Frost - Marianna Baer

Otherwise when you’re here, you’ll always feel like you’re away ,

which is kind of an ungrounded way to feel. Right?”

She nodded and sniffled. I offered her the tissue box again.

101

“So, if you went into Boston next weekend and met

someone, and they asked where you lived, you’d say, ‘Barcroft,’

you know? Instead of . . . ?”

“Greenwich.”

“Right. Greenwich. So, to feel like you’re in a comfortable,

happy home, you need to develop a better relationship with your

roommate. Should we write down some ways you might like to

talk to her?”

Another nod.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll get this all worked out.”

At nine thirty, I locked the door to the counseling offices

behind me and headed to the dorm, enjoying the unmistakable

crispness of Massachusetts fall that had blown in this week. I’d

looked for Frost House’s working fireplace this afternoon,

thinking we could start using it soon, and had been surprised to

find that it was all bricked up and obviously had been for years.

What had I seen that day last fall, when I was deciding whether or

not to call the dean? Not smoke from the chimney, sadly.

But fireplace or no, I did still have that lovely, deep, claw-

foot tub. As I walked up the porch steps, trying to convince myself

that I could concentrate on my homework in a bubble bath, my

phone rang. Abby.

“Are you on your way back here?” she said.

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“Opening the door now.”

“Good,” she said, and hung up.

No one was in the common room; somehow, though, the air

still snapped with tension, like it was warning me to be on my

guard. Voices echoed from down the hall.

Celeste, Abby, and Viv stood in my bedroom, in various

postures of hostility—arms crossed or on hips, chins thrust out,

feet planted wide. Shards of familiar glossy white-and-green

ceramic lay on the floor at their feet, with dried Chinese lantern

flowers scattered among the pieces. My stomach plummeted.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Celeste is accusing me of breaking her vase,” Abby said.

“Why? What happened?” I asked Celeste.

“She doesn’t know,” Abby answered before Celeste could

speak.

“Jesus.” Celeste briefly raised her eyes to the ceiling then

looked at me. “I came back from the studio and found Annie

standing here with the vase in pieces on the floor. Now she’s

trying to say David did it? What am I, stupid?”

“I guess so,” Abby said. “Because it’s Abby. Not Annie.”

“Okay, Abby, but you were in here?” I said. For an ugly

moment, I remembered the rip in Celeste’s skirt and Abby’s

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comments about hoping Celeste would move out. . . . But no,

there was no way she’d do something this mean.

Abby held her hands up in front of her. “It was broken when I

got here. I swear. I was just borrowing the hoodie.” She was

wearing a navy-blue sweatshirt of mine that she loved.

“Abby did tell me she was going down to borrow the

hoodie,” Viv added. “And I didn’t hear the sound of something

breaking.”

“David is here all the time,” Abby said. “Bringing her laundry

and stuff.”

“Why the hell—” Celeste began.

“I know David’s around a lot,” I said, “but I’m sure he

wouldn’t have knocked it over and just left it on the floor. And it’s

not like he’s here when Celeste isn’t.”

“So what are you saying?” Abby asked.

“Nothing.” I tried to keep my voice even. “Just that accusing

David isn’t helping.”

“Well, I didn’t do it,” she huffed.

“Then who did?” Celeste said.

“We’ve got some strong cross breezes in here,” I said,

glancing around at the windows, many of which were open.

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“You’re always complaining about them, Celeste. Maybe the vase

tipped on its own.”

“Right.” She used the tip of a crutch to send one of the dried

flowers skittering across the room. “You know, I didn’t ask to live

here. To break up your little party. So I don’t see why we can’t

just live and let live.”

Abby sputtered. “We can! You’re the one who accused me of

doing this.”

“Okay!” I said. “Enough!” I dumped my bag on my bed and

turned to Celeste. “If Abby says she didn’t do it, she didn’t do it.” I

turned to Abby. “David wouldn’t have done it.” Then to all of

them, “Do you guys realize how lucky we are? Instead of being in

some big, impersonal dorm, we have this beautiful little house.

But if you guys are going to act like this, it’s just . . . well, it’s going

to suck. Am I right?”

I made eye contact with each of them. They nodded

unenthusiastically.

“Good,” I said. Even though I was annoyed, I didn’t want to

leave it on this note. “And did you all get my message about what

I’m going to cook for the first Sunday dinner? Did it sound okay?”

More nodding. I seemed to be inspiring a lot of that tonight.

“I love your lasagna,” Viv said.

105

“Okay. Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I have a

butt load of homework that I haven’t even started.”

After Viv and Abby disappeared upstairs, I squatted and

collected the shards; reaching the floor was tricky for Celeste with

her cast. No matter how the vase had broken, I didn’t blame her

for being upset. But couldn’t she have accepted Abby’s

explanation of what happened? It was as if she was trying to

make things more difficult here. I handed her the pieces in a

plastic bag and, after a mumbled thanks, she headed across the

hall to the little room. I swept up the flowers and dumped them in

the trash.

When I finally stretched out on the bed, exhausted, my head

sank into the pillow so heavily I thought I might never be able to

lift it up. For a few moments, I let the room work its magic,

tempting me into falling asleep right then, without even taking

my clothes off. But I was already stressed out enough by my

classes. No way could I afford to skip a night of homework. I had a

good three hours or so ahead of me. I dragged myself up and

started getting stuff out of my bag. As I rooted around the bottom

for a pen, my hand came across something I didn’t recognize. I

pulled it out, and saw the envelope that David had given me a few

weeks ago. Damn.

I knocked on the door to our little study room and then went

in.

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Celeste sat reading A Room of One’s Own . (God, if only . . .)

The pieces of the vase were spread out in front of her on her

desk. She looked up at me.

“I know it was your grandmother’s,” I said. “Do you want me

to try to fix it? I have Gorilla Glue.”

“It’s in way too many pieces.” She put down her book. “It

was in the middle of the room, Leena. Not right near the dresser,

where it would have fallen.”

“Maybe it bounced once, before it broke.” I’d seen mugs and

glasses do that, instead of smashing at first impact.

She picked up one of the larger shards and ran her finger

around the uneven edge.

“I want to keep our rooms locked,” she said. “From now on.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks. Locking the door in such a

small house seemed so aggressively unfriendly. Viv and Abby and

I had always gone in and out of one another’s rooms, borrowing

clothes, books, whatever. . . .

“I know you’re upset,” I said. “But I wish you’d trust me

about Abby.”

Celeste was quiet for a moment as she pressed the shard

into her fingertip, turning the flesh white. “There’s something

else,” she finally said. “The other day, when I was taking a bath,

there was this . . . knocking.”

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“On the door?” I said.

“No.” She shook her head. “I thought so, at first. I thought it

was you, so I said I’d be out in a bit. But the knocking didn’t stop.

Then I realized it was on the wall—not the door. The wall

between the bathroom and my closet. Like this.” She rapped the

desk three times. Waited a second. Rapped four times, then once.

An erratic rhythm.

My heart began thumping a little harder, as if responding to

her loud beats on the wood. “What was it?” I asked. “A noise in a

pipe?”

“No,” she said. “Someone was doing it. On purpose.”

“What? Who?” Was she saying Abby had done this?

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “It takes me forever to get out

of the tub with my cast. I finally hauled my ass out and made it

over there, and whoever had been there was gone.”

“I don’t understand. Why would someone do that?”

“To mess with me. Freak me out.”

Okay, she was freaking me out. “Who would want to mess

with you?”

“I just told you, I don’t know.” Her jaw tightened. “I knew

you wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t even want to tell you. But now,

with the vase . . . I’m sure it’s the same person. That’s why I want

to lock the doors.”

108

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.”

109

“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.