bathroom, just waited for them at the rental car, leaning against the burning hot chrome, every once in a while yanking on the handle of the door as if it might spontaneously decide to unlock itself. He didn’t speak again until that night, over dinner at some fancy restaurant in St. Helena, when some beautiful woman leaned across the table and asked him what it was like to have such a famous writer for a father.
“It sucks,” Craig had said, and everyone at the table laughed as if that were a really witty response.
B ut that night, the night after Craig met Nicole Werner up close and personal at the threshold of his dorm room, those words of his little brother came back to him, as if on a dusty California breeze over the miles and years—and, with them, the sight of that giant redwood, turned to rock, at the bottom of that pit.
In truth, a log that had turned to rock looked nothing like a log.
The million-year-old trunk of that tree had appeared to be laced with diamonds, had seemed to be bathed in powdery pink-and-green gems. It was as if the volcanic ash, burying it, had turned it into something celestial, instead of arboreal. The pressure and the time and the isolation of death had entirely changed the nature of the thing. Had made it eternal. Had made it not just rock, but space.
Craig had already decided that Nicole Werner was a bitch, hadn’t he? A dumb blonde. A tease. An empty, pretty vessel. A single glimpse in the cafeteria, and he thought he knew what she was all about.
Lying in the dark, listening to his roommate’s steady breathing, Craig knew that if he wanted, he could still let himself think that—think it and think it all the way back down the path and through the gift shop to the men’s room, so to speak. But he could also still see and feel the brilliant image of her in his doorway burning against his eyelids, like something so obvious it might blind you if you really let yourself look at it.
If he slept at all that night, he didn’t remember it.
I t was the screaming of a blue jay that broke Craig’s trance. The jay was perched on the low branch of a crabapple tree in the Godwin Honors Hall courtyard, yawping unattractively, frantically, maybe even directing its harsh warnings at Craig, who looked up at the bird for a minute as it hopped mechanically up and down the branch.
He’d never seen them arrive, but now there was a cluster of homely girls standing around the bike rack, casting furtive glances in Craig’s direction. And a guy was looking out of a second-floor window at Craig, one hand on the curtain, the other absentmindedly scratching his bare stomach.
The jay made a few more threatening noises, and Craig looked at it again. He could even see one beady little eye, seeming to shine with some inner bird light from the branch, trained on him.
Craig stepped backward, nodded to the bird, and turned away.
6
“P erhaps you could write a letter to the editor?” the unhelpful receptionist said to Shelly Lockes the day she actually went down to the offices.
“This isn’t my opinion ,” Shelly told her. “These are facts. Doesn’t your paper want to publish facts ?”
The receptionist looked at her blankly, almost as if she were blind.
“Can I see someone? An editor?” Shelly asked.
The receptionist moved her fingers around on a phone, holding the receiver to her ear, before she looked back up at Shelly and told her that there were no editors in the building (“Big convention in Chicago”), but that she would call for a reporter. The reporter who finally met with Shelly, a girl who appeared all of twenty years old, took copious notes on a yellow legal pad and nodded meaningfully at every detail—but the next article repeated the same false information:
No one knew how long Craig Clements-Rabbitt and his girlfriend, Nicole Werner, lay there in the lake of Nicole Werner’s blood, or how soon afterward the young man had fled the scene.
The middle-aged woman who made
“It sucks,” Craig had said, and everyone at the table laughed as if that were a really witty response.
B ut that night, the night after Craig met Nicole Werner up close and personal at the threshold of his dorm room, those words of his little brother came back to him, as if on a dusty California breeze over the miles and years—and, with them, the sight of that giant redwood, turned to rock, at the bottom of that pit.
In truth, a log that had turned to rock looked nothing like a log.
The million-year-old trunk of that tree had appeared to be laced with diamonds, had seemed to be bathed in powdery pink-and-green gems. It was as if the volcanic ash, burying it, had turned it into something celestial, instead of arboreal. The pressure and the time and the isolation of death had entirely changed the nature of the thing. Had made it eternal. Had made it not just rock, but space.
Craig had already decided that Nicole Werner was a bitch, hadn’t he? A dumb blonde. A tease. An empty, pretty vessel. A single glimpse in the cafeteria, and he thought he knew what she was all about.
Lying in the dark, listening to his roommate’s steady breathing, Craig knew that if he wanted, he could still let himself think that—think it and think it all the way back down the path and through the gift shop to the men’s room, so to speak. But he could also still see and feel the brilliant image of her in his doorway burning against his eyelids, like something so obvious it might blind you if you really let yourself look at it.
If he slept at all that night, he didn’t remember it.
I t was the screaming of a blue jay that broke Craig’s trance. The jay was perched on the low branch of a crabapple tree in the Godwin Honors Hall courtyard, yawping unattractively, frantically, maybe even directing its harsh warnings at Craig, who looked up at the bird for a minute as it hopped mechanically up and down the branch.
He’d never seen them arrive, but now there was a cluster of homely girls standing around the bike rack, casting furtive glances in Craig’s direction. And a guy was looking out of a second-floor window at Craig, one hand on the curtain, the other absentmindedly scratching his bare stomach.
The jay made a few more threatening noises, and Craig looked at it again. He could even see one beady little eye, seeming to shine with some inner bird light from the branch, trained on him.
Craig stepped backward, nodded to the bird, and turned away.
6
“P erhaps you could write a letter to the editor?” the unhelpful receptionist said to Shelly Lockes the day she actually went down to the offices.
“This isn’t my opinion ,” Shelly told her. “These are facts. Doesn’t your paper want to publish facts ?”
The receptionist looked at her blankly, almost as if she were blind.
“Can I see someone? An editor?” Shelly asked.
The receptionist moved her fingers around on a phone, holding the receiver to her ear, before she looked back up at Shelly and told her that there were no editors in the building (“Big convention in Chicago”), but that she would call for a reporter. The reporter who finally met with Shelly, a girl who appeared all of twenty years old, took copious notes on a yellow legal pad and nodded meaningfully at every detail—but the next article repeated the same false information:
No one knew how long Craig Clements-Rabbitt and his girlfriend, Nicole Werner, lay there in the lake of Nicole Werner’s blood, or how soon afterward the young man had fled the scene.
The middle-aged woman who made
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