He was living out his fantasy for the hundredth time when the door to his room burst open. Jason's father strode in, fuming, and yanked the iPod's headphones out of Jason's ears. “What the hell?” Jason said, sitting up.
“You want to tell me what you left out the first time? You want to tell me where you got the goddamned drugs?”
“I don't do drugs,” Jason said. “Why would I do something that's going to screw up my game?”
“Oh, I believe you,” his father said, sarcastic. “I believe you didn't take any of those drugs yourself.”
The conversation was spinning back and forth in directions Jason couldn't follow. “Then why are you flipping out?”
“Because Dutch Oosterhaus called me at work to discuss a little lab report he got today. The one they did on Trixie Stone's blood that proves someone knocked her out by slipping her a drug.” Heat climbed the ladder of Jason's spine.
“You know what else Dutch told me? Now that drugs are in the picture, the prosecutor's got enough evidence to try you as an adult.”
“I didn't . . .”
A vein pulsed in his father's temple. “You threw it all away, Jason. You fucking threw it all away for a small-town whore.”
“I didn't drug her. I didn't rape her. She must have fooled around with that blood sample, because ... because .,.” Jason's voice dropped off. “Jesus Christ... you don't believe me.”
“No one does,” his father said, weary. He reached into his back pocket for a letter that had already been opened and passed it to Jason before leaving the room.
Jason sank down onto his bed. The letter was embossed with a return address for Bethel Academy; the name of the hockey coach had been scrawled above it in pen. He began to read: In lieu of recent circumstances . . . withdrawing its initial offer of a scholarship for a postgraduate year. . . sure you understand our position and its reflection on the academy.
The letter dropped from his hands, fluttering to land on the carpet. The iPod, without its headphones, glowed a mute blue. Who would have imagined that the sound your life made as it disintegrated was total silence?
Jason buried his face in his hands and, for the first time since all this had begun, started to cry.
* * *
Once the storm had stopped and the streets were cleared, the storekeepers in Bethel came out to shovel their walkways and talk about how lucky they were that this latest blizzard hadn't caused the town manager to cancel the annual Winterfest.
It was always held the Friday before Christmas and was a direct ploy to boost the local economy. Main Street was blocked off by the spinning blue lights of police cars. Shops stayed open late, and hot cider was served for free in the inn. Christmas lights winked like fireflies in the bare branches of the trees. Some enterprising farmer carted in a sickly looking reindeer and set up portable fencing around it: a North Pole petting zoo. The bookstore owner, dressed as Santa, arrived at seven o'clock and stayed as long as it took to hear the holiday requests of all the children waiting in line.
This year, in an effort to connect local sports heroes to the community, the square in front of the town offices had been sealed and flooded to create a makeshift ice rink. The Ice CaBabes, a local cornpetitive figure-skating team, had done an exhibition routine earlier that evening. Now the championship Bethel High School hockey team was slated to play pickup hockey with a local group of Boy Scouts.
After everything that had happened, Jason hadn't planned to go
- until Coach called up and said he had an obligation to the team. What Coach hadn't done, however, was specify in what condition Jason had to arrive. It was a fifteen-minute ride downtown, and he drank a fifth of his dad's Jack Daniel's on the way. Moss was already on the ice when Jason sat down on a bench and pulled out his skates. “You're late,” Moss said. Jason double-knotted the laces, grabbed his stick, and shoved hard past Moss. “You here to talk or play hockey?” He skated so fast down the center of the rink that he had to slalom around some of the
wobbling kids. Moss met him and they passed the puck in a series of complicated handoffs. On the sidelines, the parents cheered, thinking this was all part of the exhibition. Coach called for a face-off, and Jason skated into position. The kid he was opposing on the scout team came up as high as his hip. The puck was dropped, and the high school team let the kids win it. But Jason stick-checked the boy who was skating down the ice, stole
the puck, and carried it down to the goal. He lifted it to the upper right corner of the net, where there was no chance of the tiny goalie being able to stop it. He pumped his stick in the air and looked around for his other teammates, but they were hanging back, and the crowd wasn't cheering anymore. “Aren't we supposed to score?” he yelled out, his words slurring. “Did the rules change here, too?”
Moss led Jason to the side of the rink. “Dude. It's just pond hockey, and they're just kids.”
Jason nodded, shook it off. They met for another face-off, and this time when the kids took the puck Jason skated backward slowly, making no move to go after it. Unused to playing without the boards, he tripped over the plastic edge of the rink liner and fell into the arms of the crowd. He noticed Zephyr
Santorelli-Weinstein's face, and a half-dozen others from school.
“Sorry,” he muttered, staggering to his feet. When he stepped onto the ice again, Jason headed for the puck, hip-checking a player to get him out of the way. Except this time, his opponent was half his size and a third of his weight, and went flying.
The boy banged into his goalie, who slid into the net in a heap, crying. Jason watched the kid's father hurry onto the ice in his street shoes.
“What is wrong with you today?” Moss said, skating close.
“It was an accident,” Jason answered, and his friend reared back, smelling the alcohol.
“Coach is going to rip you a new asshole. Get out of here. I'll cover for you.”
Jason stared at him.
“Go,” Moss said.
Jason took one last look at the boy and his father, then skated hard to the spot where he'd left his boots.
* * *
I did not die, and yet I lost life's breath: imagine for yourself what I became, deprived at once of both my life and death.
Laura read Lucifer's lines in the last canto of the Inferno, then closed the book. Hands down, Lucifer was the most fascinating character in the poem: waist-deep in the lake of ice, with his three heads gnawing on a feast of sinners. Having once been an archangel, he certainly had the freedom of choice - in fact, it was what got him to pick a fight with God in the first place. So if Lucifer had willingly chosen his course, had he known beforehand that he was going to end up suffering?
Did he think, on some level, that he deserved it? Did anyone, who was cast in the role opposite the hero? It occurred to Laura that she had sinned in every single circle. She'd committed adultery. She'd betrayed her benefactor - the university - by seducing a student. . . which could also be considered treachery, if you classified Seth as an innocent pawn in the game. She'd defied God by ignoring her wedding vows: She'd defied her family by distancing herself from Trixie when Trixie needed her most. She'd lied to her husband, she'd been angry and wrathful, she'd sowed discord, and she'd been a fraudulent counselor to a student who came looking for a mentor and wound up with a lover. About the only thing Laura hadn't done was kill someone. She reached behind her desk for an antique china human head she had found at a garage sale. It was smooth and white and divided into calligraphed subsections across the brain area: wit, glory, revenge, bliss. Over the skull she'd put a headband sporting two red devil horns, a gift from a student one Halloween. Now she took the headband off and tried it on for size.