Frost - Marianna Baer
The door to the office flew open. Abby breezed in and
dropped her bag on the floor. “I need help.” She placed the back
of her hand on her forehead in a swoon.
“I’ll take this one,” I said.
Abby followed me into one of the two small, private rooms
adjoining the main one.
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“I have to warn you,” I said as we settled into the plush
purple armchairs, “I may not be qualified to treat mental
disturbances as deep as yours.”
“That’s understandable,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you
the plan for New York.” She kicked off her shoes and drew her
legs up. “You still have an honor-roll day left, right?”
I nodded. “Two.” Barcroft has the ironic policy of awarding
honor-roll students with two days the next semester that they
can officially take off of classes.
“Cool. So, we’re going to beat the traffic by driving down on
Thursday night,” Abby said. “We’ll have an extra day in the city.
And the best thing is that Viv’s mom got us tickets to the new play
where Nate Warren does this whole scene naked, on Friday night,
so this way we could be there in time for that. Nate Warren
naked, in the same room as us! Can you believe it? I am so
psyched. Beyond psyched. It’ll be the best trip ever. Can I have a
Life Saver?”
I fished a pack out of my pocket and handed it to her. “The
thing is,” I said, “I’m supposed to drive David and Celeste, and
David obviously doesn’t have honor-roll days—he wasn’t even
here last semester. I don’t know about Celeste.”
“So?” Abby said. “They can find another way down. We’re
giving them a free place to stay, isn’t that enough? I mean, why
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are they even coming? Don’t they know Viv was just being
polite?”
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“What’s there to think about?” Abby said. “I’m not going to
let your perverse sense of obligation get in the way of you having
a good time. Nate Warren, Leen!” She had stood up and was
mock-shaking me by the shoulders. “Nay-kid!”
Her face was so serious that I had to laugh. “Okay, okay. I’ll
let them find another way.”
Days went by, though, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell
David or Celeste. I didn’t know why not driving them felt like such
a big deal. It wasn’t. But at the same time, I worried that they’d
take it as a definite statement about not wanting them there.
Abby wanted me to make that statement, obviously. She didn’t
know what was going on with me and David. My own fault, for
being too chicken to tell her.
The dilemma wrapped itself up into a constant knot in my
gut. I needed to get it over with. Finally, one day I ran into Celeste
on my way home from dinner and steeled myself to do it. But the
whole way back to the dorm she was talking excitedly about a
guest artist who had come to her portfolio class and had loved
her work, and I couldn’t get a word in at all.
When we entered Frost House the loud clangs of the radiator
filled the common room.
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“Thank God the heat is finally on,” Celeste said.
“Yeah,” I said, “I spoke to maintenance about it. The way to
do it is talk to them in person, instead of just submitting a work
order.”
We reached the bedroom. I fumbled in my pocket for my
room key. Just tell her.
“Celeste . . .” I turned the key and pushed open the door. “I
don’t want—”
I froze. Scattered debris covered an area of the bedroom
floor stretching from Celeste’s closet more than halfway across
the room. “What the hell?” I flipped on the overhead light. Twigs,
twine, dried grass, dirty ribbons. Nests. Or what used to be nests.
I took a few careful steps. The closet door was wide open. Inside,
a cardboard box on the high shelf lay with its top facing front,
flaps agape. More remnants from the nests were below the box,
caught among Celeste’s dresses and skirts.
Celeste hadn’t moved from the doorway. Her face was pale,
mouth small.
“The box must have tipped over,” I said. My heart
hammered.
“And this happened how?”
“Maybe by accident,” I said. “The box tipped when you were
getting something? But didn’t spill until—”
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“By accident?” She looked at me. “How can you say that?
Don’t you see?”
“What?”
She pointed at the floor. “Can’t you see what it says?”
I surveyed the scraggly mess. Then it came together, into two
big letters.
GO.
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Chapter 18
A SHUDDER BEGAN AT MY NECK and spread throughout
my limbs. I shook my head a little, forced myself to see it as just a
jumble, a jumble that somewhat resembled the letters. It was a
random mess. It had to be.
“That’s not on purpose,” I said. “You’re seeing what you
want to see.”
“What I want to see?” Celeste said in a tone of disbelief.
“Well, what you’re scared to see. Why would someone do
that?” I asked. “Who would want you to go?”
She stared at the floor. “I don’t know.”
“Like finding shapes in clouds,” I said. “You can see what you
look for.” I squatted down and began filling my cupped palm with
thin twigs and bits of twine. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll be careful.”
“What does it matter now?” Celeste’s voice was tight. “Do
you know how long this all took me?”
“Collecting the nests?”
She nodded. Her chin trembled. “And then I wove other
materials into them. It’s a whole project.”
I picked up a narrow purple ribbon, a length of unspooled
cassette tape . . .
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“Who would do this?” she said.
“The door was locked.”
“It wasn’t an accident, Leena. I know what I saw.”
I swallowed. “David and I are the only other people who
have keys.”
“It wasn’t David.”
“I know. I didn’t mean that. I meant that I think there’s
another explanation.” I sat back on my heels. “Maybe the house
has mice or rats. In the closet.” I didn’t know why I was even
saying this. Mice or rats hadn’t thrown the photo the other day.
Should I have told her about that? Should I tell her about it now?
It would upset her even more, but maybe she needed to know.
Celeste collapsed on her bed and held her head in her hands,
then began rocking back and forth.
I looked down again, picked up a fragile clump of materials
that had stayed together and set it aside. “Some of this might be
salvageable,” I said hopefully.
The squeaking of bedsprings stopped, and Celeste let out a
cry. “I can’t take this anymore! I can’t! What do you think I should
do?”
“What do you mean?”
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“I hate it here!” She flung her arms out. “I hate this room. I
have to talk to Dean Shepherd, tell her I need to move.”
Defensiveness flared inside me. “This doesn’t have anything
to do with the room,” I said. “If someone is doing this to you,
they’d do it wherever you lived.”
She was quiet. I knew I’d sounded mean. “Another dorm
wouldn’t have all these windows,” she said.
“What does that have to do with it?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
“These things that are happening have nothing to do with
the room,” I said again. “If you really think this is someone, then
the best thing to do is ignore it. Don’t give them the satisfaction
of caring. Right?”
She wiped her cheek and leaned forward to pick up a clump
of nest. “How can I not care? I worked so hard on this, Leena. This
is me. Why would someone punish me like this? It doesn’t even
matter if the mess said some stupid thing or not. They ruined my
work.”
She was crying for real. I stood up from the floor, sat next to
her, and put an arm around her shoulders. “Hey,” I said. “It’s
okay.”
“I can trust you, right?” she asked, her voice shaky and thin.
“You’d tell me if you knew who was doing this, right? I just, I’m so
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sick of it. And I’m . . . scared. You know. It’s all so mean. Like
someone really hates me. More than Ann—Abby, I think.”
It’s all so mean. “We’re just talking about the vase and this,
right?” I said.
“That rip in the skirt, too,” she said. “You said you didn’t do
it.” She looked out the window. “I can feel them watching, you
know? Waiting till we’re gone so they can do this stuff. David and
you are the only people I trust. And I can’t even tell David how
upset I am, because he’ll worry.”
“You still feel like someone’s watching you?” I said, a heavy
dread descending on me.
“Sometimes,” Celeste continued as if she hadn’t even heard
me, “when I open the closet . . .” She motioned toward it with her
head and spoke quietly. “Sometimes I feel like whoever it is is in
there. I have to look through all the clothes, you know, to make
sure no one is hiding. But it’s like I feel them.”
My stomach constricted. I had sat in the closet a couple
more times recently, just for a little while when I needed to clear
my head. And although I’d never done it while she was in the
room, it was as if she’d sensed I’d been in there.
“Celeste,” I said, “you realize that you sound a little . . .
irrational? No one’s watching you.”
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“So, what?” she said. “You think I’m . . . what, imagining it?
Don’t tell me I’m making it up. This stuff is real, this stuff that’s
happened to me.”
“Honestly?” I said. “I think that you had a hard summer,
dealing with your boyfriend. And a hard year, with your dad. I
think that some weird, bad stuff has happened to you in this
room. And it’s freaked you out.”
Celeste’s eyes rolled up and she stared at the ceiling, as if
trying not to cry again.
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” I said.
“A therapist? They’d just stick me on some medication.
Don’t . . . don’t tell anyone I have these feelings, okay? Not the
dorm, or David. Okay? Please. It’s really important.”
She gripped one of my hands in both of hers. They felt cold,
bony.
“I just think it would be good if you talked to someone,” I
said.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “With a father like mine,
people—everyone—they’re just waiting for me to crack up. And I
can’t do anything without everyone thinking I tried to kill myself
or whatever. And I’ve done stupid stuff in the past, and now it’s
like, if they . . . you know . . . I don’t get the benefit of the doubt.
Please, Leena. Please. It’s not like I’m making up these feelings
from nowhere. This stuff happened.”
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I remembered the horrible feeling after I’d tried to hurt
myself in eighth grade, when my parents would stare at me with
these expressions like they were worried I was going to crack into
a thousand pieces at any moment.
“Please, Leena,” she said. “I’m not crazy. I’m not.” Her voice
was stronger. “Promise you won’t tell.”
“Okay,” I said. “I promise. But you have to promise to let me
know if it doesn’t get better. Okay?”
We agreed.
Later, as I was about to turn off my bedside lamp, Celeste
came into the room wearing the Moroccan caftan she slept in. I
couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to bed while I was
still awake. As if reading my mind, she said, “Maybe I’ll be able to
sleep. Now that the heat is on.” I didn’t point out that she hadn’t
been able to sleep when the weather was warm either.
She lingered at her mirror, smoothing cream on her face,
brushing her hair. Finally, she turned off her light and headed
toward her bed. On the way, she paused in front of the slightly
open closet door. After a second, she kept walking. She sat down
on the comforter, laid her crutches on the floor, glanced at the
closet again, stood up, closed the door.
This didn’t bode well.
“Do you want something mild to help? Just tonight?” I said.
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“No, thanks.”
When the lights had been off for a minute, she said, “You . . .
you know I was speaking . . . metaphorically, before. Right, Leena?
I don’t really think someone’s in the closet. I was just trying to
describe what it’s like, to feel like someone wants to hurt you.
You know that, right? I don’t really think someone’s in here or
whatever.”
I hesitated. “Sure,” I said. “I know what you meant.”
Sleep came easily for me, as it always did in that room, even
though I was picturing those scattered nests, telling myself they’d
been in a random pattern. It was deep, as well, so I had no idea
how long Celeste had been shouting when I woke up.
“Get off! Get off of me!”
Without my glasses and in the darkish room, I panicked—
someone was on Celeste’s bed! “Hey,” I cried. “Stop!” But as I
leapt up and hurried across the floor, I realized it was her arms
thrashing underneath the covers, not another body. I turned on
the light.
“Celeste.” I placed a hand on her shoulder. “Wake up.”
She sat straight up. “I’m awake,” she said. Her face shone
white and glistened with sweat.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You were having a nightmare.”
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“No, I wasn’t,” she said. “I wasn’t. Someone was here.” She
turned her head back and forth, searching. “I was awake.”
“You’re okay, Celeste.” I sat down and moved my hand to
her back. “No one was here except me. It was a bad dream.”
She shook her head. Her pupils were huge, swallowing up
her irises. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t. Someone was here. Someone’s
always here.”
“Shh,” I said. “No one was here. It’s okay. You’re just upset,
