Marianna Baer - Frost

skin was dull, lips chapped—aside from her pulled-together outfit,

she looked as bad as I felt. I’d thought I was going to have trouble

controlling my anger, but much of it drained away.

“What happened?” I said. “We were really worried.”

“I took the Fung Wah Bus to Boston,” she said. “Bummer

with my leg, but only fifteen dollars.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” I leaned my back

against the wall. “Why didn’t you talk to us before leaving? You

do realize we’re all going to disciplinary committee because of

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this?” Silence. “Cameron might get kicked out.” Saying those

words made me want to vomit.

“You weren’t in the room. How was I going to talk to you?”

she said, scratching inside the top of her cast.

“Was it because of me and David?”

“Because it turned out you’re a slut like the rest of them?”

“Excuse me?” I said, standing up straight again. “Not that it’s

any of your business, but nothing much happened.”

“Of course it’s my business. He’s my brother.”

“Exactly,” I snapped. “He’s your brother, not your boyfriend

or husband. You get pissed when he asks about your romantic

life.”

She didn’t respond, just resumed scratching. How could she

be so cavalier about this?

“Look,” I said, trying to retain some sort of composure. I

couldn’t stand any more fighting. “David and I are going to be

hanging out, like you’ve wanted all semester. So I need to know

why you’re so upset. I mean, you out-and-out told me you

wanted us to get together. Is it . . .” I didn’t quite know how to ask

if she was jealous without implying she was in love with her own

brother. “Are you concerned he won’t have as much time for

you?”

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Scratch, scratch, scratch. She didn’t look up as she spoke. “Of

course not. I already told you I wanted David to have a girlfriend

so he’d get off my back.”

“Okay, well . . .” I couldn’t force her to admit to it. And what

good would it do, anyway? At this point, I wasn’t going to break

up with David to make her feel better. “Dean Shepherd is really

worried about you. She wants to know what’s going on. Why you

came back early and everything. And why you moved out of the

big room.”

That got Celeste’s attention. “I told her why,” she said.

“Because you don’t like all the windows? She didn’t buy it.

Well, she didn’t buy that you’d have come back early from New

York to do it.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Just that maybe you’d been uncomfortable that David and I

were together.”

Celeste’s mouth dropped open. “What, like I wanted him for

myself?”

“No! Not like that,” I said. “It was the only reason I could

think of.”

“You didn’t tell her about . . . you know, the stuff I told you

before, did you?”

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“No.” I hugged the folded towel closer to my body. “But

Celeste, if that’s why you switched rooms, if you’re really still

having those strange thoughts—that someone’s . . . watching you,

or trying to mess with you—maybe we should tell someone.”

She shook her head. “You promised you wouldn’t. You can’t.

I told you how bad it would be for me. And I told you I felt better

the next day. That was just a bad night, before I realized the cat

had done it. I blew it all out of proportion. You promised, Leena.”

“I know. But things change.”

“You know what’s changed?” she said. “I slept last night.

Comfortably. I told you I didn’t like those windows the very first

day. And then with all the other weird stuff that happened . . .

Can’t you see why I freaked out in there? Now I don’t have to

worry.”

Her exhausted appearance didn’t match this version of

events. “Are you sure?” I said. “Why is your comforter in the

trash?”

A flicker of something—fear? panic?—passed across her

face. “David didn’t take it yet?” she said. “It got wet and mildewy

while we were gone. Rain through the windows. He has to wash

it.”

“The windows were shut,” I said. I’d locked them all before

we left.

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“They leaked,” she said. “A welcome-back present from the

house.”

Enough to get her bed that wet? “Was someone in our room

while we were gone?” I asked.

“No,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “No one. Look, I switched

rooms to give you some privacy and because I can’t sleep over

there. What’s the big deal? You don’t mind, do you? Why would

you mind? It’s better for both of us.”

“I guess,” I said. And, truthfully, having my own room was

the one good thing that had come from this mess. “But the way

you did it . . .”

“I shouldn’t have come back early,” she said. “I’m impulsive.

You know that. And, okay, maybe I wasn’t expecting things with

you and David to move that fast. I thought you— Whatever. It’s

not important. I shouldn’t have left. And I’m sorry. But I’m fine.

This new room arrangement is going to fix everything.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

I shut myself in the bathroom and stood under the shower

and made a decision. Celeste had been very clear, again—if

something was wrong, she didn’t want me interfering. She

wanted her own room, her separate life. And that’s what I’d

wanted right from the beginning, wasn’t it? The less I knew, the

less I had to keep from David. She hadn’t shown any concern for

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the rest of us when she’d come back from New York like that, no

matter what her reason. So, fine. Our own rooms. Our own lives.

I spent most of the day with David, a large part of it lying on

his bed as he tried to distract me from worrying about Abby and

Viv and the disciplinary committee. We listened to almost

everything on his iPod—from James Brown to Eminem; he

described in detail the gourmet meal he wanted to cook for me

one day soon; he tried to explain the math he was doing (all I

really understood was that it was called topology and had

something to do with a donut and a coffee cup being the same

thing); he told me stories about better times with their father. All

of this interspersed with sweetly intense bouts of kissing. He was

obviously trying to distract himself, too, from worrying about

Celeste, because by midafternoon he’d asked me “how I’d

thought she seemed” one too many times.

I propped myself up on my elbow. “New rule,” I said.

“Rule?” David said. “Are your rules as strict as your

moratorium was?”

I punched his shoulder. “Listen. Seriously. Now that you and I

are, you know, together, I really think it’s best if you . . . if we

don’t talk about your sister as much. I don’t want to always feel

like I’m your source of information. Okay? I want to keep things a

little more separate.” For an instant, I had the horrible thought

that maybe the only reason he even wanted to be close to me

was to find out stuff about his sister, but then he said, “Yeah,

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you’re probably right.” He ran a hand through my loose hair,

fingers getting caught in a tangle. “Could get messy.”

“So, good rule?” I said, relieved.

“Good rule.”

The six of us met with the disciplinary committee on

Tuesday. Later that night, in some sort of masochistic haze, I

decided to listen to Viv and Cam’s show on WBAR, but there was

a guest host. I supposed they wanted to spend their last night

together alone.

Cam had to leave school on Wednesday.

The rest of us, as promised, had gotten probation.

Walking across campus Wednesday afternoon, I saw

Cameron’s car—filled with belongings—in the parking area next

to his dorm. He and Viv stood outside of it. Even from the other

side of the Great Lawn, I could tell by the stoop of her shoulders

and Cameron’s hand stroking her back that Viv was crying.

I dropped my gaze to the ground and hurried along, the path

becoming a muddy, gray blur.

Once I got home I headed straight for the closet. I wanted to

know that it would be okay, that I’d be okay, even without Viv,

like I’d told myself in here the other night. I stroked Cubby’s

feathers. I just needed to know that I could get past how much it

hurt.

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In here you can, her voice said.

On Thursday, Dean Shepherd told me she wanted me to step

down from peer counseling.

“You understand,” she said. “We can’t have the mixed

message of someone in a leadership position like that getting into

trouble.” There was a hint of sympathy in her voice, but it didn’t

do anything to make me feel better.

I couldn’t hide my desperation as I spoke. “What if I just step

down as cohead? But keep counseling? Could I do that?”

“Maybe next semester. I doubt it, though,” she said.

Had I thought she’d sounded sympathetic a moment ago?

Because now, I didn’t see how there was any chance she felt

anything but derision and disappointment. The horrible feeling it

gave me was even worse than knowing I wasn’t a part of my

program anymore. I hated myself more than she ever could.

Later that day, David and I took a walk through the

arboretum at the edge of campus. A few trees were still lit up

with flame-colored foliage; mostly, I saw the brown leaves under

our feet. I told David how I’d messed up not only my friendships

with Viv, Abby, and Dean Shepherd, but also my one meaningful

extracurricular. I told him I had nothing left.

“What about me?” he said, sounding hurt.

I wrapped my arm around his waist and squeezed.

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Thank God. I had David. And I had my house.

I was incredibly relieved that my room was tucked in the

back, and on a separate floor from Viv’s and Abby’s, so I didn’t

have constant reminders that Frost House was now a divided

territory. I couldn’t have handled listening to their muffled voices

and laughter, or the sounds of their sock feet on the wooden floor

going back and forth between each other’s rooms. As for Celeste,

in the days since we came back from New York, I’d barely seen

her. My space was truly my own and I wasn’t going to let the

opportunity go to waste.

The Saturday after we got back, I made a rare call to my dad

to ask if I could buy some supplies at Home Depot on his credit

card. He said yes—probably partly out of shock at hearing from

me, and partly because he always likes to support home

improvement.

As I walked across the store’s parking lot, I found myself

scanning the cars for his orange Subaru, even though this Home

Depot was about an hour from his condo. Going to any sort of

hardware store without him never felt quite right.

I began in the paint department. After a long period of

deliberation, I chose a very light sky color, called “Blue Heaven.” I

got brushes, rollers, trays, Spackle, and drop cloths. I considered

buying a ladder, but they were too expensive, so I decided I’d just

borrow one from maintenance.

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Next, I found all the supplies I’d need for wall-mounted

shelves.

In the garden department, I chose tulip and daffodil bulbs to

plant in the backyard that would bloom next spring, and a couple

of houseplants to hang in my room, along with the necessary wall

brackets.

Then I got an egg-crate–foam-mattress pad and a brass,

sliding bolt lock.

The closet needed an upgrade, too.

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Chapter 28

“ALL I’M SAYING IS THAT I don’t want you in my room

anytime soon.”

“Nice,” David said from the other end of the phone. “This is

how you treat me?”

I scooped some more Spackle onto my knife. “I just want it to

be a surprise. Give me a couple of weeks. Then you can be over

here whenever you want. I promise.”

“All right,” he said in a tone of resignation. “What are you

doing tonight?”

“Studying, I guess.”

“Want to come over and do it here?”

“If you let me get some work done,” I said, scraping the

whitish paste over another small hole in the wall. “I’ve got to

seriously start working if I want to have any chance at Columbia.

I’ve never been this behind before.”

“Speaking of Columbia,” he said, “Paul, the guy who owns

the restaurant I might work in, wants to meet with me over

Thanksgiving. So I was thinking you could come down and we

could spend a couple of days in the city together.”

When I’d mentioned to David that Columbia was on my list

of long shots, he’d started talking as if it was a given that we’d

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want to be in the same city. Every time he talked that way, I

wanted to die of happiness. We’d only been a couple for a week,

but I already felt like he was a central fixture in my life. I couldn’t

believe I’d even hesitated. Our togetherness seemed so obvious,

and inevitable. Sort of like the way I’d felt when I’d moved into

Frost House.

I spotted some holes midway up the wall that needed to be

filled. “That’d be great,” I said, stepping up on the chair. “But I

always go to Abby’s parents’ place for Thanksgiving.”

“Do you think you’ll do that this year?” he asked carefully.

I hadn’t even considered the possibility that I wouldn’t.

“Probably,” I said. I’d gone the last three years. Her parents

owned a bed-and-breakfast farm in Maine. I loved visiting them.

Abby had to have forgiven me by then. Right? I wasn’t sure how

many more weeks I could take with her and Viv not talking to me.

Or even how many more days. . . .

“Well, if you come to New York,” he said, “you can check out

where I might end up living. This guy Paul knows is going to be

subletting his place and it would actually be affordable if I get a