Marianna Baer - Frost

“I’m sorry. What’s wrong?”

“Bad reaction to a new drug,” he said. “Something for a trial.”

I studied my dress. How long ago had Mrs. Lazar worn it? When her husband looked at the red-and-black pattern, had his brain seen it the way mine did? Maybe he was already seeing things differently, finding meanings and messages in the geometric forms, instead of just thinking how good the dress looked on his wife.

“I don’t want to talk about it tonight,” David said, startling my mind off the track it had been going down.

He reached over and smoothed my hair behind my ear. Our eyes met and a whole conversation seemed to pass between us in an instant. I was only snapped out of it by a clunking noise on the other side of the booth.

“Back in a minute,” Celeste said as she hopped off.

My hands rested on the table. David reached over and began fiddling with my bracelet. His thumb brushed against my wrist.

“Have I told you how great you look?” he said, his mouth by my ear.

“Yes,” I said. More a breath than a word.

“What are you guys talking about?” Abby called from across the table.

“Nothing,” I said. “David was just saying he misses Barcroft.”

“Yeah, right,” Cameron said. “How do people live through senior year? The freedom is so damn close. I swear, I’m not going to make it.”

“We make it through by having weekends like this one,” Viv said, giving him a big kiss on the cheek.

Cameron lifted his beer. “To weekends like this.”

“To weekends like this,” we all echoed, clanking our bottles together.

We went around making several other toasts until our bottles were drained. Viv and Cameron got up and took our orders. With nothing to drink, the natives were restless.

By the time they returned with beers, so was David. Twenty minutes had passed; there was no sign of Celeste.

“ I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM ANYWAY-” I said to David. “I’ll find her.”

I made my way up and down the narrow front space, pushing myself between people and dodging the band members’ guitar necks. I checked all of the seats. I figured out where the women’s bathroom was and knocked on the door. From inside, I could hear the sounds of someone being sick. Damn.

“Celeste?” I knocked again.

After a bit, a voice that was definitely not Celeste’s called out, “Can you wait a minute?”

Finally, I asked the bartender if he’d seen the girl on crutches recently.

He nodded as he squeezed a lime into a cocktail shaker. “She was talking to a guy. He bought her a drink. Everything okay?” He gave me a funny look, and I got the sense he was about to ask for my ID.

“Yup,” I said, turning around. I wasn’t sure it was okay, though. What the hell was Celeste doing? Who was this guy who bought her a drink? She’d been in such a strange mood earlier. And all she had on was that borderline-pornographic dress.

I made one last round of the front room, then pushed open the heavy wood door to the street. A thick mist and the briny smell of the harbor hung in the air. I heard the clank of a bottle.

A girl and a guy sat on the pavement to the right of me, leaning against the wall.

“You waiting for a car service, too?” the guy asked me.

“I’m looking for my friend. She’s on crutches.”

The woman pointed toward the water, bracelets jangling on her arm. “They went that way. To the pier.”

I started walking down the cobblestone street, trying to ignore my nervousness. In the middle of nowhere, in a neighborhood that didn’t seem particularly safe, and Celeste off with some guy. I kept thinking about what David said about her self-destructive decisions. I kept thinking about those bruises.

Then I thought about her strange fit of jealousy. Maybe my flirting with David had pushed her to get together with some random guy, just to feel wanted, or to get David’s attention back.

I came to the end of the street and heard rustling noises from down by the water. A damp, fish-scented breeze blew my hair across my face. I hoped to God the noises were from Celeste and not some waterfront rats. Or rats climbing all over Celeste’s body.

“Celeste?” I said loudly enough to scare them off.

More rustling. “Mmm?”

I could now make out her shape, sitting next to someone else on a big slab at the edge of the shore. I picked my way over rocks and chunks of concrete and waterlogged scraps of wood.

Surprise and relief hit me at the same time when I saw whom she was sitting with. “Whip! Hey! How did you get here?” I asked.

“This amazing innovation,” he said, lifting a cigarette to his lips. “It’s called a cab.”

“I think I’ve heard of that.” I turned to Celeste. “I was just checking to make sure you were okay.”

“Let me guess,” she said. “David sent you.”

“No. We were all wondering.”

“My brother,” Celeste said to Whip, “has an irrational fear that if I’m ever out of his sight, I’ll do something stupid like sit on a darkened waterfront with a totally untrustworthy male. While drinking alcohol. And smoking. So he has to send out his little minion to check up on me.”

“You said you’d only be a few minutes,” I pointed out, annoyed.

Celeste ignored me and kept talking to Whip. “Maybe she’ll get to give him a blow job for the information she brings back.”

My mouth fell open. “I—”

“The word’s always been Leena doesn’t do stuff like that,” Whip interrupted. “I know plenty of guys who’d be happy to hear otherwise.”

“David did not send me out here,” I snapped. I wasn’t even going to address Whip’s comment. “I came on my own because I couldn’t find you inside and I was worried. I don’t know where I ever got the idea that Celeste Lazar couldn’t take care of herself. Maybe it’s because every time I leave you alone in the dorm I come back and some horrible thing has happened to you.”

“God, Leena,” Celeste said. “I must have really hit a nerve. Did you already service David tonight? In the bar bathroom, maybe?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Is that your job?”

Oh my God.

The words rang in the air. I could not believe I’d said them. I didn’t know where they’d come from.

“Snap!” Whip said.

Celeste didn’t say anything. I was about to apologize when she starting making a strange noise. It took a second, but then I realized what it was. It was laughter. She was practically convulsing.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” she said once she’d calmed down. “I had no idea you could be so funny.”

Was she being serious?

“I shouldn’t have said that,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” she said. “It was funny. Real y. I’ll tell David. He’ll think so, too.”

I knew perfectly well David wouldn’t think it was funny. And I had a feeling Celeste knew he wouldn’t think it was funny, too.

“Look, just forget it. It wasn’t funny. Anyway, do whatever you want. I’m going back inside. It’s freezing out here.”

I tugged open the door just as David was coming out.

“What’s going on?” he said. “Did you find her?”

“Yeah. She’s okay.” Seeing David made me feel bad for what I’d said to Celeste, the tasteless joke. I prayed that she’d forget and wouldn’t repeat it to him. “She’s down by the water, with, uh, Whip.”

“Whip? What the hell is he doing here?”

“I guess she called him,” I said.

“You just left her out there with him?” David started to brush by me. The door closed behind him.

“David.” I gripped him by the forearm. “She’s fine. They’re just sitting there.”

“Are the bruises not enough proof for you that this is a really bad idea?” he said.