The Snow Garden

by Christopher Rice

  “I know it sucks, Kat. Just get some magazines or a good book or something.”

  “I’m like three hundred pages behind in poli sci and I have to familiarize myself with just about everything the ACLU has ever said about anything, so I think I’m set.”

  She pushed her suitcase back to make a seat for herself on the bed. On the other side of the room, April’s duffle bag was packed and ready to go. She’d be taking the Metro Line North, leaving a couple hours after Kathryn. As Wednesday afternoon had turned into evening, the boisterous music of Stockton Hall had intensified with prebreak excitement. Now an eerie hush had fallen over the first floor as students departed or made final preparations.

  “One more thing. . . .” Her father hesitated. When he began again rather abruptly, Kathryn had the eerie feeling that he had changed his mind about what he’d planned to say. “I don’t want you to worry, but I’ve been watching the Weather Channel and there’s a big nor’easter headed your way. It might cause some delays.”

  Kathryn didn’t tell her father that as Thanksgiving had approached, the thought of her plane being grounded in Boston had grown more appealing. “Don’t get your hopes up,” Philip added. “You’re coming home if you have to stuff yourself inside a FedEx package.”

  “Then I miss the cocktails.”

  Her father managed a short laugh. Kathryn’s eyes shot to the door.

  Randall had been off gallivanting with Tim for the afternoon, probably sharing sweat for one last time before the break. He had an hour to come tell her good-bye before she got pissed.

  “Kathryn ...”

  She perked up, thinking her father was about to tell her what he couldn't a moment earlier, when he’d decided to discuss the weather. “Yeah.”

  “If I say I know how hard this is for you, you’re not going to believe me, right? You’re just going to think I’m saying whatever it takes to get you to come home.”

  Even though she knew her answer, she waited a polite amount of time before giving it. 'Yeah.”

  “Oh. Let me say this, then. After all the trouble your mother and I went through to try to make this trip happen, we’re trying to understand. Trying harder than we were before, which, with all due respect, was pretty damn hard.” Kathryn brought one hand to her forehead because it felt necessary to hold it in place. “I know you still look at us as figures of authority more than anything else,” her father went on. “But if that means you can’t discuss things openly with us, well... let me know what I can do to change that.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Okay.”

  Kathryn just breathed for a few seconds. “Dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just tell Mom that I’ll call Kerry when I’m ready.”

  She could picture her father’s expression; his wide-set, generous eyes staring straight ahead into space, the tip of a pen held against the corner of his mouth. “I will.”

  “Love you.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  As she hung up, the stereo roared to life in the room next door. She rose from the bed, tossing the phone to the mattress instead of setting it back in the cradle. She left the room, bound for the fresh air and quiet that would be in short supply over the next few days.

  She would call Kerry when she was ready. But being ready meant summoning the willingness to bridge the gap between the present and the last time she had seen Kerry, seven months earlier.

  Kerry’s mother had called her because Kathryn was the only one she could think of with the power to lure Kerry out of her bedroom. Driving her mother’s Lincoln Navigator along Castro Street, Kathryn was buoyed by the thought of being the one who could exonerate Kerry, free the girl of her guilt and draw her back into the land of the living. Kathryn didn’t doubt that Kerry still felt guilty about her coked-up driving, so it was only natural that her apology was next in line behind Jono’s. Kathryn had forced him to endure four unreturned phone calls, after which he had driven to her house after midnight, angled his Mustang uphill toward her house on Sea Cliff Drive, and persistently flashed his headlights on her bedroom window. And even after she had snuck out and met him in the street, she’d forced him to exhaust every possible plea. Jono had to call himself stupid, thoughtless, and a liar before she slid into the passenger seat and asked him point-blank if he was dealing.

  “You think I would do something so stupid as deal the shit? Do you think I would do anything to ruin what you and I have?” he’d told her desperately, breathlessly, with a fear she needed to see.

  With Jono humbled and her authority over him affirmed, Kathryn accepted his apology.

  Now it was Kerry’s turn to get down on her knees.

  Brightly painted Victorians flanked the hillside on Kerry’s street. When she and Kerry were younger, the paint jobs on most of them were peeling because the houses’ owners were either dead or dying. But things were better now in Kerry’s neighborhood, and Kathryn sure felt better, holding fast to her power to grant forgiveness as she ascended the steep set of steps to Kerry’s front door.

  Inside, Navajo art decorated the walls. For Kathryn, Kerry’s house was a place of refuge from the sterility of Sea Cliff and her stucco house overlooking the ocean. Kerry’s parents were former members of the hippie generation that had spread out over San Francisco and found various teaching positions. They allowed dinnertime conversation her own parents would never sanction. They treated Kathryn as if she were a bud in danger of being strangled by the vines of her parents’ trappings of upper-middle-class wealth.

  Debbie, Kerry’s mother, led Kathryn upstairs, her head bowed, the exertions of spending three days trying to get Kerry to come out of her room slowing her steps. Kathryn felt like the doctor in hold of a miracle cure, on her way to the patient for whom everyone had lost hope.

  “Hon, Kathryn’s here. Open up, okay?”

  No sound from the other side of the door. Debbie tried the knob. It wasn’t locked. She pushed the door open and let Kathryn do the rest.

  Kerry’s room was a mess. Three days’ worth of dirty laundry littered the floor. She’d taken down the photo collage from above her four-poster canopy bed and leaned it facing against the wall. Weeks earlier she had made Kathryn an exact replica; a sliced-up melange of photos of the events they had shared, everything from their fifth birthday party, which their parents had organized together, to softball camp, and right up to bonfires on beaches with Jono and his friends from Cal.

  The toilet flushed and Kerry emerged, dressed in a gym shirt that hung almost to her knees, the Presidio Public logo looking out of place given her disheveled blonde hair, poorly squeezed into a ponytail. Her eyes were bloodshot.

  “Hey,” Kathryn managed with a smile meant to put Kerry at ease.

  “Not you,” Kerry said. She sounded numb. “Shit. Why did she call you?”

  Kathryn felt her grand plans being thwarted, so she pushed the door shut all the way behind her to make it clear that they were speaking in confidence. Kerry sat down on the foot of her bed so hard it looked as if someone had shoved her there. “Look, Kerry, the other night, I freaked out,” Kathryn began. “All right, you scared me. But I talked to Jono ... Just don’t do it again, okay? It’s all bad. And he’s agreed to stop giving it to you. He just got it from a friend of his... .”

  Kerry lifted her gaze to Kathryn, the first sign of a sneer on her face. “I don’t give a fat fuck what he told you,” she whispered.

  “Well, from the look of things right now, you don’t give a fuck about much, do you?”

  Kerry’s eyes glazed over and Kathryn felt as if they were staring through her. Kerry slowly rose from the foot of the bed and went to her vanity. She pulled open the center drawer and removed a slip of paper. She turned, crossing the room halfway, then extended the paper to Kathryn. She took it.

  “Remember when I gave blood?”

  The world narrowed into the printed words before her. Kathryn was reading that a test performed on Kerry’s donated blood ha
d turned up antibodies for HIV. The results of this test are confidential, it said. The recipient of these test results should seek the professional care of a health provider immediately.

  “They’re wrong!”

  “Kathryn, don’t—”

  “Kerry, they’re just wrong! I mean, come on. You don’t even sleep around.”

  “Kathryn, please!”

  “What?” Kathryn asked, lowering the paper in front of her. “What do you think?”

  Kerry was shaking her head, slowly. She turned away from Kathryn, and Kathryn took her by one shoulder. Kerry broke into convulsing sobs that racked her chest and bent her at the waist. “So what?” Kathryn said in a cold panic. “So what, Kerry? It’s not anywhere near as bad as it used to be. They have all these new drugs and they can almost cure it now.”

  It took Kathryn a second to realize Kerry was fighting her embrace. She had wedged both fists between their chests, bowing her head in an attempt to slide out from under Kathryn’s arms curving around her back. “You don’t get it!” Kerry cried.

  Kathryn backed away only because it was what she thought Kerry wanted.

  “Kathryn, you have to get tested.”

  “And I thought this was my secret spot!” It was Jesse’s voice that broke the hold of her memory, and for the first time ever, she was relieved to hear it.

  His footsteps crunched over the snow-covered lawn. The snow had started up, halfway through Kathryn’s aimless walk through the residential streets just east of Stockton, and now flakes fell vertically on Overlook Park. She’d heard of the place and its view, but had not meant to come here. In fact, as Jesse approached, his hands buried in the front pockets of his pea coat, his eyes looking fatigued under the bill of his baseball cap, Kathryn had finally come to the conclusion that she was lost.

  “I found it by accident,” she said, reticent to express any affection for any place Jesse considered his.

  She turned her attention back to the view as Jesse sidled up next to her. Like her, he gripped the spokes of the waist-high, cast-iron fence with gloved hands. Beyond them was a twenty-foot drop down the hillside and then the spread of the city, sweeping toward the churning bay. Beneath the sickly gray light of afternoon snow clouds, the city had a strange glow.

  “A good view of a shithole,” Jesse remarked.

  Kathryn shot him an annoyed glance. Something seemed odd about him. He was panting slightly, trying to catch his breath, and he scanned the view with impatient, short bursts of his head. Had he followed her? “I don’t think it’s that ugly,” Kathryn finally said.

  “From up here? It looks like some kid’s dirty little toy city.”

  “So why is this your secret spot?”

  “Everybody’s gotta have one, I guess.”

  “Well, don’t let me intrude,” she said, turning to cross the lawn.

  “Have fun in Boston!”

  “We’re not going.”

  “I know.”

  Kathryn stopped and turned to see Jesse holding his back to her where he stood. It’s not worth it, she told herself. But she didn’t listen. “You know, Jesse, the health center provides psychological counseling free of charge. Actually, it’s included in our health packages... .”

  Jesse turned, his crooked smile indicating, as usual, that he found her very attempt at humor more amusing than any joke she might make. ‘You headed home tonight?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  Jesse shook his head. She realized she was standing awkwardly in the middle of the lawn. “You’re lost, aren’t you?” he asked her.

  She just glared at him.

  “Come on.” He crossed the lawn toward her, one hand gently taking her by the shoulder. “I’ll show you the way back.”

  She removed his hand, “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  He huffed and began moving across the lawn with snow punching steps. By the time he hit the sidewalk, she found herself following him. She kept deliberately behind as they passed beyond the nicer area of houses, with their views of the city below. He was ten feet ahead of her as they moved down Victoria Street and her intuition told her they were headed in the wrong direction.

  “Jesse?”

  He didn’t stop walking.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The dorm” he called back without turning.

  Wondering what cruel fate had temporarily placed her at Jesse’s mercy, she whipped snow out of her eyes with one glove and followed him across the street. He continued walking down Victoria. She fell into step next to him halfway down the next block. “You know, I might be the one who’s lost and all, but why are we headed straight for the Elms?”

  Jesse stopped and turned around, one eyebrow arched. “You don’t trust me?”

  “I think that goes without saying.”

  “Fine.” He shrugged. “You don’t believe me, then go knock on that door and ask Tim Mathis how to get back to campus.” He gestured to a house across the street with a Toyota Camry in its driveway.

  She looked from the house to him, waiting for the punch line.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Tim Mathis doesn’t live there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. Only seniors can live off campus. And Tim lives in Braddock.” When Jesse furrowed his brow again theatrically, she realized that he was fucking with her. He turned to face the house, scratching the top of his cap absently. “But Randall and Tim are giving it another shot right? Isn’t that what he told you?”

  Kathryn said nothing.

  “Funny,” Jesse said, pointing toward the house behind her. “ ’Cause I could swear, that’s where Randall’s going every night.”

  When he saw the anger on her face, he abandoned his act. “You want to get back to campus. Go up to Inverness and take a left.” He turned and began walking in the opposite direction from where they had come. She didn’t move until he rounded the corner.

  Afternoon was turning into evening and pale light illuminated the front windows of the house Jesse had pointed to. Before she could think twice, she had stepped off the curb and crossed the street.

  “Your parents aren’t expecting you?” Eric asked flatly.

  Randall held the phone to his ear with one hand, punching a ballpoint pen open and shut with his other. “I’ll see them tonight and come back here in the morning,” he told Eric.

  “Odd,” Eric said.

  “Do you want me to come over or not?”

  “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”

  “Well, the idea of you being alone on Thanksgiving was kind of getting to me,” Randall declared.

  Unreadable silence came from the other end before he heard Eric clear his throat. “That’s very sensitive. Christmas will be worse. But thank you.” Randall didn’t have the energy to draw out this performance much longer.

  “I’ll cook something,” Eric added absently.

  “Okay.”

  “Can you hold on a second? Someone’s at the door.”

  “Fine,” Randall said.

  He popped open his notebook and removed the folded-up receipt for Bayfront Storage from his pocket, jotted down the address, and then opened the Atherton Map Search page on his computer. By the time he had typed in the address, enlarged the neighborhood, and printed out detailed directions from the hill, he realized how long Eric had been away from the phone. He moved the mouse to the print icon and by the time the pages came out in a hum, he could hear Eric’s footsteps moving back to the phone with speed.

  “Who was that?” Eric barked.

  “What?”

  “Who just came to my house asking for you?” Eric’s panic and anger turned the last word into a snarl.

  Randall didn’t realize he had shot up out of his chair until he was gripping the back of it.

  “What?”

  “It was a girl. She wanted to know if Randall Stone was here. Goddamnit, Randall! How could you — ”

  Breathless, Randall spun to face Jesse’s side
of the room. When he hurled the phone, it slammed into the miniature television, knocking it from its perch on top of the refrigerator. It hit the floor on one side, and the screen cracked.

  “Kathryn?” She didn’t turn at the sound of Randall’s voice, just kept kneading the sweater back into her suitcase. She was trying not to see

  Dr. Eberman’s face when she had said Randall’s full name, or the way his eyes had remained locked on hers, even as his head rocked from side to side in a tired attempt at denial. He had managed only a weak, “He’s not here.”

  She yanked the zipper on the suitcase and it caught again.

  At first, she had been struck by how handsome he was. It had become almost reflexive since she had become Randall’s best friend to wonder whether or not Randall would find a certain man attractive. As she stood on the front porch, the question had started to form in her mind: Would Randall agree that this fine-boned man, with his hard jawline, stubbled chin, and expressive, dark eyes, was classically handsome? She must have looked like an idiot, wide-eyed and numb with shock, her voice sounding the way it did when she was twelve.

  “Kathryn. Come on—”

  “How long?” she asked, lowering the suitcase to the floor.

  “Please. Not because of something Jesse did—”

  “Jesse didn’t have to do anything.” She turned around. Randall was holding the edge of the open door, his eyes wide and pleading, his mouth hanging open, shaking his head and generally looking like a kid about to get grounded for a month. “How long have you been going to that man’s house at one in the morning?”

  Randall screwed his eyes shut, grimacing.

  “When did you start? Before or after his wife died?”

  “Kathryn, I understand why—”

  “What do you understand? ’Cause let me tell you what I’m feeling. Let me you tell all I’m feeling. I’m in awe, Randall. I’m in awe of the number of lies you had to tell to keep this a secret.”