2Rachel shivered and huddled deeper into her thin jacket, wishing she'd thought to bring a raincoat before she left. She was sitting on her backpack to protect its contents from the driving rain, but that didn't stop her from being soaked, and now she was beginning to consider going back home.
Headlights broke through the haze of rain and fog, and the distinctive splash of tires stirring up puddles slowly became audible. Automatically Rachel jumped to her feet and stuck out her thumb, not giving her backpack or its protection another thought, but as she identified the car as a black Honda Civic her heart gave a noticeable jump and adrenaline kicked into her veins. Was it her mother, come to drag her back home?
The car skidded to a stop by the side of the highway, spraying Rachel with puddle water, and she could see the dim outline of a man through the streams of rain that curtained the windows. With a sigh of relief she gathered her bag and hopped awkwardly over the Jersey barrier, then climbed into the car without another moment's worry. The driver was a dark-haired man in his early twenties, a college student perhaps, who flashed a grin at her as she wrung out her sopping-wet hair.
"Sorry I sprayed you," he said as he eased back out onto the road. "Where to?"
"Don't worry, I was wet enough already. I'm bound for San Francisco eventually, but I don't think I'll get past the Oregon border tonight... is it on your way?"
"I was headed to Portland, actually, so that'll work out well enough." He frowned, fiddled with the heat a little, and peered out the windshield. "What's your name?" he asked without looking at her.
"Rachel. Yours?"
"David."
"Nice to meet you." Rachel stuck her hands out gratefully before the vents, which had just started to spout hot air, and cast a glance at him. Black hair, black t-shirt with an obscure band name printed on it, black jeans, and was that a smudge of kohl around his eyes? Not bad, she decided. In fact, pretty good-looking, if you were into the goth type. He looked more like a tortured artist than the rapists and murderers her parents had ranted about when they warned her never to hitchhike.
"So," he said without taking his eyes off the road, "you have a place to stay down in Portland?"
"No," she answered.
"What's a pretty girl like you doing thumbing rides in the middle of the night, without even a place to stay at the end of the line?" Something about his tone made the words harmless to her, even though they would have been a veiled threat in anyone else's voice. "There are dangerous people out there, you know."
"I'm running away, actually..." And she found herself relating the entire tale of the past week, the screaming matches with her father over what she thought of as just a little bit of weed, and what he insisted was the beginning of a sick and twisted downward spiral of drugs and addiction. She told him about her mother's futile attempts to arbitrate, and the slap he'd given her last night that was enough to make her pack her bags and leave. David listened with a sympathetic ear, and she felt an overwhelming sense of relief to have finally told her troubles to someone else.
"My parents never found out about the drugs while I was with them," he said, "but they practically disowned me after they found out some of the people I was dating. But don't worry, it'll get a lot better once you go off to college. The people are a lot less uptight there."
"You go to college? Around here?"
He shrugged and bit his lip. "I was majoring in French lit at Reed, but I dropped out last semester. Too academic, I guess. Maybe I'll go somewhere else next year, but I'm working at a nightclub in Portland now and I don't want to give it up just yet. Say, if you don't have a place to stay, you could always spend the night at my place, you know."
Rachel, taken aback by the sudden change of topic, spluttered and blushed a little. "Spend the night? I... um...you just met me..." She realized, with another glance at his face, that she really wouldn't mind if he did want to sleep with her, and blushed harder.
He laughed. "Not like that. Just a place to stay."
"Okay then. Thank you." She tried not to sound disappointed, concentrating furiously on twirling a strand of dark hair so she wouldn't stare at him. Instead she gazed out the window, where the rain-drenched countryside flashed past. He was going at least twenty miles an hour over the speed limit, but she didn't mind; the rain on the windows blurred the dark trees into an endless smear of green against the cloudy night sky. She could see her reflection, pale and damp, transposed over the landscape, and as Washington merged imperceptibly into Oregon her mind gradually blanked into a state of half-awareness, so when they finally arrived at David's house, he had to shake her gently to get her to open her door.
The rain had stopped by that point, leaving everything sodden and fresh- scented, and Rachel was on the brink of sleep when David ushered her into the kitchen. "Coffee?" he asked. "Or were you planning to go to bed?"
"I think I'll pass on the coffee," she said sleepily. "Say, I didn't think you'd have a house this big. It's a really nice place."
"Thanks. Do you want to see the garden?" David was making coffee anyway, presumably for himself. "I spend a lot of time on it." A manic edge crept into his voice, and Rachel thought his devotion might be a little more obsessive than simply spending a lot of time on it.
"Sure," she replied, thinking she'd probably get a tour of the garden no matter what she answered.
"Great." He led her by the arm, through an old and dusty back room full of covered furniture, and out a back door into a garden so lush and carefully tended that Rachel immediately thought of Eden. A small brick path lined with pink-budded trees led off through the flowerbeds, and a fountain trickled somewhere in the distance. The scent of fresh rain was stronger than before, mingling with the flowers and hanging thick over the entire space like a cloud.
"Come on," David urged, leading her past bed after bed of flowers. He named them for her as they walked through, azaleas, impatiens, crocuses, magnolias. Finally they stopped near the source of the trickling, a pond with a small artificial waterfall, laden with water lilies and framed by trellises of roses. They sat there on a stone bench and he carefully picked a rose for her, holding it out delicately and whispering, "Be careful-all roses have thorns."
She smiled and took the flower, then gasped softly as one of the thorns pricked her finger. David sighed tolerantly and wiped away the little dot of blood, then raised her hand to his lips and kissed it gently. Rachel's heart thumped in her chest and she scooted closer to him on the bench, but he only stood up and bade her return to the house with him.
On the way back, they passed an empty flower bed, and Rachel asked him what he was going to plant there. "Moonflowers," he answered, "white flowers that bloom at night. You would love them."
"I'm sure I would," she whispered, carefully clutching the rose.
They returned to the kitchen, and he sipped his coffee, now brewed and still hot. "Would you like some milk?" he asked. "Warm milk will help you sleep."
"All right." Rachel watched his back as he heated the milk, studied the back of his neck and tried not to think of the feel of his lips on her fingers. She was only seventeen; he was probably at least five years older than her. She shouldn't.
"Here." He handed her the glass and she stood up to take it, and suddenly they were almost touching.
Rachel's throat was tight as she said, "Thank you, David, I-" And then he was kissing her, softly but firmly, and she almost dropped her glass of milk. When he pulled away, she was gasping, and she could only repeat, "Thank you."
He smiled. "You're welcome. Now drink."
She sat down and drank, and started to feel sleepy again. She smiled as she closed her eyes, thinking of the kiss, and before she realized it she had fallen asleep right at the kitchen table.
David watched her sleep, and smiled again. She was so beautiful; she would be perfect. He listened to the light rise and fall of her breathing, and went back out into the garden to wait, wandering over to the grove of cherry trees to the left of the path. These were Anna's trees, Anna with the cherry-red lips and the cheeks as rosy and pink as the flowers that bloomed there now. And the snapdragons by the wall were sharp-witted Alice's; Kate had helped him grow the impatiens across the path. A girl for every flowerbed, a girl for every grove, and now Rachel, pale, dreamy- eyed Rachel he had met just that night, would make his moonflowers prosper.
He waited a few more minutes, and then returned to the kitchen. The soft breaths had stopped by now, and when he pressed his fingers to her throat there was no pulse; the poison in the milk had left her looking just as if she was sleeping, but she would never wake up again. Lifting her limp form into his arms, he pressed another kiss to her lips, then he ran out to fetch a shovel from the shed, and returned to carry her to where the empty flowerbed awaited.