL by 50% and trigycerides by 40% while raising HDL by as much as 60% with a daily 10 mg. dose, without the risk of rhabdomyolysis or alterations in liver function studies seen with other HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors.

Medical Tribune

CHAPTER SIX

'Ingraham Admissions, Marge speaking. How may I help you?'

'Hi, Marge. It's Quinn Cleary.'

'Quinn! How are you, dear?'

'Still hanging in there. Any word?'

'No, honey. I'm sorry. Nobody's called. As I told you, it's very rare that someone turns down an acceptance here. I've been here ten years now and I can only remember two. And one of those had a serious neck injury that was going to lay him up for a year.'

'I know. But I can still hope, can't I?'

'And we're hoping right along with you, sweetheart. Listen, you know if it was up to us we'd have you in here in a jiffy.'

'That's nice, Marge. Thanks.'

'It's the truth. Look. You keep calling, you hear? I can't call you—I have to account for my outgoing long distances, and they'd kick my butt out of here for something like that— hell, they might even do that yet if they find out I told you your spot on the wait list.'

Quinn had been crushed to hear she was eleventh on the list. Even if she were first or second her chances of getting in were slim to none. But eleventh...

'They won't hear it from me, Marge.'

'I know that, dear. But there's no law says you can't call again. So don't you hesitate a minute.'

'Thanks, Marge. I appreciate that. Talk to you soon.'

'Any time, Quinn, honey. Any time.'

Quinn shook her head as she hung up. Couldn't be too many applicants who got to know the Admissions Office staff on a first-name basis. She'd called so many times since spring break she actually felt close to those secretaries. Couldn't hurt. Just too bad they didn't decide who got in.

August was boiling the potato fields outside and baking her here in the kitchen. She yawned and rubbed her burning eyes. She was beat—mental fatigue more than anything else. She was working her usual two waitress jobs plus hustling after student loans from anyone who had money to lend. She'd even tracked down a Connecticut Masonic Lodge with a student loan program. She spent her free hours filling out applications and financial statements until she was bleary eyed.

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.'