Whiteout Page 2
Zach, sitting closer to the wall and a little behind Becca, reached out with his free hand and idly brushed her beautiful long blond hair still damp with melted snow. Becca felt his touch as in a dream, the soft sensuous brushing both soothing and reassuring of protection and love. She rolled her head gently from side to side, closed her eyes, immersed herself in that touch. Zach, with part of his attention directed toward the game, was paradoxically all the more in tune with Becca’s feelings and needs for not being totally focused on her, for simply reacting to her intuitively. Becca in turn was all the more responsive to his diluted attentions, knowing that she was not ignored—she’d never be ignored by Zach—but that she was not his sole focus and thus was free to respond without expectation or inhibition. She loved that freedom. She loved Zach’s total attention and devotion, but she also loved the freedom to respond to his attentions without worrying about her response. She wanted all these levels of love; here, for the first time, she had them.
Becca, never one for public displays of affection, slid out of her chair and onto Zach’s lap. She fit quite well there, felt completely at ease, sitting on his left leg, leaning back lightly against his chest, resting her head in the notch between his shoulder and neck. Zach looped his free arm around her waist, hugged her gently, not too tightly, made her feel safe, made her feel wanted, made her feel caressed, made her feel free. All these gifts came in addition to feeling loved. She always felt loved by Zach.
They watched the game, drank their beer, and turned into a single seamless entity—a single flesh but more than a single flesh, a single spirit, a state of being neither had ever felt before or knew existed—without even knowing it’d happened.
As the game moved deeper into the second half, more students began arriving at The Inn. There was a growing sense of excitement and anticipation at the possibility of their team completing a major upset and securing an improbable bid to the national tournament.
Caroline, Becca’s roommate, came into the hall, spotted them, and came over and took a seat in Becca’s former chair. “Don’t you two look comfy.”
“I am,” Becca said, making no move to get off Zach’s lap.
Caroline laughed. “You really look like you’re in heaven, Becca. You ought to try that brand of relaxation more often. Better yet, give me some.”
“No sharing. Talk to Michael.”
“He’s over there”—she gestured toward the screen—“with the team. I’m solo tonight.”
“Then have a beer,” Becca said. “That’ll have to be your substitute till Michael gets home."
Caroline pushed her lip out in a pout. “No sharing Zach?”
Becca shook her head.
“O.K. I guess I’ll just have to get drunk.” She poured a full cup of beer and downed it in one long draught.
Becca said, “Well, maybe not that much beer.”
They all laughed.
With less than four minutes to play and the game tied, the Badencourt gang showed up—C.H. and Bill and Arnie and a half-dozen of their dorm mates. Every seat at their table was suddenly filled, then another table was pushed against it and all those seats filled. Their pitcher of beer was emptied in a hurry, but it was replaced by three more pitchers, and soon those pitchers were empty and replaced by still more. Everyone was focused on the screen. The timeouts and the frequent fouls made the last few minutes of game time stretch out for over fifteen minutes of clock time. The lead changed hands five times in those last four minutes. Then Avery went ahead by a point, 80 to 79, on two made free throws. There were twelve seconds left. The other team called a timeout.
The opponent would have one final shot, or possibly a shot and a chance at a rebound if the shot were missed. The entire season had come down to these final seconds. If the other team scored, Avery’s season, which had started with such promise then faltered badly toward the end, would be over. If the other team failed to score, Avery would win and go on to the national tournament. Everyone in the now nearly full hall was on their feet, waiting for the timeout to end and the game to resume. Everyone was on edge, holding their collective breath.
Everyone, that is, except Zach and Becca. They were buried in the crowd that had so suddenly appeared around them, Becca still sitting on Zach’s lap who was sitting on the chair against the stone wall of the hall. They were not oblivious to the crowd or the game but thoroughly amused by it. They were not threatened by the sudden invasion of their semi-privacy but rather thrilled to be a part of this outpouring of hope and energy yet still somehow separate from it. In their private harmony, they could also be one with this crowd of singular hope and anticipation.
Becca pressed her lips to Zach’s ear. “Let’s watch.”
Zach nodded. Becca stood on their chair to see the screen over the crowd. Zach stood beside her, his head against her shoulder, able to see over the heads of the others.
The timeout ended and the ball was thrown in play. The opponent’s best player got free after a series of screens and got the ball. He evaded his defender, got open at the top of the key, and launched a shot. The ball seemed to hang in the air for many seconds. It was right on line. It looked like it was going in. It was dead on target. But it was just a little short. The ball hit the front of the rim and bounded high into the air. It rose up as high as the top of the backboard then started to fall. The opponent’s best rebounder was waiting there, directly in front of the rim, in perfect position to tip the ball into the basket. There were four seconds left, then three. The rebounder went up to complete the play, make the tip-in from mere inches away. It was hopeless. Avery was bound to lose. The ball fell toward the front of the rim. There were two seconds left. Then the opponent’s best rebounder disappeared from his position in front of the rim, lost his balance and tumbled to the floor as an Avery player crashed into his legs. The ball fell past the rim, was not tipped in, bounced harmlessly on the pile of players sprawled across the floor. One second left, then zero—the buzzer sounded. Avery had won!
Every voice in the hall united in a single exuberant cheer. Beer cups, some full of beer, flew into the air. Hats and scarves and mittens and coats flew into the air. Becca jumped off the chair into Zach’s arms. He held her around the hips and spun around in a circle, bumping into chairs, the wall, the table, all the people jumping and dancing everywhere around them. From her lofty spot above the crowd, Becca traded high-fives with Caroline, C.H., Bill. Everyone was cheering and jumping into each other’s arms. Avery had won! Becca and Zach had watched it and shared in this corporate jubilation. The joy around them affirmed and magnified the perfect harmony they’d been granted. The crowd carried them along in its intoxicating energy and enthusiasm and ebullience.
And all that energy, too great for indoor confines, quickly spilled outdoors, sweeping Zach and Becca along with the tide. Four inches of dry, wind-blown, drifting snow now coated everything, with more steadily falling. Students, some of them shirtless, were running about the Quad, rolling in the snow, tossing each other into drifts. Firecrackers were popping. Music blared from speakers propped in open windows. Some fraternity brothers were trying to start a fire with wet, frozen branches. The smoke from the smoldering pyre quickly dissipated on the brisk wind; but the odor lingered, giving the entire area the scent of a cabin in the woods. A long chain of students joined hands in the center of the Quad, at first forming a circle and chanting cheers. Then someone broke the chain and pulled a meandering line of revelers behind him into the snowy dark. Soon the former circle became the world’s (or at least Avery’s) longest ever whiplash line, with the chain of students undulating from one end to the other, the students at the far end of the line flung outward by powerful centrifugal forces—first five flying off into the snow, then
ten, then twenty—till finally the whole line, even those not yet whiplashed, dove into the snow in the world’s (or at least Avery’s) largest ever pig pile.
Zach and Becca meandered through this boisterous crowd as in some sort of white-washed, deep-chilled fantasy—every sight and sound, smell and touch brilliantly vivid but also surreal in its utter lack of precedence or prior context. It was a moment and place cut out of time—a brittle fairyland populated by shrieking fauns and nymphs, a mid-winter night’s dreamscape of youthful revelry. They wandered through this great spontaneous outdoor party sometimes hand-in-hand, sometimes pulled apart by strangers or friends grabbing them and swinging them about. Everybody in sight or earshot was of a single celebratory mindset, Zach and Becca included. Yet through this public celebration, they remained united in what they’d been given, what they held against all comers or claims.
With most of the revelers soon wet and frozen, and the would-be bonfire a smoldering mass of blackened branches and one charred frat-house bench, the victory party gradually moved back indoors to any number of venues. Zach and Becca followed the Badencourt gang into their dorm, where the cupboards full of booze were unlocked, the ice