The Snow Garden

  “I was gone. I’m sorry. I skipped dinner and then once I got to the dance I realized I was trashed.” She nodded to the computer screen, not believing a word of it. She returned her hands to the keyboard before she realized her focus was shot. “Working?” he asked.

  “I have to write my mother an E-mail.”

  “Have you seen Jesse?” Randall asked, apparently not having gotten what she just said.

  She turned against the chair, one arm braced over the back. “No. I haven’t.”

  Started. Randall turned from April's bookshelf, where he’d been running a finger along the spines of her text books. “Kathryn?” he asked, sounding wounded by the sharpness in her tone.

  “Yes?”

  His blue eyes were glazed and distant, stricken by her anger and suspicious of it's source. He took a seat on the edge of April’s bed. “Don’t lie to me. Whats going on?”

  “ I’m writing an E-mail because I have to get down on my knees and beg her to try to find me a plane ticket for Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh shit.” Randall's exhalation sounded almost relieved. He got up from the bed, but she turned back to the computer. He squeezed her shoulders with both hands. “Kathryn, I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you. I talked to my parents and they pulled the plug.”

  Your parents who never call, she thought, the parents you never talk about, and suddenly they want you home for Thanksgiving. “What did they say?”

  “Same old shit.”

  She laughed. The expression meant nothing in reference to Mr. and Mrs. Stone, whose shit Randall discussed in the most roundabout way possible.

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Good,” she said, refusing to soften. “ I’m not about to spend four days alone here in this tenement!” She rose and his hands slid weakly off her shoulders. “And from the looks of it, the only way I’m going to get home is on a fucking Greyhound, which would take four days anyway so . . .” She had left the chair without any clear idea of where she was going to. The room seemed five times smaller than usual. They stood an awkward few feet apart. Randall bowed his head, nervous breaths puffing his cheeks.

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “Say it again.”

  “How about something new? Like, it’s all my fault.”

  She nodded curtly as if the answer were acceptable. Which it wasn’t.

  “The last time I saw Jesse he was leaving the dorm,” she began, icily. “That was about an hour ago.” She studied Randall for a response that would give some clear indication of what happened on Friday night. Nothing; he was just a pouting child looking for forgiveness.

  “I stopped by last night.”

  “I had a date.”

  “With who?”

  “Mitchell Seaver.”

  Randall just nodded as if accepting the inevitable. “How was it?” he asked tightly.

  “Nice,” she said, sounding like her mother. “Why were you looking for Jesse?”

  “Because I had to ask him something.”

  “About Friday night?”

  Randall hissed and lifted his hands to either side of his head, as if Kathryn’s continued anger was making his head swell. “What is going on?”

  “Are you pretending for my sake?”

  Randall’s face fell, his mouth curling open slightly and his eyes narrowing on her. Sudden fear added breath to his voice. “Did Jesse say . . . something to you?”

  “He shouldn’t have to.”

  Randall looked like he had been punched in the stomach. He turned away from her, grabbing the back of her chair with one hand to steady himself. “Fuck,” he whispered. “He told you.”

  “Of course he didn’t tell me. But he certainly wanted me to believe that something happened. He shows up at the door wearing nothing but his underwear and he won’t let me in the room. And then you’re out cold, stark naked—”

  Randall pivoted to face her again, and now his face wrinkled with confusion. “What?”

  “Randall, you said you knew better.”

  “Oh my God. I didn’t sleep with Jesse!”

  Ardor and disgust met in his words with convincing force. Kathryn felt confused as well as foolish. “Well... who did you sleep with?” “Friday night? No one. I was gone! I told you. The scotch ...” He stopped.

  “Oh my God,” she groaned, and flounced back onto her mattress. Randall crawled onto the bed next to her, his arm around her stomach bunching part of her shirt in his fist. Still a child trying to apologize, now with a sudden burst of physical tenderness. She tried to bury her head in the pillows.

  “You really thought I. ..”

  “Yes!” She groaned. “It was so weird. I walk in and I realize you don’t have any clothes on and Jesse’s just kind of sitting there smiling and ..Her words collapsed into another groan.

  “What did you say?”

  “I’m not telling you. It’s stupid.”

  “Come on, I’m sure it’s entertaining.”

  She rolled over, resting her head on the pillow with Randall’s face inches away. “I said he couldn’t get rid of you the way he did everyone else. I said you weren’t that stupid.”

  Pain flashed over Randall’s face so quickly she almost missed it, a slight wince while he kept his eyes locked on hers. Then his smile seemed uncomfortable, but it gained warmth and lifted his features. For several seconds, he stared at her, then brought a hand to the side of her face. She hadn’t expected her words to move him. His mouth opened. Nothing came out, so he tried again. “I’m very glad you were there to defend my honor,” he said, sounding slightly winded.

  She must have seemed stricken by his sudden gravity, because his eyes left hers and he slid down into the bed, resting her head in his armpit. For several seconds, the only sounds in the room were the thud of footsteps one floor above and muffled but animated conversation from the engineering freaks next door.

  "He didn’t try to kiss me,” Kathryn finally said.

  “Mitchell?”

  “Is that weird?”

  “Maybe it’s a good thing,” Randall said, too fast.

  “One small peck on the cheek would have been nice.”

  “Right. And then he would have gone for the knockers!” Randall’s hand started to follow suit before she caught it. “And the thigh!” His other hand sunk into her thigh. They were both wrestling and giggling like six-year-olds. “And then he would have slobbered all over you in that gross way that only grad students slobber.”

  She was laughing now. “I don’t think he slobbers. He’s way too composed for that.” One of her legs was pried between both of Randall’s, and she was sliding it free when April walked in, tailed by the girl from the dance, whom April had angrily informed her was named Karen.

  “Are we interrupting something?”

  “Kathryn had a date last night,” Randall announced.

  “I know. She told me. How did it go?”

  “He slobbered all over her!”

  “Thanks, Kathryn. How did it go?”

  Randall turned to Kathryn and kissed her on the cheek. “There’s your peck.”

  When he got up and went to squeeze past Karen, the girl jerked as if a shotgun had gone off and Randall shot an amused look at Kathryn. Once he was out of sight, Kathryn recognized April’s too-familiar look of parental condescension; her tongue was a lump under her upper lip and one eyebrow had gone up. “Let me guess. Randall doesn’t like him.”

  Behind April, Karen let out a slight laugh, which lifted her shoulders.

  “Can you excuse us please, Karen?” Kathryn asked.

  Offended, Karen looked from Kathryn to April, as if April had veto power, “Just a second,” April muttered to her. Karen didn’t restrain her pout as she shuffled into the hallway.

  “Knock it off,”

  “Excuse me?” April barked.

  “I said knock it off. I’m- not your baby sister and I’m not your pet project. You want to make your five-minute girlfriend laugh, learn some jokes.”
r />   Resignation replaced anger on April’s face, as if Kathryn was now a lost cause. Kathryn left the room.

  Kathryn assumed the only reason Randall had come with her to Folberg was to avoid returning to his room and confronting Jesse about the Melrose Place mind game he’d tried to pull on her. When he got up and left the table, Kathryn was relieved. He had been jittery ever since they’d sat down—twirling his highlighter in one hand, slouching back in his chair and extending his legs until his feet knocked hers. Once he was out of sight, Kathryn reached over and flipped his textbook to its cover. Geology. Randall had admitted to her that he only signed up for the Geology of Natural Disasters, nicknamed “Quakes for Flakes,” because the course was packed with hot lacrosse players. On the first day of class, he told her, the professor began his lecture with a slide show. “What’s this?” he asked the class after displaying a slide of a more-than-familiar blue planet. “Earth!” several enthusiastic jocks responded.

  A hand landed on her shoulder and she looked up to see Lauren Raines. “Hey.” Lauren’s smile was bright, but Kathryn’s soon disappeared when she remembered their last meeting.

  Kathryn stood with one hand falteringly on the back of her chair, and Lauren bowed her head, as if marginally amused by Kathryn’s sudden discomfort. “How are you?” Kathryn asked. The question came out all wrong—condescending enough to imply that Lauren’s flirtation with lesbianism was like a bad flu she couldn’t seem to shake.

  “Come meet Maria,” Lauren whispered.

  At their last encounter, when Lauren first told Kathryn about her new girlfriend, Kathryn had formed an immediate mental image of a purple-haired student activist. But Lauren led her across the room toward a black-haired, fine-boned beauty bent over what looked like a schematic grid. Maria lifted her head as they approached, her generous dark eyes surveying Kathryn without any skepticism or wariness.

  “So you’re the one that stole Lauren from us?” Kathryn whispered as genially as she could. Maria’s smile was as soft as her handshake, and she gestured for Kathryn to take the empty chair at the head of the table.

  Once she sat and they offered their pleasantries, Kathryn noticed that Lauren’s eyes were moving steadily between her and Maria. She looked proud, but Kathryn couldn’t determine whether Lauren thought she was showing off her graceful girlfriend, or proving that her former close friend had no apparent problems with her new sexual orientation.

  “I meant to apologize — ” Kathryn began.

  “For what?” Lauren asked.

  “I didn’t mean to get on your case last time about—”

  “Oh,” Lauren said, and then to Maria. “Jesse.”

  Kathryn was surprised when Maria nodded her head in recognition and then returned her attention to her work, which Kathryn realized was a color photocopy of a painting. Maria was dividing it into an evenly proportioned grid of squares. Kathryn knew the technique from a high-school art project that involved creating an enlarged cardboard replica of a Snickers bar. To accurately reproduce the label, she had been required to draw the same type of grid, in one scale on the label itself, and then five times as big on the cardboard, before reproducing the image square by square. She wondered if Maria actually was going to reproduce the incredibly detailed image onto a larger surface.

  “I just wanted to apologize,” Kathryn repeated, pulling her attention away from Maria’s work before she was able to recognize the painting.

  “That’s really sweet,” Lauren said. “How’s Randall?”

  Had Kathryn imagined the ripple, of tension that passed over the table? “Fine. We were just talking about you the other day.”

  The statement felt stupid once it was out of her mouth, and she jumped at the sound of Maria’s pencil hitting the table. She turned to see the girl had merely traded writing implements, and was starting to retrace her pencil lines with a Sharpie. “He just asked how you were doing,” Kathryn added in a quick whisper. Wasn’t that a lie? Randall hadn’t even noticed Lauren’s absence.

  “Did you tell him I’m a woman reborn?” Lauren asked her. Kathryn was taken aback by the broadness of Lauren’s smile before she noticed that Maria had jerked her head up from her work.

  “How was dinner?” Maria’s voice was almost caressing.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Mitchell says he took you to Jean Pierre’s. He considers the place one of his better kept secrets, so you should consider it an honor. He’s also quite fond of showing people new things.” Maria looked back down at her grid, and Kathryn wondered if she expected an answer.

  “It was fine. . . .”

  As if sensing she had caught Kathryn off guard, Maria lifted her head again and surveyed Kathryn. “Mitchell and I are in the masters program together. There aren’t that many of us, and few of us have the time for exciting weekends. So when someone has even the most casual Saturday-night outing, it usually ends up becoming fodder for the rest of us. Don’t worry. We’re not gossips. Just observant.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Kathryn said. Maria smiled and returned to her work. “Be sure to spread the word that I was very impressed with Mitchell,” she said. “But I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea that the earth is Satan’s terrain.”

  Maria lifted her eyes to Kathryn’s again and looked pleased. She nearly chuckled, as if shocked as well as impressed. Lauren wore the expression of a thirteen-year-old whose parents are getting along famously with her new beau.

  Good note to end on, Kathryn thought, and rose from her chair. “Nice meeting you,” she said to Maria, who only nodded and smiled. She gripped Lauren’s shoulder as she passed her chair.

  “Have a good break,” Lauren whispered.

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  As she sat back down at her table, Kathryn realized that nothing about the two girls’ behavior toward each other indicated a romantic relationship. And hadn’t there been the slightest edge in her voice when she mentioned Mitchell?

  She looked over to see that across the other students bent low and whispering across their tables or with their heads buried in their books, Maria’s eyes were locked on her. When she didn’t avert her eyes from Kathryn’s, she felt caught, forced into either smiling or looking away, both of which would embarrass her.

  Then Maria smiled, her face even warmer and more genuine than ever before. Kathryn was so caught off guard she smiled back, genuinely. Maria gave a small nod, as if a positive assumption, as opposed to a suspicion, had been confirmed for her by their brief meeting. She returned her attention to the painting in front of her.

  After abandoning Kathryn downstairs, Randall stepped off the elevator to the science section on the third floor and found himself facing shelves stretching the entire building. Half of the fluorescent lights were out, turning the aisles between the racks into heavily shadowed passageways. Many times in his life libraries had been his refuge, and his first step into them seemed like an embrace. But now he was looking for something specific, and he wondered why a school that taught courses on everything from the history of bookbinding to how to plan your own urban metropolis didn’t have a course on how to find what you wanted in the goddamn library.

  Downstairs, he had typed “psychotropic medication” in the computer directory and the result had been a dizzying surplus of results. He had jotted down the name of several desk references that sounded easy to use and which he hoped would include general information, including solubility. Namely, exactly what drugs could be mixed in with a bottle of scotch.

  Before Atherton, he’d spent most of his time in public libraries and had familiarized himself with the Dewey decimal system. The Library of Congress system was about to drive him over the edge when he spotted April standing at the far end of the aisle. He approached slowly, and she looked up from the thick book spread open against one arm.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Her smile was weak.

  “I need help, Doc.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  ?
??I’m looking for general information on psychotropic drugs.”

  “Don’t bother. Ecstasy isn’t a psychotropic drug.”

  “I don’t do X. But maybe later you can teach me some Indigo Girls songs on the guitar?”

  April’s eyes fell to her book. “Before this gets to be too much fun, why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for specifically?”

  “General information. Solubility. Stuff like that.” When he saw her puzzled expression, he quickly added, “It’s for a story I’m writing.”

  “Another one? Sounds like you’ve been hit by the writing bug.” She must have seen him pale. “Sorry. Kathryn told me about the last one you wrote.”

  “Told you?” he asked tightly.

  “Of course, she wouldn’t let me read it. Yanked it out of my hands actually. She’s very protective of you. But I think you know that.”

  Relief flooded him, but April’s hard stare didn’t waver. “I sense a point here,” he said after a strained pause.

  April responded by shoving her book back onto the rack. “This guy Mitchell makes her happy. Let her have that.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  April grimaced at his lack of sincerity, but rolled her eyes instead of pressing the point. “Three aisles over. You’re on the border between chemistry and chemical dependency. They’re very clever here at Folberg,” She turned on her heel and moved off down the aisle.

  Randall watched her go, cursing the nakedness of his reaction when she’d mentioned “Drywater, Texas.”

  “April?”

  She turned.

  “You can read it if you want.”

  Her brow furrowed.

  “My story.”

  “Thanks. I’m not a big fiction fan.”

  Thank God, Randall thought. I don’t need another amateur detective on my tail.

  Several minutes later, he was flipping pages through a general desk reference, his shoulder leaning against the rack, as the dying fluorescent light overhead threatened to blur the microscopic text. He heard a scraping of chairs on the other side of the rack followed by hushed whispers. Eric had never referred to one of Lisa’s medications by name. During those rare moments of less than romantic pillow talk, when Eric laid on Randall his fear for the fate that awaited the wife he had just cheated on, Eric referred to the mass of medications in the liquor cabinet as nothing more than “the drugs.” But Tim had mentioned Vicodin. And supposedly, Eric had mentioned it to the police.