Frost - Marianna Baer

rainwater beading around me on the crackled pleather

upholstery. Abby had turned the rearview mirror to face her. She

stared up at it and flicked a mascara brush across her lashes. Her

warped copy of the play Buried Child lay spread-eagled on the

dash.

“What took you so long?” she asked, glancing over at me. “I

ran through all of my lines while you were in there.”

“Can you grab an ibuprofen from the glove compartment?” I

massaged the bridge of my nose.

“What? More shabby than chic?”

“No.” I waited until she handed me the orange tablet,

washed it down with a swig of flat soda followed by a cherry Life

Saver, and told her about the addition to our Frost House family.

“Hold on,” she said. “Celeste is Green Beret Girl, right?”

I nodded.

“Isn’t she completely nuts? She’s the one who burned all

José’s clothes last year!”

“Not all his clothes,” I said, remembering the story that had

been the talk of campus for a few days. “Just his boxers.”

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“Whatever.” Abby waved her hand dismissively. “And, you

know, it doesn’t even matter if she’s crazy. They can’t just give

you a random roommate senior year. It’s not right.”

I turned on the engine. As the windshield wipers brought

Frost House back into focus, an elongated shape moved past a

downstairs window. David, I assumed. I rubbed the almost

invisible mark on my palm. He probably thought I was a selfish

jerk after that closet incident. But I couldn’t help having been

unnerved by his news. The administration shouldn’t just go

around changing rooming assignments.

Like Abby said, it wasn’t right.

Before backing into the road, I readjusted the rearview

mirror. I met my own gaze, and my eyes stared back with a

controlled confidence the rest of my body didn’t feel.

“I’ll talk to Dean Shepherd,” I said. Then, in a stronger voice,

“I’m sure she’ll understand.”

The registration room in Grove Hall swarmed with people. I

hugged, kissed, and how-was-your-summered my way to the R–Z

line at the check-in table. “Our last first-day-of-Barcroft ever,”

Whip Windham said as we waited for our information packets,

echoing the predictable, clichéd thought I’d been having ever

since I woke up that morning.

“I know,” I said. “I’m trying not to be maudlin. We still have a

whole year.”

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“Dude.” Whip raised one eyebrow—his signature look. “I

meant it as a good thing. A friggin’ awesome thing.”

Oh. Of course.

Sometimes I forgot that most people were actually anxious

to graduate. I understood the feeling in general, but didn’t quite

get their “good riddance” fervor. While there were things about

Barcroft I was sure none of us would miss—curfew, off-campus

restrictions, tofu schnitzel at the dining hall—most of us would go

to college, so it’s not like we’d be free of classes or teachers or

Sisyphean mountains of homework.

Maybe, I thought as I stared at the sunburned back of Whip’s

neck, maybe the difference between me and him was how

ingrained I felt here. My parents had just gotten a divorce when I

arrived in ninth grade. And although they liked to say it was

amicable—neither of them had cheated and they’d used a

mediator instead of lawyers—it had hit our lives like a wrecking

ball. I’d had to build a new life; Barcroft was the foundation. Of

course I was worried about leaving.

“Leena Thomas,” I said when I reached the guy handing out

manila envelopes. I took mine and slid out the multicolored

sheets of paper. My housing assignment form had a note in

familiar, flowing handwriting: Hello, L! Please call or stop by and

see me ASAP. Looking forward, NS.

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NS—Nancy Shepherd: Dean of Students, faculty advisor to

the peer-counseling program I’d started, my mentor. I’d been

looking forward to seeing her, too. I wanted to hear about her

summer camping trip, which had involved an encounter with a

“feroshus beer,” according to my postcard from her seven-year-

old daughter, who I babysat during the school year.

Now, though, instead of asking about that (Budweiser?

Corona?), I had to start the semester by bothering her about

Celeste.

Shaking off the thought, I slipped my registration papers

back in the envelope, stood up straighter, and searched the

crowd for Abby’s walnut-brown curls. A shriek rattled my

eardrums.

“Leena-bo-beena!” Vivian Parker-White loped toward me, all

long limbs and flowery skirt and skin tanned from weeks in

Greece.

“I’ve missed you!” I said, my smile buried in a rain-wet mass

of coconut shampoo smell as we hugged.

“No,” she said, “ I ’ve missed you !” I squeezed even tighter,

trying to make up for months of only virtual communication.

Boarding school had spoiled me—I was used to having my friends

around me all the time.

As Viv and I broke away from our hug, Abby materialized

next to us. She bounced up and down. “Can we show now, since

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we’re all together? We don’t have to wait till we’re back at the

dorm, do we?”

“I almost forgot,” I said. “Here, though?” A couple of

sophomore boys stood right next to us. One of them grinned

when our eyes met, as if he knew I was considering unbuttoning

my cutoffs.

“No chance,” Viv said. “Mine’s not for public viewing.”

“Come on.” Abby grabbed our hands. She pulled us through

the registration room, into a black granite hallway, and down a

set of polished concrete stairs, chattering about her horrible class

schedule and the “Green Beret disaster.”

“It’s not a disaster,” I said, wishing she hadn’t mentioned it.

I’d go see the dean in a bit. Now, I just wanted to enjoy this

moment, wanted to see if my guesses were right—an Aries

symbol for Viv, and a butterfly for Abby. At the end of last

semester, we’d made a pact to get tattoos over the summer and

had forbidden further discussion about it until the moment of

revelation.

Abby pushed open the door to the girls’ bathroom.

“Who goes first?” Viv asked.

“Me,” Abby said.

Doing a mock striptease move, she lowered the right strap of

her tank top. Two hollow-eyed faces stared up from her shoulder

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blade. A comedy/tragedy drama-mask thing. One face smiling,

one frowning, the expressions exaggerated almost to the point of

dementia.

“Ooh, I love it,” I said. “Really well drawn.”

“Exdese,” Viv agreed, using the dorky word for excellent

we’d made up freshman year. “And very appropriate, of course.”

“It’ll be even more appropriate if you become bipolar,” I

pointed out.

“Ha, ha.” Abby flicked me on the arm. “Who’s next?”

Viv turned around and lifted up her skirt. Smack in the

middle of the left cheek of her thong-clad butt was a heraldic

crest: black and red, with fleur-de-lis designs around a knight’s

helmet and a stag’s head.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s . . . amazing. It’s so elaborate.”

“Oh my God,” Abby said. “It’s the Parker family crest! Isn’t it?

The one you showed me online?”

Viv turned back around. “Yup. Isn’t it funky? It’s thanks to

Orin.”

“Your astrologer—sorry, your advisor ,” I corrected myself,

“told you to get your family crest tattooed on your butt?”

“No, of course not,” Viv said. “He told me I should

incorporate my family history into my identity.”

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Abby covered her mouth; a snort escaped her nose.

“It’s an important part of my being,” Viv added.

I made the mistake of looking into Abby’s glimmering brown

eyes, and we lost it.

I shook with laughter until my cheek muscles ached. It was

perfect. The Parker-Whites are a bizarre hybrid of old money

aristocracy (Parker) and new-age bohemianism (White). Their

psychic “advisor” is practically a full-time employee.

Eventually, the bathroom filled with wheezes and deep

breaths as Abby and I struggled to compose ourselves. Viv waited,

arms crossed.

She leaned back against a sink. “Laugh all you want. But Orin

said something else, too. Something not so good.”

“What?” I said, bracing myself for another absurdity.

Before she could continue, the bathroom door swished open

and three of our dorm-mates from junior year bustled in.

“I heard about your new roommate, Leena,” Jessica Liu said

as the other two went into stalls. “That should be entertaining.”

“You heard? How?” I didn’t like that. Other people knowing

made it seem more like a done deal.

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“My brother went to school with her brother. They were on

the phone yesterday and her brother asked to talk to me. He

wanted to make sure she wasn’t rooming with some psycho.”

“Hah!” Abby said. “That’s rich.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked Jess.

“The truth. That Celeste was in serious danger.”

“Thanks.” I gave her a sarcastic smile. “Anyway, I’m not sure

if it’s going to work out for her to live with us. Dean Shepherd

wants to meet. Speaking of which . . .” I checked my watch. “She

won’t be in her office much longer. I should get going.”

“Leen, we’re not done!” Abby said.

“We’ll finish later, okay?” I gripped the chilly metal door

handle. “I need to deal with this.”

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Chapter 3

ALTHOUGH THE RAIN HAD STOPPED, the humid air still

clung to me like a full-body sweater as I hurried past the stately

brick buildings of the main quad on my way to Irving Hall. Barcroft

is one of the oldest boarding schools in the country, and while the

newer buildings are flashy and modern, the central campus is

quintessential New England prep school.

Marcia, the dean’s assistant, said I’d have to wait a few

minutes. I sat on a leather chair and rearranged the legs of my

cutoffs to separate my clammy skin from the slick surface, then

took out my packet and thumbed through my registration

materials. Black type floated into abstract designs as I silently

rehearsed my conversation with the dean.

Until now, I hadn’t given much thought to the fact that it

would have been her decision to move Celeste to Frost House.

But sitting here, I couldn’t understand it, given how well Dean

Shepherd knew the situation. How well she knew me .

After answering a posting on the job board freshman year,

I’d started babysitting her daughter on Sunday afternoons while

the dean was with her husband, who was in hospice with terminal

cancer. We kept the arrangement after he died, as well.

Sometimes I stayed to help with dinner and ended up eating with

her and Anya. I think she was happy to have someone to distract

her from stuff with her husband, and I loved listening to her talk

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about books and music and places she’d lived and traveled.

Growing up as an only child, I’d spent a lot of time with my

parents and their friends; she reminded me of one of them.