“Is that supposed to be funny?” Randall demanded.
Eric’s gaze shot back to Randall’s burned hand. He wrapped the bandages around his palm so slowly and methodically that it was obvious he had no clue what he was doing. The intensity of the act left Randall strangely moved. He began to realize that Eric’s dogged, if drunken, attempt to get Randall to face his own guilt was the type of reaction he had been hoping for during the long walk from Stockton Hall that night. But he had expected to find Eric cocooning into his own guilt and despair, shutting Randall out. Instead, fully aware that he didn’t have the strength to end what they had started, Eric had been dead set on driving their mutual guilt to the surface, forcing the two of them to face it before they landed in bed together again.
Eric rose, leaving the mess of bandages shrouding Randall’s hand. He pulled a roll of Scotch tape from a drawer and returned to the table, tore off a piece of tape, and took Randall’s hand in his own.
“What are you doing, Eric?”
“I have to tape it.. .”
Randall shook his hand and the wad of bandages fell to the table. When he turned sideways in his chair, away from Eric, the scotch pulsed in his temples and he sucked in a breath to prevent dizziness. Groping for some thought to bring him back to more solid ground, Randall remembered the strange car ride he had received earlier that night.
“Mitchell Seaver has a thing for you,” he said as gently as possible.
When he glanced at Eric, he saw his face stitched with angry bewilderment. Too angry, Randall thought. The confusing jealousy, which he had only started to feel that day, returned as he wondered whether Mitchell’s feelings weren’t unrequited. Eric pushed himself up from the chair carefully, turning his back on Randall as he moved to the sink. “I wasn’t aware that you and Mitchell were friends,” he finally said.
Randall turned forward again. “We aren’t.”
“Then what would make you say something so preposterous?”
“Why is it so preposterous that someone could have feelings for you?”
Eric snorted and began arranging dirty dishes in the sink. “Not only is Mitchell not a homosexual, he’s barely even what you would call sexual.”
“Right. Like all those elderly male choir teachers who return home to their cats and a case of child pornography.”
Eric turned, abandoning his dish sculpture. “You’re off the mark, Randall.”
“He’s strange,” Randall said, being deliberately coy and hoping to anger Eric further.
“I guess you’re young enough to find academics like Mitchell to be strange.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
New tactic, Randall thought. “Forget I asked,” he said, drawing his burned hand to his lap and staring down at it as it suddenly held him in thrall. A brief silence passed before Eric spoke again, “Are you jealous of him?”
“Excuse me?” Randall asked, stricken.
“My relationship with Mitchell is a close one, but it’s purely ... academic. Maybe the fact that he and I don’t need to hide bothers you.”
Eric’s words stung, and it must have been evident because Eric let out a fatigued breath. “I didn’t say you were fucking him,” Randall muttered. “I said maybe he was in love with you.”
“And I asked you what gave you—”
“He gave me a ride today,” Randall cut in. “Maria Klein ratted me out because I stopped going to discussion sections.”
“And Mitchell wanted to talk to you about it?”
“It seemed like an excuse to ... I don’t know. Belittle me.”
“For what?” Eric asked.
Randall surveyed the fear in Eric’s eyes before continuing. “I don’t know. You know him a lot better than I do.” ;
Eric leaned against the edge of the sink, eyes wandering lazily past Randall as if in search of some subject to derail the topic. “The attention I’ve paid to Mitchell has never been sexual. But it might have been too much. His head has swollen. He fancies himself my colleague rather than my student and occasionally he steps over the line.”
“Does he know about us?”
Eric crossed to the table with renewed vigor and picked up the Scotch tape and Ace bandages. “Of course not,” he muttered under his breath.
“So I’m the only student you’ve ever slept with?” Randall asked. Eric’s manic laugh was not the response Randall had hoped for. “Yes,” he answered when he caught his breath.
“The first man?” Randall asked.
Eric threw up both hands as if to shield himself from a blow, then brought them to his temples as he turned away from the sink. He let them fall to his sides before he responded, “Let’s see. What do I say to that? I could try pointing out that it’s none of your business, but I’m sure that will only encourage you to dig deeper. Or I could say that it was a very long time ago, but that would imply that you’re too young to understand, which I happen to know from experience is the equivalent of throwing ice water in your face and expecting you not to fight back.” “What was his name?”
Eric shook his head as if in disbelief that Randall had the nerve to ask. “It was a very long time ago. Which is why you shouldn’t even care. How’s that?”
“How did you go for so long?”
“Appetite wanes as you grow older. You’ll see.”
“Come on, Eric. If it was just appetite, you could sign onto America Online and meet hundreds of eighteen-year-old boys all over New England who want nothing more than a forty-one-year-old to fulfill their daddy fantasy. But instead you’re here with me.”
“Yes. Enduring questions you already know the answers to.”
Some desperate urge that he had been so good at fighting up until that moment, that had been stirred and prodded by the events of the past few days, forced him to ask a question he had promised himself he wouldn’t. “Why me?”
“I looked. You were the first one to look back.”
Randall thought of Tim Mathis’ dinner invitation. Maybe the subject of Mitchell Seaver had pitched Eric into a state of evasiveness. “Wow,” he whispered. “I feel so special.”
“Maybe you should. Trust me, everything about you is an exception.” Randall took a moment to gauge Eric’s sincerity and found it to be strong. “You and me, Eric. The two of us. I didn’t do any of this on my own.” He let this sit and then got up from the table. In the kitchen doorway, he turned to see Eric watching his every move. “Should I...” he gestured down the hall to the front door. “Or . .
Eric’s face may have been a mask of resolve, but Randall could sense the collision of desire and dignity inside him.
“I’ll be up in a minute,” Eric muttered, his eyes falling from Randall’s.
Next to him, Eric slept.
Randall sat up in bed, knees drawn to his chest. The bathroom door yawned open and Randall stared at the rectangle of deeper darkness and tried to summon an image of Lisa Eberman staring back out at them. Nothing came.
The clock on the nightstand read two forty-five.
Randall rolled over onto one side and watched Eric sleeping. Strangely peaceful, given the events of the day. Watching Eric’s bare chest lifting the sheets in drawn-out breaths, Randall felt a swell of emotion that he easily could have mistaken for love if he didn’t know better; rather, he felt the intoxicating sensation of owning someone completely, a fulfillment so great that he would have trouble acknowledging it in daylight. But the elation left him quickly as he realized that the heart beating in Eric’s chest now belonged to a widower, no longer to an almost unattainable conquest. The game of seduction had begun to bleed to an unexpected death.
He managed to dress without waking Eric, and then descended the stairs carefully with his empty flask in one hand. Once he was in front of the liquor cabinet, he stopped. In the darkness of the dining room, a vision of Lisa Eberman struck him with such force that he couldn’t suppress a bitter laugh.
Look for her in the s
hadows and she’s nowhere to be found, he thought, but when I’m least expecting it, I’ll see every hair on her head, just the way the wind is blowing it in that goddamn photo.
He told the vision to pass, and using the powers of imagination that had so often lifted him outside himself in the interest of getting through, he envisioned the note dissolving into the fireplace.
He filled his flask without spilling a drop.
Whispering was permitted in the first-floor reading room of Folberg Library, which made it the most popular place for students to study and escape their books at the same time. But Kathryn arrived early enough to get a table all to herself. For the last twenty minutes, she had been trying to finish a poli sci reading, but in her mind she kept hearing the scrape of Randall’s door over the hallway carpet. Her concentration broken, she leaned back in her chair just in time to spot Jesse emerging from the periodical racks. He didn’t see her, and as she moved down the aisle toward the photocopying room, she spotted the hardcover book he was carrying under one arm.
Jesse was the only one in the copy room. Unnoticed, she sidled up to his machine before he brought the lid down on the spread book. “Writing a paper on plane crashes?” she asked when she saw the title. •
Startled, Jesse looked up, managed a polite smile, and then closed the lid over Transportation Disasters Volume IV. “Just a little project I’m working on,” he responded, feeding quarters into the machine.
“Jesse, I was wondering ...”
“Have you had lunch?”
Kathryn narrowed her eyes. “I had breakfast.”
“You aren’t one of those career anorexics, are you?”
“Do I look like one?”
“Good. I’ll meet you out front as soon as I finish this,” Jesse said to the machine.
She turned, took a few steps, and then stopped. “Do I even have to tell you this isn’t a date?”
“Please. Who takes their dates to the Ivory?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I’ll be right out,” he said, one finger poised on the copy button.
Ten minutes and two cigarettes later, he met her in front of the library, and as they descended the steps, Kathryn realized she was shooting glances in every direction to see what familiar faces they might come upon. Jesse noticed too and let out a throaty laugh.
“What?”
“You don’t want to be seen with me, do you?”
“With all due respect— ”
“Hey, I’m actually due respect from you! You should have told me awhile ago.”
Kathryn continued, unfazed. “Most of the girls spotted with you end up being the butt of a joke.”
“Yeah, well, you obviously have something to ask me, or otherwise you wouldn’t risk it.”
The Ivory was the rundown snack bar in the Union where students could use their leftover meal plan points to buy undercooked pizza and greasy piles of French fries. Kathryn waited for Jesse to obtain his lunch, drumming her fingers on the table. Students around her feigned studying, their books spread open on tables as they conducted conversations over the backs of their chairs.
“Sure I can’t get you anything?” Jesse set his slice of pizza down between them.
“No. Thanks.”
He nodded and slid one arm out of his navy pea coat. His bright red corduroy shirt was unbuttoned from the top just enough to reveal a teasing glimpse of smooth chest. “Nice jacket,” she said.
“Thanks. I bought it here.” He slung it over the back of his chair and took a seat. “The minute I got here I realized I’ve never owned a winter coat, so . . .”
“I don’t even know where you’re from.”
Jesse’s eyes met hers. “I’m not telling you.”
As he took his first bite of pizza, Kathryn realized he was trying to be funny. “Why?”
“Because you hate me enough already.”
“Quite the mind reader.”
“Beverly Hills.”
She couldn’t contain her laughter. “Where’s your cell phone?” she asked.
“Don’t have one yet. But don’t worry, I’m getting one. I don’t want to pose a threat to your image of me as the Mercedes-driving, spoiled brat.” He chewed his pizza deliberately and then swabbed at his lips with the napkin in a manner she found oddly prissy. Vain, she corrected herself. But there was no doubt that Jesse was acting unusually in her presence. His posture was more relaxed, his tone less suggestive than usual. After a few seconds, she realized she was seeing a Jesse free from the insipid, posturing charm he poured on his sexual conquests.
“It sounded pretty bad the other night.” He saw her furrowed brow and continued, “The fire stairway isn’t exactly soundproof. You were on the phone.”
“I was hardly yelling.”
“Spend all your time in the dorm and you learn how to listen. Kind of like how a blind man develops excellent hearing. You sense when someone’s not playing their TV at the usual time. Or when someone slams a door too hard.” He made this comment with his eyes on hers. “It’s kind of cool,” he added before taking another careful bite.
“Stockton drives me nuts. I have to go on a walk just to clear my head.”
“I like it”
“Why?”
“It makes me feel safe. Like being in the womb. Knowing there’s constant activity above and below me.” He paused to chew. “When I was little I couldn’t go to sleep unless my parents were awake downstairs. If the house was quiet, I’d lie there with my eyes open. So . . He used the napkin to wipe his hands, and Kathryn wondered if Jesse, who familiarized himself with a new person’s private parts every weekend, was a closet germ freak. “Who were you talking to?” Jesse asked, with a bright smile that indicated he didn’t expect her to answer.
She decided to answer indirectly. “Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”
She caught a flicker of something in his eyes, but it vanished before she could figure out whether it was anger. “No,” he answered.
“And how are your parents handling that decision?”
“My mom’s dead.”
Kathryn was startled into silence. There wasn’t any gravity in Jesse’s voice, and the abruptness of this revelation prohibited her from coming up with any response. “Oh ...”
“She died when I was four and left me to take care of my father.”
“Is he sick?”
Jesse’s eyes moved past her as he nodded slightly. ‘You could say that.” He met her curious stare as he continued, “He has an illness specific to people with Type-A personalities. He’s a man who knows how to make things happen. Too many things sometimes. He’s got incredible talent, but sometimes his talent gets bigger than him. Kind of like a fire that he has to douse.”
“He drinks?”
Jesse nodded.
“It’s really none of my business. I’m sorry if—”
“Don’t be,” Jesse cut her off. “And who the hell made up that rule that people can only ask about stuff that’s their business? How are we supposed to learn anything that way?”
Clever, Kathryn thought, but you didn’t answer the question. “Is he an actor?”
“He was for about five minutes. Right before I was born, he was on this cop show that got yanked mid-season. After that, he couldn’t find anymore acting jobs, so instead of heading back to USC Law, he became a producer.”
“Have I seen anything he’s done?”
“Not unless you have a penchant for slasher flicks that get shipped straight to Asia. They love seeing blonde-headed Americans get sliced and diced over there.” Jesse finished his pizza, swabbed at his mouth again and folded his napkin before dropping it onto his plate. “Five more minutes of this, Kathryn, and I might think you’re hitting on me.”
“You know better,” she told him, smiling. “Do you miss him?” “Who?”
“Your father.”
Without planning to, she had cornered him. If he said yes, that would seem odd in light of the fact that he wasn’t going h
ome for the coming break. But instead of looking caught, Jesse cocked his head, lips pursed in thought, as if the topic of his father required him to summon the patience of a caretaker. “It was time to go. For me. And for him. He’s just having a little trouble realizing it.”
“You sure went far.”
“You’re one to talk. Kathryn Parker, Presidio Public, San Francisco, California,” he responded, quoting the information listed below her picture in the freshman face book. “What? Not a fan of the higher education in our home state?”
“I wanted to see snow.”
Jesse grinned, clearly appreciating the fact that her answer lacked even the pretense of honesty. Kathryn felt a strange tightening in her chest at the thought that he might be flirting. But Jesse's relaxed behavior hadn’t altered. She had witnessed a great many of his seductions and they had all been brief, carnal, and crude, like fingering a girl in the middle of a dance floor. Romance might be a foreign concept to him, and this interplay of smart aleck comment, gentle smiles, and awkward pauses was not his usual prelude to the sex act. Now Jesse was studying her intently, and without lust.
“Kathryn, I don’t know where Randall’s going every night. But if he’s going to tell anyone, I would think it would be you.”
She shifted in her seat and clasped her hands in her lap. “We don’t tell each other everything, Jesse.”
“Could have fooled me.”
She squinted at him, and from his curious expression she could tell she wasn’t the only one bothered by whatever Randall was up to, and that comforted her. “Do you know what time he came home last night?”
“Now we sound like his parents.”
“If Randall is seeing someone and not telling me about it,” Kathryn began, “it’s probably because he thinks that for some reason I wouldn’t approve—”
“Maybe you wouldn’t,” Jesse cut in.
“That’s ridiculous. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well, let’s just say he’s perfectly aware of what you think of my sex life. Maybe he’d like to spare himself the same disapproval.”
“Jesse, I’m not here to discuss your weekend activities.”
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