The Snow Garden

  In the beginning it had gone so well. But how could he have planned for this?

  That October afternoon, he had been halfway to the ATM machine on Brookline Avenue when he spotted Eric standing on the corner, so he slowed his steps. When he saw Eric was headed his way, he stopped, made a sharp left, and deftly slid his card into the reader before deliberately punching in the wrong code. The machine beeped loudly. Randall looked into the reflective glass above the machine and saw Eric notice him, his step faltering. Randall angrily punched in another code without even looking at the keypad and the machine beeped again in protest. Randall slapped an open palm against the side.

  “Fuck!” he cried, maybe too loudly. He tightened his face into a scowl and ripped the card from the machine, turning and almost walking straight into where he knew Eric was standing.

  “It looks like someone’s put you on a budget,” Eric said, and Randall could tell from the tight expression on his face that he had hooked him the other night, even if he had left without another word after admitting that he had followed Eric home.

  Randall let out an exasperated sigh and whipped his wallet from his pocket. “I’ve got, like, eight hundred pages to read and all I wanted was some coffee, but my parents forgot to ...” He trailed off, and Eric arched his eyebrows, either wanting him to continue or alarmed by his display.

  If only he knew, Randall thought, before returning to his act.

  “They forgot to make the deposit. Remembering isn’t their thing.”

  “What is their thing?” Eric asked, amused.

  “Drinking.” Randall answered flatly, meeting Eric’s stare.

  Eric’s laughter had an edge to it. “I’m sure I can lend you the . . .” Eric’s hand barely made it to his back pocket by the time Randall cut in, reaching out and grabbing Eric’s wrist firmly. “No. Please. You can’t borrow money from a professor. Isn’t that some kind of rule?”

  The mention of rules and professors lit something in Eric’s eyes, and Randall saw it and thought this might end up being easier than he had first thought. A current passed between them, and Randall noticed some small crack in Eric’s decorum, revealing more than the man had allowed himself to show in their previous meeting. Randall tried to keep his eyes from wandering the length of Eric’s broad frame to where the collar of his shirt was open, free of the tie he probably wore all day, revealing the stubbly terminus of the five o’clock shadow extending down his neck.

  “I’m sorry about the other night. I didn’t mean to . . .”

  Eric shook his head abruptly and looked away. He was either trying to say it was nothing, or simply didn’t want Randall to mention it at all. Eric was staring up the street. At what? Randall followed Eric’s gaze to where the sun was a bright suggestion, sinking behind stripped tree branches and a canopy of clotted gray autumnal clouds.

  “Perhaps you wouldn’t have such a problem with it,” Eric began deliberately, as if he had answered some question for himself that Randall knew he would answer, “if I told you I could use some coffee myself.”

  Buying coffee together was harmless, Randall agreed, as they walked briskly down Brookline Avenue, past Moliere’s, where students bought rancid espresso from rude skater punks during their boycotts of the corporate coffee chains. By the time they were waiting in line at the new Starbucks, located next to the green, talk had drifted to the monotonous details of Randall’s academic schedule and the amount of course work. By the time they were walking across the desolate green, where evening was turning the rooftops of buildings, on the quad into lengthening shadows across the sidewalks, Randall was seeing what he thought Eric saw, a professor and student discussing a course. Harmless. And Randall didn’t like it, so he began to talk faster, dutifully moving the progression forward.

  “The birds are my favorite.”

  “Birds?” Eric asked, and took a sip of coffee, which burned the roof of his mouth. He winced and hissed.

  “Small, quick-flying birds which were meant to represent those fallen souls that still had the potential for salvation. If you ask me, I think Bosch was kind of a prankster.”

  Randall had read Eric’s book twice. He had highlighted different lines over the course of both readings. What had begun as a task became more of a labor of something close to love, if not for Eric than for the supposed torments of the painter Bosch, which Randall already suspected were too similar to Eric’s own fears.

  “A prankster?” Eric asked, with a note of condescension. Randall heard Eric trying to cut him down to size, trying to restore him to his role as the naive student. And why would Eric have been trying to do that if Randall hadn’t become a presence in his life that refused to depart? “Try heretic.”

  A hand-holding couple moving their way refused to part, and the two men were forced to step aside and allow the couple to pass between them. Within seconds, Randall closed the gap again and they were walking side by side.

  “You asked me a question the other night,” Eric said, and Randall thought, So he will mention the other night, when I showed up on his doorstep unannounced and practically forced my way inside his house. “You asked me whether or not I believed—”

  “I remember,” Randall said softly.

  Either his tone of voice or the question itself made Eric stop and turn to face him. “I used to believe that the history of art was a superior discipline,” he began, lasering hard into Randall’s eyes. “Superior to studying battles between kings or quantifying the physical forces that shape our universe. I thought the real truth lay in the evolving nightmares and fantasies of a culture. So, there was a time when I might have been susceptible to one artist’s vision of the world. But that time is long gone. So the answer is no. I do not believe that Satan is the ruler of the physical world. And I do not believe that to be damned is to feel.. . alive in your own body. As you said.”

  Randall waited a second before correcting him. “As you said.”

  Wind rattled the tree branches overhead, shedding curled leaves.

  Eric’s gaze left his, but now it was obvious Eric was checking to see if anyone was headed toward them. They were alone on the green and it was getting darker, and for a brief second Randall wondered if Eric would see this circumstance as permission to close the remaining foot of distance between them, but instead Eric looked at Randall with fear in his eyes, fear that Randall would close the distance for him. One thing was sure; they were no longer simply teacher and student. But before Randall could decide whether or not to advance, Eric said, “I’m going to my office.”

  He was moving off down the sidewalk before Randall realized that he hadn’t simply given some stock farewell—“I better be going" or “Nice speaking with you.” He had told Randall where he was going. Randall waited until Eric had almost disappeared behind the student union before he began to follow.

  The art history department was housed in a paint-peeling Victorian just outside the gates to the quad, on a street that sloped downhill toward the river. Randall had to hold the rail as he ascended its steep front step; he noticed that the windows of the building were dark at six-thirty in the evening. He expected the front door to be locked, but it was not and he pushed it open. The front foyer was empty. Beside him was a table stacked with course syllabi and a wall of mail slots for professors and their teaching assistants. At the end of the first-floor hallway an office door yawned open and light spilled across the carpet,

  Randall moved down the hallway, wondering if he was trying to force everything to fruition too quickly, or if everything was simply happening more quickly than he had anticipated.

  When he appeared in the doorway, Eric looked up from a stack of papers. Something that looked like anger tightened his face. He lifted his head fully as if prepared for Randall to do nothing more than give a speech on why he missed class or why he had to turn in a paper later. But when Randall stepped inside, drawing the door shut behind him with his hand on the knob, Eric placed one bent elbow on the edge of the desk and an open palm o
ver his mouth, sucking in a tight breath against the flesh of his hand.

  Randall rounded the edge of his desk and sat down next to the paper Eric had been grading. Suddenly Eric turned his chair by kicking lightly on the floor, and Randall was surprised to see the chair pivot to face him instead of in the other direction. But Eric kept his open palm pressed over his mouth, resting his bent elbow on his other arm, which he had braced across his stomach.

  He was not ready to be touched: Randall knew this from experience. His own nudity always broke the ice faster than any physical advance. So he reached down and curled the hem of his sweater and his undershirt into both fists. He lifted them both, listening for Eric to make another sound, which he didn’t. He had dropped them both on the floor by the time he sank to his knees, and he saw that Eric’s arms were now resting on the chair’s arms.

  Randall held Eric’s gaze, and saw confirmation of all he had been told: there was one thing from which this man could not protect himself from, could not hold at bay with the power of his poise and intellect alone. And better yet, Randall saw confirmation that he was about to become that one thing.

  Emboldened, and breaking into the next stage of his planned seduction, Randall lifted one leg, foot planted on the floor, raising himself to Eric’s eye level as he slid a hand around the man’s neck. Eric twisted his head slightly against the back of the chair, the most he could turn away, and Randall released his neck, sinking back to his knees again. Now sure of where he should begin, Randall sent his hand to the buckle of Eric’s belt.

  Randall jerked his eyes away from the lightening sky when he heard Jesse grunt as if he had been kicked in the stomach.

  He lifted his head from the pillow, peering over his shoulder into the darkness on Jesse’s side of the room. Jesse lay on his back, mouth hanging slightly open and one arm bent against his forehead. After staring out the window, Randall’s eyes couldn’t adjust to the darkness quickly enough. He heard the sound of Jesse drawing the sheets back and the familiar twin slaps of his bare feet hitting the floor. Randall went rigid; he guessed that Jesse had no idea he was being watched as he plodded stark naked to his desk and tore several tissues from the box of Kleenex.

  “See what happens when I have to go without?” Jesse said into the darkness.

  Startled at being addressed, Randall froze. Turning away in response would make it obvious that he had been staring. Pale light through the window fell across Jesse’s chest. He swabbed the wad of tissues across his stomach, his laugh low and gnarled by sleep. He threw both arms out, glanced down at the deflating tube of his erection, and then looked back at Randall. The remaining semen was smeared in a band above Jesse’s navel. Unsure of whether Jesse could see his face, Randall tightened his expression anyway. Despite the note of playfulness in Jesse’s voice, the boyishness with which he displayed his nocturnal emission, he was not playing the little boy expressing pride in what he’d done. Right now, he was the kid on the playground shoving the dead insect in a little girl’s face.

  Didn’t Jesse know him any better?

  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen. And I’ve seen a lot,” Randall mumbled before turning over and burying the side of his face in his pillow.

  Satisfied with his response, Randall tried to wipe his mind clean for the sleep that had so far proven elusive. He was somewhat successful. While the images of memory receded, a single thought swung back and forth in his mind like a pendulum, grating louder each time it scraped the ground on its downward arc. Jesse sleeps naked.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MCKINLEY QUAD WAS INVIGORATED BY THE EARLY SNOW; STUDENTS moved more briskly between classes, their breath fogging the air in front of them. Canvas banners concealed the Doric columns of the student union’s facade, announcing upcoming theater productions and the imminent Gay and Lesbian Alliance Dance. The broad lawns were still dusted white, and the students who usually lounged on them even in cold weather relocated to the steps of the union, watching the passing parade as they sipped their cups of coffee and hot cider. It was one of those bright, frigid days that Kathryn was growing to love; the sky was a dome of blue above the buildings lining the quad, and sunlight reflected off piles of shoveled snow. Cold seemed to cleanse the air on this side of the country, in stark contrast to San Francisco, where chilly temperatures arrived with slow and creeping fog that would turn to soup outside the windows of her parents’ house in Sea Cliff.

  Her discussion section that Monday morning for Philosophies of Free Speech had been a dud. The teaching assistant, who resembled a young Prince Charles, didn’t have the knack for keeping ten freshmen engaged in a discussion of the ACLU’s position on the censorship of pornography, probably because his teaching style consisted of delivering lectures to the wall just above the students’ heads. Kathryn had grown increasingly repulsed as she realized that during his monologue, the TA was using as evidence for his argument magazines and videos he probably kept stashed under his own bed. She wished she had found another course to fill her philosophy requirement.

  As she made her way to the mailroom entrance, she noticed huddles of lacrosse players sitting outside the mailroom shooting annoyed glances at the Environmental Equality League—one of whom was shouting something incomprehensible through a bullhorn—as they paced in front of a table stacked with flyers and displaying a poster demanding that President Bush mend the Kyoto Treaty. Even as the university preached diversity in all its literature, for most people the word conjured up images of tree huggers smoking pot and strumming their guitars. But Kathryn had seen that diversity at Atherton was just that: socialists walked to class alongside debutantes, in-class debates pitted children of the inner city against New England boarding-school graduates. The only great equalizer was Atherton’s hefty price tag and the university’s reputation for being sparing with need-based financial aid; skin color and political affiliation among the students may have differed, but most kept a sports sedan in his or her parents’ garage at home, a car received brand-new as a gift at age seventeen.

  Kathryn slowed her steps when she noticed a Channel 2 News van parked outside the gates to the quad; its satellite dish extended, a glossy black-haired reporter addressing her camera. Kathryn walked several steps past the entrance to the mailroom so she could overhear. “. .. But here on campus, students and faculty have returned to their normal schedules this Monday morning, no doubt trying to cope with the revelation that the tragic loss of a professor’s wife this past weekend is being blamed not on bad driving conditions, but oh a combination of alcohol and prescription medication.”

  Two hemp-clad potheads rushed into the frame. One of them threw his arms around the reporter’s shoulders and gave her a smack on the cheek, while the other took a bow in front of the camera. The reporter’s earnestness evaporated. “Can you two morons go drink some coffee so I can shoot this fucking thing already?” Kathryn couldn’t help but laugh.

  In her mail slot, Kathryn found hand-delivered flyers for student clubs, the campus equivalent of junk mail. She was hurling them into a recycling bin when a hand hooked her shoulder. She turned, feeling a vague sense of recognition when she saw the girl standing in front of her.

  “Hey!”

  For a second Kathryn was struck dumb. Lauren Raines was almost unrecognizable. Her shoulder-length red hair had been replaced by a pageboy cut, dyed charcoal black. She had surrendered her typical Ralph Lauren ensemble for a tattered cardigan the color of coffee, and her cargo pants bagged around the kneecaps. It was evident that she used to wear a lot of makeup because its absence revealed alabaster-tinted cheeks marred by red blemishes that couldn’t be mistaken for blush. The dark circles under her eyes contrasted with her bloodshot pupils.

  When Kathryn’s jaw dropped, Lauren told her, “I met someone.” She smiled triumphantly.

  “Really? Not.. .” When she trailed off, Lauren looked confused for a second, then realized Kathryn was referring to Jesse Lowry. “Please. No,” Lauren said, her too-broad smile replaced by a grima
ce of disgust. She shook her head as if to rid herself of Jesse’s name. The smile returned with full, unnerving force. “I know. I’m sorry I’ve been MIA. I should have called or something.”

  “Did you move too?” Kathryn asked.

  Lauren’s laugh was strained. “Almost. Maria’s got a place off campus, so I’ve kind of been hanging out there a lot.”

  Maria? Kathryn blinked and shook her head slightly, and Lauren grinned sheepishly. “I know. It sounds kind of weird.”

  “No, I just. . .” She couldn’t finish. So Lauren’s a lesbian now, Kathryn thought, feeling like the only avowed heterosexual left on campus. Chatty, boy-obsessed Lauren, who the first week of school managed to collect every specially designed Starbucks coffee tumbler and bemoaned her lack of dates, now wore the costume of an aspiring anarchist and mentioned her new girlfriend with a defensive forwardness. “This getup is new,” Kathryn managed. Lauren’s weak smile told her she had stepped over the line. “Do you have class?” Kathryn asked, covering for herself.

  “Done for the day. Mondays are light for me.”

  “Walk with me.”

  “How’s Randall?” Lauren asked once they were outside.

  “Fine. Still trying to bring culture and glamour to Stockton Hall. It’s not working though. Everything there’s pretty much the same. You haven’t missed much.”

  Lauren pondered Stockton for a moment, as if it were a distant hometown she had left years before. “You know, Lauren, when you stopped hanging out on our floor, I thought it might have something to do with Jesse. And I understand. Totally.”

  Lauren kept their pace brisk, frowning slightly at the sidewalk ahead of them. 'You think Jesse turned me into a lesbian?” she asked, amused.