Marianna Baer - Frost

With no warning, Celeste stood up, jiggling the table and

sloshing our drinks. She lifted her glass. “A toast,” she said.

“What?” I said.

“I can’t even tell you how good this feels,” she said. “Even

just knowing that you guys know, and that we’re going to do

something about it. I have been so fucking scared and so fucking

alone. I would like to toast our new coalition. Formed out of a

betrayal, yes,” she said, looking me in the eye, “but formed

nonetheless.”

“Celeste,” David said. “Leena did the right thing, telling me.

We wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t.” He lifted his Coke. “We

should be toasting her.”

“Fine. To Leena,” Celeste said.

Their eyes pinned me against the back of the booth. At that

moment, I couldn’t see how not to do what they wanted. I lifted

my glass.

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Chapter 38

“HOW CAN I DO IT-?” I said. “How can I help Celeste

without losing David?” Please be wise, I thought. Please, I need

help. I need wisdom. Cubby’s eyes stared back at me in the light

from the camping lantern. I’d taken a pill to calm down, but what

I really needed was answers.

You can’t.

I shivered. “I don’t understand how he can be so blind.”

He’s not blind. He’s sick.

“No.” I shook my head. “He just wants her to be okay.”

He wants her to be crazy. He likes it.

No. I knew that he wanted to take care of her, but he would

rather he didn’t have to. I knew that. He wasn’t sick.

And now he’s going to take away Frost House.

“No.”

Someone was knocking on the bedroom door. Loudly. My

room light was on; I couldn’t pretend to be asleep.

I emerged from the closet, unlocked and opened it.

Celeste stood with a manila envelope in her hand.

“Okay,” she said. “I told you not to tell David. Right?”

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I swallowed. “Right.”

“But, I’ve decided, there’s no reason for me to be mad,

really, since David is being so great. I actually . . . I want you to

have this,” she said, handing me the envelope. “As a kind of

thanks. You know, I see that you were really just freaked out. And

how can I blame you after the way I was acting at the party? That

was too much to expect you to deal with.”

I ran my finger along the sharp edge of the manila flap. I had

visions of finding something inside that she could use to blackmail

me. “Should I open it?”

“Of course.”

I eased out an eight-by-ten color photograph. In it, a

cockroach wearing a tiny white dress and gold wings appeared to

be flying in front of what was obviously a painted sky and green

mountains—like the flats from a miniature stage set. It was

delicate and strangely beautiful.

“You made this?”

She nodded.

“This is what you do with the roaches?”

Celeste leaned forward on her crutches so she could look at

the picture. “Well, basically. But this is the only one that’s of an

angel. I have a whole bunch of different painted sets that I

photograph them in front of. I have so many roaches because I

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ruin a lot in the process. It’s hard to get it all perfect. I don’t like

correcting stuff in Photoshop. I like it to be all . . . real.”

“It’s really strange. In a good way,” I said. I slid it back in the

envelope. “I like it. Thanks so much.”

“Sure,” she said. “Well, like I said, I realized you were trying

to help. And as it happens, you ended up doing the right thing.

David and I will owe you after this is all over. I’m sure he feels that

way, too. I’m sure this will, you know, bring you guys closer

together. All of us. Like, now it’s the three of us in on it. Right?”

“Sure,” I said. But I must have hesitated just a second too

long.

“You still think I’m sick. Don’t you?” she said.

My big toe followed a crack between two floorboards. She

wouldn’t hurt me, would she? I didn’t think so. Her violent

tendencies were toward herself.

“It’s okay,” she said. “As long as you give me a chance to

show that I’m not. You’ll see. It’ll be better for you, too. David’ll

see how much he can trust you.” She reached up and brushed

something off her cheek. The sleeve of her leopard-print vintage

sweater crept up a bit. A bruise I’d never noticed before circled

her wrist. “It bothered me a bit,” she said, “when you and David

got together. Partly, you know, I already felt lonely because of

this . . . this house stuff. But also, I think, as much as I hated how

protective he was, I got nervous that I needed him. But now I’m

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glad you’re, like, in love. I’m sorry if I made it hard. I should’ve

realized it didn’t have to be you or me. And that I’m stronger than

I thought.”

I lay down on my bed and stared at the cockroach angel in

Celeste’s photograph. I pictured that bruise on her tiny wrist, a

bizarre bracelet. I couldn’t do what they wanted me to do. But

maybe . . . maybe there was a way. A way I could take care of

Celeste without losing David. Or Frost House. Because if I lost

them, what would I have left?

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Chapter 39

MOST FRESHMEN EAT IN LOWER RIGHT, at least the ones

who haven’t made varsity teams or gotten leads in plays. Sure

enough, the next morning I found Nicole there, eating breakfast

with her friend, Sera.

“Can I talk to you, Nicole?” I said. “Alone?”

Sera stood and picked up her tray. “I was leaving anyway.

FYI, Nicki, danger at ten o’clock.” She giggled. “See you later,

lovebird.”

I followed Nicole’s eyes toward ten o’clock where a guy in an

oversize Barcroft hoodie sat. Nicole jerked her gaze down to her

plate. “Shoot. Did he see me?”

“I have no idea,” I said, sliding into the seat Sera had

vacated. If only my main worry was running into some guy in

Commons. “I need your help, Nicole. The situation is more

complicated than I thought.”

“What situation?” Nicole’s eyes flicked back toward the guy.

She smoothed her hair behind her ears.

“The thing with the girl in the locker room. I’m hoping you’ll

do me a favor.”

Now she focused on me. “What can I do? I don’t even know

her.”

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“It’s not a big deal,” I said. “Just tell Dean Shepherd what you

saw. You know, the bruises. Don’t mention my name. Tell the

dean like she’s the only person you’ve told.”

“Why? Dean Shepherd hates me. Can’t you tell her?”

I shook my head, antagonizing the terrible headache I’d had

since last night. I’d thrown up this morning, too. Nerves. “Like I

said, it’s complicated. You don’t have to have a long thing with

the dean. Just go in, tell her what you saw. That’s it.”

“Couldn’t it just be an anonymous tip?”

“Nicole,” I said. “You owe me.”

She bit her bottom lip and scraped her fork across her plate,

through clumps of scrambled eggs.

“Okay,” she finally said. “I guess it’s not a big deal. I’ll do it.”

“Thanks.” I smiled with relief. One hurdle cleared. “Dean

Shepherd usually gets to her office at seven thirty, so maybe you

could stop by on your way to your first class.”

Nicole watched as I stood up to leave. “What’s going on with

that girl, anyway?” she said. “Someone told me she’s going out

with Whip Windham. Is it, like, an abusive relationship?” I could

see in Nicole’s eyes that she’d be on the phone the minute I left,

telling Sera what had just happened.

“No,” I said. “It’s nothing to do with that.” The last thing

Celeste needed was to be the grist of the Barcroft rumor mill.

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Although, I supposed that was the least of her problems.

There was a time bomb ticking. I could hear it counting off

with every one of my shallow, accelerated breaths that morning.

After bio, I wandered down the crowded hall, wondering if Nicole

had done what I’d asked, if Celeste had been called to the office,

if David knew. Silas Williams, from my Calculus class, stopped and

asked me if I’d finished the homework. I couldn’t remember.

Saturday, the day I’d last done homework, seemed so far away

and fuzzy. I was about to tell him no when I felt a tug on my wrist.

I turned.

“Leena,” Celeste said. “Come here.” My heart leapt into my

throat. I followed her off to the side of the crowd, into an open

space underneath the main staircase.

She stood so our faces were only inches apart and spoke in a

whisper. “She told. The little redhead. She told Dean Shepherd.”

“She did?” I said. Celeste’s eyes betrayed no emotion. I

hoped mine were just as unreadable.

“Yes! Can you believe it? She already snitched to you. Why

would she tell the dean?”

“I guess she was worried,” I said. “So, are you okay? What’s

going to happen?” Honestly, I was surprised she was in the

classroom building. And that she seemed relatively calm.

“Nothing,” Celeste said. “Thank God. It’s just a pain in the

ass.”

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“Nothing?” That couldn’t be right.

Celeste brought out a tube of Blistex. I bit the insides of my

cheeks to keep from asking more questions as she ran it over her

lips. “I saw the dean a few minutes ago,” she finally said. “I gave

her the whole blood-disorder song and dance, told her about my

doctor’s appointment, blah, blah, blah. . . .”

“Oh,” I said. “Right.” All of my muscles tightened. I had

known Nicole would only tell Dean Shepherd about the bruises, of

course. Why had I assumed that would lead to the dean finding

out everything else?

Instead, it had led nowhere.

“The good news is I think David figured out a plan,” Celeste

said. “Like we discussed.”

The tightness in my chest was keeping me from breathing.

“Already?”

“Of course already. The sooner the better. You want me to

die in there?”

“What is it? He’s not going to do anything too extreme, is

he?”

“He hasn’t told me,” she said. “He sent a text that says, ‘Got

it.’”

“‘Got it’? That could mean anything.”

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“No way. It means he’s got a plan.”

As much as I wanted to believe otherwise, I knew she was

right.

This couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let David do something

horrible to Frost House. I couldn’t go along with this fantasy that

Celeste wasn’t sick. And if I waited any longer, it would be too

late.

“Can Dean Shepherd see me?” I asked Marcia. “It’s an

emergency.”

I stood in front of Marcia’s desk, scrunching and

unscrunching my toes in my boots, telling myself that this was the

right thing to do. That whatever happened with David, I had no

choice. I couldn’t jeopardize Celeste’s life just to hold on to him. I

checked my phone about a hundred times to make sure I hadn’t

missed a call or text. I’d left David a message that he shouldn’t do

anything until we spoke. I was reaching in my bag to check it

again when Marcia motioned me to go into the office.

Dean Shepherd was wiping the sleeve of her blouse with a

paper towel. “Coffee spill,” she said. “Have a seat, Leena.”

I sat down and laced my fingers together tightly in my lap to

keep my hands still.

The dean set aside the paper towel and gave me a small

smile. “So,” she said. “Judging from the morning I’ve had, I’ll

guess this is about Celeste?”

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I started at the beginning, with the ripped skirt, the broken

vase, the ruined nests. “I thought she believed Ms. Martin’s cat

had done everything,” I said. “I didn’t realize she was connecting

it to this other stuff.” I explained about Celeste’s fear she was

being watched, the knocking noises, everything Celeste had told

me, how she’d built it all up into this final paranoid delusion.

Dean Shepherd listened with a furrowed brow,

absentmindedly running her fingers over her chin. “Are you sure

this isn’t a joke?” she said when I’d finished. “Maybe she’s upset

about you and David, trying to get back at you. Isn’t that what you

told me before?”

“No,” I said. “She’s serious.”

“And the bruises? They’re part of this?”

I repeated what I’d told David, about how she might not

realize she’s hurting herself. The way she might not have realized

she was causing the other things to happen, as well.

“It sounds like there’s been a lot of trouble in the dorm I

didn’t know about,” Dean Shepherd said. “I can’t help feeling that

maybe it could have been noticed earlier that something was

wrong.”

“Noticed by me, you mean.”

Most people might have missed the look that flitted across

her face, but I didn’t. Just a twitch of her lips that let me know

that’s exactly what she’d meant. That it was my fault for not

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coming to her earlier. That I’d missed obvious signs the person I

was living with—the person she’d trusted me to watch out for—

was deeply sick.

“I just thought she was eccentric,” I said, trying to ignore the

heavy sadness bearing down. “How could I ever have guessed

something like this? It’s completely crazy. I was trying to make

things work out okay . . . you know, in the dorm. I didn’t know.”

The dean nodded, her mouth a solemn straight line. “Okay,”

she said. “We don’t want to come to any premature conclusions,

of course. But I’ll handle it from here.”

“What will you do?”

“Don’t worry—I’ll do what’s best for Celeste. Does David

know yet?”

“No,” I lied. “Not yet.”

We sat for a moment. Her face seemed to sag slightly, as if

the conversation had added years to her age. “What happened