Читать книгу Red Leaves - Paullina Simons - Страница 9

Kristina rushed to get ready for her seven-forty-five Modern Christian Thought class. To save time, she put on the same clothes she’d worn on Sunday.

Albert was sitting on the bed, next to Aristotle spread out on his back.

‘Get him off,’ Kristina said. ‘His hair gets on everything.’

Albert didn’t touch the dog. ‘His hair is already on everything.’

‘Albert!’ she said, raising her voice. ‘Aristotle! Down!’

The dog got down sheepishly. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be on the bed.

Sitting next to Albert, Kristina rubbed his leg. ‘What are you going to tell Conni?’

He looked sullen. His black eyes were sunken in his face, as they always were after a night of little sleep. His pale face with huge black eyes made him look slightly cadaverous.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll think of something.’

Kristina, unsmiling inside or out, said, ‘I’m sure you will. Tell her you fell asleep in your room.’

‘Rocky, you’ll never make a convincing liar. What, and didn’t hear her make a public nuisance of herself? Yeah, good.’

Kristina looked outside into the blue post-dawn darkness. It looked very cold. She felt bad for Conni, standing outside their door, banging, fearing the worst, being lied to.

Albert said, ‘I’m going to tell her you hadn’t walked Aristotle and I went to walk him. I’ll tell her I went through the woods to Frankie’s and was so tired I fell asleep there.’

‘What if she called Frankie?’

‘Frankie doesn’t pick up his phone after midnight.’

‘What if she went to see Frankie?’

‘She didn’t. She wouldn’t.’

‘Well, aren’t you going to have to inform Frankie of your little plan?’

‘Yeah, it’s not a problem.’

‘Oh, I see. Frankie is a stooge for you, isn’t he?’

‘Not a stooge, just my friend,’ Albert said, getting up off the bed and eyeing her grimly. ‘What’s gotten into you?’

Kristina shook her head, feeling worse and worse. ‘Nothing, I just…’ What had happened to starting over? Starting a new life? Hadn’t she been beginning to do that yesterday? Wasn’t that what she had told herself?

‘Conni will believe it, you’ll see.’ Albert took Aristotle’s leash and fitted it over the dog’s head. ‘Remember, she wants to believe it. Why would she want to hear the truth? What’s she going to do with the truth? That’s the most important thing to remember. All I have to do is let her believe what she wants to believe in the first place. It’s that simple.’

Getting off the bed, Kristina said bleakly, ‘Is it that simple? It’s really the dumbest excuse.’

He shrugged. ‘So think of a better one.’

Picking up her books off the table, Kristina said, ‘We can’t do this, Albert. I can’t do this.’

He came to her. ‘You say that now…’ he drawled suggestively, running his free hand over her back.

‘I mean it.’ She pushed him off her. ‘I just - I can’t do this anymore. I’m starting to hate myself, and -’ She broke off.

‘And what?’

‘Nothing.’

‘And? You’re starting to hate me?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You didn’t have to.’ His black eyes blazed. She backed off, not used to seeing his rare temper.

“I gotta go,’ Kristina said.

He shrugged. ‘Where’s your coat?’

‘Fahrenbrae.’

‘Ahhh,’ said Albert. ‘So take my jacket.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’ve got two.’ He unlocked her door and peeked outside. ‘All clear,’ he whispered and walked quickly down the hall to his room. She followed him.

‘I can’t take your jacket,’ Kristina said. ‘Jim or Conni is going to see me wearing it, and what am I supposed to say then?’

‘Make up something clever.’

‘Yeah? Oh, I left my coat up at this place Albert and I shack up at, and then he let me borrow his.’

‘No, something cleverer than that.’

She sighed deeply. ‘I’ll see you, Albert.’

He studied her for a moment. ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ he said, handing her his brown leather jacket. She shook her head and backed away toward the glass doors that led to the side stairs.

‘Rock,’ Albert called after her, almost as an afterthought. ‘Happy birthday.’

She nodded, unsmiling.

‘Will you at least think about Canada?’ he asked her.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Kristina smiled ruefully at him.

The glass door slammed shut behind her.

After her last class, Kristina had basketball practice, then showered and went to her car. Her long hair was still wet when she got in and started up the car. The Mustang coughed and spluttered for a few moments.

Nice car, she thought, trying to goad it on. Come on, come on, nice, dear, sweet car. I’m gonna take care of you when you get sick. You’re my friend. You’re nice, come on. And then the engine finally began to run smoothly. Kristina closed her eyes, thank God. You piece-of-shit car.

Someone knocked loudly on her window. Kristina opened her eyes. Conni stepped back, her arms folded.

Oh, no, Kristina thought, rolling the window partway down.

‘Hi, Conn, what’s up?’ she said. ‘I’m late.’

‘You’re always late,’ said Conni.

‘Doesn’t make me any less late,’ said Kristina pleasantly. Inside she felt terrible.

‘What’s up?’ said Conni, furiously curling a strand of hair around her index finger. ‘How come you didn’t open the door last night?’

‘I told you I was real tired. I was asleep when you knocked.’

Conni stared steely-eyed at Kristina. ‘Sleeping, huh? You could’ve opened the door.’

‘Could’ve, yes,’ Kristina said. ‘But didn’t want to. I was naked and tired. And it sounded like you had company in the hall.’

Conni narrowed her eyes to slits. ‘Did you have company in the room?’

Kristina got scared. Was this where it was going to happen? Right here, in the parking lot? ‘Constance,’ she said slowly. ‘What are you accusing me of?’

‘Nothing,’ Conni said quickly. ‘Nothing. I was just mad you wouldn’t open the door. Usually you never even lock it.’ She paused. ‘And I know you 7veren’t with Jim.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because I was looking for Albert.’

‘In Jim’s room?’

‘Anywhere.’

Kristina sighed. ‘Conn, how often have you found Albert in Jim’s room? Albert never goes to Jim’s room. Never.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because that’s what Jim tells me.’ Actually it was what Albert told her. Albert didn’t feel comfortable with Jim anymore.

Relaxing a little, Kristina said, ‘I’m sorry you were upset. Next time I’ll open the door, okay?’ She rolled down her window.

‘You know,’ Conni said, ‘I was just… I just didn’t know where Albert was. He said he was going up to his room for a minute.’

‘Ahh,’ said Kristina and didn’t know what else to say. ‘I hope he showed up eventually.’

‘No,’ Conni said tearfully. ‘That’s the whole thing.’

There was a pause, while Kristina looked away from Conni, who seemed to be collecting her thoughts as she stepped from foot to foot in the cold. Kristina turned to face the front windshield and the parking lot and Hinman Hall ahead. She could see her own windows up there on the third floor. How nice it would be to be alone up in the room right now. She looked over to the right and stared at her bridge vacantly. Kristina’s Bridge. Maybe if it snowed soon… Kristina could have a few drinks, and walk her bridge, and not be scared anymore.

She turned back to Conni, who obviously was trying hard to come to grips with something.

Clearing her throat, Conni said, ‘Krissy, umm, listen. Was the dog with you?’

‘With me when?’ Kristina asked, wanting to roll the window back up.

‘Last night.’

Kristina’s heart was pounding. She is trying to trap me. But what can I say? I don’t even know if she spoke to Albert today. She is definitely trying to corner me into something, but what?

‘I don’t know,’ Kristina replied vaguely. ‘Listen, I really gotta -’

‘Albert said he walked Aristotle for you last night.’

Kristina kept her face passive, but inside she was relieved.

‘Yes. He came by, and took the dog,’ she told Conni.

‘He did?’ she exclaimed. ‘So you saw him?’

‘Briefly,’ Kristina replied.

‘And then?’

‘And then what? Then I locked the door.’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Because I wanted to go to sleep, and he was gone a long time.’

‘How long?’

‘I don’t know, Conni. He never came up to bring the dog back.’ She didn’t know what else to say, and Conni still seemed dissatisfied. So Kristina said, ‘Maybe he’d gone to Frankie’s?’

‘That’s what he said he did. But he said he came back and knocked, you just didn’t answer.’

‘What time was this? I didn’t hear him,’ said Kristina without missing a beat, but thinking, God, Albert, I wish you had talked to me about this.

‘How long was he gone before I came up?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe a half hour.’

This wasn’t the first time Kristina had been interrogated by Conni. She wished it could be the last time, though. Since Edinburgh, Conni had been increasingly suspicious about Kristina and Albert. When Conni and Kristina roomed together in their freshman and part of their sophomore years, Kristina had never fallen under suspicion, but Conni had been sure Albert was seeing someone else.

Kristina lifted her black eyes to Conni, who was staring at her with the expression of someone who had just swallowed an unbelievable excuse, had bought it, and was now hating herself for it. Feeling very bad, Kristina said, ‘Conn, I thought he was with you. I thought he just took Aristotle down to your room and stayed there.’

‘Well, he didn’t,’ Conni said, struggling to keep her voice even.

Reaching out, Kristina took Conni’s arm. ‘I’m sorry you’re feeling down. It’ll be okay. You know Albert loves you.’

‘Do I? Do I know that?’

‘Sure you do,’ Kristina said comfortingly. ‘It’s obvious. Every time he looks at you, it’s obvious.’

Conni stared at her. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘No, of course I’m not.’ What was she getting at?

‘The way he looks at me?’ Conni laughed aloud. ‘You are kidding me. Kristina, have you ever seen the way Albert looks at you?’

Kristina had. She knew how Albert looked at her. Turning up a blank expression, she said, ‘Conn, I don’t know what you’re -’

‘Kristina!’ Conni became agitated. ‘He looks at you, and you at him, like - I don’t know, like you’ve been - I don’t know - friends for life. Like he is about to go the front and die and he’s looking at you for the last time. God, it makes me crazy. Don’t tell me you don’t see it!’

‘Conni, I’m sorry, I really don’t.’

‘Yeah, Albert says the same thing. “Conn, you’re crazy,” he says. “Conn, it’s probably just hunger.” “Conn, I look at Frankie the same way,” or “Conn, you silly. What about the way I look at you?'”

Kristina was beginning to feel sick to her stomach. ‘What do you want me to say, Conni?’ she said weakly.

Conni continued as if not hearing Kristina. ‘I said to him, it’s not that he touches you, because he doesn’t, and it’s not that he says things to you, because he doesn’t, it’s just the way he looks at you. I asked him not to look at you anymore.’ Conni took a deep breath and swiped the hair off her face in a manic gesture. ‘God, this is just so ludicrous.’

‘I agree,’ said Kristina quietly. Glancing at the dashboard clock, Kristina got out of the car and went to put her arms around Conni, who didn’t protest but didn’t hug back either.

‘Conn, I’m sorry you’re so upset. Come on, girl.’ Kristina’s arm remained around her shoulders.

‘Am I crazy, Krissy? Am I just plain nuts?’

‘Yes,’ Kristina said, still feeling queasy. ‘Bonkers.’

‘Krissy,’ Conni said, ‘once I saw you guys.’

Kristina missed a beat, maybe two, imagining the worst, before she said, ‘Saw us where?’

‘In Baker Library, sitting in the reserve corridor, looking into the same book.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know. A few weeks ago.’

‘We were studying. Nietzsche, I think.’

‘Not one part of your bodies was touching, yet I just felt so bad when I saw the two of you.’

‘Conni,’ Kristina said softly, soothingly. ‘We were just studying.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Conni in a depressed voice. ‘That’s what Albert told me. I mean, look, I know he loves me, I know that, okay? I just can’t help feeling these things sometimes. I’m sorry.’

Kristina hugged Conni tighter, incredulous. How did I get her to apologize to me?

Conni’s face brightened slightly, and Kristina felt even worse. I’m not going to lie anymore. That’s my new motto, too. I’m going to right my life and I’m not going to.lie anymore.

Getting back into the car, Kristina shifted into reverse and said, ‘I gotta go.’

‘Go, go,’ said Conni, stepping away from the car. ‘Thanks for talking.’

‘Sure,’ said Kristina, hating herself as she drove to Red Leaves House.

At Red Leaves, Betty her friend and boss, had bought Kristina an ice cream cake. It was the thought that counted, because Kristina’d hated ice cream cakes since childhood.

Betty’s assistants and some of the resident girls at Red Leaves had pitched in to buy her a black leather handbag.

Kristina thankfully made a hazy wordless wish that had to do with the smell of pines and the mountains and cold and hope, and blew out the candles. Then she cut the cake and Betty served it, while Kristina went to sit in her favorite chair in the living room.

Despite hating ice cream cakes, Kristina ate every bite and asked for seconds. Afterward, she took her wallet and assorted letters and papers and magazines out of her backpack and stuffed them all into the new handbag. Seeing the pleased, affectionate faces around her made Kristina feel better about her life.

Betty was a woman of about thirty, a graceful, slightly severe-looking woman with pale skin and a sharp nose. Red Leaves House was hers. It had originally belonged to her parents, John and Olivia Barrett, local philanthropists who wanted to do something for their community. They had already contributed plenty to libraries, charities, homeless shelters, and soup kitchens. Red Leaves House was their primary charitable cause. Because it was the first of its kind in the area, it had gained immediate notoriety.

In her freshman year, Kristina had picked up a brochure about Red Leaves House at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and agreed to work there as part of her work/study program. She had been coming every Monday and Thursday afternoon for the last three years. Kristina wished it paid more, especially during the lean months. More important, it got her away from Dartmouth College for two days a week, and getting away from Dartmouth College was essential for Kristina from time to time. Also, all the pregnant girls adored her.

The drawback was being around babies. Kristina got reluctantly but intensely attached to these infants. When the babies left Red Leaves House, with either their mothers or their adoptive families, Kristina felt as if her own were being taken away from her.

Quitting wasn’t an option. Quit and do what? She was loved by the girls and liked by the other counselors, and Kristina was the only one from Dartmouth. It felt like being on another basketball team - Kristina was the All-Ivy center of Red Leaves.

Before Kristina went upstairs, she and Betty chatted.

‘How are your friends?’ asked Betty. ‘Still see them much? You sound like you’re always so busy.’

‘Yeah, I’m busy, but I see them all the time. I’m writing a piece on the death penalty for Jim, and Conni and I went to the movies last Friday night. Saw -’

‘And Albert?’ said Betty. ‘See much of him?’

Suppressing a smile, Kristina eyed Betty. ‘Yeah, I see him once in a while. He’s doing well.’

‘Oh, good, good. You know you’re welcome to invite them over here one Sunday if you’re not busy. You guys were a big hit with all the girls when you came a few months ago and played basketball in our driveway. Maybe you can do that again sometime.’ She spoke shifting her gaze from left to right and not looking straight at Kristina.

Kristina smiled and touched Betty’s arm. ‘Thanks. Yeah, sure. Sure. Maybe I can round them up the Sunday after Thanksgiving. How would that be?’

‘That would be good,’ said Betty, controlling her voice.

‘Where’s Evelyn?’ Kristina asked.

Betty told Kristina, ‘Go upstairs. She’s not feeling well. She’s been asking for you.’

Kristina started upstairs. Betty called after her, ‘She can’t spend a day here without asking when you’re working next. What do you do for that girl?’

‘Oh, you know,’ demurred Kristina. ‘I stick pins in a doll named Evelyn and kill chickens on Fridays.’

‘Nice.’

Fifteen-year-old Evelyn Moss, pregnant with twins, had come to Red Leaves House last summer when she was barely out of her first trimester. A tall, pretty strawberry blonde, Evelyn, racked with morning sickness, was very depressed. Kristina spent her summer term at Dartmouth working at Red Leaves and talking to Evelyn, who slowly turned into a thickset shadow of her former slender self. During the summer all Evelyn wanted was not to be pregnant anymore. She trailed after Kristina, ate nonstop, and gained too much weight. Her blood pressure was out of control.

Evelyn ate through her second trimester and cried through her third. The feeling of not wanting to be pregnant anymore gave way to not wanting to give up her babies. Kristina told Evelyn that that too was normal, but Evelyn would not listen.

Kristina tried convincing Evelyn with statistics. ‘They’re all against you, kid.’ Kristina told her about the number of teenage mothers who are high school dropouts, the number on welfare, the number below the poverty line, and the children’s psychological problems. Nothing Kristina said would bring relief to Evelyn, who now wanted only one thing and would not listen to reason. Evelyn’s parents had told her she had to give the children up for adoption, and Evelyn was still at an age when she listened to her parents.

Kristina could hear Evelyn crying in her room as she opened the door and entered.

‘Hi, Evie. It’s me,’ she said brightly. Evelyn cried harder.

‘Nice welcome,’ Kristina said, sitting on the bed next to the girl and patting her belly. ‘How are you holding up?’

Evelyn couldn’t talk.

‘Come on, honey, come on, girl. Hang in there. Only a few more weeks to go.’

‘No more weeks to go,’ Evelyn sobbed. ‘My show fell out.’

‘Oh wow,’ Kristina said excitedly. ‘Oh wow.’

Evelyn grabbed Kristina’s hands. ‘Krissy, please talk to my mom, please! I don’t want to give up my babies!’

Evelyn had told Kristina about her parents, who had lived in Lyme their whole lives. They had simple dignity and pride, and they could not allow their only daughter to have a child out of wedlock at fifteen. That would be a first in seven Moss generations. For Donald and Patricia Moss it meant having to send their daughter to Red Leaves and telling all the neighbors she had gone to visit a sick aunt in Minnesota. Evelyn couldn’t very well return from Minnesota with two babies who did not know their father. Evelyn had confessed to Kristina during one of their many weepy talks that Evelyn herself was not precisely sure who the father was, though she had a couple of strong hunches. When both boys were individually confronted by Evelyn’s parents, they denied any impropriety, admitting, however, that if there was any impropriety, it was all Evelyn’s. The two boys were scared and didn’t want to get married at fifteen. They wanted to finish high school.

Kristina knew it wouldn’t help to talk to Evelyn’s parents. ‘Evie,’ she said gently, ‘I’ll try to talk to your mom next time she comes, okay? I’ll talk to her.’ She paused. ‘But Evelyn, even if they are adopted, it’ll be okay. I promise. They’ll be so loved.’

‘Oh, please!’ Evelyn snapped. ‘Don’t you understand anything? I don’t want to give them up!’

Kristina patted the girl’s belly. ‘I do, Evelyn, I understand everything,’ she said quietly.

Evelyn tried to move away from her. ‘How could you possibly?’

What could Kristina tell this grieving, crying girl? ‘Evelyn, they’ll be loved,’ she repeated. ‘And you’ll have a life. They’ll have wonderful parents. They’ll have two grown-up, wonderful parents -’

‘I don’t want them to have parents!’ Evie cried. ‘I want them to have me!’ Evelyn was sitting on the bed in front of her, looking flushed, uncomfortable, and heavy. She was breathing hard.

‘Evie, don’t get yourself all excited,’ said Kristina, trying to calm the girl down. She smiled and tried to make a joke. ‘I don’t know how to deliver babies.’

‘Betty does,’ Evelyn replied seriously. ‘She delivered a baby once when her car broke down and they couldn’t get to the hospital in time.’

Kristina knew about that. But they hadn’t broken down, they had been in an accident. The baby had not been saved. And Betty had suffered a spinal injury that had left her with a permanently bad back.

‘Can we have some sanity here? Nobody but the doctor is going to be delivering your babies.’

‘That’s right. My babies.’

‘Evelyn, please.’

Evelyn fell back on the bed. Her large belly remained up, nearly perpendicular to the rest of her body.

‘I want them to stay inside me forever,’ she whispered.

Kristina took off Evelyn’s socks and started rubbing her feet. ‘When I was a young girl,’ she said quietly, ‘I thought that was possible. I thought babies just stayed inside you until you wanted them to come out.’

Evelyn went on plaintively, ‘Just stay inside me forever, never leave me, never leave their mommy…’ She started to cry again. Her belly heaved. It was the only thing moving in the small bedroom.

‘You know,’ Evelyn said, sniffling, ‘I’ve even been thinking of names for them. ‘Joshua and Samuel. Josh and Sam. Do you like that?’

Kristina wanted to tell Evelyn what Betty had trained her to say when counseling pregnant teenagers about giving their babies up for adoption: that one was never supposed to give the baby a name or think of it in personal terms. One was never supposed to buy the baby anything, or knit anything, or think of spending the first few days with the baby. Josh and Samuel. Well, wasn’t that just cozy? Josh and Sam were the two boys who had dallied with Evelyn Moss and then refused to own up. Kristina thought Evelyn was insane for even thinking about them.

‘Did your parents come yesterday?’ asked Kristina.

Evelyn nodded. ‘Mom said it will all be over soon, and then we can go back to being a family again.’ She wiped her face.

Kristina wanted to say having babies changed everything forever, but she just rubbed Evelyn’s belly, feeling little legs and feet push against the skin.

Then it was five o’clock and time to go.

Downstairs she thanked everybody again for her cake and purse and left.

About to get into her car, Kristina heard a tapping from one of the second-floor windows. She looked up. It was Evelyn, who opened the window and shouted out, ‘Krissy, are you going to come to the hospital when I have my babies?’

‘Sure I will, Evie,’ said Kristina. ‘Sure I will.’

‘Good,’ Evelyn yelled out of the window. ‘You’re not going away for Thanksgiving, are you? I’m going to go into labor any minute!’

Going away for Thanksgiving. Well, today was already Monday. Tomorrow was the last full day of classes. The chances of going away anywhere for Thanksgiving were looking slimmer and slimmer. The odds against it were lengthening like the pre-dusk shadows. Kristina knew Evelyn could use her support.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m going to stay put. Have Betty call me as soon as you go into labor. I’ll come to the hospital.’

‘And hold my hand?’

Kristina nodded. ‘And hold your hand,’ she said softly.

Evelyn blew her a kiss and disappeared from the window.

* * *

Usually, Kristina drove home down Route 120 and made a left onto East Wheelock and a right onto College Street to get to Tuck Mall, but today she went a little farther west in Lebanon and made a right onto Route 10. It was a nicer road during the day, and in the summers she regularly took Route 10. She liked the view from the road. Tonight it was dark, though, and she didn’t know what had made her drive down to Route 10, except maybe she was thinking about Evelyn and adopted babies, and her mind, distracted from being in ten different places at once, hadn’t thought quick enough to make a right onto Route 120. Kristina made her way on Route 10 at thirty miles an hour down the winding two-lane road as she thought of Joshua and Samuel. And subsequently Albert and Canada. Albert was right. Canada would be wonderful. Like Edinburgh.

The three months they had spent at Edinburgh in the spring of 1991 had been the happiest months of her life.

They had no money, the dorms were old and cold, and they got no studying done. Kristina lost fifteen pounds in Scotland, eating soup mostly and spaghetti. They saved their pennies to go out to the pubs on Friday nights. Kristina remembered the cobblestone streets, the Tudor houses, the churches, the first she’d been to on a regular basis, and the Mull of Kintyre. They went there for New Year’s Eve, staying in a tiny bed-and-breakfast, got drunk on bitter and ale with the locals, and then spent New Year’s Day by the stark Irish Sea. She remembered the mountains, she remembered the lakes, the dandelions and daffodils coming to bloom. She remembered herself and him at Edinburgh. She remembered most of all how she had felt then - no hopelessness, no despair, no shame. Just the two of them, freed by their anonymity.

Until one day, as a lark, they stopped by a street fortuneteller and gave her two quid to read Kristina’s palm. Kristina went behind the dirty paisley curtain, and the hunched woman grabbed her hands and turned them over. Kristina tried to pull her hands away, but it was no use. The hag was strong. The old woman’s heavy Gaelic brogue Kristina barely understood, but the contorted expression of horror on her face was etched into Kristina’s mind. The expression of horror she understood well. She’d seen that expression before. The old witch wouldn’t let go of Kristina’s hands; she kept mumbling, then yelling; she became frenzied. Finally Albert stepped inside and pried their hands apart. As they hurried away down the street, Kristina could still hear the old woman holler shrilly after them. The fortune-teller was the only thing that had marred their one-hundred-and-thirty-day idyll.

The wind was howling outside, and it was very cold. Route 10 had no streetlights, only oaks and maples and plenty of American mountain ash, whose leaves were so delicate and pretty and yellow in autumn. Now, three nights before Thanksgiving, the trees were mere silhouettes on the side of the road.

Kristina drove with her mind in Edinburgh. In the moments before the curve near the reservoir, she was thinking about going to Scotland to live. Deeper in her subconscious, she was thinking of Thayer dining hall and whether they would have macaroni and cheese tonight as they always did on Mondays or whether they would go on some unspecified and certainly unjustified holiday schedule when they only served hamburgers and heroes.

The radio’s country station was playing ‘We Just Disagree.’

And do you think That we’ve grown up differently? Haven’t been the same Since you lost your feel for me…

As she went around the bend in the road, she saw an oncoming car, and because it was dark, and she judged the narrowness of road conservatively, Kristina instinctively turned the wheel to the right. But the lights were rushing headlong toward her. The other car still seemed perilously close. She turned the wheel a little more and heard the noise of her right tires hitting gravel. The Mustang bobbled, and the wheel became unsteady in her hands. To compensate, Kristina quickly turned the wheel to the left.

She overcompensated.

The car jerked, and she panicked and slammed on the brakes. The Mustang swerved, the brakes locked, and the car reeled sideways on the narrow road - directly into the headlights of the oncoming car.

Kristina heard the insistent and unremitting noise of the horn and the screeching of the other car’s brakes. The instant the Mustang was bathed with light, there was a loud crash and Kristina was thrown against the driver’s side window. She heard glass breaking.

The Mustang swirled around twice and flew backward down the embankment. Kristina’s life came to a standstill. She had just enough time to think, ohno, ohno, ohno, I’m going to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die! and then the car turned over once in midair, and came down with a thump to stand on its tires, a few feet from the water.

Kristina opened her eyes and closed them again, opened them and closed them. She could see nothing at first, it was so dark. She thought, am I dead? Open-eyed, yet unable to see, just dead. No feeling anywhere. Nothing moved. Dead. But something gave away life. Something. She couldn’t figure it out at first, something real-life, familiar, unotherworldly.

She heard the radio.

So let’s leave it alone, Cause we can’t see eye to eye There’s no good guy There’s no bad guy There’s only you and me And we just disagree...

She reached over to turn the damn radio off and thought, I don’t think they play easy-listening music in the afterlife.

She felt no pain. On the other hand, that was good. Who wanted to feel pain? On the other hand, dead people felt no pain.

There was a rustling of leaves, branches, the sound of feet shuffling down the slope, hurrying. Somebody at her driver’s side window. A man, with terror in his eyes and a bloody nose, mouthing, are you all right? Are you all right?

Kristina tried to roll down the broken window, but it was jammed. Actually, she couldn’t get a grip on the handle. Her hand was not obeying her. The fingers were not closing.

She tried to nod, but that didn’t work either. I’m all right, she tried to reply, but couldn’t hear herself. She just wanted to get out of the car. Wait here, she heard the man say. Wait here, I’m going to go and get help. Just you wait, he said.

She leaned back in her seat. Well, I’m not going anywhere, she thought. Where would I go? And then she thought: home. I wouldn’t mind going home.

But where was home?

My room. My messy room with my little bed and my desk and my dog lying on the bed smelling up all the blankets with his dog smell and dog hair. It’s the only home I have, and I want to be back there right now.

She reached down and tried to pry the seat belt off herself. Was the car still running? She couldn’t hear very well. The seat belt had locked, and was digging into Kristina’s rib cage and right hip. What possessed me to put one on tonight? she thought. Well, doesn’t God protect the wicked and the damned?

She clicked open the seat belt and moved her right hand across her body to the door, which would not open. And the window would not roll down. The headlights of the Mustang weren’t on, though she was sure they had been on. What had happened?

And then she felt cold. She wondered if it was because she was dead, and getting colder by the second. But no, her right hand was moving, and her legs were moving sluggishly. The passenger window was broken.

She slowly moved over to the passenger seat and tried to open that door. It was jammed. So she got up with her knees on the seat and tried to climb out through the broken window. Climbing out was not easy. She couldn’t lift her left arm to prop herself up. Finally she nearly fell out with a thump down to the ground. She fell on her good arm, but not her good side. She was still feeling no pain.

Shit, Kristina thought. Hope I’ll be okay for Saturday’s game. Hate to sit out the first league game of the season.

It was very dark. She tried to orient herself. Where’s the lake? Okay, it’s in front of me, because behind me is the hill, so if the lake is in front of me, that means it’s on the left side of the road, which would be west, and that means Hanover is just a few miles north as the crow flies.

First she had to get up the brutal hill. She couldn’t see. She groped around, lost her footing, and fell - on her left side. A sharp rocket of fire exploded in her arm, and she fainted.

She came to some time later. It was still dark, still no sign of police or an ambulance, still eerily quiet.

All she wanted to do was get back up on the highway and start walking home. Maybe someone would pick her up. She didn’t want the man to come back with help. Help invariably meant an ambulance, which - from everything Kristina knew about ambulances - would probably take her to the hospital.

Kristina hated hospitals. She had been in one only twice in her entire life, and once was when she had been born.

She certainly didn’t plan to be taken to a hospital tonight by a well-meaning stranger just because of a locked seat belt and sore ribs.

So she got up off the ground and tried again, groping at something to hold on to while with one good hand she dragged her body up the hill.

Two cars went by. She heard them slow down - probably to see the car that had hit hers - and then speed on ahead. But the few seconds gave her enough light to see that the highway was only another ten feet up, and there were some shrubs she could hold on to.

Hurry up, hurry up, she kept telling herself. Hurry up, Krissy, hurry up, Rocky, pull yourself up. She slipped on the hard ground every couple of seconds. Like a football team after a penalty, moving ten yards back after winning the territory, she kept slipping.

She felt a rock with her knee. Oh, that hurt. I felt pain! That’s so great. She grabbed on, pulled herself up, felt in front of her for something else to hold on to; there were a few pebbles, but little else. Where are those damn shrubs? As she struggled up the hill, she whispered haltingly, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear the very stories prate of my whereabout… Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear the very stones prate of my whereabout… Hear not my steps…

Kristina heard other cars coming, thank God, and here was some more light. Not far to go at all, we’re almost there. But there was nothing to clutch now, and in desperation, she started to claw at the ground with her hand. Her left arm was immobile. She felt her nails bending back and breaking, but she didn’t care. What was important was getting back up. With her new black boots she kicked into the ground like a rock climber.

Finally, Kristina climbed up onto the two-foot-wide shoulder, and rested for a moment to catch her breath. She felt fluid dripping from her head. Kristina told herself it was sweat.

The man had said he was going to get help, but how he would do this was a mystery to Kristina, since his car was smashed and off the road. She didn’t give it any more thought than that. She was glad he hadn’t come back. In a childish gesture, she wiped the dirt off her knees.

Then she began to walk to Hanover. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster, she eventually broke into a slow jog on the shoulder of Route 10, just to get farther away from the Mustang, the reservoir, her new purse, and the man who had gone to get help.

When she got up to Hinman, she realized she had left her keys in the ignition and had to shiver near the doorway until someone came out and let her in.

Aristotle wasn’t in her room. The bed had not been made from this morning. The desk had all kinds of stuff on it, and the computer was covered with dirty glasses, Post-it notes, and scattered papers. Her clothes were all over the floor.

She was home.

Locking the door, Kristina sat down on the bed and slowly examined her hands. They were dirty and bloody from clawing at the ground. Most of the nails were broken. The nail polish was chipped. She stared at them and then tried to get the dirt off the index fingernail, until she asked herself what she was doing and stopped.

She had left all of her identification in the car. Great, just great, she thought. The police were sure to have a bunch of questions for her. Miss, could we give you back the stuff that belongs to you, please? You forgot it all in your inexplicable hurry to get away from the scene of the accident. Why were you in such a hurry? Is there something you should be telling us? Were you drinking?

And then Kristina remembered Spencer O’Malley and wondered if maybe he would come to investigate her. She smiled lightly to herself. That wouldn’t be half bad.

Drinking. Now that wasn’t a terrible idea. Her mouth felt wet already at the thought of the old Southern Comfort. Reaching over to her night table, Kristina opened the top drawer and took out a nearly empty bottle. There wasn’t enough to comfort her. She got up, went to her closet, and reached up to get an unopened bottle from the top shelf. Then she sat back down on the bed, opened the cap with one hand, opened her mouth, tilted the bottle, and poured forth enough liquor to comfort herself and forget about her car and about her three friends who at this time were certainly waiting for her to come and celebrate her twenty-first birthday with them.

The pint bottle was a third empty when she was done. She hated seeing the bottle emptying, but when she was finished she felt immeasurably better. The shock of the accident was wearing off, and she was beginning to throb and ache.

Slowly and uncertainly, she sat on the bed, bent over, and started to unlace her boots. The arduous procedure would have taken her five or six minutes under the best

of circumstances. Tonight, under the haze of alcohol and the distant blur of pain, it took her three times as long. She thought she might even have nodded off in that position, hunched over her boots, as if she were about to throw up.

It was difficult undressing. She pulled off her sweatshirt with one arm over her head. Her pink tank top came off the same way. The five-button-fly jeans were as hard to remove as the boots. She had to wriggle out of them in the end. The left arm just wasn’t pulling down those jeans. Then the socks. Then the underwear. And when she was naked, Kristina walked unsteadily to her closet and stared at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door.

Her face was covered with blood that had streamed down her right temple and cheek and neck, clotting and drying below her collarbone. So it wasn’t sweat she had felt dripping off her, she thought. Her black eyes shone blacker than ever, glistening with the warm wet dilation of Southern Comfort. Her knees were skinned, and her left arm hung limply at her side. Kristina looked closer. Her left shoulder was a swollen, maroon-colored mess. God.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit. During her first year, in a rough-and-tumble practice, six weeks before league play began, two girls had knocked into each other, one suffering a dislocated shoulder. The poor kid had to sit out eight weeks, and soon quit basketball altogether. Kristina had been glad not to have been on the receiving end of that one.

She became so frightened, she actually thought of going to the hospital. Anything, dear God, anything. I have to play basketball again.

However, the idea of getting the shoulder looked at terrified her. What if it was bad? She couldn’t deal with thinking about it. She pretended it wasn’t even that painful and tried to be brave. She gritted her teeth and moved her left arm. It’s okay, it’s okay. It won’t be so bad.

Her right rib had the beginning of a large ragged black-and-blue mark that looked like a Rorschach blot.

Kristina moved closer to the mirror; her face was almost touching the cool smooth surface. There was something stuck near her right temple, above the eye. Kristina lifted her hand to touch it. It was a piece of safety glass. It was not a big piece, Kristina thought, trying to comfort herself as she pried the glass from her skin. The empty bloody gash the glass left behind was scarier than having the glass in her head.

Kristina went to have a shower after taking another sip of Southern Comfort. Her hand holding the bottle was steady.

The hot water felt wonderful on her aching body but miserable on her shoulder, so she turned it off. Washing under cold water felt only marginally better. Every once in a while she would try to move her left arm and wince from the pain. But she didn’t feel like screaming, Kristina told herself. It wasn’t that bad.

When she was trying to dry herself, another student, Jill, entered the shower rooms. They nodded to each other, and Kristina continued to pat her body. Jill looked over at Kristina and stared.

‘Hey, what happened to you?’ she said.

‘Nothing, why?’ Kristina said quickly. Rather, she tried to say it quickly, but the words came out dead slow, methodical and precise. It was more like Nooo-thinnnn-ggg. Whyyyyyy? Alcohol always made Kristina walk and talk slow but think she was walking and talking fast.

‘I don’t know,’ Jill said. ‘You look… terrible. You need help or something?’

‘Thanks, but you know, I just gotta get to my room, and I’ll be all right. Really,’ she said, staring into Jill’s disbelieving eyes. ‘Honestly.’

‘What happened to you?’ Jill repeated. ‘Did you get hurt at a game or something?’

‘Yeah, that’s it,’ said Kristina. ‘That Cornell, they’ll do anything to win.’

Jill smiled thinly, helped Kristina dry her back, and then went and got her a bucket of ice and carried it to Kristina’s door.

* * *

When Kristina opened the door to her room, Aristotle greeted her. Albert was sitting on her bed, looking at her accusingly. Is that really accusingly? she thought, trying to get a better look at his expression. What did I do now?

‘God, what the hell happened to you?’ he said, getting up and walking over to her.

Kristina pondered his question as she put down the ice bucket and threw the towel off her body. Albert was in a bad mood. His tone was inflammatory, not distressed.

She didn’t reply. He’s mad at me. He doesn’t realize I almost died. Kristina decided to tell him.

Albert’s tone softened. ‘What happened, Rock?’ he said, standing up and coming close to her. His fierce-tender way of looking at her usually made her crazy. This time it nearly made her cry.

‘What are you upset about, Albert?’ Kristina asked quietly, putting three ice cubes on her shoulder.

‘Everybody’s been waiting for you for two hours. You said you were coming back at six.’

‘I don’t know if you noticed,’ she said slowly, rubbing the ice over her arm, ‘but I’ve been hurt. My car was totaled.’

‘I didn’t know your car was totaled.’

‘No, how could you?’ said Kristina tearfully.

Kristina sat nude in front of him. He looked at her breasts and then at the big black bruise on her side. The expression in his eyes made her feel better.

‘Look at you,’ he said in a throaty voice, coming closer to her. ‘You look so - what is that?’

She rubbed her side with the ice. That’s nothing, she thought, and said so.

‘God, what happened to your face? And your shoulder? It’s bleeding.’

She shook her head. ‘It’s nothing. It’s not bleeding,’ she said, not even wanting to look at it. ‘It’s just… discolored.’ Then, ‘It could be worse, you know.’

‘I don’t see how. How?’

‘I could be dead.’ Should be dead, she thought, and stood up.

‘You’ve been drinking.’

‘Not then.’ Kristina thought he meant she was drinking and driving, but then he didn’t even know what had happened to her.

‘Not then, when?’

‘Just now. I drank a little now. To take the edge off.’

‘The edge off what?’

‘The edge off the pain.’

‘What happened to you?’

‘My car turned over.’

‘God, how?’

‘An oncoming car hit me.’

‘Hit you? Where?’

‘On the side of the Mustang.’

Albert stared at her perplexed. ‘No. I mean, where?’

‘Route Ten.’

‘It swerved into your lane?’

She vaguely remembered the other car’s headlights, being caught in them, trying to avoid them.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I swerved into his.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? I don’t know,’ Kristina said slowly. ‘It seemed like a good idea?’

‘Kristina!’

‘He seemed really close.’

‘I see. So you drove into his lane to get farther away from him?’

She wanted to answer him, but turning her head away from him, she caught their reflection in her full-length mirror. She was standing naked in front of him. He was dressed in black jeans and a black sweater, black-headed, pony-tailed, black-eyed. They stood a foot apart, arguing about semantics. Is this what my life has become? Kristina thought. A bad Marx Brothers movie. Grotesque, ridiculous. Aristotelian theater where the absurd is the norm and the norm does not exist.

Kristina shook her head and moved toward the closet. ‘I gotta get dressed,’ she muttered.

‘You have to get that shoulder checked out. Can’t you move your arm?’

‘I can move it okay,’ she said. ‘I just choose not to.’

He stood solicitously next to her. ‘Maybe it’s fractured.’

She shook her head again. ‘The sockets would be popping out of the skin. It’s swollen. I think it’s just a sprain.’ She was trying her best to minimize it.

‘You don’t know anything. You should get it looked at. Go to the infirmary.’

‘No!’ she said. ‘No doctors. You know how I hate them.’ Kristina didn’t want to tell him how scared she was. Basketball meant nothing to him, but to her it was her whole life. That, and Red Leaves. And him.

Kristina walked over to the bookshelf and sifted through the pile of books until she found a soiled paperback copy of the Family Medical Encyclopedia.

She handed the book to Albert and said, ‘Look up “shoulder.” ‘

He scanned a page. ‘Doesn’t say anything useful.’

‘Now look up “joints."’

After reading for a few moments, Albert said, ‘"Sprain… painfully twisted or wrenched joint… following some kind of violence… “ ‘

‘Perfect,’ said Kristina.

Albert continued, ‘"Violence may dislocate or fracture the ends of the bones that make up a joint."’ He looked up at her. ‘What did I tell you?’

‘Thank you, Dr Maplethorpe,’ she said. ‘Read on.’

‘"X-ray pictures from several angles should be taken to make sure the bones have not been fractured or dislocated."’ He stopped reading. ‘See?’

‘Go on, go on,’ she said impatiently.

‘"Blood may seep out and discolor the skin,"’ he read aloud. ‘"… The synovial membranes are inflamed and reacting by pouring out fluid."’

‘Gee, that all sounds so nice,’ said Kristina, bending down to take more ice. She groaned. Bending down hurt her ribs.

Glancing at her, Albert went on, ‘"The immediate treatment for a sprain is application of cold wet bandages or ice bags to keep down the swelling…” ‘ And louder, he finished, ‘"Medical attention and x-rays should be obtained to make sure a sprain is just a sprain."’

‘Well, I’m not going,’ Kristina said stubbornly. ‘It’s fine. It’ll be much better tomorrow. Tomorrow, we’ll go and get some kind of infrared massager for heat treatment.’

‘Tomorrow you’ve got to go to the police.’

‘I’m not going to the police,’ Kristina said. ‘If the police want me, they’ll come to me.’

‘When they come to you,’ Albert pointed out, ‘they’ll bring handcuffs. Why are you being so stubborn about this?’

‘Who’s being stubborn? I don’t remember you going to the doctor when you broke your toe.’

He stared at her, perplexed. ‘When?’

‘Two years ago.’

A look of recognition passed over his face. ‘There is nothing they can do for toes. Besides, I had no money.’

‘So? I had money.’

‘I didn’t want your money!’ Albert yelled. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Perfectly!’ said Kristina. ‘Better than you think.’

‘Look, I don’t care what you do.’

‘I’m sure of that, Albert,’ Kristina retorted.

He ignored her comment, ‘don’t go to the doctor. Don’t go to the police. See if I care.’

‘I see already.’

Falling silent, Albert sat down in the lounge chair. Aristotle sidled up to him, dragging his tongue over his hand. It was a loving gesture, and Kristina, looking at them both, thought, Aristotle loves Albert. He’d gladly spend all his days with him if I weren’t around.

Bending down, Albert patted the dog on the head, and Aristotle, encouraged, licked his other hand. Albert sat next to the window and stared at Kristina with his impenetrable eyes.

Kristina hated fighting with him. Nowadays making up was harder and harder, and nothing felt worse to her than knowing they had argued and then weren’t kind to each other.

‘What are you looking at?’ Kristina asked him.

‘You,’ Albert replied. ‘God, you’re so beautiful. You’re amazing. Look at you.’

‘Yeah, look at me,’ Kristina said plaintively. ‘I’m a mess.’ ‘No, you’re all right. You could’ve died.’ His voice was peculiar. ‘You’re lucky you’re alive, you know.’

‘I know,’ she said weakly. ‘I know that better than anyone.’

Slowly she walked over and stood in front of him. He reached out and touched her lightly on the ribs. She flinched from his fingers. ‘It hurts a little,’ she said, trying to keep her voice even. ‘Albert, can you imagine it? Me, dying?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t. I can’t imagine living without you.’ Kristina wanted to tell him again that he was going to have to, but thought this wasn’t a good time.

‘Is the car a total wreck?’

She shrugged. ‘Who knows? You think I stuck around to find out how the car was?’

Quietly he said, ‘You should’ve gone to the hospital.’

‘What, and be even later?’ she asked. ‘I mean, they would’ve probably kept me there overnight. And look at what I got just for being two hours late. Can you imagine if I was away somewhere overnight?’

‘I would’ve thought something terrible happened to you. I would’ve been worried sick.’

‘Yeah, sure. You look really worried, sitting there.’

‘I’m sorry, Rock,’ he finally said. ‘I know you’re upset with me. Listen, please, let’s go to Canada. I’m asking you. Please.’

‘Albert, no. You, please. You have Conni, remember?’

‘I’ll work it out. Maybe I’ll pick a big fight.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. Crouching in front of him, still naked, Kristina whispered, ‘Albert, please. I want to stop.’

He looked her over. ‘You’re naked.’

She got up and backed away from him. ‘I mean it.’

‘Let’s go to Canada and then you’ll tell me if you mean it.’ He smiled sexily.

‘No. I’m serious. I’ve had enough. I want us to be done. Okay?’

Kristina wasn’t smiling, and Albert stopped smiling.

‘You’re still naked,’ he repeated.

‘Clothes aren’t the problem, Albert. I can get dressed.’

‘Please,’ he said coldly.

‘The problem is us. We. We’ve got to stop.’ She looked away from him. ‘I want us to get over each other.’ She coughed, causing severe pain to her head. ‘I want to get over you. I want you to go with Conni to Long Island, and I don’t want to think about it anymore. I don’t want to lie, I don’t want to sneak around, I don’t want to worry about Howard. Or anybody.’

When he sat there impassively, Kristina said, ‘We’re not meant to be together.’

‘You’re wrong.’ His tone was flat. He could’ve been saying, ‘You’re right.’

‘We were never meant to be together,’ Kristina said firmly, knowing she didn’t sound firm, knowing she couldn’t shield herself from his eyes. She was stuck in front of him with nowhere to go.

‘You’re wrong,’ Albert repeated, in the same tone.

Kristina continued, undaunted, ‘Never. We screwed up real bad, but there’s still time to have a life - good lives. Don’t you want one? Conni loves you so much.’

‘I know. So? Jim loves you so much.’ He sounded bitter.

Shaking her head, Kristina said, ‘No, he doesn’t. No, he doesn’t. Not the way Conni loves you. And you know that.’

Albert got up out of his chair and stood, loomed, before her. ‘Kristina, this is absurd. I cannot not have you in my life.’

She rubbed her face with her good hand, but it was more like closing her eyes at the sight of him. ‘Albert - please. We can’t. We can’t continue.’

‘You’re wrong.’

She sighed deeply and then groaned from pain. She wasn’t wrong, she was just so tired of standing, of being naked, of this conversation falling again on his deaf ears.

There was a knock on the door. Albert looked at Kristina and sat back down in the armchair. Kristina looked at Albert. Aristotle barked once and started to wag his tail.

‘Hold on!’ Kristina said loudly.

‘Kristina?’ The door opened a notch. It was Jim.

‘Jim, hold on!’ Kristina repeated, throwing some clothes on.

‘Is everything okay?’

Jim couldn’t see her, for she was behind the door and out of his line of vision, but she knew he could see Albert sitting in her chair. Thank God he wasn’t sitting on her unmade bed. Aristotle ran to the door, and his behind started to move from side to side just like his tail.

‘I’m fine,’ Kristina said. ‘Come in.’

Jim came in, looking at them suspiciously. But Kristina knew Jim wouldn’t act on an emotional impulse; he didn’t trust emotional impulses. Jim glanced at Albert,.then at Kristina again. She was wearing her pink tank top and a pair of pull-on Dartmouth green shorts. At first his gaze was hard, but then he saw her face. Kristina knew she was a sight. There was a bloody gash where the glass had been, and her eyes had a glazed look that she knew was from alcohol. Jim could easily have mistaken the look for signs of concussion. Her tank-top collar was dark with dried blood.

‘God, what happened to you?’ Jim said, giving Albert a stare that made Kristina suspect Jim thought Albert had beaten her.

‘Nothing,’ she answered, touching her face. ‘I was in an accident. My car crashed. Everything’s okay. I’m fine.’

‘You look terrible.’

She felt terrible. The alcohol was wearing off.

‘I feel pretty good,’ she said, trying to smile.

‘Did you go to the hospital?’

Kristina remembered clambering up the hard ground, just to avoid going to the hospital. ‘No, I felt okay, so I came home.’

Jim became agitated. ‘You felt okay so you came home?’

Kissing Jim on the cheek, Kristina said in her nicest voice, ‘I’m okay, Jimbo.’ But her arm, swollen by her side, betrayed her. She tried to move it to show him, and failed. ‘Really,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’

Albert got up. ‘I’d better go and see how Conni’s doing.’

‘She’s okay,’ Jim said, not looking at Albert. ‘She’s waiting for us. Maybe we should all go down.’

Kristina managed a pasty smile. ‘Why don’t you two go on ahead? I’ll be right down.’

Albert didn’t say anything, nor look her way; he just walked out of the room, taking Aristotle with him. Jim looked at her accusingly for a second and said, ‘Yeah, fine,’ and then left, too.

Kristina waited a few seconds to make sure they were way down the hall and couldn’t hear her before she locked the door and collapsed on the bed.

She lay there for what seemed like hours. Her eyes were opening and closing and she was looking at the lightbulb burning in the middle of her ceiling and wishing it would shut itself off, so the room could be dark, dark like it was in the car, in the middle of nowhere, when she thought she was dead. Now as she lay on her bed, she wondered why God had spared her, why he had spared her certain death in a collision of such suddenness.

It was the closest she had come to death. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had come to her, looked into her face, and galloped away. It wasn’t the first time she had seen them. When she was twelve, she had fallen off a wall into cold water. She was a good swimmer, but fear paralyzed her. She couldn’t move her arms or legs, couldn’t even scream for help. She just went down without a fight, gulping for air and feeling her lungs fill with water.

And last year she had seen them again on her bridge, when she tumbled down to what she was sure was certain death. She had survived that too, but lived her life prepared at any moment to meet God, adding up the tally of her life every time it snowed, and she, drunk beyond reason, praying under her breath, walked the ledge on the bridge, her hands outstretched.

She didn’t want to die. However, most of all, she was scared that it wouldn’t be God’s face she would see upon meeting her master. ‘I have only one master on earth,’ she whispered, ‘and I’m trying to exorcise him from my life because he’s no good for me, but he won’t let me, he’s stronger than me, and he won’t let me leave him.’

She opened her eyes and touched the temple that had had the piece of tempered glass wedged in it. I feel pain, she thought. Do dead people feel pain? Do they feel tenderness, anger, regret? Profound regret?

Do they feel love? A love more overwhelming than summer air?

I’m alive, Kristina thought, because I still feel pain. ‘I’m not ready to die,’ she whispered. ‘I’m not done living, I don’t want to die…’

I need a drink. I need another, and another and another. I need to pour it all over my wounds to numb them, to forget them, to not feel pain.

Leaning over she reached for Southern Comfort and then fell back on the bed. With her good hand, Kristina unscrewed the cap and lifted the bottle Comfort over her head. Closing her eyes, she poured the liquor over her face. Some of it got into her mouth, and some of it got into her nose. But some of it got on her cut, too. It stung then numbed her bruise, and that’s what she wanted. She poured the rest on her shoulder.

Kristina dragged her aching body from the bed and put on a track suit. The track suit’s biggest advantage was that it wasn’t the same jeans and sweatshirt in which she had faced the darkest unknown. Kristina had always believed one should be well rested and nude - as newborns - to face one’s darkest unknown, and she had been neither.

Her friends were waiting for her downstairs in the Hinman lounge. Albert was reading a textbook and taking notes. Jim was writing. Conni was biting her nails.

‘Hey,’ Kristina said weakly.

They looked up at her.

‘Krissy, what happened to you?’ Conni got up immediately and went to Kristina, peering up into her face. ‘Jim told me you were in an accident. I was so worried.’ But those were only words. Conni didn’t look worried. She looked bitter. She looked as if she was trying to contain anger with a fixed smile.

‘I’m all right,’ Kristina said. ‘Really. I’m fine now.’

‘Accident?’

‘Yeah,’ Kristina said. ‘I crashed the car.’ Kristina figured if she said that often enough, she soon wouldn’t want to cry.

She tried not to show she was unsteady on her feet. She felt herself moving with deliberate slowness toward the cake, as if in a fast-forward search on a cheap VCR, with all the horizontal lines on the screen. And soon maybe someone would say, ‘Geez, this is awful; I want a four-head model.’ And turn her in.

They all stood up, Aristotle barked, somebody lit the candles. Kristina didn’t count them, but it looked like a lot of candles. About twenty-two, she guessed. She noted that no one had baked her a cake. This cake had been bought at the Grand Union on Main Street. Pepperidge Farm German Chocolate Cake. So what if it was her favorite and everyone knew it. Nobody had baked her a cake.

Last September when it was Jim’s birthday, Kristina had knocked herself out to make his favorite lemon meringue pie. The egg whites took an hour and three attempts because she wanted to show Jim she cared.

Kristina stood in front of the lit candles, in front of the kind of cake she bought often for herself, and dimly heard someone say, ‘Make a wish, Kristina.’

She thought of her Mustang, and of Albert pressuring her to go to Canada and about to be three hundred miles away from her for Thanksgiving - about to be three hundred miles from her forever, really - and of Jim, wanting her all to himself and not wanting her at all, and of Howard in New York, and of her mother, lost, a million miles away, and of her dead father, and of herself nearly dead too, without a decent coat.

She thought of the pipe music from Edinburgh, and she closed her eyes, bent over the cake, and blew, thinking, I hope Donald and Patricia Moss let Evelyn keep her babies…

Then she sat down.

Aristotle nudged her in the calf. Kristina sluggishly cut the cake. She gave the first piece to Jim with a labor-camp forced smile. She gave the second piece to Conni without a smile. The third piece she gave to Albert without even looking at him.

Aristotle nudged her in the calf again. She smiled down at him under the table, cleaned the knife off with her thumb and index finger, and put the fingers under Aristotle’s nose to lick.

‘Krissy, aren’t you having any cake?’ Conni asked her.

The alcohol’s magic was wearing off. She wished she had some with her. Pursing her dry lips, she sat silently staring at the cake, feeling Aristotle’s tongue licking her fingers. After he was finished, she gave him some more. The dog liked store-bought German chocolate cake as much as the next Labrador. And Aristotle never got offended that someone hadn’t baked him a cake for his birthday or that he wasn’t going to Canada. Aristotle’s life was very simple. Three walks a day and a comfy bed to shed all over.

Kristina saw a card on the table but didn’t move toward it. Conni pushed the card across the table to Kristina.

‘This is from all of us,’ Conni said, smiling open-mouthed and happy. ‘Go ahead, go ahead, open it.’ Reaching under the table, she pulled out a bottle of Southern Comfort with a red bow taped to the side of it. ‘This is a little something from all of us, too,’ Conni said. ‘We thought you might like it.’

‘Conni’s idea,’ said Albert.

‘Not!’ said Conni in a high-pitched voice, laughing. ‘Yours!’

‘Not!’ said Albert, smiling.

‘Totally yours,’ said Conni again.

Why are they squabbling over whose idea it was? thought Kristina as she stared at the bottle. ‘You guys got me a bottle of liquor?’ she said incredulously.

Albert said, ‘We thought you might like it.’

Shrugging, Kristina opened the card, wishing she hadn’t shrugged. Her left shoulder burned with pain.

‘Wow,’ Kristina said without enthusiasm. Yesterday she would have been grateful for a fifteen-dollar bottle of Southern Comfort that would keep her going through Thanksgiving. If it hadn’t been for Kristina’s turning twenty-one, if it hadn’t been for the fact that she and Albert couldn’t go to Canada, and if it weren’t for the fact that she had almost died, Kristina Kim would have been delighted to get Southern Comfort from her closest friends.

‘No, guys, really,’ she said, staring into three drawn, disappointed faces. ‘Wow. I’m sorry. It’s a great present. I’m just hurting, my body hurts, you know. I had a little to drink a while ago to dull the pain, and it’s made me seem ungrateful, but it’s fantastic, really.’

She leaned over to one side and kissed Conni on the cheek. Then she leaned over to the other side and kissed Jim on the mouth. Albert was sitting across from her at the table, and she wasn’t about to get up, and he did not move either, so she just said, ‘Thanks, Albert,’ and he said, ‘Don’t mention it. It’s our pleasure.’

Conni asked, ‘Krissy, how are you going to play basketball? Look at your arm. What are you going to do? I’d go to the hospital or the infirmary if I were you, really, something, you know? ‘Cause you don’t want to just collapse or something, I mean, I’m just trying to be helpful.’

Kristina waved dismissively with her good arm. ‘This is my dribbling arm. I don’t need the other arm.’

‘You need it to shoot the ball,’ said Albert.

‘I’ll shoot it with one hand,’ said Kristina. ‘UPenn needs a handicap.’

‘You’re not that good,’ said Jim. He had said little.

‘Oh, yes, I am,’ said Kristina, managing a small, genuine smile. She didn’t want to tell them how badly frightened she was about her injuries, about what they might mean for basketball.

Livening up a little, Kristina talked about the Christmas tree going up in the middle of the Dartmouth Green, though Jim was Jewish and didn’t care much about the tree, so they talked about Schindler’s List