Frost

by Marianna Baer

  “Thanks for having me,” I said into her shirt. “And happy birthday.”

  “It is a happy birthday,” she said, releasing me from the embrace. “With the kids here, and George, and meeting you. I’m glad you could come early, before the gang.”

  George? Frigid wind tickled my ears. “Could I come in?”

  “Oh, of course.” Mrs. Lazar laughed and backed into the house. Warmth and rich cooking smells spilled out. “Unusually chilly for this time of year.”

  I handed her the dahlias. When I bought them, I almost chose tulips, instead, before remembering the ones that had strangely died the day Celeste arrived at Frost House.

  “How lovely!” Mrs. Lazar said, sniffing the magenta blooms. “As are you. I hear you’ve been under the weather. You don’t look it at all.”

  “Thanks.” I unwound my scarf. We stood in a spacious entryway, mostly blond wood. A decorative niche in the wall held a delicate sculpture made of birds’ nests and wire—Celeste’s, no doubt. “I’m still exhausted. Not contagious, though.”

  Quick thuds of sock feet on wood came from a nearby staircase.

  “David says you’re a strong one,” Mrs. Lazar said. “Not easily—”

  “Hey!” David jumped the last three steps and slid across the floor to where I was standing. “You made it! Take off your coat. Didn’t you ask her to take it off, Mom?”

  David’s hand rumpling my hair and his “so happy to see you” smile made it clear Celeste hadn’t said anything about me.

  “Where’s Celeste?” I asked, shedding my puffer.

  “Resting,” David said. “She’s been kind of out of it. I hope it’s not the start of what you had. If it hit you that bad, I can’t imagine what it would do to Celeste.”

  Was this part of whatever was wrong with her? Maybe it really was a blood disease or other serious illness. I hated the responsibility of knowing something David didn’t. Not that there was anything he could do. He wasn’t a doctor, and Celeste already had an appointment with one. Or maybe she had already gone. I hadn’t seen her to ask.

  “I hope she’s okay,” I said.

  “Where’s Dad?” David asked his mother.

  I felt my jaw open slightly.

  “The living room,” Mrs. Lazar said. “Best to introduce Leena now. He’s feeling okay.” She rested a hand on my arm. “This is a momentous occasion, you know.”

  “Oh, right,” I stammered through my surprise. “Fifty is a big one.”

  “No, no,” she said. “Fifty is just an excuse for a party. Momentous because this is the first time David has brought someone home to meet us. Celeste has been falling in love since kindergarten, but not this guy.”

  “Mom.” David sounded like an annoyed little kid as he grasped my hand. “Come on, Leen.”

  My pleasure at being the first formal Lazar girlfriend was way overshadowed by the realization I’d be meeting his father. Why had I assumed that Mr. Lazar wouldn’t be here? It was his wife’s party, after all, and I would think he could come and go from the facility he was in; it’s not like he was a prisoner. I just hadn’t thought about it, among all of the other issues crowding my brain for attention. I hated to admit it, but I was scared.

  In the living room—more like a library, there were so many books piled around—a man sat folded into a large armchair. His face held none of the sharpness of David’s and Celeste’s. Like in the family photo, it seemed almost blurry, even though he was sitting perfectly still. He was mostly bald on top, except for a thin but longish section that was awkwardly combed to one side. He stared out a window. Classical music—a piano concerto—played softly.

  “Dad, this is my friend Leena,” David said. “This is my father, George Lazar.”

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s so nice to meet you.” I stood next to his chair, my hands dangling uselessly. I clasped them behind my back.

  “Nice to meet you.” His eyes strayed up to me, and then back to the window.

  “You feeling okay, Dad?” David asked.

  Pushing with one arm and then the other, Mr. Lazar shifted himself up to stand. Although his face wasn’t too heavy, his body filled his sweatpants and sweatshirt and then some. He walked with stiff legs over to the window. Side effects of his medicine, probably—weight gain, movement difficulties. And I shouldn’t take it personally that he wasn’t interested in meeting me.

  “Did the mail come yet?” he asked, then moved over to the next window. “I should probably wait outside. Until it comes.”

  “No mail today,” David said. “It’s Sunday.”

  I studied the books on the shelves, the wallpaper’s light brown bamboo pattern. Flat affect—that’s what it was called, the way his voice just slid out like a robot’s, no expression.

  “I should wait outside,” he said. “Sometimes they bring something on Sunday. I ordered something for your mother.”

  “Stay inside, Dad.” Celeste’s voice came from the doorway leading into the hall. “It’s cold out.” She hunched over her crutches, wearing the very un-Celeste outfit of a denim skirt and an oversize Hooters T-shirt. Long sleeved, of course.

  “Hi, Celeste,” I said.

  “How’s it coming?” David asked. He turned to me. “She wasn’t really resting upstairs. She’s making this incredible thing for the party—one of those painted caricatures where you stick your face in and get your picture taken.”

  “Fine,” she said. She looked like she should have been resting. The circles under her eyes were now dark like plums.

  “Let’s go upstairs, Dad,” Celeste said. “We can decide what you want to wear for the party. Mom and I bought you some new shirts yesterday.”

  “I’m not going to the party,” Mr. Lazar said. He leaned forward so that his face was practically touching the windowpane.

  “That’s okay,” Celeste said. “We still need to get you cleaned up and dressed.”

  “Can’t you do that in a bit?” David said. “Leena just met him.”

  “Don’t you have to go finish cooking or something?” Celeste replied. “People will be here in a couple of hours.”

  I hooked a finger in one of David’s belt loops. “I can see your father later. What can I do to help out?”

  “Anything Leena can do?” David said. “To help with your project?”

  “I don’t give a fuck what Leena does,” Celeste said.

  “Jesus,” David said. “What’s your problem?”

  I had to blink away the threat of shocked tears, even though I knew better.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Sorry. I have a terrible headache.” She clamped the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger.

  “Do you want something for it?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “I know you don’t like taking stuff. But it will—”

  “Nothing will make it better.”

  After Celeste’s outburst and meeting Mr. Lazar, I slipped away to a downstairs half bath and used one of the pills I’d brought with me to take the edge off. I hadn’t wanted to medicate today, mostly because of Celeste’s theory that I had a problem with it. But my first day at the Lazars’ house didn’t seem to be a good time to prove I was fine without them. Not to mention, who cared if I wasn’t fine without them? They weren’t harmful, like alcohol or whatever. They were a valid way of dealing with a stressful situation. If David didn’t have such a harsh view of meds, I wouldn’t have cared at all if Celeste told him.

  Ironically, though, after the initial bumps, the day became surprisingly enjoyable. Mrs. Lazar— Phippy—had plenty of things for me to do around the house while we were waiting for people to come, and David needed help in the kitchen. Once everyone arrived, you’d have thought I’d been coming to Lazar functions since birth. Everyone was nice and funny and easy to talk to. And not one person asked me where I was applying to college. That had to be some sort of record for a high school senior at a social event with adults. Most of the time was spent talking about food.

 
“This pea-pod thing is amazing! Did you try one, Leena, hon?” David’s aunt Jill said. “Davey’s incredible, isn’t he? And do you know he’s like a genius? He was doing multiplication at two or something. Ask Phippy about it.”

  I’d definitely learned that the female members of the family thought I’d snagged quite a catch.

  “What about the bruschetta?” her daughter, Meg, said. “God. And where did you get that dress, Leena? It’s really cute.”

  “Thanks. Anthropologie.” A sticky warmth embraced my hand. One or another small cousin had grabbed it. Which one was the towhead?

  “I show you somefing,” he said. Gabe. That was his name.

  “Leena’s having some food now, hon,” Jill said. “Later you can show her.”

  “Actually, I show now.” He tugged.

  Tiny Gabe had an easier time than I did worming through the clumps of people, most of whom were holding plates and glasses. I tried to keep up, so that he wouldn’t rip my arm out of its socket. “Sorry!” I kept saying as I bumped into most of them. Where was David? I had barely seen him.

  “Joan Fontaine,” a white-haired man I’d met earlier said as I pushed by. He tapped my shoulder repeatedly. “That’s it. You look like a young Joan Fontaine. I’m sure someone’s told you that.”

  “Nope,” I said. I wasn’t quite sure who Joan Fontaine was. An old actress, I thought. My arm was still moving so I couldn’t even stop to find out.

  Gabe pulled me to the bottom of the staircase then let go of my hand and scrambled up the stairs like a spider.

  “Gabe,” I said, “let’s stay downstairs.” But by the time I said it he was around the landing and up the next flight. I followed.

  At the top of the stairs he pushed open a door into a dim room—curtains drawn, a big bed over to one side covered with a mess of burgundy paisley sheets and comforter. Clothes strewn around. The master bedroom. I’d been shown David’s and Celeste’s rooms, but not this one.

  Gabe pushed open another door, put a hand to his mouth, and gave a guilty little smile. A big bathroom stood in front of us. He giggled.

  “What did you want to show me?” I said. “We shouldn’t really be in here.” As if he cared.

  He pointed. “Dey’ve got a potty.”

  “Yes,” I said. “They do have a potty.”

  “I wear big-boy underpants.”

  “Gabe?” The woman’s voice came from out in the hallway. She stuck her face in. “I thought I saw you racing up here.”

  Gabe ran over to her.

  “He was just showing me the potty,” I said.

  “He’s big on potties,” she said. “Do you have to go, Gabey?”

  “No!” Gabe shouted, and ran off down the hall. His mother gave me a quick, tired smile and followed him.

  I was reaching to pull the bathroom door closed the way we found it, when it occurred to me that as long as I was here, I might as well pee.

  The toilet seat had a disconcerting, squishy plastic cover on it. Instead of making me feel comfortable, it made me think of the other thighs, the other skin, that had pressed on it over the years. The thought made me shiver.

  I washed my hands quickly and was about to slip out when I noticed a piece of sundried tomato snagged between my front teeth. Crap. How long had it been there? I leaned forward and picked at it with my pinky nail. Did I have crumbs in my hair, too? As I checked, out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a largish metal bracket on one side of the medicine cabinet. Huh. A lock? I pulled at the mirrored door. Yup. It made sense, if this was Mr. Lazar’s room. My hand automatically reached up and swept across the cabinet’s top. Sure enough, a blip in the surface turned out to be a small key.

  I had been expecting something, of course, otherwise the cabinet wouldn’t have been locked, but not what I saw. Rows and rows of little orange-and-white bottles, interspersed with more mundane items, but still filling up the majority of the shelf space.

  I began adjusting the bottles to read their labels. They were outdated prescriptions, for almost every psychotropic drug I’d ever heard of: antipsychotics, antianxiety, antidepressives, sleeping pills….

  I stared in amazement. Then, realizing I shouldn’t stay too long, I began fumbling with the caps and with the tiny tablets and not-so-tiny tablets, wrapping each group in separate wads of tissue, writing on the outside in an eyeliner pencil what each group was. Not all the bottles, of course. I picked five. My bag was downstairs, and I didn’t have any pockets. How was I going to carry them? I shoved a couple of packets down the sides of my high leather boots, a couple in my bra, one in my tights.

  A noise came from outside the door. I turned on the tap, praying the running water would mask the sounds as I carefully put the bottles back in the cabinet. Damn—I was taking too long.

  I flushed the toilet, opened the bathroom door slowly.

  Celeste and her father sat on the bed. “What are you doing here?” Celeste asked.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Gabe took me up here and then I needed to pee so I used this bathroom. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Raiding the medicine cabinet?” she said.

  My heart stopped. “No, I —”

  “You really shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Lazar said to the floor. “Why would you be here? Did someone tell you to be here?”

  “I …”

  “It’s okay, Dad,” Celeste said. “Leena is my friend. She was just using the bathroom.”

  Mr. Lazar shook his head from side to side. “No one should be here. You told me that no one would be here. There are so many people.” His voice had become inappropriately loud.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, moving as quickly as possible toward the door. “I didn’t know.”

  “Why are you here?” Mr. Lazar continued. “No one knows you. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Sorry,” I said again to Celeste as I finally made it out to the hallway.

  I hurried down the stairs, almost tripping on the way. Once in the crowd of people, I looked all around. Faces that had taken on a familiar note before now were just strangers, again. I didn’t know these people. What was I doing here? All of my muscles were tense. I needed to get the pills into my bag. Which room was it in? Or better yet, I needed to leave. I needed to leave right now.

  “Leena, hon? Everything okay?” Mrs. Lazar rested a hand on my shoulder.

  I tried to relax, unclenched my fists. “I’m fine,” I said. “I upset your husband. I didn’t mean to.” My fists. Shit. Something was in my right hand. The key.

  “Ah,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. Please. This was a hard day for him, all the people. You’ll have to come back and see him some other time. Just you and David.” She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze.

  “Sure, yeah. That would be great.” I needed to return the key, but I couldn’t go back upstairs while Mr. Lazar was there.

  “Where’s that David kid hiding?” she said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe the kitchen?”

  Mrs. Lazar reached for my elbow and began leading me in that direction, down a hall that was empty of people.

  “He takes so much on, with his father and sister. It’s wonderful for him to have a … a friend like you who isn’t so mercurial, who is so … so …”

  “Grounded?” I said. The tiny key weighed heavily in my sweaty hand. The tissue wad in my bra was itchy.

  “Yes, right,” she said. “I was going to say normal, but then, what is normal? And what kind of mother calls her daughter abnormal?” She laughed. “Celeste is a rare bird. I feel very lucky to have her. But no one would identify stability as her cardinal trait.”

  “I guess not.”

  “I hear you’re going to New York over the break,” she said. “Why don’t you come here for Thanksgiving, too? Unless you’ve got family plans?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  “Invite your parents, as well.”

  “Oh, I don’t think—”

  We’d reached the kitchen. David was beside
me. “That’s a good idea,” he said. He looked at me hopefully.

  “Wel ,” I said, “my mom will be in LA. I suppose I could invite my dad, though. David, do you remember where I put my bag? I need something out of it.”

  After finding my bag in the mudroom, I hid out in the downstairs bath and transferred the pills into it. I still needed to return the key, though. As far as I could tell, Celeste and Mr. Lazar had never emerged from his room. I was biding my time, talking to the older man who thought I looked like the movie star, when David tapped me on the shoulder.

  “I’m going to head out for a bit to drive my dad back to Riverside. Is that okay?”

  “Of course,” I said. Yes! Take him! “Do you want to borrow my car?”

  “No, no,” he said. “I’ll take Mom’s. It’s about ten minutes away so I won’t be long. I’d ask you to come, but it’s probably better—”

  “That’s totally okay,” I said. “I can fend for myself.”

  I stood by a window in the living room, watching until the car rolled out of the driveway and down the street. I checked around the party rooms for Celeste. No sign of her. I casually walked back up the stairs. The door to the Lazars’ room was shut. I knocked lightly. No answer. “Celeste?” I said. Nothing.

  I slipped inside and shut the door behind me. Get in, get out. No problem. Just walk through. Don’t look around. My armpits were sweaty. I made it across the room, gripped the bathroom door handle.

  Then I heard it. The slightest shifting of fabric. I turned. My eyes fumbled to make out shapes in the gloom. There. Subtle movement underneath a large desk. Shit.

  “Hello?” I said tentatively.

  No answer.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Leave me alone, Leena.” The voice was Celeste’s. But it was rough and strained. She’d been crying.

  I took slow steps toward her and lowered myself down so I was kneeling next to the desk.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  Her thin arms wrapped around one knee. Her whole body shook.

  “Are you sick?”