Authors: Unknown Author
“Let me guess. Someone didn’t call you back once. And you were scared for life.” He had lowered his voice to a dramatic bass, leaning toward her until their foreheads almost touched. When he saw her glare, he shrank back, abashed. “Kathryn ...”
She went to step off the curb. “Forget I brought it up.”
“Come on, Kathryn. I was kidding.” He reached for her shoulder and missed. Her feet hit the street and suddenly a pair of headlights sliced toward her and she was forced back up onto the curb.
“I’m sick of you and April making me out to be this Puritan.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You have.”
“When?” Randall asked, sounding slightly indignant. He was right, she knew; he had never called her that. But it was too late to relent; silence fell and she stuffed her hands inside her pockets.
“It’s not about me, all right?” she managed. When she turned to face him, she saw his rapt stare, which was as confused as it was eager for her to continue. “I know better. But there was a time when I didn’t. And that’s why I don’t like it when I see a guy who does nothing but use people.”
Randall narrowed his eyes and nodded. “I know better too,” he said gently.
It was this knack for cutting straight to a truth they shared, and doing it with care, that had allowed Randall and Kathryn to form such a deep and all-inclusive friendship so quickly. Kathryn only had to do half the work because Randall could intuit the rest. Did this make her lazy? No. There existed between them a suggestion that something that had shaped them before they met had primed them to become something close to soul mates. It was one of those assurances that hinted there was a little more order to the world than you thought, and made it a less lonely place to live in.
She returned his embrace before giving him a surprise slap on the „ass. He jerked. They were both startled by a high-pitched whistle.
“Break it up, you two!”
Kathryn steeled herself at the sound of Jesse’s too-familiar voice. His date clung to his shoulder like a barnacle and let out a short, barking laugh as they approached down the sidewalk. Kathryn’s eyes immediately shot to the girl’s crotch to see if her jeans were buttoned.
Candles on wall sconces lit the interior of Madeline’s. The bar was clogged with Armani- and Gucci-clad students downing shots between boisterous fits of laughter. Anemic, black-uniformed waitresses maneuvered between the cramped tables, carrying trays of drinks their skinny arms could hardly support. A strange mix of acid jazz and trance pumped from unseen speakers, a stark contrast to the flickering images of the local eleven o’clock news Kathryn was watching on the television above the bar.
She sipped her club soda and shot a glance over one shoulder. Through the plate-glass windows, cardiganed students could be seen making the walk back to their dorms. Weighted by overloaded book bags, they shot withering glances at the official hangout for Atherton’s Euro-trash and designer-drug addicts. Kathryn prayed none of them noticed her, fearful of losing the respect of those who had come to one of the finest universities in the country to do something other than look good.
Kathryn didn’t bother to look at Jesse as he slid onto the barstool next to hers. “Where’s Randall?”
“Bathroom.”
“I thought you two were, like, attached at the hip.”
Kathryn took a sip of her drink. “What’s her name?”
“Don’t know yet.” Jesse sipped his drink and Kathryn finally made eye contact. He lifted his glass. “Seven Up.”
Kathryn nodded, as if impressed.
“You?”
“Club soda. I thought you were a Bud man, Jesse.”
“Only when it’s free. But not when I have to perform.”
Kathryn’s smile hurt her cheeks. She looked toward the bathroom, praying Randall would emerge. Instead, she saw Jesse’s nameless brunette filing out of the women's room with three other girls. The brunette’s eyes shot in both directions before she clasped her hands, as if in prayer, using both index fingers to wipe at her nostrils. Kathryn noticed one of the other girls applying a liberal amount of Chapstick. She read the group’s behavior in an instant. They hadn’t gone to the bathroom together to put on makeup.
Suddenly she was back in San Francisco. Her best friend Kerry was clinging to her pleadingly, lying and telling Kathryn she was just drunk. Lying even more when she said she was just stoned. And Kathryn, knowing only that alcohol didn’t dilate your pupils, was too stupid to know more.
“Hey.”
Startled out of her memories, Kathryn turned. Jesse leaned toward her with one bent elbow braced on the bar. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Never,” Kathryn answered.
Jesse laughed, his eyes not leaving hers. “No, believe me, I know you’re off-limits. I’d just love to know what it is I do that pisses you off so much.” .
She held his gaze. “You need to be humbled.”
“Meaning?”
“You need to find one girl who won't sleep with you.”
Jesse leaned back on his stool and gave her a slight nod, not in agreement, but as if satisfied to have received an explanation for her constant chill around him. ‘Thaven’t?” he asked, gesturing down the length of her body with one hand.
She smirked and returned her attention to the television.
“You know, I think it’s kind of cool what the two of you have,” Jesse said.
She thought she heard a genuine trace of envy in his voice. But maybe she had imagined it. “What do you mean?”
“I just remember the
way you
guys were during Orientation Week. Everyone else was hanging out in the lounge making bullshit conversation, spouting
off
those statistics about how 90 percent of married couples meet their other half in college, or going to those stupid ice cream social things. Not you and Randall. You guys were like running off in taxis to gay bars on the first day."
"I don't exactly recall you bonding with our dorm unit either.”
“I didn’t,” Jesse responded, without pausing. “That’s why I think ..it’s cool.”
Puzzled, she waited for him to continue.
“Jesus, it’s like everyone on our floor, they’re all rushing out to join some club, or they’re going to do some whacked-out major like April, with a hundred requirements, and they’ve already gone to three classes by the time I wake up. It’s like they’re working their asses off to be anything other than what they are.”
“What are they?” Kathryn asked.
“Kids. Away from home. But if you ask them, they’ll tell you they’re a major or a club. ‘Hi, I’m premed.’ ‘Don’t bother me, I have to go weave baskets for starving children in Iran.”’ Kathryn couldn’t suppress a smirk. “Not us though,” Jesse continued with sudden gravity. “You, me, Randall. It’s like we didn’t get taken up into the fold. But everyone else here? They’re like Stepford Child freaks mainlining all that bullshit they tried to feed us during Orientation.”
“April says I use Randall to avoid making new friends,” Kathryn said .carefully, reminding herself whom she was talking to. She left out April’s other point—that she used Randall to avoid finding a boyfriend as well. ,
“I don’t know,” Jesse said, his tone nonchalant. “We’ve only been here, what? Two months? It’s like the two of you have taken vows or something.”
She was reminded of Tim’s “finger-pricking, blood-sharing” comment.
“So who’s he dating, anyway?” Jesse asked.
“Randall? No one.”
“That’s weird. What happened to the reporter guy?”
“That’s over,” Kathryn said.
Jesse’s eyes narrowed on her.
“What?” she asked.
“It’s just that he’s been staying out really late.”
“No, he hasn’t.” Kathryn hated the hint of anger in her voice.
“He comes back with you and then leaves again.”
“Maybe he’s going to the bathroom.”
“For three hours? That’s impressive. Even if he’s jerking off. And he knows I don’t have a problem with him jerking off in the room.”
Kathryn’s mouth opened to protest, but suddenly the brunette had slid between them, perma-smile plastered on her face, pupils dilated. Kathryn was sure the girl was high, and she watched as the brunette leaned into Jesse and whispered into his ear, then withdrew, laughing slightly, but Jesse’s face had gone blank. Kathryn was startled to see him cup the girl’s chin in one hand and gently push her face back several inches, surveying her.
“What?” the girl asked.
Jesse reached up and swabbed at her nostrils with one finger.
“What are you
doing?”
the girl cried.
Jesse returned his attention to his 7 Up as the girl’s eyes moved from him to Kathryn. She surveyed Kathryn as if she were a beauty pageant contestant. Kathryn stared back, as if one of the girl’s breasts had squeezed its way out of her V-neck. “Asshole!” the girl barked over one shoulder, stalking to the front door. Jesse didn’t look up from his glass.
“High as a kite,” Kathryn finally said.
Jesse’s eyes shot to hers. “You have experience?”
“Not me. I had friends in high school whose entire weekend was an eight ball,” she said flatly, praying he wouldn’t ask about them. Kerry, Michelle, Debbie, Jono. Somehow, thinking of all their names at once kept her memory from summoning a single face.
“But you never touched the stuff?”
“Never,” Kathryn answered, warning him off the subject with her tone.
Randall sidled up between them to the bar. “Huh?” he asked as he looked from Jesse to her. He bent over the bar, summoning Teddy, his chosen bartender, who enjoyed Randall’s flirtatiousness because it meant big tips. “Can I get an apple martini?”
“Randall,” Kathryn began. “Someday you’re going to introduce me to a homosexual who can drink something that doesn’t glow in candlelight.”
“Wait!” Jesse piped up. He grabbed one of Randall’s shoulders and turned him, cupped his chin, and examined his eyes.
“Mind if I ask what you’re doing?” Randall asked, his words clipped by Jesse’s grasp.
“He’s clean," Jesse said to Kathryn with a broad grin.
Teddy delivered Randall’s drink as Randall fished his money clip from one pocket and peeled off a twenty. Randall dangled the bill over the bar, Teddy puckered his lips and Randall extended the money in one hand. As Kathryn expected, Teddy didn’t ask for ID. Randall turned his back on Jesse and leaned in. “What was that about?” he asked Kathryn, voice low.
“Inside joke. You’re on the outside. Sorry.”
“You two have inside jokes now? I was only in the bathroom for ten minutes.”
“I know, and we wanted to know why.”
“Are you saying you two actually bonded?”
“Mmmm. No, not really.” Kathryn grabbed his chin. “But let me see something. ...”
“I don’t do drugs.”
“Good. Then can we stop coming here?”
''You need some glamour in life, honey, and jugs of eight-dollar wine in the first-floor lounge don’t cut it.”
Kathryn had lifted one hand as if to slap him when Jesse barked, “Shit! Check that out!”
He pointed to the television above the bar, where Kathryn saw the mauled remains of a Volvo station wagon being hauled from the black water of the Atherton River. Police lights flared on the bridge overhead,
“Turn it up!”
It took Kathryn a second to realize it was Randall who had shouted the command at the bartender, who was occupied on the other side of the bar.
The news cut live to a reporter standing at the rail of the bridge at the exact moment when Kathryn thought the screen would offer them a glimpse of the person behind the Volvo’s steering wheel. The volume stripe suddenly appeared at the bottom of the screen. Heads around the bar jerked at the sound of the reporter’s voice, now contending with the music. Kathryn turned to see Jesse bent over the bar, holding the remote, watching intently.
“.. - trying to chase down the anonymous caller who placed the 911 call reporting the accident, but so far they are short on leads. But what police are also short on is
any
explanation as to why forty-one-year-old Lisa Eberman drove her Volvo station wagon through the guardrail behind me and into the freezing waters of the Atherton. River. The obvious answer might be as simple as bad weather.”
The reporter cut to footage of paramedics rolling a gurney toward the flaring light of a waiting ambulance, its bridge lights smeared by the curtain of snow.
“As we told you earlier, Eberman was the wife of Atherton art history professor Eric Eberman.”
“Dude!” the bartender snapped, yanking the remote out of Jesse’s hand. “This isn’t a sports bar.”
Kathryn turned to find Randall staring raptly at the television. Jesse had noticed too, and their eyes met before they returned their attention to Randall, gripping the stem of his martini glass, his eyes locked on the now-silerit flicker of images.
“You’re in that guy’s course, right?” Jesse asked him.
“Shit,” Kathryn whispered. “Did you know her?”
After several more seconds, Randall pulled his eyes from the TV, stared down into his drink glass, and then brought it slowly to his mouth as he shook his head. He slugged it back and caught his breath. “No, I didn’t. But... he’s mentioned her. In class. It’s just weird.” Kathryn touched Randall’s shoulder lightly and when she did, she caught Jesse staring at her over the bar. When her eyes met his, he broke contact quickly, sliding off his barstool, feet heavily hitting the floor. “Good night all. got work to do.”
Neither of them said good-bye.
“She’s dead, right? They said ...” Randall whispered.
“Yeah,” Kathryn finished gently.
“That’s so weird,” Randall said again, shaking his head as he took another slug of his drink.
“Sad," Kathryn said, because she couldn’t think of anything better.