Friends of Quinn

One of the greatest feelings in the world is to have a best friend, and my best friend has always understood me; he knew that I was different and still wanted to be my friend. I met him in Historic St. Mary’s City, which is like Williamsburg but smaller, and we were working for a couple who ran this tinny little place called the Tabberd Inn, which was where the tourist would go and get something to eat. Like I said, it was in Historic St. Mary’s City, so it was a colonial style looking house on the outside. I remember that one night when I was about thirteen or so I was down in St. Mary’s at our farm and all of sudden my parents start talking about me getting a job.

So the next day I meet this woman who was sitting on the bench, and she and her husband had just moved here to help run Historic St. Mary’s City or HSMS as it is known as. I go up to her and ask her for a job and she said of course. She has two sons and one of them has Fragile-X, which is kind of like VCFS but a little bit more severe. I didn’t know this at the time and was wondering and why she was so patient with me and also started think how amazing she was with me whenever I made a mistake. I start working for her the next weekend and that is where I met Stephen.

My first job with her was washing dishes or as Stephen would jokingly say, my first job was to watch Stephen wash dishes. I will never for get how confusing it was because it was a special kind of sink and it had a lot of knobs that you had to switch on off at a certain time. I worked there for about three or four years before Stephen and I really got to know each other.

I could be pretty shy around people my own age. Every weekend we would hang out and do just about everything together; he would take me out to the clubs down there, which were just outside of St. Mary’s. He introduced me to all of his friends and he would take me to all of their parties. He now lives in DC and works with his girlfriend who has her own catering company. Another thing that he did was introduce me to girls because he knew that I had a hard time with that.

We don’t hang out with each other as much as we use to now that we both of jobs, but we still see each other whenever we can and he still includes me when he is going to a party. Even though we don't see each other as much I will always be greateful to Stephen for showing me about being a good friend.