Girl in Snow Read online

  Weeks

  Later

  Jade

  I see Zap in the cafeteria.

  He nearly runs me over as I’m carrying my brown-paper lunch bag to the courtyard doors. He mumbles, Sorry, ashamed. I say, It’s okay. Zap isn’t wearing his glasses. He’s nearly blind without them—he must have gotten contacts. His face looks much smaller in their absence. Naked. He wears a soccer jersey with his name printed in all caps across the shoulders.

  WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY BUT CAN’T WITHOUT BEING A DICK

  A Screenplay by Jade Dixon-Burns

  INT. HIGH-SCHOOL CAFETERIA—DAY

  CELLY

  I’m sorry. For what happened.

  (beat)

  After the funeral.

  BOY

  It’s okay.

  CELLY

  Just tell me one thing. Did you ever know me?

  BOY

  Of course. Of course I did.

  CELLY

  Then how did we get here?

  Boy runs his fingers through his hair. Thinks.

  BOY

  We grew into different things.

  Celly bows her head. Acceptance. Boy gives a small wave and lopes away.

  “Wait,” I say, because Zap is already hurrying away.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to his back. “For what happened after the funeral. At your house.”

  “It’s okay,” he says over his shoulder. “They caught the real guy.”

  “I know.”

  We both nod, two people stuck in different places at the same time.

  “See you around,” he says. He lifts his chin at me, in the way boys do when they’re trying to look casual. This makes me laugh, but he can’t see because he’s already gone, absorbed into the group of sports kids standing by the windows.

  There are a million types of love in the world. I think of that night, in the bathroom, how Zap’s thumb wandered tender over bruises. How do you classify that sort of love—young, fleeting? I keep trying to distill the difference between friendship and love—in an effort to figure out how you can lose both at once—but maybe it doesn’t matter.

  It was love. It was there. It was enough.

  I leave my brown bag on a ledge by the courtyard and push through the lunchtime clusters toward the music wing.

  The practice room smells like brass and linoleum. You could shout in here, and it would echo. The drums are lined up against the wall, the piano exposed ivory in the center of the room.

  Zap’s trombone case is lined up with all the other trombone cases. A label near the bell reads “ARNAUD.”

  The seashell is jagged in my pocket.

  I take it out, hold it up to the light. It is pearly and transparent. Fossil. I leave the seashell in the nook where Zap keeps folded sheets of music. The shell rests against a tattered page, so seemingly insignificant. Offshore.

  As I let the door bang shut behind me, I try to ask myself how I feel. This is stupid, I know. Emotions shouldn’t have names. I’m tired of bothering with them.

  Mostly, I feel uncaged.

  “She left us something,” Aunt Nellie says, when I walk into the Hilton Ranch one night.

  “Who?”

  “Our Tuesday-night lover-girl. Melissa found it in Room 304. We thought maybe you’d know what it means.”

  Aunt Nellie hands me a folded scrap of paper, and before I can open it she says, “Someone threw up in Room 101. You’d better hurry.”

  I wait until I’m in the elevator. The note is no bigger than my palm, just a corner of notebook paper. On it, Querida has scrawled in smeared pencil.

  yo me perdí de noche sin luz bajo tus párpados

  y cuando me envolvió la claridad

  nací de nuevo, dueño de mi propia tiniebla.

  —Neruda

  Google tells me:

  I got lost on a lightless night under your eyelids

  and as lucidity enveloped me,

  I was born again, master of my own darkness.

  —Neruda

  Cameron opens the door in a pair of Jefferson High School sweat pants that ride an inch above his ankles and a gray T-shirt stained at the neck. He looks how I expected. Gaunt. Eyes darting in all directions.

  “Come on,” I say from the stoop. “I want to show you something.”

  “Right now?” he says.

  “Right now.”

  He puts on the same jacket he wore on the cliff, though it’s warmer outside now, and the Velcro covering the zipper has balls of lint caught in its teeth. Behind him, his mother stands in a baggy sweater, arms crossed. She looks like someone who is constantly cold.

  “Jade,” she says. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Whitley.”

  “I have something to give you. Wait right here.”

  Cameron and I sit, both bumbling and gawky, while he ties his shoes. I’ve only come over here once since the truth came out, and then, we sat on the couch. We watched six episodes of Full House until I said, It’s getting late; I should go. Cameron looked at me with these huge, weird eyes and said, Come back soon, okay?

  When Cameron’s mom returns, she presses a purple brochure into my hand.

  “Take a look at this,” she says. “Just an idea. It’s a summer program I did when I studied ballet, around your age. Cameron says you want to be a writer, and I’ve heard their program is good. They give out scholarship money where it’s needed.”

  The brochure is for a summer arts program at NYU. A summer of artistry and diversity in the heart of New York City, it reads. The words alone make my throat itch, so I fold the flyer and stuff it in the pocket of my jacket so she can’t see how softly this touches me.

  “Thank you,” I tell her.

  “When will you be back?” she asks.

  “An hour. Two, tops.”

  I have Ma’s car, and as we slide in, I turn the radio all the way up. I wish the Crucibles were playing, but they’re not, just some shit pop song I don’t recognize. Cameron presses his forehead to the window as we merge onto the highway. Headlights whiz by, fast-moving light. Comets.

  I steer us into the Hilton Ranch parking lot and pull my all-access key from the pocket of my army parka. Cameron follows, feet shuffling and dragging, in through the revolving doors and to the elevator bank.

  When we get to the room, Cameron glances back, furtive.

  I know this room will be clean, because I did it myself and no one has reserved it since. I triple-checked the log. Trash bags are tied tight around plastic cans, the bed is tucked, neat and trim at the corners. Pillowcases fluffed. I’ve even Windexed the mirrors and folded a towel into the shape of an elephant at the foot of the king-sized bed.

  “Smell it,” I say, as Cameron follows me inside.

  “Smell it?”

  “Clean, right?”

  “Very clean.”

  I perch on the edge of the bed and pat a flat swatch of comforter.

  “Sit,” I tell him, and he does. His snow boots are thick and rubbery against the checkered pattern of the carpet.

  That’s the thing about hotel rooms. They level the world. Every single one is the same, and inside, you can become what you’d like. You all sleep in the same scratchy sheets, you all stand under the same underpressurized showerhead, you all dry your legs with the same starchy towels. Doesn’t matter who you are; in a hotel, you become no one and everyone, all at once.

  Cameron lies flat, and I do, too. The green-shaded lamp on the nightstand is the only light in the room. Together, we watch the amorphous white ceiling like dazzled stargazers, finding constellations in the asymmetrical cracks, nubs of drywall gathered in clumps. We lie like this until it’s an hour and forty minutes since we left his house.

  “We should go,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Cameron says.

  I drive him home.

  WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY BUT CAN’T WITHOUT BEING A DICK

  A Screenplay by Jade Dixon-Burns

  INT. HOTEL ROOM—NIGHT


  Celly and Friend sit on the edge of the freshly made bed. The pillowcases are fluffed. A towel is folded in the shape of an elephant at the foot of the king-sized bed.

  CELLY

  I have a question.

  FRIEND

  Yes?

  CELLY

  Are you angry with her? With Lucinda?

  FRIEND

  Not angry, no.

  Friend watches her for a moment. Celly falters under his gaze.

  CELLY

  Everyone has more going on inside than you’ll ever know. You couldn’t have seen this, no matter how hard you tried.

  FRIEND

  It all feels a little pointless, then, doesn’t it?

  CELLY

  Maybe the point is this.

  FRIEND

  This?

  She looks up at him, unwavering.

  CELLY

  Everyone’s running around, trying to understand themselves and each other. But there are moments like this. Moments when our little human bubbles collide. We rub our boundaries together. We create friction.

  FRIEND

  And then what?

  CELLY

  We spin away again. We’ll always feel the shape of the people we’ve touched. But still, we spin away.

  FRIEND

  That’s sad.

  CELLY

  It’s not so sad. It’s just life. It’s how things go sometimes.

  Russ

  Russ walks into the station wearing his only pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt from the softball league he quit seven years ago.

  He marches straight to the back office, where the gold plaque on the door reads “Lieutenant Gonzalez.” He does not knock. The lieutenant is hunched over a stack of paperwork—caught off guard, he looks ten years older. The bags under his eyes are a purpling blue. Russ decides that he does not hate the lieutenant. Just pity.

  Fletcher, the lieutenant says. Didn’t I give you the week off?

  I’m leaving, Russ says.

  He places the grocery bag on the edge of the lieutenant’s desk. A stack of paperwork slides as the lieutenant pulls out the accoutrements of Russ’s police career: pants, belt, jacket. His badge. RUSSELL FLETCHER. His gun, with the bullets packed separately in a Ziploc. The lieutenant lays Russ’s things across his desk, then shakes his head.

  Are you sure you want to do this? the lieutenant says. In the corner of his mouth, the faint hint of a knowing smirk.

  I think so, Russ says.

  You know, the lieutenant says, you did have some potential, Fletcher. Even after all that mess with Lee Whitley.

  Thank you, Russ says, and then he lies. It’s been a pleasure.

  After, Russ drives deep into the mountains. The roads are thin up by the timberline. Precarious. They snake across the cliffs—real cliffs, in the heart of the Rockies. No plateaus.

  Russ rolls down the windows, even though it is February. The trees are naked, except for the pines; their needles stand erect, having shaken off that thin, misleading layer of snow. Russ turns on the radio. “Eye of the Tiger.”

  He starts to sing along, quiet at first, then louder, louder, until he is yelling—he is hollering—and the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night—the bright sun is simple nourishment to his skin.

  When the song is over, Russ pulls to the shoulder of the winding mountain road. He gets out of the car and breathes alpine air, sharp, retreating. He looks down at his hands, which are red and barren in the cold, but resolutely his own.

  At the end of Fulcrum Street, Ivan is sitting on his front porch. He reads a book, a bottle of Coke wedged in the crook of his elbow. Russ pulls up in his new car, a Subaru with no sirens or lights.

  I thought you might come by eventually, Ivan says.

  Russ walks up to the porch, and Ivan beckons him forward. Russ sits, awkward, on a wicker chair, which creaks beneath his weight. The floral cushion is fraying.

  I quit my job, Russ tells Ivan.

  Yes, Ivan says. Ines told me you were considering it. Good for you.

  I kept thinking about what you said, Russ says. A long time ago, do you remember? You were right. I felt like a puppet.

  Sometimes you need to do something new, Ivan says.

  I found a good option already, Russ tells him. Teaching a six-week gun-safety course. The job travels all over Colorado.

  That sounds great for you, Ivan says, and he sounds sincere.

  They sit. A brooding good-bye.

  I came to tell you I’m sorry, Russ says. I’m sorry for everything.

  I appreciate that, Ivan says.

  As Russ gets back into his car, it occurs to him that throughout this ordeal—Ines and Marco, Lucinda Hayes, Lee Whitley back from the dead—and despite all Ivan’s hulking religion, his scary peaceful understanding of his own being, Ivan has been the only one telling the truth.

  Even after he has cleaned up the yarn, Russ finds traces of Ines everywhere. Long black hairs littering the bathroom counter. An old T-shirt that fell behind a bookshelf, covered in dust. A single purple sock in his own drawer. Nail clippings by the bedroom trash can—frail, mooning slivers.

  Russ runs. He takes off down the sterile Broomsville streets. In the weeks since Ines left, Russ has bought a new refrigerator. Read a whole novel. Applied for the gun-safety teaching position.

  All he can do now is push—move his body, sweat it out, keep inching forward. For now, he focuses on his own limbs and the miracle ways in which they serve him. The freedom of the open Colorado sky.

  A twilit periwinkle. Edgeless.

  When Cynthia opens the door, she takes an instinctive step back.

  Russ, she says, composing herself. Come in.

  The house looks different now—it has taken on Cynthia’s colors and scents. No remnants of Lee. Since Lee left, Cynthia has redone the living room; the couch is on the opposite wall, reupholstered. She has spent a lot of money on new hardwood floors.

  Tea? Cynthia offers.

  She puts on the water before Russ can answer.

  He tells her the house looks great, and Cynthia thanks him. They hover over the kitchen table, and Russ picks up a framed photo from the windowsill. In it, Cameron is gangly—ten years old, maybe eleven. He stands in front of the Denver Art Museum, his arms raised in triumph.

  Good picture, isn’t it? Cynthia says. That was Cameron’s first trip. He’s always loved that painting by the window, and they opened a temporary Van Gogh exhibit. Cameron spent hours looking at it.

  She puts the tea in front of Russ and invites him: sit. The water burns a patch on Russ’s tongue.

  I brought something, Russ says.

  From the pocket of his sweat shirt, Russ pulls out Lee’s old deck of cards. Tattered, yellow around the edges.

  Is that . . . ? Cynthia trails off.

  I thought I could teach Cameron how to play gin rummy, Russ says.

  For a pulsing moment, Cynthia squeezes her eyes shut. Tilts her head to the light. Russ watches as she stands, shaky, and calls down the hall for her boy.

  Cameron

  Cameron sat on the stool in Mr. O’s office, trying to make an apple stem look three-dimensional.

  “It looks good,” Mr. O said. “You’re getting there.”

  He patted Cameron on the shoulder, twice, and went to check on the rest of the class.

  Cameron drew an apple in a bowl. Why don’t you try still life? Mr. O had said when Cameron came back to school. Mr. O had been spending most nights at Cameron’s house, in Mom’s room. Even though this had been awkward and embarrassing at first, he felt better with Mr. O just down the hall at night. Safer. Russ Fletcher came over some nights too, and when Mom was in the other room, he told Cameron stories about Dad, stories that made Dad seem like the sort of guy Cameron could feel okay about missing.

  Cameron had spent two weeks at home with Mom, driving half an hour every day to see a psychiatrist—a nice woman named Maura, with curly red hair and tortoiseshell glasses. She asked him questions like How
do you feel when you first wake up in the morning?—the sorts of questions he’d always wanted to ask someone, but hadn’t known how. The potted plant behind her head sprouted up like alien hair.

  Ronnie was afraid of Cameron, but that was okay. Cameron didn’t miss him. Everyone at school looked at him funny when he walked down the hall, even though Detective Williams had found the bloody dog leash in a gym bag that Mr. Thornton had stuffed into a trash can at his office in Denver, along with Lucinda’s cell phone. Mrs. Thornton was back in the hospital. Baby Ollie was with her grandparents in Longmont. Some people said Cameron had caught a murderer, and some people still swore Mr. O did it, even though he’d never even been accused and the school district was threatening to sue the police department on his behalf.

  Cameron heard Lucinda’s name less every day.

  Now, he drew an apple in a bowl. It was nice, he thought, to see what he was drawing as he drew it. Even though it didn’t breathe, the apple was difficult to replicate. It had its own contours, bits where it rose and fell in very lovely ways. He found it refreshing to draw something that was actually in front of him. Something with weight.

  Things Cameron Would Not Dare to Touch Again:

  1. The drawings of Lucinda. Mr. O had taken them to his own house, to keep them in a safe place where they could not make anyone Tangled.

  2. The Collection of Statue Nights: he stored this Collection in a part of his head that he only visited when it was safe. When he was in bed, alone with thoughts of her. Just in case of sleepwalking, Mom put a child-safety lock on the drawer that held the kitchen knives.

  3. The .22 handgun. The cops had confiscated it, at Mom’s request.

  4. The Tree. Cameron decided to forget this place he loved to go, even though the dirt and sticks had formed a pattern and that pattern was imprinted in his brain.

  He hoped it would rain.

  Cameron missed his friend, the night janitor. He had put an end to his late-night wanderings, and lying in bed with the window locked shut, Cameron often thought about the man in the jumpsuit. If he could go back to Elm Street now, he’d walk right up to the janitor. Press his heavy head to the janitor’s chest and let the big man hold him. He wouldn’t ask why the janitor had never mentioned seeing Cameron on February fifteenth, on the other side of Elm Street. That’s what friends did, and in the night janitor, Cameron had found a real one.