The Snow Garden

“Why do you hate me, Kathryn?”

  “I don't hate you, Jesse.”

  “Kathryn, come on. I thought we already established this. In your own words, please.”

  Thrown, she took several seconds to gauge his sincerity as well as compose herself in the face of his sudden candor. “I think you hurt people,” she said, surprised to find herself speaking, her voice slightly hushed as if to soften the force of her words. “I think you use and then discard women in the name of feeding your ego. And I think it’s wrong.”

  Jesse’s face went lax. He bent one elbow against the table and rested his chin on one fist. “And if I told you that I learn more about a person during the two hours I spend in bed with her, as opposed to three weeks of hearing her talk about her father, or where she came from, you wouldn’t believe me?”

  “Not for a second. I think if you believe you’re actually getting to know any of them, then you’re deluding yourself. Specifically, so you can keep doing it without feeling any guilt.”

  Jesse tapped his fingers against one cheek as he considered this. “Kathryn, I don’t want to gross you out with any of the details, but I don’t really hurt any of them. They want what I have. I give it to them. And in a way, they walk away healed.”

  The only thing worse than witnessing Jesse’s hormones in action was hearing the emotionless, paper-thin rationalizations he used to defend them. “Jesse, what are we talking about here?” she asked, sitting forward.

  “You have a particular attitude toward sex.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Whatever. The point is that your attitude might be different from Randall's. And that’s why he isn’t telling you where he’s going.” Jesse leaned back against his chair. “He got home at three, since you asked.”

  He may have been free of posturing charm, but Jesse still had some ulterior motive. There was something suspicious about the confidence with which he discussed Randall, considering that Randall barely discussed Jesse at all. Maybe he was trying to demonstrate a superior knowledge of her closest friend; that thought frightened her more than being labeled a prude. “And just what is my attitude toward sex, Jesse?”

  “Maybe I’ve gotten off the subject... .”

  “Yeah, well, you brought it up. So, shoot, Freud!”

  “You’re afraid of it,” Jesse declared,

  “Because L won’t sleep with you, I’m afraid of sex.”

  “I don’t recall asking you to sleep with me,” Jesse said with mock indignation. “I’m just saying that to an outside observer it looks like—”

  “Jesse, maybe that’s just it. You’re an outside observer, okay?”

  “Is Randall?”

  The thought that Randall was sharing insights about her with Jesse, of all people, made her feel both naked and isolated. “You’re saying that I’ve done something to make Randall afraid to be honest with me?”

  Jesse took a long pause to consider this. ‘You’re his best friend, Kathryn. And I live with him, whether you like it or not. Are you telling me that you never get the sense that there’s a large part of Randall that he keeps just out of everyone’s reach?”

  Of course she did, but she wouldn’t tell him. This whole conversation had come about because Randall had left the dorm late at night without telling his roommate or his best friend where he was going. Whenever he and Kathryn met up he was usually late and his excuse was that he was usually someplace by himself; the library or the bookstore. But even though Kathryn was aware of these chunks of missing time, they had never bothered her because Randall always seemed to have spent the time alone, pushing away the social clamor of campus life, and most important, not granting anyone else more access than he gave her..

  “Maybe,” she answered weakly.

  “Listen to him, Kathryn. The guy’s not just a private person. He’s a borderline loner. And good luck to the person who tries to get him to talk about his home life. The first few times he threw down that whole act about being uncomfortable with his parents’ wealth, I believed it. But now, it’s like he’s just trying to throw up a big roadblock. Personally, I’m surprised he's gotten as close to you as he has.”

  “And you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just how close are the two of you?”

  Jesse’s eyes widened at the implication and his mouth curled into an amused grin, as if he was taking pleasure in the fact that she had the nerve to suggest it at all. His only response was a laugh that shook his chest. “Now, there’s something that you really wouldn’t like, would you?” He got up from his chair, slung his coat over one arm, and picked up his empty tray. “Randall left out that you have an incredible imagination.”

  She glowered at the table in front of her and fought an urge to shoot him the bird. He’d been so confident and smug throughout their conversation that she had to think of a way to disarm him, prove that she wasn’t just a tortured little prude clinging desperately to her only friend. “Jesse?”

  He dropped his tray on top of a trash can and turned back to her. “Can you tell me something?”

  Jesse shrugged.

  “Why won’t Lauren Raines set foot on our floor?”

  Jesse's smile vanished. “Have you asked her?”

  “She wouldn’t say.”

  Jesse approached the table with his head bowed. “I hope she didn’t say that what happened wasn’t consensual,” he said in a low, firm voice.

  “No. She didn’t,” she said. Jesse nodded. “What happened?”

  “She didn’t like what she wanted.”

  Kathryn’s hands, clasped on the table in front of her, went white. She tried to read Jesse’s icy glare. “And you knew what she wanted better than she did?”

  “Unfortunately, I did.”

  Kathryn met his gaze. “It’s a damn good thing she made it clear it wasn’t rape.”

  Jesse narrowed his eyes. “You’re wrong. I do get to know people by sleeping with them. You want to know how you do it?”

  “No.”

  “Make sure they aren’t afraid to ask for what they want, at the same time you’re making them feel as good as you can. You’ll be shocked what you find out.”

  “Hideous, isn't it?”

  Startled, Kathryn turned, an unlit cigarette still clasped between her gloved fingers. She had no idea how long the guy had been sitting on the bench a few feet away. He had a slightly upturned nose and a mess of sandy blonde hair. His scarf was bunched just under the high collar of his trench coat, and despite his boyish appearance, his wire-rimmed spectacles suggested that he was older then she. He lifted a hand, gesturing vaguely.

  Overhead, giant crossbars of steel swept from the entrance of the Technology & Science Center to the first floor of the thirteen-story sciences library. The Tech Center was a four-story pile of plate glass attached to exposed I beams; its main staircase formed a rotunda at one end of the building, encased in white concrete punctuated by box windows. If the sun had been out, the Tech Center's walls of plate glass would have blinded her.

  Kathryn continued to survey the Price Courtyard. She had only been passing through when she paused to light a much-needed smoke, but now a stranger’s comment had drawn her attention to the polished steel of the benches and lampposts, which blossomed into mushroom shaped heads resembling giant metal lampshades. Underfoot, the names of generous alumni had been etched into each brick.

  “It probably looked better on paper,” she offered.

  “You have to wonder if the administration really thinks Michael Price is a genius, or if they’re just smitten with the fact that he’s regularly written up in The New York Times. Or maybe he’s got something on them. It must be kind of satisfying, though, coming back years later, to leave footprints on the campus of your alma mater entirely in plate glass and steel.”

  “I don’t get the sculptures,” Kathryn said.

  The guy surveyed the off-white sculpture sharing the bench with him. It was a naked human form, sitting with one leg crossed ove
r the other, but what struck her most about it was that the body was perfectly proportioned and looked baby-skin smooth, while the face was a mess of clotted wax. Three more ghostly figures were caught in mid-descent on the steps leading to the sciences library, their frozen poses lifelike, their bodies detailed down to the folds of the skin, but their lack of any facial features made them eerie. What did they signify? Not science or technology. “My guess would be that when you’re an egomaniac like Price, you become convinced that you can master more than one art form. I bet no gallery in all of the Northeast would agree to exhibit his sculptures, but thanks to some hefty checks to the Alumni Foundation, he gets to plop them all over campus with abandon.”

  “I’m Kathryn,” she finally said, approaching the bench with an arm extended.

  He gave her a hard, polite shake. “I won’t ask where you’re from.” “Why?”

  “Because I’m sure freshmen get tired of that question by the second week.”

  “I look that wide-eyed and lost?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Then I must have ‘freshman’ tattooed across my forehead.”

  “Not at all. You just haven’t learned how to properly hate Michael Price yet. That’s usually an act most people get down by their sophomore year.”

  “Do you smoke .. . ?” She gestured for his name.

  “Mitchell. No. Thank you.”

  Kathryn withdrew her hand holding the pack, noting that there wasn’t much reason for this attractive guy to ,be sitting on a bench in the freezing cold unless he was a smoker (or wanted to talk to her). “I noticed you standing here,” he said, “and I just thought I would stop to tell you that modern architecture was a failed movement before it was subsumed by contemporary architecture, which is barely a movement at all. Just a collection of styles and volumes without any of the driving utopian philosophies that made modern architecture worthy of inquiry, but a popular failure.”

  Kathryn burst out laughing. Mitchell’s smile let her know he didn’t take himself too seriously. “You looked like you might be debating the question,” he added. She took a seat between him and ghost man.

  “Is this your field?” he asked.

  “This. No. This is... a little boy playing with steel and construction equipment.”

  “You seem to know your stuff.”

  “I’m a second-year master’s student in art history. As of right now, I’m supposed to know a little about a lot. Unfortunately, certain artists have more of a draw than others. Certain artists who have a worldview that’s entirely their own. Not” —he gave the entire courtyard a dismissive wave —“shiny gimmicks and eye-popping tricks of gravity.”

  Kathryn scanned the patio again, trying to see it entirely in his terms.

  “And you?” he asked.

  “Pre-law,” she answered flatly.

  “Interesting. With all due respect, I don’t think pre-law is really a major.”

  “Why do you think I picked it?” she retorted. Mitchell smiled. She groped for a more genuine response. “No, um, I’m kind of biding my time until I have to pick one next year.”

  “Sounds like a plan. What brought you here?”

  She gave him a puzzled look.

  “To Atherton,” he added.

  She rolled her eyes and blew out a drag. “You want the answer I gave on my essay?”

  “I don’t know. Do I?”

  “Yale waitlisted me and Claremont was too close to home,” she said. Mitchell grunted approvingly at her candor, so she continued, “Seriously, it was shallow. I didn’t apply anywhere early, so I got all of my acceptances and rejections in April, and when I did, I popped open my handy copy of US News and World Report, and Atherton was at the top. And when I visited last year, I don't know, it just looked the way I thought a college should look, I guess. Don’t get me wrong. On all of my essay questions I went on at length about how I was going to save the world. I think I told Brown I wanted to be a lawyer who would save the children of tomorrow.. ..”

  Mitchell’s smile was a half grimace.

  “I know. Shoot me, please. Anyway, now I’m here, and I’m surrounded by scholars and activists and all these people who have such passion. And I’m here because of the brochure.” Maybe her conversation with Jesse had put her in a funk, but depression settled with a sudden weight on her back and she found herself staring vacantly at the expanse of etched brick. “This wasn’t the answer you were expecting,” she said, trying to snap out of it.

  Mitchell, she saw, was observing her carefully. “I’m pleasantly surprised by your honesty. But I can’t say I was expecting any specific type of answer.”

  “Good,” she said, with a nervous laugh. “So. You?”

  “Me?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Dr. Eberman brought me here.”

  “Eric Eberman,” she said. “The guy .. .”

  “Yes. That one.”

  Kathryn just nodded her head out of respect for a dead woman she didn’t know. Mitchell’s eyes were downcast, his lips pursed as if they both needed time to let the .mention of Lisa Eberman pass like a gust of wind. “He’s a brilliant man. I read his book when I was an undergraduate at Middlebury.”

  “So you’re a TA?”

  “Yes. Against my will. Foundations One. Otherwise known as Slides One.”

  “My friend’s in that course.”

  “Who's your friend?”

  “Randall Stone.”

  Mitchell’s stare was blank, and she assumed he didn’t know him. “Sorry, I know there must be like a hundred—”

  “Your friend Randall’s kind of a character.”

  “Is that a polite way of saying he bothers you?”

  “No. Not at all. You’re right, there are almost a hundred students in the class, but Randall seems to stand out. He walks taller than your average wide-eyed freshman.”

  She smiled at the reference to her own line. “I guess New York forces you to walk tall at an early age.”

  “That’s where he’s from?”

  The mention of Randall seemed to have distracted Mitchell; his eyes had wandered past her and his brow was creased in thought. Several seconds of silence passed, during which the suspicion that Mitchell might begin to fish for information on Randall rushed to the front of her brain and made her consider switching schools.

  “Mitchell, can I ask you something?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry...”

  “No. I know what you're going to ask and the answer’s no. That isn’t why I find Randall to be interesting.”

  Kathryn breathed in, then out. “You have to forgive me. It’s the curse of being a gay man’s best friend. If a girl’s not playing his pimp, she’s consoling the guy he’s run through like a knife through butter.” She smiled so as not to seem bitter, and Mitchell returned a weak smile of sympathy for her petty plight.

  “I knew he was gay.”

  “What was it? The Prada everything?”

  “No.” Mitchell met her eyes. “Tell any of our resident activists I said this and there will be punishment involved.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Randall Stone has gay eyes.”

  She waited for an addendum to this bizarre statement, but Mitchell said nothing;

  “I’m sorry. Eyes?"

  "They have this perpetual, self-aware glint to them. They're always rapidly alternating between surveying everyone around them and then pretending to be distant at the moment when they know they’re being surveyed. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a more evolved form of insecurity or paranoia. But I think it’s fascinating and I don’t mean it to be a slight to your good friend.”

  Kathryn nodded. “That’s pretty strange, Mitchell.”

  “Pay close attention to them. You’ll see what I mean.”

  “Deal,” she said.

  He lowered his bent leg and reached around his back for his satchel. Kathryn watched uneasily as he removed a notebook from his pad, began writing on the botto
m of a piece of paper, and then tore it off and handed it to her. Hesitantly, she took it, for a brief second expecting it to be some sort of message that he didn’t have the courage to voice.

  Instead, she saw his phone number. When she looked up, he was already on his feet. He gestured to the paper in her hand. “I think it’s pretty barbaric that the university doesn’t allow freshmen to have cars on campus. If you ever feel the need to get off the hill, I know a pretty good seafood place down on the bayfront.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I have to go lead a discussion section. Forgive me.”

  She only had time to nod. She was about to slide the paper into her book bag when she noticed Mitchell had stopped several yards away, his head turned toward her.

  “Forgive me if this comes off as presumptuous,” he called back, “but even though the things that brought you here might seem shallow, you haven’t been here long enough to know why you’re here.’’ He gave her his weakest smile yet, and it warmed her when she realized that these words had taken up most of his nerve.

  She smiled and held up the paper in one hand.

  He must have thought the gesture to be a little too direct, because he bowed his head slightly as he left the courtyard.

  “Philadelphia?”

  Eric turned from the window and its view of students processing into Folberg Library across the street. “I’m sorry?”

  John Hawthorne swiveled his Herman Miller desk chair to face him. “The funeral was in Philadelphia, so I’m assuming Lisa was from there.”

  “Yes,” Eric said.

  The two men had been classmates, and Hawthorne took this as license to address Eric like an old friend. Never mind that, two years ago when he had assumed the role of the university’s publicist, John had to remind Eric that the two of them had graduated together.

  Eric eyed him as he returned his attention to several copies of the Atherton Daily Journal spread out on his desk. As usual, Hawthorne’s salt-and-pepper hair looked as if it had been plastered on his head with shellac, concealing any natural part. Eric assumed the man would have been more at home in a New York advertising firm, baring his teeth over the speakerphone and pitting journalists against one another. Two years of being forced to keep his tone gentle and conciliatory seemed to have worn away at the man’s patrician features.