The Snow Garden

  Every book he consulted was in agreement. Vicodin and alcohol didn’t mix.

  But could they be mixed? But that was what Randall needed to know. Water soluble was one thing; alcohol soluble another. And obviously, the authors of prescription medication desk references didn’t think their patients should be grinding up pills into their nightly cocktails. He slapped the book shut against his arm, suddenly overcome by the immensity of the task he and Tim had undertaken. Earlier that day, panic had prevented him from seeing the complexity it entailed. He and Tim—who had yet to throw himself into their investigation with his usual tenacity—would have to become interrogators, investigators, and, God forbid, chemists. He slid the book back onto the rack shelf, braced himself against the rack, bowed his head, and took a breath.

  When he heard Jesse’s low, throaty laughter, it sounded as if it was coming from some faraway place, but after a moment, Randall could pinpoint the location: only several feet away and on the other side of the rack. He remembered the scraping chairs he’d heard seconds before.

  He kept his steps almost silent over the sticky linoleum floor until the low voices of Jesse and another male were intelligible. While the center of the floor was taken up entirely by shelves, the outer wall was lined with private study carrels reserved for seniors working on their honors theses. Randall plucked a book from a shelf and glimpsed Jesse sitting across from a guy Randall didn’t recognize. The guy had Jesse’s build, with broad shoulders, dimpled cheeks, and pouty lips.

  Tyler? No, Taylor, Randall remembered, the Tennessee boy with Bible-thumper parents. His clothes today were a far cry from the sleeveless club gear he had been outfitted in for the GLA dance. His hair had been tamed from a wild bed of spikes into a rigid side part. He wore khaki trousers. The collar of an oxford poked above the V-neck of his sweater. And his eyes were fixed on Jesse with awe and desire. It turned Randall’s stomach.

  Taylor’s voice had a low, gentle drawl to it, and he spoke timidly. His statements had the intonation of questions. “ ... so I’m practically racing all the way home and as soon as I get there I hide my entire backpack under the bed? I mean I never get to take it out.”

  “Hustler? You bought Hustler and they didn’t ask how old you were?” Jesse asked.

  Taylor grinned proudly and nodded. “Uh-huh. So anyway, that night Daddy calls us — ”

  “Daddy.” Jesse’s imitation was just gentle enough so as not to mock.

  Taylor bowed his head slightly and then shook it with embarrassment. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Their eyes met for a second before Taylor snapped himself back into his story. “So he calls us down for dinner and Mom’s in the kitchen and I sit down at my place and she comes waltzing out with two plates. One for my daddy and one for me. Sets his down in front of him. And sets mine in front of me. And guess what was on it?”

  “Hustler!”

  After a moment, they realized how loudly they were laughing, and Taylor threw nervous glances in every direction. Randall’s breath caught as the guy’s eyes looked his way. He was witnessing one of Jesse’s seductions, this one with what he guessed was a new twist.

  “What did you say?" Jesse asked, bending toward Taylor, his elbows braced on the table.

  “Oh, I denied it to kingdom come. Didn’t make any difference, though. Dad . .. my dad, he could tell just by the way I came in the house that I was up to something no good. And there wasn’t much I could do. It was in my backpack.”

  “Shame you never got to look at it,” Jesse said, eyes bright as if suggesting the untold pleasures of pornography.

  Taylor just shook his head and pulled an open book across the desk until it rested protectively against his chest. “I’ve done plenty of looking since.”

  “At Hustler?” Jesse asked with a crooked smile.

  Taylor lifted his head halfway, as if debating whether to meet a challenge.

  “They have guys in Hustler?” Jesse asked.

  In the heavy silence that passed between the two of them, Randall realized that Taylor hadn’t told Jesse he was gay. Of course, Jesse knew. Had known before he moved in on him the same way he knew Lauren’s story was anything but fiction.

  “Who says I...”

  “I do.” Jesse cut him off gently, leaning back against his chair.

  “Do you?” Taylor asked with a smirk.

  Jesse smiled and shrugged. Randall recognized the shrug. It was Jesse’s silent way of saying anything’s a possibility when you’re me. The sight of it now, directed at sweet little Taylor, with Bible-thumper parents and now, Randall believed, a very good chance of being fucked in the head, just like Lauren Raines, filled Randall with cold, useless anger.

  “Your father? How did he punish you?” Jesse asked. His eyes were intent, but slightly glazed. It was a look Randall didn’t recognize at all.

  “You mean for the magazine?” Taylor asked.

  ‘Yeah.”

  “He made me burn it.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  Taylor let out a short, choked laugh. “What? You think he and I should have sat down and read it together?”

  Jesse’s smile was slight, teasing the corners of his mouth. To Randall, it seemed slightly pained.

  “Why?” Taylor asked. “What would your daddy do?”

  “It sounds like we have very different daddies. My daddy,” Jesse began, rising out of his chair as Taylor’s eyes widened slightly, “taught me that the majority of evil crap in this world comes from people who are afraid of what their bodies are capable of.”

  Taylor’s mouth opened in what looked like shock. With his crotch pressed against the edge of the table, Jesse lowered his face inches from Taylor’s dumbfounded stare. “It’s kind of amazing what you can do when you stop being afraid of yourself.”

  Randall slammed the book back onto the shelf so hard the spine collided with the rack’s crossbar, producing a deep metallic twang. He moved off down the aisle, wondering if he should track down Lauren Raines and tell her she could stop speculating.

  When she heard Randall’s hurried footsteps, Kathryn looked up abruptly from her book. “I have to go,” he said tersely.

  “Where?” She looked startled, and mildly annoyed.

  “I was supposed to call my mom an hour ago,” he lied. He whipped his bookbag off his chair, picking up his geology text with his other hand. “I totally forgot.”

  “Do you want me to come?”

  “No. It’s cool.”

  “All right, good, ’cause I really need to finish.”

  He grazed her shoulder affectionately with one hand to reassure her he wasn’t blowing her off.

  “I’ll stop by when I get back,” he heard her call after him.

  Randall’s hip slammed into the exit turnstile before he found the sense to reach down and give it a shove. It rotated with a thud and a clatter and he passed through it. By the time he was descending the front steps of Folberg, he heard footsteps behind him, matching his own pace.

  “Randall!”

  Jesse. The fucker was following him everywhere, stalking him practically. And for what? Breaking into a run was out of the question, but he didn’t dare look back as he crossed the street and passed through the gates to the quad, keeping his steps even on the salted sidewalks and his gaze fixed on the spotlit regiment of administrative buildings up ahead. When Jesse’s hand landed on his shoulder, he whirled around. “Do you know what a psychopath is?” he spat out.

  Jesse hadn’t even bothered to put on his prized pea coat. His eyes flared at the anger in Randall’s voice, but the faint smile hadn’t faded from his face. “Enlighten me,” he muttered.

  “A psychopath only uses people they need—”

  “Really? I thought they just ate people.”

  Randall continued, voice growing shrill. “They don’t have friends. They don’t have anyone they love. They don’t really know anyone. That’s what you are. No one is really even a person to you, are they, Jesse
? Just a big secret you have to figure out. And now you know mine. So move on!”

  The look of anger was so unfamiliar on Jesse’s face that at first Randal] didn’t recognize it. When Jesse opened his mouth again, Randall turned and stalked away. When Randall reached the dark passageway between the Admissions Center and the Alumni Building, Jesse hooked one of his shoulders with surprising, violent force, spinning him so suddenly that Randall’s bag went sliding off his shoulder, the strap landing in the crook of his arm.

  “And just who’s feeding me this bullshit?” Jesse growled. “The same person who tells just the right lies to everyone he knows so he can keep them right where he wants them! What do you tell Kathryn? That what you two have is special. That you’re soul mates. Anything to keep her from figuring out who you really are!”

  “Let go of me,” Randall whined, instantly hating the childish tone in his voice because it betrayed his realization that Jesse wasn’t just flaunting secret knowledge of Randall. He was implying they were one and the same, and that knifed him.

  Jesse released Randall’s shoulder with a shove that almost threw him off balance. “And your professor? What do you tell him? Did you cry about your parents who haven’t called you since you got here? Did you tell him you need rescuing? Anything to make him think your feelings for him are noble! When really, you’re no different from me. You can’t resist the challenge of it. You have to see if you’re good enough to break him down!” Jesse’s brow darkened more. “But the one thing I can’t figure about you, is where do I fit in?”

  “You don’t!”

  “Wrong. I’m the only one here who knows who you really are. And I’m the only one you know who won’t be disgusted by it. You are who you are when you’re with me.” Jesse shook his head as if in disbelief that Randall hadn’t already figured this all out. He sucked in a labored breath. “I’ve never judged you. Never. I’ve done better. I’ve known you. I’ve understood you when Kathryn put you on a pedestal and—”

  “Lauren Raines.”

  Jesse’s eyes shot to his, went numb with shock.

  “Her story. The one about her uncle. The drunk. Why did it bother you so much?”

  Jesse’s mouth shut and his eyes narrowed, as if trying to fathom the lengths Randall would go to fight him off.

  “Every word reminded you of your father, didn’t it?”

  For a second, Randall thought Jesse would punch him in the face. But Jesse’s expression was almost plaintive amusement. Randall searched for a hint of lunacy in the sudden smile curling his features. ‘You sound just like every other fucking victim on this campus,” Jesse said. “They scream about what they hate with so much passion that you can tell they love it. And you’re so disgusted by what my father did to me that I can tell it turns you on.”

  “No. It doesn’t. Sorry.” Randall grunted in disgust. “It makes me sick. But the sad thing is that it explains you perfectly. Someone had to convince you that you needed to steal part of someone. And that’s what you think it is, isn’t it? That’s why it’s never the same girl twice. And that’s why you think that little boy in there is the best way to finally get to me. Because you always need someone new. Because you’re so fucking warped that you think you’re always walking away from every fuck with something different. You walk away with nothing, Jesse. It’s why you’re so alone.”

  Randall turned on one heel and strode into the passageway.

  “I didn’t ask for this, Randall!” Jesse called after him. “At first, I thought it was a privilege, knowing you so well. Too bad you can’t return the favor.”

  Randall turned around to see Jesse standing in the wintry halo of light at the mouth of the alley. “I just did!” Randall shouted.

  Jesse approached, walking slowly and deliberately and without fear that Randall might bolt, which Randall was telling himself to do. His footsteps echoed between the two buildings. Jesse was several feet away when he spoke again. “How about we try a little experiment? Since I’ve made it clear that you can’t cast the same spell on me as you do on everyone else, I’m going to ask you about those burns all over your legs. And you’re going to try not to lie.”

  “You need help, Jesse.”

  “Okay, that was a strike. Why don’t I ask you about your parents? The ones who’ve never visited you. The ones who never call. The ones who might not even be alive.”

  Randall lunged. His loose fist hit Jesse’s stomach, but Jesse clamped his wrist and after several dizzying seconds of scuffling through darkness, Randall felt his back slam against the stone wall and his feet lift off the ground. Jesse’s breath was against his neck, his arm braced across Randall’s chest and pinning him against the wall.

  ‘You want to know my secret?” Randall fought to get his body under control. “I will never be a notch on your belt. Your fag roommate knows better.”

  Jesse released Randall’s fist. His nose grazed Randall’s cheek, and Randall felt Jesse’s hand probe the erection straining against his jeans. Jesse’s laugh barely made it past his lips. “Randall, face it. You just don’t know how to lie to me.”

  Randall slumped back against the wall. His head rolled forward, his nose brushing Jesse’s shoulder. Jesse’s hand left his crotch; it gripped the back of his neck.

  “Who burned you, Randall?” Jesse whispered.

  Randall gasped in a breath that didn’t make it past his throat. “Jesse!”

  Neither of them moved until they heard the high-pitched call echo down the alleyway a second time.

  “I have to go,” Jesse said.

  When Jesse departed it felt like he carried a tide of air with him.

  Randall kept his gaze on the darkness at his feet, listening to the sound of Jesse’s footsteps heading toward Taylor’s voice, which continued to call after him with increasing alarm.

  He shut his eyes and heard inside his head a screeching of metal, slowly turning into a roar.

  Kathryn was heading down the hall, bound for Randall’s room, when she recognized the ringing phone as her own. She dashed into her room. “Hello?”

  “Did I interrupt something?” Mitchell asked.

  “Yeah, I was just trying to work feng shui on my room, but I can’t move my desk without opening up a portal to hell”

  Mitchell’s laughter seemed genuine. “I was calling to see if you came to a decision,” he said,

  “About the desk?”

  She sat down onto the edge of her bed and began unlacing her boots as she held the phone to her ear with one shoulder.

  “No. Thanksgiving.”

  “My parents won. Now they just have to see if they can find me a ticket.”

  “I think that might be a good thing.”

  Like not kissing me, she thought, and then stifled the thought because it made her feel fifteen. “Well,” she said. “Four days alone here in Stockton Hall would probably have me cowering in a corner and eating insects by the time everyone got back.”

  April entered, pushing through the door Kathryn hadn’t bothered to shut all the way. Kathryn watched her to see if she was in the mood to manage a greeting, but she wasn’t, and she sat down in front of her desk, snapping her computer out of idle with a mouse click.

  “But after the way I went on at dinner the other night, my guess is you probably think I’m pretty close to losing it anyway,” Kathryn said in a lower voice.

  “Please.”

  “Seriously. The only thing missing was the violin I could have played for myself.” And the kiss at the end of the date, which even though she didn’t like to admit it, would have been some small confirmation that the silent magnetic pull between them that she’d felt for the entire evening hadn’t been her own fantasy, her desires outstripping her mind.

  “Well, I also have something to apologize for.”

  She transferred the phone from her shoulder to her hand as she waited.

  “I enjoyed dinner and it was rude of me not to say so.”

  Had she really gone on a date with Mr. Be
lvedere? “Thanks.” Her tone was dry as a bone and she could feel her patience wearing thin. “And I would like to do it again. I said that, didn’t I?”

  “Yes. You did. When?”

  Mitchell’s breathy laugh made her curse her eagerness.

  “I imagine you’re kind of swamped this week.”

  “Not really.”

  “Well... I’m kind of swamped this week. How about after you get back?”

  “If I get back. It’s four whole days with my parents.”

  Mitchell laughed again. Kathryn didn’t. “When are you planning on returning?” he asked.

  “Don’t know yet. No tickets, remember?”

  “Well, that kind of complicates things...”

  You’re doing a fine job of that on your own, buddy, she thought.

  “Why don’t you give me a call when you get back?” he asked, with a note of finality that tensed her hand around the portable.

  “Sure thing.”

  “Good-bye, Kathryn.”

  “Hey!” During the ensuing silence she cursed the sharpness in her tone.

  “Still here,” he said.

  “I ran into a friend of yours. Maria?”

  “Did you?”

  “She’s dating a friend of mine.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Lauren Raines?”

  Mitchell answered with a laugh that sounded strangely relieved. “Lauren, yes.”

  “You know her?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I knew her when she was straight.”

  Mitchell exhaled loudly. “It all seems to be about choices here, doesn’t it?”

  “You could say that.”

  After they said good-bye for the second time, Kathryn brought the phone in front of her and punched end with too much force. April shot her a glance and then returned to her E-mail. Several silent seconds passed, during which Kathryn wondered if she had frightened Mitchell off.