Frost - Marianna Baer
Ride Club, you should totally come talk to me about it. My name’s
Cora.”
“Thanks so much,” David said. “I will.”
After Cora floated away, Abby pointed a carrot stick in her
direction and said to David, “That’s why you’re going to want to
find us at meals.”
“Uh, why?” he said.
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“You’re such a rarity,” she explained. “A new guy who’s not
fourteen years old. You’re going to need our protection from the
swarming hoards.”
“Should I carry a Taser or something?” he said, pretending to
be alarmed.
“Oh, definitely.” More grinning.
I took a bite of thick, buttered bread and swallowed past my
immature jealousy of the obvious spark between Abby and David.
Also, I hoped Abby was just flirting, that she wasn’t considering
him as a possibility. Gorgeous as he was, we were living with his
sister. It could get messy if one of us hooked up with him and it
didn’t go well. Although maybe I didn’t have to worry about that
with Abby. She didn’t have the fiascos I did when it came to guys.
“Cam?” I said. “You go on Ride Club trips sometimes, don’t
you?”
“Yep,” Cameron said, peeling a banana. “Usually the
overnights.” He and Viv had been together since freshman year.
They were noticeable around campus since, after a late growth
spurt, Viv towered five inches taller than him. They hated when
people called them cute; but, well, they were. “You bike for fun?”
he asked David. “Or are you trying out for the team?”
“For fun,” David said, “and transportation.”
“Are you an artist, like your sister?” Abby asked.
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He shook his head and took a sip of lemonade.
“I bet you’re a . . .” She rested her fingertips on her temples,
pretending to be psychic. “A musician. You play guitar.”
“Nope,” he said. “Tone-deaf.”
There was a brief silence. I think we were all expecting David
to say what he did do, what activity/talent/passion he’d be
emphasizing on his college apps. He didn’t say anything, though,
just ate a couple of black olives off his salad.
“Will you guys help me with my peer-counseling
presentation for the new students tonight?” I asked Viv and Abby.
“I’m already nervous.”
“You’ll be amazing,” Viv said. She looked at David. “Leena
started this whole program where students are trained to counsel
other students about stuff, for kids who’d rather not go to psych
services. It’s been really successful.” She said this so proudly. I
squirmed in my seat, embarrassed.
“Other schools have similar programs,” I said. “It’s not that
big a deal.”
“Celeste told me about it,” David said. “And I noticed your
thing on the orientation schedule.”
“We’re excited to have her in the dorm,” Abby said. David
didn’t respond so she added, “Your sister.”
“Oh,” he said. “Uh-huh.”
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“Are you guys twins?” she asked. “Or are you a junior?”
“A senior, but I’m a year older.” He paused. “I took last year
off.”
“Ahh—an older man . . .” Abby’s voice was kiddingly
suggestive. “What’d you do?”
David pushed his rigatoni marinara around his plate.
“Different things.” His energy had shifted. Maybe he really was
tired, like he’d said, and not in the mood to be grilled.
“Abby?” I said. “Can you pass the salt? And the pepper, too?”
She pulled a Plastic Man to reach the shakers but didn’t
switch her focus. “Did you travel?” she asked him.
“Not really. A week in Costa Rica.”
“If you did anything interesting, you should be on Viv’s
show.”
“Definitely,” Viv said. “Cam and I host a WBAR show on
Tuesday nights. We play music, but we also have guests on to talk
about whatever. You could talk about what you did last year, why
you’re at Barcroft now, what sign you are . . . you know, stuff. It’s
fun.”
David laid a napkin over his pasta, as if covering a corpse.
Blots of red seeped through the thin, white paper. “How’s this?”
he said. “I had to leave school—Pembroke—because they busted
me for cheating. At the same time, my dad’s mental illness got
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really bad and I didn’t want him to have to live in a group facility,
so I moved home to help my mother take care of him. But I guess
I didn’t do a very good job because he decided the government
had sent me there to poison him. Barcroft took into account the
extenuating circumstances, and the fact that I got really good
grades at Pembroke, and let me in. Any questions?”
The sounds of other diners’ conversations, laughter, and
utensils clanking against their plates seemed to swell around us as
we sat there staring at our food. I struggled to come up with the
right words. A schizophrenic father. God.
Unfortunately, Abby spoke first. “You might want to put a
different spin on that for the radio show,” she said.
I knew she was hoping to lighten the moment, but she just
sounded harsh.
David didn’t look up.
The meal ended quickly. On my way out of the dining hall, I
stopped to put my tray—minus silverware and uneaten apple—
on the kitchen conveyor belt. David placed his after mine.
“Sorry,” he said. “Long day. I should have sat alone.”
“It wasn’t you.” I plunked my utensils in the designated bin
of murky dishwater, trying not to let any splash on us. “They
meant well, though.”
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We followed the flow of students into the hallway and down
marble stairs that were smoothed unevenly by years of footsteps.
I let Viv and Abby go on ahead, instead keeping pace with David.
Outside, he said, “I have my ride,” and gestured to the bike
rack at the north end of Commons. I was walking the same
general direction, so I drifted next to him.
“Is, um, is your father okay?” I asked as he squatted by a blue
road bike. He’d obviously gotten sick of answering questions. Still,
I couldn’t leave it hanging like that.
“Depends what you mean by okay,” he said, undoing the
chunky padlock. “He’s alive. Living in a facility, for now.”
“I think it’s amazing that you took care of him,” I said.
“Schizophrenia must be so . . . scary.”
“He’s actually not schizophrenic. Something similar.”
“Oh. The one . . . what’s it called . . . with mood-disorder
symptoms?” I asked.
David stood up, massively thick chain in his hands, brows
drawing together. “Schizoaffective,” he said. “Yeah. Do you know
someone—?”
“No, no. I took Intro Psych last year.”
“Oh.” He wrapped and fastened the chain around his waist. I
couldn’t believe he could bike with it on. “Well, yeah. It’s scary. In
lots of ways.”
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I watched the late sun stream orange through plum-colored
clouds. Probably one of the reasons it was scary was because it
has a genetic component. The things I didn’t want to inherit from
my parents—selfishness, undependability—were things that were
under my control, not predetermined, but I still worried about
them. This was a whole different story.
“When is Celeste getting here tomorrow?” I asked as David
backed his bike away from the rack.
“Not sure yet. You know . . . what Abby said in there . . .” He
stopped and met my eyes. “You guys don’t have to pretend
you’re happy to live with her. I know you’re not, and I don’t
blame you. You had this nice, private thing going on.”
Even though he didn’t sound defensive or judgmental, my
first instinct was to lie, to tell him that we really were happy to
live with Celeste. Then I wondered what the point was.
“It’s not that I dislike her,” I said, twisting the stem of my
apple. “I mean, I love how creative and . . . passionate she is. But
she makes me nervous. Sometimes, I think she might not even
like me.”
“Really?” he said. “I know she can be a pain in the ass, but
she definitely likes you. She said . . . What was it?” He thought for
a minute and then smiled. “Oh, yeah. You remind her of an
angel.”
“An angel?” I said. “Hardly.”
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His gaze traced a path from my chin to my hair. “Maybe she
meant you look like one.”
My hand flew to the top of my head. “Frizz. Not a halo,” I
said, hoping my suddenly hot cheeks hadn’t pinked. “And if you
knew she liked me, why did you have to talk to Jessica Liu?”
“Jess—? Oh. Right.” He sounded a bit sheepish. “It’s just,
Celeste doesn’t always have the best judgment about people
and . . . I tend to be pretty protective of her.”
We held eyes for a minute. Something had shifted; the
connection between us had changed. We’d stripped some things
away, like when you strip away layers of lumpy paint and get
down to the smooth, original wood.
I gestured in the direction of Frost House. “I have to go
prepare my presentation.”
David nodded and swung a leg over the frame. “Guess I’ll see
you there, if not before.”
I’d turned the corner toward home when I heard, “Leena?”
He biked toward me. “One other thing.”
“What?” I said.
“Spoons.”
“What?”
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He rode around me in a circle. “Abby wanted to know what I
do. That’s it.”
“Spoons? ” I said, turning to follow his path.
He smiled, wide, with full-on dimples. In this light, the blue of
his eyes reminded me of raspberry slushies. “See you, Leena,” he
said. And rode away.
I decided to finish unpacking and arranging my room before
working on my presentation, and as I filled drawers and shifted
furniture and hung pictures, I kept wondering what David had
meant. People played spoons as instruments, but he’d said he
wasn’t a musician. There was a card game called Spoons; I found
that hard to imagine. So, what . . . ?
I hadn’t come up with any feasible possibilities when I joined
Viv and Abby upstairs. I didn’t ask for their input, though. Not that
I thought it was a big secret. Just that something about the way
he hadn’t said anything at dinner made me keep it to myself.
I did want to talk about something else.
“You guys?” I said after they’d declared my speech ready for
the tender ears of the newbies. “I know that having Celeste here
wasn’t the plan, but I think we should make an effort to be
welcoming. Not fakey-fake nicey-nice. Friendly.”
“Seriously?” Abby had been sprawled on Viv’s shaggy white
rug, eating a brownie. Now she sat up. “You realize you’re asking
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me to go against my true nature? Like asking a vampire to be a
phlebotomist and not drink from the vials.”
“I know,” I said, placing my hand on hers in faux sympathy.
“You’re truly a mean, mean person. But this won’t change who
you are. No one outside of the dorm has to know.”
She sighed. “In that case, I suppose I can do it.”
“Viv?” I said.
“I’m always nice,” she answered from her cross-legged
position on the cushioned window seat. “And I don’t even care
she’s living with us. I love it here already. This room is so damn
cozy. Orin must’ve read it wrong.” Rain tapped the glass behind
her. Another storm had started.
“What does Orin have to do with anything?” I asked.
Viv paused, a mug of tea halfway to her mouth. Her eyes
darted to Abby, who shrugged, and then back to me. “Oh,
nothing.”
“You obviously told Abby,” I said. “Come on, you know I
won’t take it seriously.”
“We decided not to tell you because you’re the one who
picked Frost House,” Viv said, resting her mug next to her knee. “I
guess, though, if you won’t believe it anyway . . . He didn’t want
me to live here. There’s some sort of . . . darkness connected to
it.”
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Heat spread up the back of my neck. “You’re right. That’s
stupid.”
“Then again . . .” Abby waved her brownie. “He could be
talking about Green Beret.”
I loved Abby, but that was the last straw. “That’s it,” I
announced, pointing at her. “Let it all out now. Purge. Every nasty
thing you have to say about Celeste.”
“What?” she said.
“Pretend Celeste is here with us. Let her have it. So when she
gets here you don’t have all this snark built up.”
Viv laughed. “Abby has an endless reserve of snark.”
“Just try,” I said.
Abby shrugged. “Okay.” She took a bite of brownie, closed
her eyes, and thought for a minute while chewing, then began.
“What are you wearing you look like a crazy person and why are
you so dramatic and your brother seems nuts too and why are
you living here we don’t even know you and why do you wear
that green beret all the time or ever la la la I can’t think of
anything else oh yeah if you’re going to go schizo like your dad
please don’t do it here and stay away from matches.” She opened
her eyes.
“Is that it?” I asked.
Abby nodded.
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“Okay,” I said. “Let’s have a toast.” We all picked up our tea
and scootched closer together. “To Frost House,” I said.
“To Frost House,” they echoed.
We clunked mugs and drank, to the applause of a deep
rumble of thunder.
The first night in a new place usually gives me a tinny,
homesick feeling that makes it hard to sleep. Not homesick for
anywhere in particular. Just a general feeling of uprootedness.
Loneliness. Even if people I love are sleeping nearby.
To help me that night in Frost House, I put on my favorite
mellow-girl-singers playlist; made up my bed with my oldest,
softest sheets; and set Cubby—a hollow wooden owl my dad
carved for me—on the windowsill near my pillow. Cubby’s spot
has always been next to my bed. When I was little and scared of
