Frost

by Marianna Baer

  Even with Cubby here, I was expecting to toss and turn.

  And, at first, moments from the strange day cluttered my head—so different from what I’d anticipated when I woke up this morning. Not all bad—there was David’s smile as he rode away … Soon, though, thoughts of the day faded and I was just here, in my new room. I concentrated on the breezes that slipped through the slightly open windows and fluttered across my skin. The air was cooler now, because of the second storm. I listened to the sounds that mingled with Rachael Yamagata’s low, breathy voice: rain pattering on leaves, windowpanes rattling softly, a door creaking. I imagined the house was saying it was happy I’d finally arrived.

  The feel of the bed underneath me, the shape of the room around me, the woody smell of the air: it was all so familiar. I didn’t feel homesick or lonely at all. In fact, just the opposite. I was so comfortable—so at home—that Viv probably would have said I’d lived in Frost House in a past life.

  Viv. The darkness. I smiled at the ridiculousness.

  Before I knew it, I was asleep.

  Chapter 6

  THE NEXT MORNING, I was sitting on my bed reading an online article about schizoaffective disorder and its effect on families while supposedly reaping the soothing benefits of a chamomile-jasmine aromatherapy facial mask. I breathed in deeply through my nose. If the aromatherapy was bull, at least the extra oxygen would relax me.

  The side door to Frost House squeaked open and the thud of uneven footsteps sounded in the common area.

  “Hello, hello?” Celeste’s voice called.

  I shut my laptop and rushed to the bathroom. For some reason, I hadn’t expected her to arrive this early.

  I rinsed and dried my face, put my glasses on, checked my reflection in the mirror, tightened my ponytail. Celeste was just another person. No need to be nervous.

  She and David stood in the middle of the bedroom. A chunky cast on her left leg peeked out of a full-skirted white dress with Mexican-style embroidery and a turquoise sash. The cast was painted gold, her toenails neon orange. Her thick, dark brown hair was longer than I’d ever seen it, halfway down her back. Despite a tan, her face seemed drawn, emphasizing the bone structure she shared with David.

  He was wearing a thin, white T-shirt and faded black jeans, cut off at the knee. I had a sudden realization that he’d been in my dream last night. The details were fuzzy. Still, I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Hey, Celeste,” I said. “I’m really sorry about your accident.”

  “Yeah, it sucks. For you, too. Right?” She hopped over and gave me a wiry-arm hug. “David told me you didn’t even know until you got here. What assholes.”

  “It’s not a big deal. It’ll be fun.”

  She let out a little snort. “You say that now.”

  I didn’t know how to respond.

  “Much as I like hearing you charm people,” David said to his sister, “I’m gonna get going. Once you thank me for setting up your stuff, that is.”

  Celeste glanced around distractedly. “Oh, crap,” she said. “Did I forget to pack the beetle photo?”

  “No,” David said. “It’s in the closet. I thought Leena might not appreciate having it hanging.”

  “Leena doesn’t care,” Celeste said as if she could possibly know this. “The RISD admissions woman loved it.”

  “Fine.” David sounded exasperated. “I’ll hang it later. Now, are you going to thank me? Or what?”

  “Thank you. You did a very nice job. Sure you aren’t gay?”

  He turned to me. “If she acts up, I’ll loan you my Taser.” He smiled and I couldn’t help but smile back way too widely, both because David was so cute and because as Celeste’s lab partner, I’d definitely have taken him up on his offer a few times.

  “Call if you need anything,” he said to Celeste. “And don’t make Leena regret letting you live here.”

  He held out a fist. Celeste bumped it twice, then they pressed their palms together, hers tiny next to his. A small hollow opened in my chest, the place where a sibling would fit.

  David left. As I listened to his receding footsteps, I had an irrational impulse to call after him, to tell him not to leave me alone with his sister.

  “Pretty room,” Celeste said, sitting down on her bed. “Too many windows, though. Like being in a fishbowl.” She sucked in her cheeks and made fishy lips.

  “Oh, well …” I said. “No one’s ever in the backyard. Did you see the smaller room with our desks across the hall? And we’ve got our own bathroom. The fixtures are old and funky, but the water pressure is good.” I caught myself before droning on. “Sorry, I sound like my mother, the realtor.”

  “Anyone else on the first floor?”

  “Just Ms. Martin, our house counselor. Her apartment takes up the whole front.”

  “I had her for history freshman year. She’s kind of a twat. Who’s upstairs?”

  “Abby Brenner and Vivian Parker-White.”

  “Not sure if I know them. I’m terrible with names. What did I always call you in chem?”

  “Lisa.”

  “Oh, right. Leena’s much better.” Celeste reached back and began twisting her hair into a knot. “I like your glasses,” she said. “They counteract the dumb-blond thing.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not that you’re dumb. Just that with your big boobs and blondie-blond hair you could look it. Black glasses help.”

  I refrained from saying thank you, the way I should have when she made the comment about my butt that first day of chem. Anyway, my hair isn’t that blond—sort of a caramel color. And as for my boobs, they’re only a C—hardly enormous.

  “David’s noticed you,” Celeste continued. “I can tell. Do you like him? Or do you already have a fuck-buddy?”

  Fuck-buddy?

  “Uh, no.”

  “You don’t think he’s hot? I was kidding about that gay thing.”

  She talked this way about her own brother?

  “I meant, no, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  And didn’t want one this semester, for numerous reasons, even if he wasn’t related to my nutty roommate. Not that I would have minded if Celeste was right and David had noticed me. No objections there.

  “Me neither, at the moment,” she said, pushing herself up to stand. “I had a thing with this amazing guy over the summer. The bassist for Wishmaker. Do you know them? Anyway, I was completely in love, but he ended up being all obsessed and stalkerish, so I had to go through this big mess to get out of it. Really sucked. Maybe there’s a guy here who has a cast fetish.”

  “I have to run the peer-counseling orientation for new students in a little bit,” I said, grateful I had an excuse to leave. “Do you need to use the bathroom, or anything, before I shower?”

  “Nope.” Celeste’s back was to me as she looked through her closet. “Something stinks over here,” she muttered, shutting the door. I grabbed Cubby off the windowsill and hid her in the towel I was carrying. I didn’t want to have to explain why I was taking a wooden owl with me to the bathroom.

  On my way out, Celeste picked up the family snapshot off her dresser.

  “That’s a nice picture,” I said. “I was so sorry to hear—”

  “Look.” She turned to face me. “I don’t know what big-mouth David told you, but let’s get something straight. I do not discuss my father. Got it? Do. Not. Discuss. My. Father.”

  “Okay. But if you ever want to talk—”

  “I won’t,” she said. “Ever.” She shoved the photo into her top drawer, all the way at the back. “David doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. I hope you do.”

  “I guess, yeah. I mean, I do.”

  “And speaking of David’s big mouth, I want you to know I didn’t do it on purpose.” She tapped one of her crutches against her cast. “I know he thinks I did.”

  “He told me it was an accident,” I said.

  “I’m just telling you. Don’t believe everything he says. He thinks I’m
some sort of delicate creature. I’m not. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Although I’d known Celeste for longer than I’d known her brother, if I’d had to trust one of them, I would have picked David.

  In any case, I didn’t need to worry about it right now. I had a presentation in front of two hundred students to get through. I went to the bathroom and turned on the shower in the claw-foot tub. While waiting for the water to heat up, I lifted off Cubby’s head. My first semester at Barcroft, I was embarrassed about a prescription I was taking for a urinary tract infection, so I’d hidden the pills in here. Since then, Cubby had become my quirky portable medicine cabinet.

  I took out the folded piece of paper that lay on top: a list I’d made of the pills’ usage and dosage information. I didn’t keep them in their boxes or bottles, but in tiny plastic baggies, labeled with a Sharpie— Tylenol PM, Sudafed Sinus & Cold, Ativan….

  All I needed this morning was one of the round, white antianxiety pills. That should do it. My body’s nervous, physical reactions got in the way when I made presentations. The antianxiety medicine was for emergencies. Not spazzing out in front of the new students definitely qualified.

  After showering and brushing my teeth, I went back in the bedroom.

  Celeste stood holding her vase of orange tulips. “What was David thinking?” she asked me. The flowers hung limply, leaves a sickly yellow, petals shriveled. The last time I’d noticed, they hadn’t even opened the whole way—nowhere near dying. Across the room, my three were still in the flush of early bloom. They were from the same bunch. How could only hers have died?

  “Maybe they ran out of water?” I suggested.

  She shook the vase a little, then dumped it in the trash. A stream of water poured out along with the flowers. “Oh, well,” she said. “An untimely frost, I guess.”

  “What?” I thought I’d misunderstood.

  “Romeo and Juliet?” she said. “Juliet’s death. It’s compared to an ‘untimely frost’ that kills flowers in their prime.” She stared at me as if this was supposed to make sense. “This is Frost House, right?” she continued. “Must be in the air.”

  “Frost? ” I repeated.

  Celeste’s gaze shifted to my tulips. “On this side of the room, at least,” she said.

  A chill prickled across my neck, even though I didn’t understand what she was trying to say. Obviously, frost wasn’t what had killed those flowers. With anyone else, I would have assumed they were completely kidding.

  But something in her expression told me she didn’t quite think it was funny.

  An hour and a half later, I turned over my last page of notes on the podium in front of me. Finally, the end was in sight.

  “So, to sum up,” I said, looking out at the rows of faces, “the peer-counseling program is all about students supporting one another. We know how hard it is to make the transition, to deal with the pressures of school. Don’t feel bad asking for help. And, I promise, we have an amazing group of students working with us. You’d be lucky to talk to any of them.

  “Are there any questions before my cohead, Toby, tells you about the training program?”

  I hoped my speech hadn’t been too boring. Despite taking the pill, I’d felt too nervous to make eye contact while speaking, so I hadn’t noticed how many of the new students had been surreptitiously (or unsurreptitiously) texting or playing video games.

  “Yes?” I said to a small girl in the front.

  “Uh, so … I …” Her voice was shaky. “No, never mind. Forget it.”

  “Sure?” I said. “There are no dumb questions.”

  She nodded, and I made a mental note to ask her privately, after the meeting. Maybe it was something she didn’t want to say in front of a room of strangers.

  “Anyone else?”

  I searched the audience for hands. Then I saw David. He sat in the last row, out of place in the room of mostly freshmen. Our eyes met. Fuck-buddy. The word flashed like a neon sign over his head.

  “Okay, so …” I ruffled through my speech notes and willed my blush to go away. “I guess that’s it then. Here’s Toby.”

  I shielded my face from the strong sun as I stood talking to Dean Shepherd on the path leading from the auditorium to the main quad, keenly aware of the fact that David hadn’t passed by us yet.

  “You haven’t mentioned your college visits,” Dean Shepherd said. “How did they go?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I don’t have a first choice, yet. Maybe Wesleyan, or Columbia. But they’re both super long shots.” Whenever I talked about colleges, the air I was breathing felt a little thinner. It seemed impossible that I’d choose the right place, even more impossible that the right place would choose me. And most of the money in my college fund had been spent on Barcroft.

  “It’s worth a try,” the dean said. “Michael used to teach at Wesleyan. You’ll have to come to dinner soon and meet him.”

  “You’re still seeing him?” I said. “That’s great.”

  At the edge of my vision, I sensed people approaching. I snuck a look—it was David and some girl—then kept my eyes on the dean as she told me about her boyfriend.

  “Hi, David,” she said when he reached us, alone. “Settling in okay?”

  I made my mind a blank slate, ignored that neon sign over his head. Or at least I tried.

  “Pretty much, thanks,” he said, then turned to me. “Actually, I just wondered if you were going back to the dorm now?”

  I moistened my lips. “After lunch, I am.” Was he looking at me with more than friendly interest? It was hard to tell; his eyes had such a natural intensity. In the end, probably better if he wasn’t. I might not be strong enough to resist.

  “Could you give this to my sister?” he said. “I’d bring it myself, but I have another orientation thing and I know I’ll just end up forgetting.” He handed me a small white envelope, then added, “Assuming you haven’t kicked her out already, that is.”

  An image of her holding the dead tulips flashed in my mind. “Not yet,” I joked back. Folding the envelope into my bag, I could tell it contained a key.

  “David,” the dean said. “I spoke to Harry Weintraub and he’s ready to meet with you whenever. You have his number and email?”

  “I do,” David said. “Thanks.”

  “Seems like a nice young man,” Dean Shepherd said as he walked away.

  I watched his retreating figure—the broad shoulders, the defined calf muscles—and noticed he had a bounce in his walk, not the usual too-cool saunter of a good-looking guy. “Nice young man. Is that a euphemism for hot as hell?” I asked the dean.

  She laughed.

  “And what was that about Dr. Weintraub?” I said. He was a teacher and well-known mathematician. I’d wanted him for Calculus, but he was taking a couple of years off. “Isn’t he still on leave?”

  “Official y, yes. But he agreed to work with David on an independent study.”

  So math was David’s thing? He must have been pretty brilliant for Dr. Weintraub to make a special point of working with him. I wondered what spoons had to do with it….

  “David told me,” I said. “You know, about their father.”

  The dean nodded. “It wasn’t my place. But I’m glad he did. And Celeste arrived this morning?”

  “Yup.”

  “How was that?” she asked, putting an arm around my shoulders.

  “Well,” I said, “it’s going to be an interesting semester.”

  “You know what Edith Wharton said?” the dean replied. “She said, ‘I don’t know if I should care for a man who made life easy; I should want someone who made life interesting.’ Maybe the same applies for roommates.”

  I supposed that was the best way to look at it. If I anticipated an interesting—if odd—semester with Celeste, someone so different from me and my friends, and saw it as a chance to get to know her better, then I wouldn’t be disappointed. Still, I held on to the hope that didn’t necessarily mean it wouldn’t also be easy.<
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  Chapter 7

  MY MOTHER CALLED WHEN I WAS on my way back to Frost House after lunch. I wasn’t in the mood for a long conversation, but picked up anyway because I knew she’d keep calling until she reached me. I hadn’t talked to her since arriving at school, had only sent her and my father brief messages saying I’d gotten here safely. My father had written back: “Remember to get car inspected. Visit soon. Dad.” My mother was higher maintenance.

  I walked down Highland Street, giving her a brief summary of the weekend.

  “What kind of interesting?” she said when I used the word to describe Celeste again. “Medieval castle? Skyscraper?”

  Matching up people with architecture: our family version of “If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?”

  The perfect answer came as I turned into the Frost House driveway.

  “Casa Batlló,” I said. Casa Batlló—an outrageous apartment building in Barcelona with colorful, mosaic walls that seem to ripple, balconies that look like enormous skulls, a ceiling that swirls like a whirlpool. Disconcerting, but beautiful.

  “You were scared to death of Casa Batlló,” my mother said. “Do you need me to call that Dean of Students woman, honey? I don’t want you living with some girl you’re scared—”

  “Mom,” I interrupted. “I was only six when we went to Barcelona.” Gravel pressed into the thin soles of my sandals. “Everything is fine here. I have to go, okay?” It bothered me when she tried to get involved in things about my life she didn’t understand, things I could take care of myself.

  If she wanted to be a part of it all, she shouldn’t have moved across the country.

  Ignoring my comment about needing to go, she began to tell me about an article on a new kind of yoga that she was going to email me. “Apparently, it’s much better for managing stress than the kind I’ve been doing,” she said. “If there’s a studio near Barcroft that offers it, I’d be happy to pay for you to take classes.”