He smiled without showing any teeth, looking me over for a few moments, before turning in his chair and watching the snow continue to fall in the manicured hedgerows outside of his window. "We should all go home," he said under his breath, "forget the day ever happened."

"I beg your pardon, sir?" My voice was aggressively firm and p.r.o.nounced. I'll bet his chagrin at thinking aloud was in hyper-drive right then, hee hee.

"Tell me about Mister Rozhdestvensky."

Click. So much for my voice being firm and p.r.o.nounced. "What would you like to know, sir?" The radiator was louder than I was.

"Your impressions." Did you ever wish you were in a train wreck? "Anything at all."

I cleared my throat nervously and shifted in the old man's uncomfortable wooden "guest" chair. "He's a great teacher. One of the best I've ever had."

"Why?"

"Because he knows his subject. To death, I mean."

"He's paid to. All of them are." Connelly's voice was clipped and emotionless. I hated staring at the high back of his leather executive chair.

"He cares about us."

"He's paid to."

"I mean, really cares. Like we were friends."

Princ.i.p.al Connelly turned his chair around and met my furtive eyes directly. "Are the two of you friends?"

I blushed, but didn't mean to. I looked away first, but didn't want to. "Yeah."

"Yes," my Princ.i.p.al suggested.

"Yes, sir." I couldn't look up from the edge of his desk.

"What kind of friends?"

"Good ones." Hah! I knew I could look up at him again! "He's been like the older brother I've never had. Through... through...all kinds of bulls.h.i.t."

The old man folded his hands on his desk, returning his eyes to the legal pad. I felt his disappointment in the air. Our parents paid a lot of money to purge such vulgarity from our souls, I could hear him thinking.

"Has Mister Rozhdestvensky ever invited you to his apartment?"

"Yes, sir." My voice began to regain its composure. "He loaned me some of his records, one evening."

"Records," the old man mused. "Which ones?"

"Symphonies by Prokofiev and Shostakovich," I lied. "Number Five of Prokofiev. Numbers Eleven, and Twelve of Shosta - "

"Did you visit him during the Christmas break?"

"Yes, sir. On Christmas morning, to give Nicolasha his gift." I felt good about finally using the term of endearment that probably grated on the old man.

"You didn't bring one for him on the last day of cla.s.ses, like everyone else?" He peered curiously over the rims of his large black gla.s.ses at me.

"I did. But I only found this record after school was out, and I thought I'd surprise him."

"Nicolas means a lot to you, then."

"Yes, sir, he does," I replied in my newly firmed up and p.r.o.nounced voice. "He's a great teacher, and a great friend. I wish I had met him before I did."

"Why?"

"I could have used some of his hugs a long time ago," I admitted, then furiously regretted. But at least I wasnt stupid enough to make a joke about bubble baths.

"Does Mister Rozhdestvensky hug all of his students?"

"Yes, sir, as far as I can tell, Nicolasha hugs all of his students, and everyone else's students, too. That's the way he is. That's why everyone loves him." I blushed again, knowing I had used the wrong word. "He's beloved."

I girded myself for being asked if I loved Nicolasha, and, intending to say yes while looking the old man right in the eyes, thought about what I would say when the big "Why?" was launched in my direction. But the question didn't come. We had gone as far as we would. Princ.i.p.al Connelly brought back his jets back from my airs.p.a.ce.

"Do you think teachers should hug their students?"

I was sure of it. The old man had an unknown twin who was a high-ranking officer in the Stasi.

"Yes, I do. We used to get hugs from the nuns and the priests when I was in grammar school, more so when we were younger. We used to get slapped, too, if we got out of line, but most of us didn't. Where does it say older kids don't want or need hugs anymore?" The old man held open his hands in agreement. "Aren't you allowed to get hugs once you're in high school?" I hoped the radiator would explode, like I suddenly felt like doing, in that small, peeling room. "Especially when you don't get them at home, anymore."

"I hug my children every day," Princ.i.p.al Connelly said.

"I will every hour, if I ever have any."

The hallway bell rang sharply. It was lunch time. "You will." He smiled at me and stood up, offering his heavily veined and strong, dry hand. I took it, managing not to show the looming sadness I felt, doubting the old man was right about that last bit.

He escorted me to the door and opened it. Students hurried up and down the corridor outside his office, careful not to run in front of the Princ.i.p.al. "Tell me. What special record did you buy for Nicolas?"

"An opera by Satie."

In dismissal, he touched the side of my arm like a jeweler would touch a fragile diamond, and I headed for the my locker. Snowstorm or not, I wasn't going to stay in the building. I needed some air.

I turned into a rest room before exiting the building. I was in the middle of washing the "conference" off of my hands and face, when I looked up at my reflection in the mirror with water dripping down my cheeks and dread in my bloodshot eyes.

I couldn't remember if Satie ever wrote an opera.

I walked to the middle of the huge, empty plain that lies to the immediate south of the Pilot School and the rest of Hyde Park. The locals called it the midway. The dense falling snow peppered my face and clothing and the rest of the city, creating an eerie silence in us both.

The sky, the air, and the ground blended together into one tremendous, snow-white painting.

If I smoked, I would have been smoking. I wished I had some vice like that. Chewing gum, cigarettes, booze, h.e.l.l, even pills, something to occupy me, rather than always having my thoughts to bounce off of the sides of my mind until I was half-nuts from it.

I supposed I could call all my crying some kind of vice. I did it enough for it to be a bad habit.

It wasn't very cold, perhaps a few degrees below freezing, which would make the night's travel across the slushy city that much more difficult.

My pants were soaked halfway to the knees from the snow.

My lunch period was almost over, but it felt like I had just gotten outside. I didn't want to go back. How much trouble would I get into if I skipped the rest of the afternoon? What would I miss? What would it matter?

Who would school report me to, anyhow?

I filled my mind with this idle nonsense, desperate to ignore the trembling worry I was gripped with.

I could see Felix looking at the snow that was still caked on my hiking shoes and the bottom of my pants. The cla.s.sroom was silent as Doctor Clive bantered on about the finer points of adjustment disorders. I suppose I should have been listening, since a lot of what our Psychology teacher was talking about sounded more than a little relevant to what I felt was going on inside of me, but I couldn't.

Nicolasha and me, the two of us. That's all I could see or hear. I re-animated every moment of our making...having s.e.x...in the Christmas twilight, while thousands of pounds of metal and rubber were smashing into each other, somewhere in the far southern suburbs of Chicago, with my Mom and Dad being reduced to dead ma.s.sacres of broken bone and torn flesh.

Yep, I was being strangled by barbed wire made out of Christmas lights.

Most of the cla.s.s had already left when Doctor Clive and Mister Granger, who shared the cla.s.sroom, both called my name. They looked at me with a mixture of kindness and sympathy that only made me angry. Granger said, "You can go home now, partner."

"Home?"

"If we don't leave now," Clive added, "we might get stuck here."

"Oh." I gathered my belongings and tried to smile back at my Literature teacher as he left the room.

Doctor Clive approached me with his customarily gentle face warming up the room. At least the pity wasn't in his eyes, anymore. "I just learned about your parents this afternoon." I hope it didn't put you off your soup, doc. "We're all sorry, quite sorry."

"Yeah. So am I."

"Any death is difficult. This? Beyond tragic, I'd say. No consolation in anything one can say, but we all feel deeply for you."

"Thanks."

Clive sat down on the edge of a desk. I was content to lean against the side chalk board, facing him and Granger. Clive was by far the most stylish out of our teachers, a salt-and-pepper rake who wore expensive Scottish tweeds and wry good looks with the aplomb of an expatriate Brit. Granger looked like a CPD detective who got into a lot of trouble for conduct unbecoming. Like the rest of our teachers, both could easily be teaching at the university next door, but chose not to, for some private reason.

"Carried yourself pretty well last week, considering what's happened, you know. If the old man hadn't let on, wouldn't have suspected a thing, the lot of us."

"You mean Nico - Mister Rozhdestvensky, he didn't tell you?"

Granger shook his head. "Haven't seen him all day. Don't think he made it in, tell you the truth."

My face fell as those Christmas lights drew tighter around my throat. "I should go," I murmured.

"Yes, well, so do I." Clive took out a small cigarette from his jacket and lit it. "You live in the bush, don't you? Out south?" I nodded impatiently. "Let me give you a lift. I've got one of those Jeep contraptions, so we won't get stalled in that muck outside."

"But you live near Lincoln Park, don't you?" On the North Side. Yuk.

"Certainly do, but I've got a dinner appointment with a lady that's worth a drive in a snowstorm for. Radio woman. Lives near you, I'm pretty certain."

The German in me sensed a trap. "You don't have to, sir. I'll be fine on the train."

"Until it takes flight? Come on, kid!" Granger almost slapped me into the wall as he patted my shoulder before plodding away.

"Bad company or not, I insist."

"I have to pick up a book from Margo, first." I was getting too good at this lying-on-the-fly bit. "She lives just around the block."

Doctor Clive eyed me carefully before sending me off with his cigarette. "I'll meet you in the parking lot. Fifteen minutes, then?"

I ran out the door and out of the building, straight to Nicolasha's apartment.

There was no sign of his Volvo. n.o.body answered his doorbell. There were no lights on in his apartment. His mail hadn't been removed from the box.

I punched the side of the building as I left.

Clive was an excellent driver. We were in my driveway in less than an hour.

We had listened to an obscure alternative rock station on the far left of the FM dial. I could tell he wanted to sing along with the screaming, peroxided punkers. The DJ, who sounded as young as I was, took a moment to intone that a travelers advisory had been issued, and for drivers to use caution, due to the snow. He paused, and then screamed "Duh!"

We both laughed, but that was it for any conversation, until I climbed out of the Jeep.

"I suppose you've heard a brigade's worth of people saying things like 'If there's anything I can do'."

"Yep."

"Won't add m'self to the list, then. Call if you need to. Student rates apply."

"Thanks, I will." I glanced toward my empty house. I didn't want to go inside. "Can I ask you a question, Doctor 'C'?"

The Brit switched off his Jeep and put on his game face. "Of course, you can."

"Is there something the matter if you..." I had to sift through a number of subjects before crying rose to the top of the list "...if you keep breaking down?"

(All the time? In the shower? Making love? In your sleep? In the dark, at the movies? When n.o.bodys looking? In the same bed with someone?) "You mean cry?" My look lowered Clives arching eyebrows. "No. Not unless you're British." I nodded curtly. He winked at me and left.

I called Nicolasha every fifteen minutes until I went to bed, but there was no answer.

I even dug out that Basilio's business card and called him at his studio. I couldn't tell if he was surprised to hear from me, with his strange, squeaky voice. He hadn't heard from "Nicky", either, but promised to tell my music teacher I needed to talk to him, "if they ran into each other."

How the h.e.l.l do you run into someone in a snowstorm?

The phone didn't ring all night, and I slept badly, on the couch and alone.