"No," I mumbled. "Did you like any of 'em?"

"I sure did a whole lot." Another flash overcame me, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. "Especially the one about going to the ballpark with your mom," he added. The frosty currents of silence took me away from the exploding scoreboards and flaming Cubs pennants and into Brennan's soft arms. "I think you're super-special, and you'd be a happier person if you accepted that."

"Stop it, Brennan."

"I love you."

"Stop it." My voice was crushed by the tears that began falling from my eyes. More d.a.m.n tears. I felt like a weakling, such a helpless, useless fairy. I wanted a dollar for every time had I cried in the last calendar year. I'd buy the White Sox, by G.o.d!

Brennan ignored my tears, too. "So, do you think love lasts forever, or what?"

"I don't know," I choked through the end of the light rain. I managed a laugh. "I love the White Sox, even when they're no good."

"Which is most of the time," Brennan added. We laughed together and kissed. "Hey, the sun's up. What would you like to eat for breakfast?"

"How about you?"

"You."

"Huh?"

Brennan pointed at me and said quietly, "You. I want you for breakfast."

Arent you stuffed from dinner? I knew I was. Ouch.

I brushed a curtain of his long blond hair away from his face. "You can have me for the rest of the year, Brennan," I replied in a hush.

"What happens after that?"

"Ask me again next year."

We laughed again and kept kissing, until a further three more songs finished after Getz'. I had a mind to call the station and ask if they'd play "Cheek to Cheek" for me, no, for us, but my breakfast kiss kept me busy. Kept us busy, actually.

Much later, the phone kept ringing, and it wasn't a bad dream. It was Felix.

"Good morning, sir. This is your wake up call."

"Felix..." What time was it?

"How was the symphony? What was on the program?"

I rolled over and moved closer to the edge of the bed. Brennan kept his eyes closed, but followed my body with his.

"Shostakovich's Fifteenth Symphony," subt.i.tled: The Evil Photographer.

"How was it?"

"Superb." I only cried once, and didn't laugh out loud at all.

"I'll bet it was. Have you ever been snowmobiling?"

"It's been a few years, but, yeah, I have. I love it."

Brennan mumbled he loved me from the nape of my neck.

"What did you say," Felix asked?

"Nothing." I covered the mouthpiece and whispered for Brennan to be quiet. He stuck his tongue out at me. "Why?" Had Jason bought a stable of snowmobiles?

"Dad saw something about snowmobiling on TV last night, and wants to drive to Michigan, like, right now." Jason Cromwell was mad, and would live a very long and happy life, I reflected. "We'd all love for you to come with us."

I smiled. "Right now?" It sounded fun. Brennan pressed his erection between his stomach and my lower back, moaning very loudly in the process. I clamped my hand over the receiver and told him to shut up. He pulled a strand of pubic hair from my b.a.l.l.s in reply. I screamed out, pushing Brennan and his playful tool away from me.

Felix hung up.

I tried calling back, but the line was busy, and stayed that way. I dropped the phone into its cradle and fell back into bed. I felt bad. Brennan said he was sorry. I shrugged it off and went back to sleep in his arms, thinking about how I might try and make it up to Felix next week.

We drove back to Brennan's and strolled through his backyard into the connecting forest. The morning sun gleamed through the tall grey trees around us. We had trouble keeping our footing on the uneven ground and the loose layer of snow over it. Brennan took my hand as soon as we couldn't see his house.

"You have to have the biggest backyard I've ever seen. Its so cool."

"The guys always come over after school to light up out here."

It was good to hear the team hadn't changed much. "How are they?"

"I don't remember so many of them being such jerks when we were younger. Still, they'll always be the team."

"I guess."

Brennan stopped walking and held us still. He bit his lip while he looked around us, as if we were in a Belgian forest, surrounded by enemy soldiers. Confirming no mustard gas attack was imminent, he took an uneasy step closer to me.

"Now what's up?"

"You never answered my question."

"Jesus, Brennan! Maybe you can use these sleep deprivation interrogation techniques with the CIA!"

"I'm serious."

I sighed. "Which question?"

"The one about love. You didn't say if you thought love lasted."

"I don't know. People don't last. Why should love?"

"Love is better than we are."

I tried not to smile. "If love comes from people like us, how can it be much better?"

"The same way a symphony can be better than the guy who wrote it."

"You sound like Nicolasha." I squeezed Brennan's hand in mine, but got no visible reaction.

Brennan began looking around the empty and frozen preserve once again. "Well?"

"I don't know, Brennan. Real love should last forever, I suppose. I'm not sure." I usually have trouble with real like." No return smile. "Does that answer your question?" He nodded. "Good. Can we go inside now? I'm still tired, d.a.m.n it, and now I'm hungry, too." Well, for food.

"One more thing. Please." I looked down at the snow and shook my head, keeping my grin to myself. "Can I kiss you again? Out here?"

I finally laughed out loud, making my friend blush. "Like Im gonna say no. But you'd better make it quick, Brennan. Some racc.o.o.n might see us."

We had come a long way in a short amount of time. It seemed our mutual walls were falling, the rifles lowering, every time we were together. Did we really respect and trust and care about each other enough to call it love, or were we just greedy and h.o.r.n.y and saying whatever s.h.i.t sounded good enough to get what we wanted from each other? We werent even seventeen; I was at least smart enough to have doubts about, well, everything on that basis. Or maybe we just weren't brave enough to admit we actually had found love in the other, certainly not smart enough to admit it to ourselves and make our lives a whole lot easier - or unimaginably worse, as the case might be.

Not even me, the reputedly smart one.

I ran through the transcripts of our most recent bedtime conversation as we drove back to my house, away from the enemy lines, not to mention any ex-hippies who might see or hear their son and his close friend re-interpreting a Commandment or two.

"I think you're super-special, too."

"What?"

"Last night. You said I was super-special. Well, so are you."

Brennan eyes glazed over. "You're not alone. Not anymore."

The grip between our hands became so tight our arms shook.

X I X.

For many men who stumble at the threshold

Are well foretold that danger lurks within.

Henry VI I was surprised to make it to school alive.

It began snowing the instant I walked out of our house. The old reliable commuter line struggled to stay on schedule, even though its new aluminum double-deckers had this irritating habit of flying off of the tracks in snowy weather. And it kept snowing, very hard.

If it weren't for the maniacal zealotry of the old man, our beloved Princ.i.p.al, cla.s.ses would have been canceled, and we all could have spent the rest of the day horsing around in the snow by the lake, or prowling around the University, or playing chase in the nearby museum, or even risking life and limb in the dilapidated remains of the Loop's movie theaters. But, no, unless you could measure the snow in terms of feet, we were going to get educated, by G.o.d, and the weather would just have to wait.

Well, I thought, let it snow. If the trains break down, I could stay over at Nicolasha's.

On my way to Literature cla.s.s, I saw the old man talking, or, rather, issuing directives, to Mister Granger, who then gestured for Zane to come with the Princ.i.p.al.

Over a flavorless cafeteria lunch, Zane once told me his father had named him after the famous cowboy novelist, which I thought was funny, since there was very, very little of anything cowboy about Zane and his asymmetrical blond crew cut, gla.s.ses, nasal voice, and dimpled smile. He was a shy, wooden preppie who couldn't walk down the hall without careening into something, he was such a klutz. Zane was one of those poor chumps brought up not so much as a son, but as a colony, of a domineering architect father who always picked him up from Pilot School every afternoon, "to make sure he got home safely."

We exchanged puzzled glances as we pa.s.sed each other, and I went in to be regaled by a few unimportant sonnets by Marlowe.

Felix made a very active effort to ignore me, even though we sat next to each other in every cla.s.s, right near the door for quick getaways.

Zane didn't return to the group until we had moved on to Asian History. Felix was then summoned by the old man. The lecture on the pre-Nationalist warlords of China was stultifying. I tried making eye contact with Zane, but he sat on the other side of the room, and didn't look up from his notebook until the bell rang.

Felix wasn't back yet.

I followed Zane heading up the dark staircase to Italian cla.s.s, and stopped him near the base of the steps with a hand on his briefcase. Other students filed past us with irritation. "Hey, Zane, wait up."

"We have to get to cla.s.s." He didn't look at me.

"There's still time. What did the old man want?"

"I'm not supposed to talk about it." Zane began to walk away, but I held on to his arm. He glanced at me for a very defensive moment before shaking his head and almost running away from me into our cla.s.sroom.

Felix gave me a blank look as I approached him and the old man, who sent my friend into Signore Abbado's care. I was taken into the old man's Interrogation Room downstairs.

"I'm very sorry to hear about your parents." I nodded, looking for something beyond the affected pleasantries on the cool but witty ex-History professor's face. "Do you think you'd like to take some time off?"

"No, sir. I'm just glad Christmas is over."

"You're sure? All of your teachers would understand." He looked at his lap. "They're all very proud of you. You're an excellent student, one of our best."

I was mortified, and it showed.

Princ.i.p.al Connelly, in his appalling orange-and-navy blue tartan blazer, waved his hand dismissively. "I personally think you could show more collegiality and leadership. Join one of the clubs, for Heaven's sake." Join? Join? "You'd take over in a month. The newspaper, for instance." Please. If there were a bigger bunch of geeks in the Western Hemisphere than the paper people, someone would have to show me. "You're too introspective for your own good. Be young while you still are." I nodded in polite agreement, not feeling like debating him or anyone else about who I was, or what I was supposed to be. "At any rate, you're a fine poet for somebody so young. The works you handed in for the mid-term were very, very good, even though I'm not much for poetry." No, I thought, anything less than a thousand-page ordeal on some drab historical figure wouldn't appeal to you, sir.

"I've asked you down here to discuss a very delicate matter." He looked away from me again. I wondered, what was on his legal pad that was so d.a.m.ned interesting? "I'm no good at this sort of thing. I don't like questioning people as if I were a policeman." A secret policeman, you mean. I imagined what Princ.i.p.al Connelly would look like in the grey-green uniform of the East German Stasi. "Subtlety isn't one of my strong suits."

"Can I ask what's up, sir?"