Frost - Marianna Baer
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
