Steady as the Snow Falls

by Lindy Zart

  “Are you coming, Beth?” her mom called from the other room.

  “I’ll be right up,” she whispered, wiping at her eyes.

  SEVEN

  THE NEXT TWO days began with a text from Harrison, AKA Butt-monkey, as his contact was designated in her phone, telling her to take the day off. Thursday she was irritated and didn’t respond, but by Friday she was worried. He had to be fairly okay, since he was able to text her, but what if he was sick from being out in the cold so much earlier in the week? Why didn’t he want her to come over? Why was she letting it get to her?

  Beth paced around her bedroom with her cell phone in hand, torn between ignoring him again and driving over to his place. She settled for plopping down on the bed and sending back a text message.

  What’s going on? Why do you keep telling me to not come over?

  I do not owe you an explanation.

  “Pompous assed butt-monkey,” she muttered, texting back another message.

  You sort of do; I’m being paid to write your book.

  You’ll get paid.

  Beth angrily pressed on the keys, sighing heavily as she waited.

  That’s not the point.

  She hit the send button and typed out another text.

  Are you okay? At least tell me that. Please.

  It was a long, nerve-wracking minute until he responded.

  Yes.

  Beth blew out a shallow breath of air and let herself fall back onto the unmade bed. The cell phone dropped from her hand and thumped to the carpet. She closed her eyes and rubbed her face, exasperation and concern making her skin flushed and her stomach sick. Her world was presently lopsided. She shouldn’t be at her house—she should be at his. Beth liked spending time with Harrison. She liked leaving her world to be a portion of his. Part of her wanted to push him, part of her wanted to nurture him. All parts of her wanted to see him happy.

  “So you’ll take the day to try to write. Again. And maybe you’ll have better results than the past two days,” she told herself.

  Beth was on the work schedule at The Lucky Coin tomorrow and Sunday, therefore, if she wanted enough time to construct the words necessary to make a story, today was the day. It was a good thing Harrison wasn’t paying her by word count.

  But before she could write, she had to get rid of some of her pent up energy.

  Putting on a pair of black yoga pants she’d had for years and a yellow racerback tank top, Beth twisted up her hair in a messy bun and turned on loud, angry music in the living room. From watching her parents playfully sing and dance on a daily basis as far back as she could recall, music and dancing were ingrained in her at an early age, and Beth needed it. Watching them made her happy as a child, and she wanted to embrace that joy. Bestow it upon others. Songs broke her, healed her. Gave her meaning.

  Music was power. Music was life.

  She stood still and let the song wrap around her, tightening her muscles until she either had to move or combust. The bass and drums throbbed in her ears, woke up the dormant side of her that was spontaneous and carefree—the side she’d repressed for so long she’d forgotten it was there. The side of her Ozzy never understood, and so she hid it. Beth felt it stirring while in Harrison’s presence, and she unleashed it in the solitude of her home. She spun around, arms overhead, head flung back. She turned in a circle until she was dizzy, and her throat was parched.

  Beth felt invincible.

  Certain areas of the one-bedroom home were drafty, but as she bounced around and bobbed her head up and down, Beth quickly worked up a sweat. She was ablaze. Her pulse moved with the tempo, her heart jumpstarted to fuel the gasoline of her motions. She was reborn in the music, laughing at the thought of someone seeing her head banging and doing air kicks. Beth closed her eyes and sang with System of a Down, grabbing her face and sinking to her knees.

  She was the music.

  The song ended, and out of breath and feeling less troubled than she had in months, Beth stretched out on the floor and waited for her body to calm. Her heartbeat was in her ears, her pulse streaming through her veins. She missed dancing. She missed herself. You have her back. Now do something with her, she told herself, and Beth laughed again.

  Beth showered and dressed in purple leggings and a white long-sleeved top. With an apple and a cup of coffee sitting beside her on the end table, she opened up her laptop from where she sat on the couch and let inspiration take her away. It was a new, undiscovered world. Barren. Cold and empty. But as she wrote, it turned into something. Still dark, still mostly unknown, but alight with shards of loveliness. They glistened like mammoth-sized icicles in a frozen cave, twinkles of color in a white surrounding. It was Harrison’s world, and it was strikingly wonderful, simple as it was.

  Images and thoughts of Harrison swirled around her as she typed. The hours blurred, time was irrelevant, indistinct in the face of the pages as they grew. Darkness came, and still she composed. At one point, she made toast with honey. Another time, she put on a sweatshirt to block out the chill running through her.

  She wrote of his dark eyes, and of the weight they seemed to carry. How his voice was deadly, even while not cruel, because it spoke plainly, honestly. It was unforgiving. It did not apologize; it meant everything it said. His inner strength that told his body to suck it up, that he was not going to be told what he could or could not do. Beth noted his rapture with music, how the melody pulled and swayed him. He thrummed with song, even when there was none. It was in his walk, in his voice, in his eyes.

  Harrison was ill, but when she looked at him, she saw a man who acted as if he was immortal.

  It was past midnight when she stopped writing, and as Beth shut down the laptop, her eyes and limbs were heavy. Her breaths left her, shallow and shaky, and she raised her hands to her face, watching how they trembled. Beth squeezed them into fists, the appendages stiff and cold. She was already too close to Harrison, and she wanted to be closer. She wanted to be flush with him, her heartbeat in sync with his.

  She went to bed with his black fire eyes licking at her brain and heart. Harrison was in her head. He governed there. She fell asleep to his scent wrapped around her in a suffocating embrace, smoky and thick. Beth dreamed of Harrison, pale and harsh and intense. His mouth was pure heat as it scorched her skin. Dark with a sickness he couldn’t outrun. It wanted to control him, and he effortlessly controlled her. Beth was swimming in black, and she inhaled it, knowing it would burn. Wanting to feel it anyway.

  WHEN SHE AWOKE the next morning to singing birds, Beth opened her eyes and focused on the ceiling. The birds sounded like they were in her room, or in her mind. Fluttering through her thoughts with their small but strong wings. She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d dreamed the night before, but she felt drained. Full. Harrison had invaded her existence while she slumbered and fixed himself deep in her soul.

  Something monumental altered in her thoughts during the hours from night to morning. Beth had unknowingly made a decision, and she felt it in her bones as she sat up and took in the sunlit room. Beth was changed. It was a dangerous path, one she should avoid, if for no other reason than self-preservation. It couldn’t end well. It wouldn’t end in her favor. If she was thinking right, it wouldn’t even start to have an ending.

  But maybe she wasn’t thinking right. Then again, maybe she was.

  Beth spent the hours until it was time to work at The Lucky Coin researching what she could on HIV and if an HIV-positive person could safely have a sexual relationship with someone who did not have it. Most sites had the same information, but some went more in depth than others. She didn’t think about the reasoning behind her quest to find out all she could, only the logistics. Was it possible? What did it involve?

  HIV was transmitted through direct bodily fluids, like blood. Blood contained the highest concentration of it, followed by semen, vaginal fluids, and breast milk. Though rare, a pregnant woman could transmit the disease to her baby, but it was also possible for an HIV-positive
person and an HIV-negative person to have healthy, uninfected children.

  Saliva, tears, sweat, feces, and urine did not transfer the disease.

  Beth swallowed, shame once more prickling her scalp at her actions and reactions of Harrison since finding out about his diagnosis. Sharing needles was a high-risk activity. She blinked and looked away from the computer screen, needing a moment to collect herself. She hated the woman who had so carelessly put a grenade on her own life, not to mention Harrison’s. Who knew if Harrison was the only one she’d infected?

  There were ways to control it now, where there hadn’t been when it was first discovered. Antiretroviral therapy, or ART, was encouraged for the HIV-positive person. Harrison had mentioned that he took medicine called that. It was a mixture of medicines that slowed the rate at which HIV multiplied itself. A combination of three or more medicines was most effective, and it allowed the immune system to stay healthy. The goal of the antiretroviral therapy was to reduce the amount of virus in the body to a level no longer detectable with blood tests.

  It wasn’t a cure, but it was a stabilizer. A handful of hope.

  Condoms, of course, were necessary for sexual intercourse. It was less likely to contract the disease through oral sex than vaginal, and anal was the most hazardous way to contract HIV. The HIV-negative person should take pre-exposure prophylaxis, which consisted of two pills that were to be ingested daily. It was suggested that the HIV-negative person be tested yearly for HIV and other STDs.

  Beth closed the laptop, angry for Harrison, and a small part of her angry at herself and Harrison. She was biased—something she never would have thought of herself as being, and he had subjected himself to an isolation that wasn’t required. Except for you. You were allowed into his emptiness. He chose you. Harrison offered you something of him when he wouldn’t anyone else. It felt like a gift, how ever twisted that seemed.

  More than anything, what struck her the most was the notion that she wasn’t afraid. There was no fear in her bones, no doubts. Already she could sense a transformation in her from learning the little she had about him, from witnessing him in motion. Harrison had an unconquerable attitude. He wasn’t scared of life, or death. What right did she have to be?

  She stood, took a deep breath, and shoved everything she’d learned to a far corner of her brain. Beth couldn’t dwell on any of that now. She had to go to work, and the thought of not getting a moment to herself to be able to determine what she was thinking, and what it all meant, had appeal.

  THE BAR WAS full of people, drinking and cavorting set on a course to a memorable night for many in attendance—or a forgotten one. Beth was glad she was behind the bar instead of trying to navigate through the human maze of old and young, men and women. It was the kind of place people came to hang out with their buddies, and if they were lucky, find someone to flirt with. She felt bad for the two waitresses taking and filling food orders at the few tables set up in the establishment. Food stopped being served at eight, and it was quarter to that. The waitresses didn’t have far to go.

  With the dim lighting, flowing beer, and rowdy patrons, the scene was set for mayhem. Within the last hour, the place got swarmed. Sweat covered Beth’s body from bustling around the small space next to Jennifer Travis as they filled drink orders. It was a collage of mismatched bodies and scents inside the bar. On the weekends they had a DJ were always the busiest. The younger crowds liked to dance—so did the drunk people.

  “Hey, Blondie! I need a refill.” Beth glanced up at Wally Loomas and nodded as he waved an empty beer bottle in the air. Wally was a sixty-something-year-old farmer with a mane of wild gray hair who thought bathing and dressing in clean clothes were optional. He looked especially grimy tonight.

  “We both have blonde hair. Is he talking to you or me?” Jennifer asked, reaching across Beth to grab a can of beer. She handed it to a middle-aged man and took his money.

  “Whoever serves him first, I guess. I’ll get it,” she told her friend.

  “Beware of the animal feces clinging to his skin.” Jennifer’s plum-shaded mouth twisted.

  “I won’t touch his hands,” Beth promised, reaching into the cooler for a beer to replace Wally’s empty one.

  “It’s a circus in here,” the other bartender muttered, swiping long blonde bangs from her eyes. The rest of her hair was cut in jagged locks with the lengthiest ones ending below her jawline.

  “Just wait until later,” Beth said, smiling.

  Jennifer groaned and tugged at her tight red top that showcased her tanned and toned midriff. “I know. I’m not looking forward to it, especially when the DJ starts. I’m dragging ass today.” She waited on two women before turning to Beth. “Want to come over and eat a pizza with me afterward so I don’t eat it all myself? I had a cherry sucker for dinner, and I’m starving.”

  Beth laughed and handed Wally his beer. “Yeah. Sure. If I’m still functioning halfway decent by closing time.”

  Jennifer was in her early thirties and, after divorcing her husband of three years, moved to Crystal Lake just over a year ago. She had no children, but she wanted them. She had no significant other at the moment, and she seemed to like it that way. Beth instantly liked Jennifer when she said she caught her husband with her best friend, and instead of going after the friend, like so many women did, she went after her husband. With a baseball bat. Minor harm came to him, but his car was a different story.

  “I don’t know,” Jennifer said with a feigned look of concern on her face. “If Ozzy’s spies find out about you being at my place so late at night, the next rumor will be that you’re dating me.”

  Beth rolled her eyes as she made a rum and cola for Eric Johnson, a brown-haired man who worked at a car mechanic shop and came in only on the days and nights when Jennifer worked. He had a nice, shy smile, and as far as she knew, he was one of the decent guys in town. But Beth wasn’t saying anything to Jennifer. If Eric was interested, he needed to speak up. Beth had learned early in life it was best to worry about herself and no one else. Too bad the majority of the town hadn’t learned the same.

  She thanked him when he said to keep the change, and looked at Jennifer. “I’m tempted to start that rumor myself just to shut everyone up.”

  Jennifer laughed and squeezed Beth’s shoulder as she swept by, her sugary fruit-scented perfume coming and going with her. “Most—or all, really—of the men would secretly like that a little too much. Can you imagine the business The Lucky Coin would get then? Think of all the men who’d come in hopes of catching a show,” she called as she walked backward to the ice machine.

  Beth grinned and took a drink order.

  The DJ started at eight on the dot, and the area was flooded with sound. The bass vibrated through the walls and Beth’s body, and she danced along as she waited on customers. ‘Unsteady’ by X Ambassadors came on after three fast-paced songs, and she was blasted by thoughts of Harrison, the one person she was desperately trying not to think about. Beth almost dropped a bottle of flavored beer and set it down with a thump before a frowning woman. She muttered an apology and wiped her clammy hands on the backs of her jeans.

  “Should we tell the DJ no one likes slow music until they’re really good and drunk?” Jennifer commented as she nodded to the one couple who were making a halfhearted attempt at slow dancing. Other than them, the floor was empty.

  “They do,” Beth stated, jerking her chin at the couple.

  Jennifer snorted. “They probably started earlier than everyone else. What time is Deb coming in?”

  “She said by eleven,” Beth answered, pushing loose strands of hair behind her ears.

  “Eleven needs to get here, like, an hour ago. It’s crazy in here.” Jennifer chugged a bottle of water and handed a full one to Beth.

  She thanked her for the water. Beth didn’t mind the chaos. It kept her mind preoccupied.

  As the hour neared ten, Ozzy showed up with Kelly Burbach, the woman who’d watched them when they’d attempted to hav
e a drink together earlier in the week. It seemed like months ago. Beth paused as she took in his unkempt good looks. The overhead lights, even dimmed, haloed his pale brown hair and added a golden sheen to it. He looked around the room with unhurried confidence, taking in his domain with the cool calmness of someone who belonged, and knew it.

  She remembered how it used to physically hurt to look at him—because he was bright, as beautiful as a sun-kissed day. Beth didn’t see that beauty anymore. She saw something pretending to be bright.

  As if honed to the pace of her heartbeat, his eyes found hers. Ozzy kept his face neutral as he pulled Kelly closer, and before Beth could look away, he kissed her. It was deep and endless, telling Beth he was done with her, not the other way around. The kiss told her he was in control, not her. She waited for an emotion to hit her, but there was nothing, other than minor sadness. She turned away, her ponytail bouncing against her back as she strode to the opposite end of the bar.

  “What can I get you, Sally?” she asked the loan officer who worked at one of the two banks in town. The gray satin blouse matched her eyes, and her black bob was side-parted, the dark locks hugging either side of her angular face.

  “Orange juice and vodka, please, Beth.” The woman smiled politely.

  Her hands working like lightning as she prepared the cocktail, Beth handed her the drink and took the offered money. “How is Henry doing?”

  Sally’s husband was the high school principal and had a minor heart attack a month or so ago. Beth handed Sally her change.

  “He’s doing well, but he isn’t one to sit still for long. He’s a cantankerous patient.”

  “I bet. I remember him pacing the hallways during school.” Beth smiled.

  Sally’s lips pulled into a real smile. “Restless man.” She stood with her drink in hand. “I have some ladies waiting for me at a table. They dragged me out tonight, claiming I wasn’t doing Henry any good by hovering. Henry agreed.”