Whiteout



  Whiteout

  by

  Jeffrey Anderson

  Copyright 2013 by Jeffrey Anderson

  This story is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Whiteout

  Becca and Zach shared a light meal of lentil stew, oil-and-vinegar coleslaw, and sliced rye bread at Zach’s apartment on Saturday evening one week after their reunion following Professor Reichart’s party. They weren’t supposed to be together. Becca’d planned to spend the weekend at her family’s home in Greensboro but had cancelled those plans that morning after hearing of an approaching snowstorm that might prevent her from getting back to Avery’s campus for Monday classes. After changing her plans, Becca’d tracked Zach down at his work-study job in the Archives Department of the library and asked if she could stop by and see him that evening. Zach’s schedule was open and he was delighted at this unexpected chance to spend time with her. “Come by around seven,” he’d said. “I’ll make us a light supper.”

  So here they were, eating that meal at Zach’s tall butcher-block table while seated on wooden stools with short backs. They’d not been together in private since their impassioned reunion last weekend, and their occasional public encounters had been friendly but stiff, as each tried to ascertain the ground rules of their relationship going forward. That undercurrent of uncertainty persisted now that they were again alone together.

  “So a week from today you’ll be in Rome,” Becca said.

  “Actually, a week from tomorrow. We leave on Saturday afternoon, but don’t land in Rome till Sunday morning.”

  “Are you excited?”

  Zach looked up from his stew. “I guess.” The table was long but narrow, so her smiling face was barely a foot away. Zach wondered how someone so close at hand could be so far away.

  She closed that narrow distance with her free hand and lightly brushed his neck. “Zach, come on. This is Rome you’re talking about. Everybody, myself included, would kill to spend spring break there.”

  Zach nodded and tried to smile. “I’m sure I’ll be glad once I’m there.”

  “The Coliseum, St. Peter’s, the Trevi Fountain.”

  Zach laughed. “I’ll send you a postcard.”

  “How about an in-person delivery?”

  “I can do that—probably faster than the mail anyway. What about you—figure out your Break plans yet?”

  “Oh, yes. While you’re touring Rome I’ll be chasing Katie around the house.” Katie was her two-year-old niece, daughter of her sister Sarah, both living with Becca’s parents while Sarah was finishing school at UNC-Greensboro. “Sarah has classes all week and two papers due and is leaning on dear old sis for some baby-sitting time—the sacrifices one makes for family.” Becca offered up an extended sigh and an exaggerated pout.

  “Katie’s sweet. You’ll have fun.”

  “I guess. But compared to Rome, or even Myrtle Beach?” Myrtle Beach was where her roommate and some of her friends were headed for their Break.

  Zach nodded. “Family sacrifice.”

  They finished their meal and Becca hand-washed their few dishes and utensils in the sink while Zach dried them and put them away. As they finished and Becca was draining the sink and wiping it clean with the sponge, Zach threw his drying towel over his shoulder and reached around and gave Becca a hug from behind, resting his head on her shoulder and kissing her neck.

  Becca leaned back against his body and pushed her head and neck against his mouth.

  Zach whispered in her ear, “I’m so glad you’re not in Greensboro tonight.”

  Becca spun around, still in his arms, and faced him from inches away. “I’m so glad I’m here with you.”

  Zach stared into those beautiful eyes and found there the love and reassurance he’d been longing for all week. Any doubts or reservations or fear of renewed hurt flowed out of him, down the drain just as surely as that dirty dishwater. This was the old Becca—his, all his. He ran his hands lightly up and down her sides.

  Becca kissed him quickly then said, “Let’s go out.”

  Zach shrugged. “O.K. Where?”

  “On campus. Aren’t they showing the game tonight?” The school’s basketball team was playing in the conference tournament final in Raleigh. If they won, they’d be in the NCAA Tournament. The game was being broadcast on closed-circuit T.V. on campus.

  Zach nodded. “I think they’ve got a big screen T.V. at The Inn.” The Inn was a student hangout best known for its late-night food and its pitchers of beer available for purchase with meal tickets. You (and your friends) could drink all night and charge it off to your parents, with the charges listed simply as on-campus food and drink.

  “Let’s go cheer our team on.”

  It’d started snowing while they were inside eating. When they emerged about an inch of fluffy snow coated the ground with more falling. The air was very cold and the wind blew briskly. They navigated the open stairs with care, taking one step at a time and holding onto the handrail and each other. But once on ground level, they ran along the sidewalk and skated on the smooth blanket of snow, interspersing long hyphens among their ellipses of footprints. No other tracks interrupted the plain of white on the sidewalk or in the parking lot, and only one set of fast-filling tire tracks marked the road in front of the apartment building.

  Zach’s truck, light in the rear end and bulky, was impossible to maneuver in slippery conditions. But Becca had her sister’s Japanese import which, with its short wheelbase and front-wheel drive, was well suited for driving in snow. Still, Becca stood in front of the snow-coated car and said, “Maybe we ought to stay in.”

  Zach laughed. “You southerners—all afraid of a little snow. We’ll be fine.”

  “You sure? Sarah’d kill me if I wrecked her car.”

  Zach laughed and grabbed a fistful of snow and tossed it on her head. “You’re taking care of Katie next week, remember? Sarah owes you.”

  “Zach, I’m serious. I don’t want to damage her car.”

  “Listen, if we get stuck, I can pick this thing up and get us out.” He was only half joking—in high school, he and two friends had picked up the Volkswagen Beetle of a mean-spirited teacher and left it wedged between two tree trunks.

  “O.K., but you’re driving.” She tossed him the keys then began to brush the snow off the car with the sleeve of her coat.

  Zach said, “I’ll protect Sarah’s car with my life.”

  They made it up the hill to campus with no problem at all. There were no other cars on the road to worry about, and the little car’s front-wheel-drive tires never slipped once. When they’d come to a stop in the deserted parking lot behind the Chapel, Zach patted the dash and said, “Our trusty Japanese jeep.” Then they dove out into the snow-sprinkled dark.

  The campus was eerily quiet for a mid-semester Saturday night, with the wind-blown snow accentuating the uncommon emptiness. Many students had travelled the short distance to Raleigh in car pools and at least two chartered busses to attend the tournament finals. Most of the rest were in dorm rooms, commons rooms, and bars watching the game on T.V. Wherever they were, they weren’t out in the snowy dark; and Zach and Becca felt, as they walked through the untrodden snow from the Chapel parking lot to the Inn, that this night was all theirs, an unexpected gift for them to take and use.

  The Inn was unusually quiet as well, with fifty or so students scattered around long wooden tables that would’ve accommodated ten times that many. The long, narrow room’s lofty walnut-stained cathedral ceiling with its exposed rafters and carved arch supports and clerestory windows revealing the snow swirling in the darkness beyond only further emphasized the sparse and quiet attendance. While o
thers might’ve considered this dearth of company and noise boring or unsettling, Zach and Becca were secretly pleased to be on campus on a Saturday night without having to deal with the demands and noise more typical of the location and the time of week. They’d be able to carve out their own little world within this quiet environment. The game, already more than halfway through the first half, was being projected onto a large screen mounted high on the wall at the far end of the room. Zach and Becca staked their claim at an empty table just past the midpoint of the hall and sat in the two chairs closest the wall and facing the screen. They ordered a pitcher of beer. The game was hotly contested and intense, with the teams exchanging the lead frequently throughout the first half.

  And it was there—in that most impersonal and mundane of settings, surrounded by a smattering of indifferent or oblivious witnesses, brought here by an improbable mix of circumstances, on a night when they shouldn’t have even been