The Snow Garden (20 page)

     “Everyone’s a doctor,” Randall mumbled.

     Tim threw up both palms and took an exaggerated step backward. “’Scuseme!”

     Randall drew him back in with one arm around his waist. Tim went taut for a second before giving in fully to Randall’s halfhearted embrace. “I’m so glad I came out to my parents when I did.”

     “Were
they?”
Randall asked.

     “They were all right. They didn’t exactly throw a parade. What about yours?”

     Silence, Randall knew, only encouraged Tim the journalist to dig further. So Randall summoned his rehearsed lines and took a moment to stud them with sordid detail that might scare Tim off the topic. “If I walked into my mother’s room one day and told her I was gay, she would drown herself in a bathtub of Glenlivet. The woman’s like a hairsbreadth away from being a character in a Jackie Susann novel. I would rather old age push her over the edge before I even have the chance.”

     “You shouldn’t talk about her like that.”

     “Clean up enough vomit and I earn the right.”

     Tim winced and lifted his head from Randall’s chest. “It’s that bad?”

     Randall managed a half smile at the sympathy in Tim’s question, but which he hoped sent the message that he could handle his domestic traumas if everyone just gave him some space and stopped asking questions. “Sorry,” Tim muttered. “What about your father?”

     No
such luck,
Randall thought. “I think he knows. And he’ll be fine as long as we never talk about it.” Randall heard the impatience in his tone, and brought the flask back to his mouth.

     “You will, someday.”

     Tim’s declaration ignited anger in his chest, which didn’t mix well with the stinging wash down his throat. The result was a series of hacking coughs that turned Randall rigid against the banister, and forced Tim off his chest. Tim slapped him on the back several times until the coughing subsided. He must have seen the anger in Randall’s eyes, but he misread it. “Your sordid family life makes you all the more mysterious and alluring—you know that, don’t you?”

     “Sure,” Randall answered, voice thin. He turned to the banister and the view of the quad beyond—anything to distract him from Tim’s prying questions and presumptions.

     “I thought you said scotch was going to turn you into a gentleman.” 

     Back to Tim, Randall shut his eyes and drew a breath, trying to forget the certainty in Tim’s words, You
will, someday.
Feeling like he had stepped back into the spotlight, he turned and gave Tim a broad grin. “Maybe I need some more,” he announced, and brought the flask to his mouth. This time the slug exploded in his throat and the result was another coughing fit. Tim didn’t touch him this time, just backed up a step, and through smarting eyes, Randall could see his wrinkled expression of concern. “This stuff is rancid,” Randall finally managed. 

     “Where’d you get it?”

     “The liquor store,” Randall got out. “Where else?”

     “Right. The one that sells scotch to eighteen-year-olds.”

     “Which would be everyone on Brookline. How the hell else are they going to make their money?” Still coughing, Randall capped the flask and tucked it back inside his jacket. Gooseflesh crawled up the back of his neck; his entire body shivered. “So .. .” He swabbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “Any big break in your story?”

     “Not really. I did have another meeting with my contact.” 

     “Richard? The guy at the
Journal?”

     “Yeah. He told me something kind of interesting, but not earth-shattering.”

     “What?”

     “I don’t know if I should tell you.”

     Randall seized one cheek of Tim’s ass and brought their crotches together. He squeezed. Tim would tell him.

     “Yikes. All right. How gentlemanly. Let me put it this way. Lisa Eberman is not the first woman the good professor’s been involved with to end up drowning.”

     “Who’s the other one?” Randall asked.

     “You ever heard of Pamela Milford?”

     “That was years ago, wasn’t it?” Randall tried not to sound interested. His body felt as if it were easing free from his brain.

     “Eighty-three. She was dating Eric Eberman. Hey ... Randall?” 

     Black spots clotted in Randall’s vision. Tim’s hand clamped his shoulder. Randall blinked, and he saw that he was staring up at the roof of the Union. Tim let out an alarmed cry and Randall felt the stone banister dig into the small of his back; he had pitched backward and suddenly Tim was holding him by both shoulders, staring at him as if he had to peer through several layers of gauze.

     Nausea boiled Randall’s stomach and he batted Tim’s arms away. 

     "I’m fine . . . I’ll be back in a second.” His voice came out reedy. The only lucid thought he could pluck from his brain was that he should get the hell out of there. Away from anyone who might see him vomit up his entire stomach.

     He heard Tim calling out his name from a great distance and suddenly realized that his feet had landed on the hardwood floor inside the ballroom. The disco lights painted slow, thick swaths across his vision, streaks that blinded him briefly before fading into pinpricks of light and vanishing completely. Dancing bodies seemed to slide past him, a few rocking him back on his heels and almost throwing him off balance. The exit sign was a rectangle of light and he moved toward it as darkness began to crowd his vision.

     “Bullshit!” Kathryn cried.

    
Neither
April nor Kelley considered Randall’s sudden departure from the dance to be an emergency, and Kathryn had been angrily striding paces ahead of them since they had left the ballroom. She slid her ID card into the slot at the Stockton entrance, flung the door open, and bounded up the stairs to the first-floor hallway.

     Randall’s door was shut and she tried the knob. Locked. She knocked and got no answer.

     April and Kelly shuffled up behind her.

     “He might still be there, Kathryn. We didn’t look everywhere.” 

     “Tim did.” She turned to face them. “He checked the bathrooms. He checked outside—”

     She heard the door crack open, and saw April’s eyes widen with a flicker of shock before she quickly bowed her head. Kathryn spun around to see Jesse holding the door open several inches, just enough to reveal that he was wearing only a pair of white briefs. Her eyes shot down his half-naked body, the dunes of his chest and abdomen, but she stopped herself before she hit the bulge in his crotch. Oddly enough, he seemed the most exposed because he wasn’t wearing his baseball cap, and she was surprised to see that his tousled black hair had a slight curl to it.

     “Is the dorm on fire?” Jesse asked.

     “Is he here?”    
 

     Jesse nodded.

     “That’s our cue,” April mumbled behind her, and Kathryn heard their footsteps departing over the carpet.

     “How is he?” When her palm braced the door, Kathryn was shocked to feel Jesse holding it firmly in place with one hand curled around its edge. He had never prevented her from entering' the room. She let her arm falter to her side.

     “Where have you been?” Jesse asked.

     “At the dance. With
him.”

     “He got back over an hour ago.”

     “Are you going to let me in or not?”

     Jesse shrugged and sighed, stepping away from the door without bothering to open it any further.

     Randall lay cocooned in his comforter, curled into the fetal position with his back to her. She sat down on the edge of the bed and brought a hand to his forehead. His breaths were slow and even and his temperature seemed normal. “Tim says he got sick,” she said to Jesse, who didn’t respond. Kathryn risked a glance at him. He sat perched on the edge of his bed, his eyes locked on Randall. Kathryn began to withdraw her arm. “Was he here when you got back or did you ...” Her elbow disturbed the comforter, which slid off of Randall’s shoulder, revealing his bare chest. She picked it up and pulled it back, stopping when she knew she should have seen the waistband of Randall’s underwear. Instead she saw just naked flesh and hip bone.

     “He was pretty drunk,” Jesse finally said.

     “He didn’t have time to get drunk. He left after only twenty minutes.” She saw she had curled the comforter into one of her fists.

     Jesse was giving her nothing—just like Tim, who hadn’t offered to help search for Randall if it meant leaving the dance. And if they were giving it another shot, why had Randall gone to the dance with her instead of Tim, who was already there with his entourage when they showed up? Questions swirled in her head, none of which Jesse could answer, so she smoothed the comforter back over Randall’s shoulder.

     “It looks like you took pretty good care of him, Jesse.” She rose from the bed.

     “I’m his roommate. That’s my job.”

     That same suggestive, teasing tone, which he’d manage to delete from their conversation three days earlier, now returned to his voice. It stopped her halfway to the door. He had his old smug smile on his face. “Can I ask you something, Jesse?”

     “Always.”

     “How would you get rid of him when you’re done?”

     Jesse narrowed his eyes on her, as if the implication of her words were written in tiny letters across her forehead.

     “Never mind the fact that he’s not as stupid as the little girls you always bring through here. But he’s your roommate. It’s not like you could just not call him back.”

     “I’m not even sure what you’re accusing me of.”

     “I’m not accusing you of anything. But I’ve always known that you can’t resist anyone who worships you enough. I’m just asking you to think twice about this one.”

     She managed to shut the door behind her without slamming it.

Kathryn realized that it all boiled down to small omissions, little things Randall hadn’t told her. But after she left his room, she realized that being confronted with secrets of any kind returned her to the night on China Beach when Jono’s secret scattered to the rocks at the mouth of the Pacific. She tried to sleep and instead found herself in a speeding car. Kerry was gunning the Miata out of the China Beach parking lot. After only a few weekends spent with Jono and his friends, the Kerry who had once been wary and suspicions of college kids now worshiped them as one would a patron saint.

     “Are you sure we should just leave him there?” Kerry asked, her voice tense.

     “He’ll get a ride with Peter.”

     They were approaching the edge of Golden Gate Park, on their way to the late-night party at Kerry’s house in Noe Valley, which had been vacated by her parents for the weekend. Kathryn could hear the Miata’s tiny engine protesting as Kerry kicked at the gas and hiccupped across two lanes of traffic. “Damn, how’d he piss you off so much?” Kerry asked.

     “We were out on the rocks and he started pawing me and—”

     “Oh, and you so hate it when he paws you, right?”

     “Can I finish, please?”

     Kerry shook her head, once, twice, each time faster. There was something wrong with the way her head kept jerking on her neck, almost like a plastic, windup doll. Then, with one palm on the steering wheel, Kerry brought a hand to her nose, swabbing at her nostrils and then raking her fingers back through her hair. Kathryn wondered if she was trying to plaster her bangs with her snot.

     “So he’s acting like an idiot and then he drops his jacket into the surf and I can’t find him ...”

     “His jacket? He lost his
jacket?”
Kerry’s voice ratcheted upward in alarm. She glanced fiercely at Kathryn, not seeing what Kathryn saw—the car was barreling toward a stoplight at fifty miles an hour.

    
“Kerry!”

     Kerry slammed on the brakes and Kathryn’s arm went out, her hand smacking into the glove compartment. Stunned, Kathryn lifted her head to see the stoplight had gone green, but Kerry still had her foot on the brake and the car was halted in moving traffic.

     “We need to go back, Kathryn!”

     Kerry twisted against her seat belt, and in the wan green halo of the stoplight, she saw that Kerry’s eyes were wild, her pupils dilated. “What’s
wrong
with you?” she demanded.

     “Nothing. We just can’t
leave
him back there. I mean, without his jacket. He’s probably freezing his ass off.”

     “He got a ride with Peter. I’m sure! Kerry, the light’s green!”

     “No, seriously, Kathryn. We need to go back and get him.”

     “Kerry!”

     But before Kathryn could protest further, the Miata lurched left and Kerry tore out in a wide, stomach-wringing U-turn across the intersection. In disbelief, Kathryn heard the sound of peeling rubber beneath the car’s shuddering wheels, and when they almost collided with the curb, Kerry let out a cry that was more infuriated than afraid.

     Kerry, brow furrowed slightly in concentration, gazed fixedly ahead, got into her lane and accelerated. Once again, her hand swabbed at her nose.

     “Pull over,” Kathryn said.

     “Chill, Kathryn, it’ll only take a—”

     “Pull over!”

     Kerry let out an annoyed grunt and the Miata bounced to the curb. Once the car came to a stop, Kerry released the steering wheel, threw up her hands, and stared at her friend as if she had sprouted devil’s horns.

     “What are you on?” Kathryn asked.

     “Excuse me?”

     “You’re high on something. Not drunk. Not stoned. You’re fucking high.”

     She saw protest flicker and then fade in Kerry’s eyes before her face became a tight mask of indignation. “Like you don’t know,” she muttered.

     “Don’t know what?” Kathryn barked. Afraid that Kerry’s foot would hit the gas again, she curled her fingers around the door handle, ready to make a quick escape.

     “He’s your boyfriend,. Kathryn. Shouldn’t you know?” Kerry saw the confusion on her face and added, “Please! You’ve seen his apartment? You think he paid for all the stuff with work-study?”