Frost

by Marianna Baer

  I tried to think clearly about the best way to approach this before answering. “I’m fine about locking the doors,” I said. “If it’ll make you feel better, that’s not a problem. But I still don’t think there’s any need to. I think the vase broke by accident. And since nothing happened while you were in the tub, I’m assuming … I don’t know … that it was some other noise you heard. Have you lived in an old house before?”

  “Not really.”

  “Strange noises happen all the time,” I explained. “You’ll get used to it.”

  She pursed her lips. “But it sounded so … purposeful.”

  “If someone really did want to mess with you,” I said, “that would be a pretty weird way of doing it. Right? I mean, if I were trying to freak someone out, I’d replace their toothpaste with Preparation H, or fill their shoes with peanut butter or something.”

  “Fill their shoes with peanut butter?” Celeste said. “You’d be a crappy freaker-outer.”

  I laughed, a release of nerves mostly. “You know what I mean. I wouldn’t be knocking on a wall. Or breaking a vase, for that matter.”

  She placed the shard she’d been holding back on her desk. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”

  “I’m sure I am.”

  Feeling like I’d talked her off the ledge, I started out of the room. The minute I was in the hall, though, I remembered why I’d gone over to begin with. It took bulldozer force to make myself turn back around. “Celeste?” I held out the small white envelope. “David gave this to me at the beginning of school, and I totally forgot to give it to you. I hope I didn’t screw anything up.”

  She handed it back without opening it. “You should keep it,” she said.

  “Me? I don’t even know what it is.”

  “The key to his room. Which makes more sense, for his sister to have it, or his girlfriend?”

  For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. David had a girlfriend?

  Then I clued in to her implication. “I’m not his girlfriend,” I said.

  “I see you guys together all the time,” she said. “I don’t mind. I want you to get together. I told you that right on the first day. Why else do you think I had him come over to help you hang those shades the other week?”

  Oh my God. “You did that on purpose?”

  She smirked. “Just moving things along.”

  I took off my glasses and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “How about this. I’ll hang the key on a nail, and then if David’s ever locked out, he can know it’s here. That’s probably why he gave you a copy, right?”

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ll see who’s the first one to use it.”

  I couldn’t get out of there soon enough. Back in the bedroom, I lay down and tried to breathe away the tightness in my chest and the ache that was beginning to pulse at my temples.

  All of these stories she was constructing in her head! It was just like when we were lab partners—the constant dramas—except now I was one of the people involved. She couldn’t just be sad that her vase had broken; she had to make it into a whole mystery with herself as a victim. David and I couldn’t just be friends; it had to be a clandestine relationship—orchestrated by her! She thought everyone lived life as out of control as she did, acting on every little emotion. Was she going to do this all semester? Turn everything into more than it was?

  Still, as I was having these thoughts, something tickled at the edge of my brain. The knocking on the wall—that was nothing, I was sure. But did I really think a breeze could have blown over a ceramic vase?

  I rolled onto my side, facing the window. Cubby stared at me with her big glass eyes. I reached for her, brought her onto the bed.

  When I was little, I knew owls were supposed to be wise, so I made up this schoolmarmish voice for Cubby and would ask her questions like she was a wooden oracle.

  I think I convinced myself that when I spoke in Cubby’s voice, my answers were wiser than they’d otherwise have been.

  “Did you see how the vase broke?” I asked her now. “It blew over, right?”

  No answer.

  “You must have seen it. Was someone in here?”

  I looked deep into Cubby’s shiny black pupils.

  No one, I made her say in her uptight, vaguely English accent. The room was empty.

  “Thank you,” I said, resting her back on the sill.

  The room had been empty. Of course it had been. To believe anything else was to be sucked into Celeste’s melodrama, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Chapter 11

  TWO DAYS LATER, sitting in my Gender Relations in America seminar, the closer we got to the bell the more distracted I felt.

  “So,” Ms. Boutillier was saying from the other side of the round table where the seven of us sat, “do you think the author was ahead of his time? Or was he making a remark that was designed to stir controversy and prove that women didn’t, in fact, deserve the vote? Did you question his motives when reading?”

  I kept my eyes on my text, as if giving her questions deep thought. Really, I was thinking about David.

  Over the last couple of weeks, I’d gotten in the habit of leaving by the building’s side exit after my seminar. Usually, David would be coming out of his history class at that same spot. We’d walk over to the mailroom together, check our boxes, stop by senior tea … I looked forward to it.

  Today, I wondered if I should go out the main exit of Holmes Hall instead. I hadn’t run into David anywhere yesterday—the day after the vase incident—and I’d been thinking maybe it would be better if I stopped going out of my way to see him. Just stay away from the freaky Lazar vortex; remove myself from Celeste’s rich, imaginative life.

  “Leena?” Ms. Boutillier said. “Did you hear those page numbers for tonight?”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said. “Can you repeat them?” She did, with obvious annoyance, and then the bell finally rang.

  I slipped into my canvas army jacket, hoisted my bag over my shoulder, and followed the herd, taking a left toward the main entrance where I’d usually take a right. Then I stopped. David and I weren’t doing anything wrong. We weren’t doing anything, period. Why play into Celeste’s bizarre little game? Also, I wanted to talk to him about what was going on in the dorm. I turned around and headed to where I knew he would be lingering, putting books into his bag.

  We swung into step next to each other—my small, blue Chucks next to his bigger, black ones on the shiny checker-board floor. I imagined Celeste making some comment about the cute couple-ness of it, felt her eyes on us even though she didn’t have class in this building.

  “How were the genders relating today?” he said.

  “You know,” I said. “Hostile.”

  He held the heavy wood door open for me and for a bunch of other people. I passed by him out onto the steps.

  “So, I hear there was trouble on the home front,” he said, catching up.

  “Yeah.” I shivered—the sky was gray, the air was damp and cold and bit at my cheeks. “I actually wanted to talk to you about it.”

  “Senior tea?” he suggested.

  “Maybe somewhere more private?”

  We were already heading toward the path to the mailroom. I was thinking about a small lounge nearby that was usually empty. I didn’t want anyone to overhear me as I talked to him about Celeste.

  “Actually,” he said, “I have to meet someone later at senior tea. So …”

  “Oh. Okay.” I didn’t know why, but this surprised me. Maybe because I hadn’t noticed him making any particular friends since he’d been here.

  We entered the lower level of the student center and went into the mailroom—a total scene, as it usually was between classes. My box held a coupon packet from local businesses, a flyer for Buried Child—the play Abby was in, an Urban Outfitters catalogue, a glossy brochure from my mother’s office, and a note to call Dean Shepherd’s office. Probably about babysitting.

  David came up behind me as I was sorting t
hrough things to keep and recycle. He rested a hand on my shoulder.

  “Need a condo in LA?” I asked, waving the real-estate brochure, conscious of the warmth that spread through my body from where he touched me in a way I wouldn’t have been if Celeste hadn’t made an issue out of it.

  “Why are you on a real-estate mailing list?” he asked.

  “It’s my mother,” I said. I glanced at the brochure again. She’d drawn a speech bubble coming out of one of the windows: Can’t wait until you’re here!

  I held it out to him and pointed at the building. “That’s where she lives.”

  “Really?” he said. “Wow. Pretty slick.”

  “Pretty awful,” I said, throwing it in the recycling bin.

  He gave me a funny look. Sort of … pitying.

  “That wasn’t a statement or anything,” I said as we made our way back outside. Ever since I told him about the divorce mess, I’d gotten the impression he thought my relationship with my parents was totally dysfunctional.

  “Didn’t say it was.”

  “I know.” I fastened a higher button on my jacket to keep the wind out. “I just feel like you might think we’re not close anymore. I mean, we’re not close the way we used to be, but it’s better. I was way too attached to my parents before. The separation had to happen sooner or later.”

  “I guess,” he said, kicking at a couple of acorns on the path. “Seems like they didn’t have to make it so traumatic for you, though.”

  “Maybe.” I was kind of annoyed at what he was implying about my parents. “But it all worked out for the best.”

  We walked up the steps and into Grove Hall, to the same sprawling room where registration had taken place. There was a setup of baked goods, coffee, and tea here for seniors three mornings a week. I waited for an opening in the crowd around the food table—the way we all ate so much, it was as if we hadn’t eaten breakfast a couple of hours ago and weren’t going to lunch soon—got a pumpkin muffin and a coffee, and met David on a small couch in a corner of the room. He moved his bag off the spot he’d saved for me.

  I sat down, shrugged off my jacket, and checked to make sure no one nearby was listening to our conversation. “So, you know about the vase,” I said.

  “Yup. Am I still a suspect?”

  “Don’t be silly.” I wished Celeste hadn’t told him that part of it. “I think it just blew over. Our room has such strong cross breezes, and it was pretty blustery.”

  “What about Abby?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “But that’s why I wanted to talk to you. I’m worried that— Well, wait. Did Celeste mention the other thing?”

  “What other thing?”

  Lowering my voice a notch further, I told him about the knocking noise she’d heard. As I did, the expression on David’s face grew more and more concerned.

  “Why didn’t she tell me this?” he said, pulling his phone out of his bag. At first, I thought he was calling her, but then I realized he was online, searching for something, following links. “You know that guy she was with over the summer?” he said, still typing.

  It took me a second to remember. “The guy in the band?”

  “Yeah. I’m just … Oh. Here. Hold on.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, then, “Okay. Good.” He turned his phone off and tossed it in his bag. “There’s video from a show last night in Amsterdam. He’s there.”

  So David had thought the guy might have followed Celeste here? “Could you really have imagined him doing those things?” I asked, trying to picture a typical rocker guy hiding in Celeste’s closet and knocking on the wall.

  “It would’ve been weird,” David conceded. “But he was weird. Maybe not technically a stalker, but close.”

  I took a sip of coffee. “I guess dealing with him over the summer explains why she’d be paranoid now.” It made me feel a bit better to know that there was something behind her irrationality. “Because I’m sure it was just a noise that the house made, not a person.”

  “Yeah,” David said. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Anyway,” I said. “I’m worried that from now on, if anything slightly out of the ordinary happens, she’s going to blow it out of proportion. Look for someone to blame. Probably Abby. Do you have any suggestions for what I should do to … I don’t know, make her feel more comfortable in the dorm? And to help convince her that these things really were just random?”

  “I can talk to her,” he said. “But I bet you don’t have to worry. Something else will distract her. Another ill-fated love affair, probably.” He smiled a little ruefully.

  “And you believe me that Abby didn’t break it, right?” I said.

  “Sure,” he said. “If you say so. I don’t even know her.”

  “You’ll get to know her better at the dorm dinner.”

  “The what?”

  It turned out that Celeste hadn’t invited him. I’d assumed she had, when she referred to her guest as a “he” a couple days ago. “You should definitely come,” I said, trying to cover my surprise and to smooth over the awkwardness. “I’m sorry we didn’t invite you sooner.”

  “That’s cool.” He was looking at me strangely. “You know,” he said, “as long as we’re getting stuff out in the open, there’s something I need to talk to you about, too.”

  “There is?” I felt a little surge of nerves at his serious tone of voice.

  “Uh-huh. You seem to have a problem, and I’m not sure you realize.” He reached forward and softly brushed the side of my head, then grinned as muffin crumbs sprinkled my chest. “Every time you eat, you get food in your hair.”

  I quickly wiped the crumbs off. “Yeah. That’s been pointed out to me before.” Shit. My nervous system had had a mini-conniption, wondering what he was going to say and then feeling his hand touching my head and—

  “Hey, Leena, David.” Simone Dzama, a doe-eyed, environmentally friendly hippie chick, stood by the couch. It was only after she squatted next to David and began talking excitedly about a trip to a green rally in Boston that I realized she was whom he had been meeting. I picked at my muffin as they talked, trying not to listen to them making plans. I studied the shifting sky out the plate-glass windows, then read and responded to a couple of messages that had arrived while I was in class.

  Simone finally stood. Before walking away she said, “We should find a time for that other thing, too, David. This weekend or something.”

  My pulse sped up again, and I knew it wasn’t from caffeine.

  “Hey.” David nudged me.

  “I didn’t know you were into that stuff,” I said. “I mean, enough to go to a rally.” I didn’t know you were hanging out with Simone.

  He shrugged. “I’ll go if I don’t have too much work. Simone’s nice. We have English together.”

  I nodded and took another sip of my now tepid coffee. Obviously, it wasn’t just Celeste’s involvement that made this friendship with David complicated. I might not want him, but I didn’t want anyone else to have him either.

  With everything that was on my mind, I forgot to call Dean Shepherd until I was on my way to lunch. When I did, Marcia said that the dean wanted to talk to me in person and asked if I could come in at four this afternoon. I told her it wasn’t great—I had field hockey at three and wouldn’t be done. She said the dean would wait. I briefly wondered why we couldn’t just talk on the phone, and why she was wil ing to stay in the office late for me, but didn’t think much of it. I was always happy to see Dean Shepherd.

  Some days, I barely got any exercise during field hockey, since I was assistant coaching JVII instead of playing. I wasn’t good enough for varsity, and coaching younger kids sounded more fun than a noncompetitive “sport” like “Freedom Movement” or “Boot Camp.” Today, though, the team had needed extra players for a scrimmage, and I didn’t have time to go home and change before my meeting. I arrived at Irving Hall a mess, in cleats and sweatpants and sweatshirt, bringing along my field hockey sti
ck and the smell of grass, mud, and sweat.

  “Sorry I’m so gross,” I told Dean Shepherd as I sat across from her. “And you look so nice. I love your blouse.”

  She glanced down distractedly. “Thanks. Michael gave it to me.”

  “We’re having a dorm dinner soon and if you and Mich—”

  “Leena,” she interrupted, “I have to pick up Anya in a little bit and didn’t call you in here to socialize.”

  “Oh. Okay, sorry,” I said, a bit taken aback.

  “A couple of days ago, did you tell Nicole Kellogg that …” She looked down at a piece of notepaper in front of her. The yellow sheet was covered with her loopy handwriting, illegible from where I sat. “… that she doesn’t have a home anymore?”

  “Nicole Kellogg?” It took a minute for me to remember that she was the crying redheaded freshman I’d counseled. “What? No. Of course not.”

  “You know how much I trust you,” Dean Shepherd said, “but you’ve got to help me understand what this is about. This girl, Nicole, she’s very upset. She’s considering leaving school.”

  “Are you serious? Because of me?” I must not have understood correctly. There was no way.

  “What did you say to her?”

  I picked up a shiny, leopard-spotted shell from the desk and started running my fingers over it, trying to remember the meeting. “Um, well … She was having trouble with her roommate, not respecting her boundaries, being loud, inconsiderate, you know, normal stuff.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “And I just, I told her that she had to think of her like a sister, who she might not choose to live with, but has to find a way. And that the best way to do that is by trying to communicate right up front about what she needs.”

  “But did you say something about her home?”

  “Just that to be happy at boarding school, it helps to think of school as your home. And your parents’ house as just that—your parents’ house. Somewhere you visit. Because you don’t live there anymore, and probably never will. I mean, right?”

  Dean Shepherd’s nostrils indented as she drew a deep breath. “Leena, can’t you see how upsetting that might be for someone? It’s hard enough for her to be away from her family for the first time, but then to tell her that it’s not her home anymore?