The Snow Garden (55 page)

     She smiled and cupped his chin.

     The night before, with the McKinley Ballroom packed with graduates in evening gown, and black ties that loosened with each drink, April got up enough drunken courage to take Kathryn by the arm and lead her out onto the mostly empty terrace to give her a graduation gift. April watched intently as Kathryn tore open the manila envelope and tipped it: Sliding into her hand were two construction paper signs bearing the names of Randall Stone and Jesse Lowry. When Kathryn looked up, April’s eyes were bloodshot.

     “It’s stupid, I know. It was just right after I went out and took their signs ’cause I couldn’t stand the thought of some RA just coming and ripping them down, you know?” Once she noticed that Kathryn had been struck dumb, she added quickly, “I’m sorry. I mean ... I didn’t even think I was going to give them to you. Unless I got really drunk ...” 

     April’s alcohol-loosened sobs left her trembling. Kathryn needed several seconds before she got her wits about her and managed to hug April.

     For Kathryn, the solitude that followed that night in the Bowery Tower, of holding in all the horror she had witnessed, had forced her to forget that Randall and Jesse had been known and grieved for by others.

     Once she found her breath, April managed, “It’s not like I was even their best friend. And it pissed me off afterward when everyone was pretending like they knew them just ’cause they’d been on the news. I didn’t know either of them as well as you did. But it’s like now that we’re all leaving, we’re leaving
them
forever. You know?”

As he stood over the bed, Ken stared down at her, curious, absently brushing hair back from her forehead with one hand. “You gonna miss it?”

     “Atherton?” Kathryn asked. “Hell, no. We’ll be back here in a year anyway. Swigging weak drinks at some reunion while the Alumni Association tries to milk us for half our paychecks. Five whole dollars. Wow.”

     “That would be your paycheck, Ms. Guidance Counselor.”

     “That’s social worker to you, asshole,” she retorted with a drowsy smile.

     “I meant this place,” he said softly, shrugging at the room around them. “This was our first place. We have to tell our kids about it, right?”

     “Don’t worry. We’ll find someplace worse in Seattle.”

     He laughed.

     She swung her legs to the floor and located her bra, dangling from the bedside lamp. “Nice aim,” she remarked.

     “We’re meeting your parents at eight.”

     In the closet, Ken pulled a pair of jeans up over his bare ass. “Ken!” she barked.

     “What?”

     “We graduated already. Enough free-balling.”

     “Most of the guys are doing it till the end of the week,” he whined.

     She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

     “You spoil all my fun,” he muttered as he left the room.

     She snapped the hook of her bra, started scanning the debris of yet-to-be-packed possessions on the floor. Dishes clattered in the kitchen. “Ken?”

     “Yeah?"

     He was back in the doorway.

     “It's Tim Mathis. The guy I’m meeting for lunch. That’s who it is.”

     Ken nodded. “The guy who drove you that night?”

     “Yeah.”

     She could sense his gratitude at being told and included. But the small moment allowed her to recognize how much she had left to tell him.

     “Coffee,” he repeated, shuffling into the kitchen.

Jean Pierre’s was packed with recent graduates and their proud families. Parents debated ordering lunchtime bottles of champagne; younger siblings fidgeted and slid out of their chairs. Kathryn followed the hostess toward the wall of plate-glass windows. Sailboats cut white trails through the sun-speckled whitecaps. Across the bay, the shore was dotted with Tudor-style cottages, their windows revealed in anticipation of summer.

     Tim Mathis scrambled up from his chair when he saw her, pulling his napkin off his lap at the last moment. She slowed her steps, noticing the brown leather portfolio resting against the leg of his chair. Gone was the bicycle chain he always used to wear around his neck. His peroxide hair was now a dull shade of red-brown, brushed forward and free of gelled spikes. A rumpled oxford puffed beneath a lightweight blue blazer. Almost as formal as her pleated skirt and short-sleeved top.

     He took a step toward her, then stopped when he saw her extended hand, the only gesture she could offer to bridge the three years since they had last spoken to each other. “Congratulations,” he said with a too-broad smile, taking her palm.

     “Did you go to the ceremony yesterday?”

     “I took the train up just this morning.”

     As she sat down across from him, focusing all of her attention on her napkin, smoothing it over her lap with too much care. “You look great,” he said, his words finally drawing her eyes to his..

     She nodded as if she wasn’t so sure, and smiled.

     “So what’s next for you?”

     “Seattle. My boyfriend got a job there.”

     Tim arched his eyebrows. “What?” she asked. “You thought I’d never find one?”

     He forced a smile. The slight edge to her voice betrayed her suspicion that this was anything but a meeting of old friends. Tim, ever the reporter, had a mission, and when he didn’t rush to fill the gap in conversation, her suspicion was confirmed.

     “What does your boyfriend do?”

     “Investment analysis. I know. Don’t leap out of your chair.”

     “No. I remember. Those companies come on campus a couple months before graduation and recruit like hell.”

     “Not you, though,” she cut in. “I’ve been following you. I read your piece on New York’s Civil Union Law. Good stuff.”

     “I’ll be sure to tell my editors. They’d be happy to know we’ve expanded our demographic. Christ, take one look at our ad pages and you’d think the only ones who pick up a copy of
Ideal
are gay bon vivants with swollen bank accounts and no dependents.”

     She laughed appropriately and looked to the window. She was blinded by the sun. A good enough excuse to take her sunglasses out of her purse and hide her eyes from him. He clasped his water glass with both hands as she slid on her shades. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s bright...”

     Now a light shade of sepia, Tim nodded. When he bent back in his chair and reached for the portfolio, she spoke. “Don’t bother, Tim. I’ve seen it. It’s not him.”

     Halfway to the portfolio, his arm stopped. It took him a second to settle back into his chair. “Maybe you could use a closer look.”

     “He had five minutes to get out of the building before it was flooded with firemen and half the NYPD. And he did. You don’t really think he stopped to change his outfit and dye his hair, do you?”

     “It was a big building,” Tim answered, his smile bright. “The surveillance camera image was taken three days later.”

     “Yeah, after half the country saw his picture on TV, you expect me to believe he waltzed into the middle of a bank, in full view of the camera, and no one spotted him. I don’t think so.”

     “Point taken,” Tim said to the tablecloth.

     The surrounding laughter seemed suddenly distant, and she shifted her gaze back to the window and the blue green expanse of the Atlantic visible at the mouth of the bay.

     “Listen,” Tim began. “I thought maybe we could talk about that night.”

     “You’re late,” she said as gently as she could. “It’s been over three years. Not to mention the fact that the police held me in New York for three weeks and I never heard a peep from you. Never mind when we’re both still students. Why now?”

     Absorbing her challenge, he sat back in his chair as he pondered whether or not to meet it.

     “You were copping to the murder of a homicidal maniac. Considering that the court of public opinion was in your favor, I didn’t think you were hurting for my moral support. But let me propose a toast. To Kathryn, who had the dubious distinction of adding death-by-chandelier to the roster of murders committed in self-defense.” 

     When she laughed, his face told her it wasn’t the reaction he desired. He set his water glass back down onto the table and bent forward. “Come on, Kathryn.” His voice was soft but insistent. “Ben Collins, a.k.a. Randall Stone, is still at large. And thanks to you, he isn’t wanted for anything more than leaving the scene of a crime. You were the last person to see him. I thought after this long you might stop covering for him.”

     She kept her gaze out the window. “What are you going to call it?” 

     “Excuse me?”

     “Your
book
,
Tim. What’s the title?”

     “I don’t know what you’re—”

     “Peter Lowry called me.”

     Tim’s eyes went wide at this news: a lapse of professionalism on the part of his newfound benefactor. She looked straight at him now, fighting to keep her tone steady.

     “When he stopped just short of threatening me, I told him what I’m going to tell you right now. I don’t know where Randall is. And you’re not going to find out. Peter Lowry can play the grieving father all he wants now that his son is dead. But something tells me that he’s not throwing money at this little project of yours just because he wants the world to forget that he was a drug addict who drove his only son away.”

     Tim ducked the implication. “In all fairness, Peter Lowry should have a chance to set the record straight. He got raked over hotter coals than you did. His son gets butchered and the press has a field day with the drug-addict dad. And all those rumors about him molesting Jesse! Come on! The guy deserves to have his side of the story told.”

     “And you?”

     Tim shook his head at the supposed irrelevance of the question.

     “I know Randall used you the worst, Tim. He slept with you because you were a reporter with access to the local paper. But you’re not going to get payback. Just let it go.”

     The waitress arrived and Kathryn rose from her chair. “I’m not hungry. Thank you.”

     “Kathryn?”

     “Write your book, Tim. See if he comes back to reclaim the life he left. He’s free now. This is what he does best, remember?”

     She slid her purse off the back of the chair. Tim glared at her. “Jesus. What is this? Friends till the bitter end? You want
me
to give up? Take your own advice.”

     His words sliced at the correct nerve, and she paused for a moment, holding her purse to her chest and staring down at him through her sunglasses. The phrase that visited her often before sleep, in a voice that sounded like her own but wasn’t, escaped her before she could stop it.

     “I knew him,” she whispered.

     Tim furrowed his brow. Stirring to keep her composure, she turned away from the table.

    
“
What
?”
Tim barked after her.

     She waved good-bye over one shoulder.

As she turned Ken’s Mercury Mountaineer onto Victoria Street, the branches shed their spring blossoms onto the windy sidewalks. She eased her foot off the gas and watched the slow passage of Eric Eberman’s former house; the resurrected front lawn was lined with store-bought flowers, the windows clean sweeps of plate glass without flanking shutters.

     The Elms rose in a green canopy at the end of the street.

     She parked the car and fished the envelope out of the glove compartment. No return address. Her name and home address in San Francisco typed across the front. Her father had given it to her at graduation the day before, and she had forced herself to wait for some compromise between the right moment and the most private one to open it.

     The Elms was harder to navigate when the trees weren’t stripped of their leaves by winter. She made her way to the sound of water splashing against rock, and came to the small, stone bridge passing over the drainpipe. Elm leaves caught the sunlight as she moved carefully along the bank. Inverness Creek flowed generously in eddies of black water funneled by its muddy walls. She found no spot in particular and took a seat, letting her legs dangle over the five-foot drop as she tore the envelope open.

     A pearl had been affixed to an index-size note card with three strands of Scotch tape laid out in a protective cross. Glued right below was a white slip of paper cut from the page of a book, each sentence meticulously highlighted in yellow.

          The pearl is the symbol of those souls who remain trapped within the mud of the material world. Imprisoned by their bodies and their flesh, they somehow manage to remain spiritually alive. Cathars referred to those souls as the living ones.

     She read the words written in ink below.

Happy Graduation

Love, Randall 

(because he’s the one who learned how)

     After several minutes, she brought the card to her chest and held it to the place where the ache Randall had left behind throbbed most acutely—when she paused too long at a stoplight, or searched for sleep. She held it there until she was no longer stanching an open wound, just protecting a gift from the sudden gusts of wind that drove life skyward to the branches overhead.

TWO OPPOSING TEXTS ON THE WORK OF HlERONYMUS BOSCH PROVED critical in informing the fictional speculations of Dr. Eric Eberman. In
Hieronymus Bosch: Between Heaven and Hell
(Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1987), art history professor Walter Bosing makes a brief and compelling argument against the popular twentieth-century tendency to interpret Bosch’s work with modern-day psychology, which could not possibly have informed the painter’s medieval mindset. In
The Secret Heresy of Hieronymus Bosch
(Floris Books, 1995), Lynda Harris lays out an exhaustively researched argument that Bosch’s work was truly laced with codings of heresy that strongly indicate an artist who was influenced by heretical, primarily Catharistic, beliefs.

     Eric Eberman’s speculations regarding the true nature of the Brethren of the Free Spirit are an imaginative leap on my part. The true origins of Bosch’s inspiration are subject to a seemingly endless debate. So far the debate has proved only that lovers of Bosch’s work are desperate to find some scholarly basis to their own, often visceral, reactions to it. As a result, many conclusions are informed as much by psychological longing as by hard research. This strange marriage informs the sometimes irresponsible interpretations of both Eric Eberman and Mitchell Seaver.