The Snow Garden

by Christopher Rice

  “Thank you for that Queer Nation moment, Timothy.” He patted Tim’s head.

  “I told you not to call me that.” He kissed him lightly on the lips before moving off the bed. “No one takes me seriously at this goddamn school,” Tim muttered, sluggish and stoned.

  Randall dressed hurriedly, eager to get out of a room now crowded > with a suffocating mixture of fact and suspicion. “You’re a fine journalist, Tim. I take that very seriously.” He picked up his copy of the Herald off the floor. “One other thing, though. You wrote this article last night, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Randall turned. “Channel 2 said toxicology was released this morning.”

  Tim grinned at him devilishly. “Contacts, my friend.”

  “Really?” Randall asked, all innocence.

  “Guy’s name is Richard Miller. He’s been with the Atherton Daily Journal for like twenty years. I think he kind of likes me.”

  “How’d you meet him?”

  “The Catch House. Where else?”

  The Catch House was one of the city’s two gay bars and was housed in an abandoned warehouse on the bay front. On a good night, it drew a crowd of about ten fifty-year-old men in suits and ties who huddled around the bar, never daring to set foot on its scrap of dance floor, and shooting furtive glances at one another as if it were still 1970. “Interesting,” Randall mumbled. So that’s how Tim got all of his vital information, flirting with a crotchety reporter. It made Randall feel a little less guilty for moaning and groaning his way to the information he wanted.

  “Want to know something else interesting?” Tim asked. He was obviously trying to keep Randall from leaving. Randall stopped on his way to the door. “Richard’s contact with the Atherton PD said that Eric told the detectives that Lisa was addicted to Vicodin. Supposedly she got it for a leg injury. Paula claims Lisa never took a single pill.”

  Randall tried to make his voice gently parental. “Drug addicts are never very eager to tell their family members about their addictions.”

  “Lisa Eberman was staying with her sister every weekend. Cooking her meals, driving her to chemo. You really think she was dropping pills?”

  “What do I know, Tim? It’s your story.”

  “See you in a month?” Tim called after him.

  Randall didn’t answer. You’ll see me a lot sooner than that, he thought.

  “April. Please. Answer it!”

  The phone rang again. Kathryn’s hand halted over the keyboard. She turned just in time to see April pluck the portable from its cradle without lifting her gaze from the frighteningly voluminous textbook open on her lap.

  “I know it’s her,” Kathryn pleaded.

  “Not unless you can tell me anything about the loop of Henley.”

  “It’s in the kidney.”

  “Nice try,” April muttered, and continued reading text sandwiched between stomach-churning color photos as the phone rang again in her hand. “This is the third time she’s called today, Kathryn.”

  Kathryn rose from her desk, abandoning her half-written paper on viable methods of regulating hate speech. She tried not to whip the phone from April’s hand before she answered it. Her mother didn’t bother with a greeting. “This conversation takes five minutes and you don’t have time to think of an excuse not to have it—”

  “Mom!”

  “There’s one direct flight between Boston and SFO and it’s booked. I went on-line last night and found some others. On one you would have to connect through Cincinnati. I’ve never been there, but it sounds just awful —”

  “Mom. Wait.”

  “For how much longer, Kathryn? In case you’ve forgotten, Thanksgiving is a family holiday. For everyone.” Kathryn heard muffled laughter in the background. Since arriving at Atherton, she couldn’t remember a single conversation with her mother during which paralegals weren’t present.

  “Take me off speakerphone, Mom.”

  There was a click and Marion Parker’s voice was clearer when she spoke again. “Option two. Fly some goddamn awful Fokker thing out of Atherton’s little airstrip into JFK.”

  “It’s only four days, Mom.”

  Across the room, April cocked her head at the first sign of an argument. Kathryn rose from her bed and pushed her way out the door. The fire stairway was empty and during the brittle silence that came from the other end of the line, Kathryn fished a cigarette out and lit it. She modified her breathing so that her exhalations of smoke were barely audible on the other end.

  “Will the dorm be open?” Marion Parker finally asked.

  “Randall and I were thinking about going to Boston.”

  “What’s in Boston?”

  “History. Culture.”

  “I take it Randall isn’t going home for Thanksgiving either.”

  “No,” Kathryn answered, as if this were proof of something.

  She heard the shuffle of paper in the background and had a clear image of her mother glowering at the desk in front of her as if she were trying to set it on fire. “Kathryn, I need you to fill me in on what’s going on here.”

  “It’s like, a six-hour flight, Mom. For only four days.”

  “I know how long the flight is. What’s going on with you?”

  It was a shame that Marion Parker was in-house counsel for Wells Fargo and rarely left the boardroom; she would have been perfect in trial. But now that she had spent several weeks trying to force Kathryn into coming home for Thanksgiving, an undertone of defeatism had crept into her mother’s voice, and today Kathryn could feel the gulf between her old home and her new one widen by several more miles.

  “Have you spoken with Kerry?”

  “No,” Kathryn said quickly, taken aback by the abrupt change of subject.

  “She was calling here so much that I went ahead and gave her your number up there.”

  “Great.”

  “Kathryn ...” Her mother hesitated, and during the pause Kathryn realized that her mother considered two seemingly disparate subjects to be related. “With all due respect, I hope you don’t think it’s any mystery to us why you don’t want to come home.”

  Kathryn sank down onto one of the steps, sucking a long drag off her cigarette and responding with a tense silence meant to indicate to her mother that she had crossed the line. “How is she?” Kathryn finally asked.

  “Who?”

  “Kerry, Mom.”

  “She didn’t say. She sounded all right.” She didn’t sound sick, was what her mother meant to imply.

  “Mom, I promised Randall—”

  “You promised Randall? Kathryn, you’ve known this boy for what, three months?”

  “Mom.” Kathryn sucked in a breath and managed to Control her tone, even though her palm holding the phone was greased with sweat. “I don’t want to come home. If you can find a way to make me, go ahead—”

  “I’m not going to make you, Kathryn,” Marion snapped. “But I’m not going to keep quiet and pretend like it’s a good idea for you to run away from everything that happened this summer with your tail between your legs. You’re stronger than that. I know you are.” Her mother took an exhausted breath. “At least, I hope you are.”

  “It’s too soon,” Kathryn said in a small voice.

  “Will it still be too soon when Christmas rolls around?”

  “I don’t know.” Footsteps echoed down the stairwell and Kathryn cocked her head before she heard the exit door several floors overhead bang shut.

  “I have a reserve on the tickets until midnight tomorrow if you change your mind. After that, there’s not much I can do.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “I hope you mean that.”

  Kathryn didn’t answer.

  “In the meantime, I think you should talk to Kerry.”

  Kathryn went rigid. “That’s something I don’t need your input on.” For a second, Kathryn felt the urge to apologize for the venom with which the response had leaped out of her. “Midnight tomorrow,
” Marion said.

  Several seconds later, Kathryn realized her mother had hung up on her.

  Colonial Avenue descended the slope of Atherton Hill in an odd mixture of asphalt and strips of cobblestone that ran a path from the front gates of the university and over the thin vein of the Atherton River before beginning its circuitous route through downtown. Standing outside the gates, with his back to the university’s postcard-perfect front flank of administrative buildings, Randall could make out the blinking lights on the bridge below, marking the miniature barricade erected around the spot where Lisa Eberman’s Volvo had torn through the bridge’s rail. Just across the street, a blast of laughter drew Randall’s attention to the front steps of Folberg Library. Students on study break talked and smoked in huddles. In contrast, the distant downtown was a warren of shadows beyond the harsh glow of the streetlamps lining the paved riverbanks.

  Urban life was not something he needed from this gritty excuse for a city; he had encountered enough of that on the streets of New York. Refuge was more important to him now. Now his new home had been marred by the scene of a crime. But visiting this one meant leaving the protective halo of Atherton’s campus.

  The sidewalks were poorly lit, so Randall walked in the street alongside the curb. He was almost to the bridge entrance when he noticed the tree, a leafless elm, one of the many that had been planted amid the sidewalks. A four-foot section of its trunk had been torn free, revealing whiter, splintered bark. Randall moved to it, fingering the edge of the massive wound with a gloved hand, and mentally gauging the distance between the tree and the torn opening in the bridge’s guardrail several yards ahead of him. '

  He withdrew his hand slowly, mounted the curb, and took in the sight just across the street. Orange city works barrels had been set up in a U extending out from the gouged-out opening of twisted metal. Under the bridge, the river lay without detectable flow, its surface moved only by the ripples of stronger winds off the nearby bay. Randall surveyed the cold details of the scene, wondering why he had felt so compelled to visit the site. Had he come to obtain a mental picture of the Volvo’s final descent into the river? Or worse, to lay his hands on the guardrail and say a silent prayer for a woman whose bedroom he had known better than he knew her?

  He could feel a shiver coming on. He yanked his flask from his jacket pocket, uncapped it, and took a hearty swallow. He was still swigging when he heard the sound of tires thudding over the bridge’s metal crossbars. He backed up several steps as a Toyota Tercel advanced toward him, headlights illuminating frail flakes of snow he hadn’t noticed before. For a second, he was caught in the glare of the lights, the flask in one hand and the cap in the other. He screwed it on the flask and turned on his heel.

  “Randall Stone?”

  Caught, Randall turned. He didn’t recognize the car’s driver until Mitchell Seaver gave him a polite, puzzled smile. “A little cold to be out for a walk, isn’t it?”

  “I’m used to it,” Randall offered.

  “Walking the streets or being cold?”

  “Both,” Randall answered.

  “Looks like you’ve got a little warm-up there.”

  Randall shrugged and held up the flask. No sense in trying to hide it, he thought.

  “Headed back to campus? I can give you a lift.”

  Mitchell was right. It was cold and Randall couldn’t think of an immediate excuse not to accept the offer, so he rounded the nose of the car and slid into the passenger seat. Mitchell cranked up the heat. As Randall slid the seat belt over one shoulder, he saw the backseat was loaded with brown paper bags, but instead of groceries the stems of paintbrushes stuck up out of them. “Working on something?” he asked.

  “You could say that.” Mitchell pressed his foot down on the gas and the Tercel’s engine groaned as it mounted the hill. “There’s an excess of wall space in my new place.”

  “So you’re going to paint it yourself?”

  “Sort of. With the help of a slide projector.”

  “Sounds kind of involved.”

  “Don’t worry. I have some help.”

  Randall glanced at Mitchell, and saw that his eyes were on the rearview mirror. “Horrible, isn’t it?” Mitchell asked, and it took Randall a second to realize he: was referring to the blinking lights on the bridge receding from view behind them.

  “How is he?” Randall asked.

  “Holding together. I spoke to him last night before he flew to Philadelphia for the funeral. I’m glad he isn’t around today. Losing your wife and then having half the campus find out she was a drunk is a little much for anyone to handle.” -

  “I can imagine.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Stockton.”

  Randall allowed a brief pause before he spoke again. “Was she a drunk?”

  Mitchell flicked his eyes toward Randall. “You don’t read the papers?”

  “The Herald sometimes. But I’d hardly consider it one of the papers.”

  Mitchell laughed in his throat. “It was a poorly kept secret that was bound to get out sometime. I had been studying under Eric for almost half a year before I found out he was married. With all due respect to him ... and her, I guess... he did his best to keep her at home.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I guess I mean he wasn’t very proud of her.”

  Anger stabbed inside of Randall. What the hell do you know, you prick?

  “We aren’t boring you are we, Randall?”

  “I'm sorry . . . ”

  “Maria said you stopped showing up for discussion sections,” Mitchell explained. “Not like it’s any of my business, and Maria has a tendency to be—”

  “Long-winded and standoffish,” Randall finished for him.

  Mitchell’s smile was tight. “Maybe. But when she mentioned it to me it probably would have gone in one ear and out the other if Eric hadn’t mentioned you as well. Apparently you’re committed to office hours. Eric says you’re one of the few regulars. So I guess it’s understandable. Why share your insights with some grad student when you have the ear of the professor?”

  Randall shot a glance Mitchell’s way, and found Mitchell staring evenly at the street ahead. Earlier that day, he had discovered that Eric had once paid “special attention” to Tim. Was it possible that his close academic relationship with Mitchell Seaver masked a deeper bond between the two?

  “I think I’ve gone to office hours twice since the semester started,” Randall retorted.

  Mitchell lifted his eyebrows. “Eric must be mistaken, then.”

  “Stockton’s your next right,” Randall said. Mitchell made the turn without another word. “The few times I did go to office hours it was to talk about his book.”

  “We’re covering Bosch in depth next semester.”

  “Couldn’t wait,” Randall responded, too sharply.

  “Nice flask.” Mitchell said after a pause. Randall looked down. He’d left the flask in his lap. “Looks like a gift.”

  “It was,” Randall said, carefully tucking it back inside his jacket.

  “Who from?”

  Randall’s hand tensed around the door handle. “My father,” he lied.

  “Must be liberal.”

  “No. Just a man’s man. And every man needs a flask, right?”

  “Even when the man’s eighteen?”

  Randall leveled his gaze on Mitchell. “I could give you my dad’s number,” Randall said. “Maybe you should call him and share your opinions on alcohol moderation. And men. He might appreciate being enlightened.”

  Mitchell’s eyes shot to Randall’s as the Tercel rolled to a halt in front of Stockton.

  “What does a man keep in it?” Mitchell asked softly. “Before he’s legally a man, that is.”

  “Scotch. I have my ways.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Randall searched Mitchell’s half-lit face for some indication of an unrequited attraction to his mentor. Nothing physical confirmed the suspicions ra
ised by Mitchell’s prying, presumptuous questions. “Be sure to give Eric my very best. And if there’s anything I can do ... he just needs to let me know,” Randall said and stepped out of the car.

  Several steps from the curb, he glanced back and saw Mitchell glaring at him through the windshield. Randall gave a small wave and headed for the entrance to the dorm.

  When Kathryn thought about returning to San Francisco, she saw China Beach by a bonfire’s light, flames dancing over the small crescent of mud-colored sand and up jagged cliff faces curtained by dark pine. She saw Jono, a shadow standing on top of the rock formation at the beach’s far edge, framed by the soaring red towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, spotlit above the dark mouth of the Bay.

  “Jono. Come on!” she barked.

  But he had found the perfect spot. “Behold!” he shouted, gesturing toward the distant bridge with one arm. From behind them, Kathryn could hear Kerry’s high-pitched laughter. It sounded as if one of Jono’s friends was giving chase. “Can we go back now, please?” Kathryn called, not sure whether she was demanding or pleading. But even as she shouted, she had made it to the rock, grabbing one of his shoulders to steady herself. Jono was transfixed by the view, but Kathryn found herself casting nervous glances to the glowing windows of houses perched on the cliffs above. Luckily, her own home didn’t peer down on this tiny beach and its illegal bonfire surrounded by spidery shadows. Kerry’s laughter had stopped; she had obviously been caught and was probably making out madly with one of the college boys she had found to be so intimidating several months before, when Kathryn had first introduced her to her new boyfriend’s circle of aspiring musicians and legal, dedicated drinkers.

  “Check it out,” Jono said in a low, wind-whipped voice.

  Paying no attention to the view, she held her balance with one arm around his waist and Used the other to' trace his strong, stubbled jaw with one finger, all the way to the soft dimple of his prominent chin.