Marianna Baer - Frost

Gabe pushed open another door, put a hand to his mouth, and gave a guilty little smile. A big bathroom stood in front of us. He giggled.

“What did you want to show me?” I said. “We shouldn’t really be in here.” As if he cared.

He pointed. “Dey’ve got a potty.”

“Yes,” I said. “They do have a potty.”

“I wear big-boy underpants.”

“Gabe?” The woman’s voice came from out in the hallway. She stuck her face in. “I thought I saw you racing up here.”

Gabe ran over to her.

“He was just showing me the potty,” I said.

“He’s big on potties,” she said. “Do you have to go, Gabey?”

“No!” Gabe shouted, and ran off down the hall. His mother gave me a quick, tired smile and followed him.

I was reaching to pull the bathroom door closed the way we found it, when it occurred to me that as long as I was here, I might as well pee.

The toilet seat had a disconcerting, squishy plastic cover on it. Instead of making me feel comfortable, it made me think of the other thighs, the other skin, that had pressed on it over the years. The thought made me shiver.

I washed my hands quickly and was about to slip out when I noticed a piece of sundried tomato snagged between my front teeth. Crap. How long had it been there? I leaned forward and picked at it with my pinky nail. Did I have crumbs in my hair, too? As I checked, out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a largish metal bracket on one side of the medicine cabinet. Huh. A lock? I pulled at the mirrored door. Yup. It made sense, if this was Mr. Lazar’s room. My hand automatically reached up and swept across the cabinet’s top. Sure enough, a blip in the surface turned out to be a small key.

I had been expecting something , of course, otherwise the cabinet wouldn’t have been locked, but not what I saw. Rows and rows of little orange-and-white bottles, interspersed with more mundane items, but still filling up the majority of the shelf space.

I began adjusting the bottles to read their labels. They were outdated prescriptions, for almost every psychotropic drug I’d ever heard of: antipsychotics, antianxiety, antidepressives, sleeping pills….

I stared in amazement. Then, realizing I shouldn’t stay too long, I began fumbling with the caps and with the tiny tablets and not-so-tiny tablets, wrapping each group in separate wads of tissue, writing on the outside in an eyeliner pencil what each group was. Not all the bottles, of course. I picked five. My bag was downstairs, and I didn’t have any pockets. How was I going to carry them? I shoved a couple of packets down the sides of my high leather boots, a couple in my bra, one in my tights.

A noise came from outside the door. I turned on the tap, praying the running water would mask the sounds as I carefully put the bottles back in the cabinet. Damn—I was taking too long.

I flushed the toilet, opened the bathroom door slowly.

Celeste and her father sat on the bed. “What are you doing here?” Celeste asked.

“Sorry,” I said. “Gabe took me up here and then I needed to pee so I used this bathroom. I hope that’s okay.”

“Raiding the medicine cabinet?” she said.

My heart stopped. “No, I —”

“You really shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Lazar said to the floor. “Why would you be here? Did someone tell you to be here?”

“I …”

“It’s okay, Dad,” Celeste said. “Leena is my friend. She was just using the bathroom.”

Mr. Lazar shook his head from side to side. “No one should be here. You told me that no one would be here. There are so many people.” His voice had become inappropriately loud.

“I’m sorry,” I said, moving as quickly as possible toward the door. “I didn’t know.”

“Why are you here?” Mr. Lazar continued. “No one knows you. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Sorry,” I said again to Celeste as I finally made it out to the hallway.

I hurried down the stairs, almost tripping on the way. Once in the crowd of people, I looked all around. Faces that had taken on a familiar note before now were just strangers, again. I didn’t know these people. What was I doing here? All of my muscles were tense. I needed to get the pills into my bag. Which room was it in? Or better yet, I needed to leave. I needed to leave right now.

“Leena, hon? Everything okay?” Mrs. Lazar rested a hand on my shoulder.

I tried to relax, unclenched my fists. “I’m fine,” I said. “I upset your husband. I didn’t mean to.” My fists. Shit. Something was in my right hand. The key.

“Ah,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. Please. This was a hard day for him, all the people. You’ll have to come back and see him some other time. Just you and David.” She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“Sure, yeah. That would be great.” I needed to return the key, but I couldn’t go back upstairs while Mr. Lazar was there.

“Where’s that David kid hiding?” she said.

“I don’t know. Maybe the kitchen?”

Mrs. Lazar reached for my elbow and began leading me in that direction, down a hall that was empty of people.

“He takes so much on, with his father and sister. It’s wonderful for him to have a … a friend like you who isn’t so mercurial, who is so … so …”

“Grounded?” I said. The tiny key weighed heavily in my sweaty hand. The tissue wad in my bra was itchy.

“Yes, right,” she said. “I was going to say normal, but then, what is normal? And what kind of mother calls her daughter abnormal?” She laughed. “Celeste is a rare bird. I feel very lucky to have her. But no one would identify stability as her cardinal trait.”

“I guess not.”

“I hear you’re going to New York over the break,” she said. “Why don’t you come here for Thanksgiving, too? Unless you’ve got family plans?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“Invite your parents, as well.”

“Oh, I don’t think—”

We’d reached the kitchen. David was beside me. “That’s a good idea,” he said. He looked at me hopefully.

“Wel ,” I said, “my mom will be in LA. I suppose I could invite my dad, though. David, do you remember where I put my bag? I need something out of it.”

After finding my bag in the mudroom, I hid out in the downstairs bath and transferred the pills into it. I still needed to return the key, though. As far as I could tell, Celeste and Mr. Lazar had never emerged from his room. I was biding my time, talking to the older man who thought I looked like the movie star, when David tapped me on the shoulder.

“I’m going to head out for a bit to drive my dad back to Riverside. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” I said. Yes! Take him! “Do you want to borrow my car?”

“No, no,” he said. “I’ll take Mom’s. It’s about ten minutes away so I won’t be long. I’d ask you to come, but it’s probably better—”

“That’s totally okay,” I said. “I can fend for myself.”

I stood by a window in the living room, watching until the car rolled out of the driveway and down the street. I checked around the party rooms for Celeste. No sign of her. I casually walked back up the stairs. The door to the Lazars’ room was shut. I knocked lightly. No answer. “Celeste?” I said. Nothing.

I slipped inside and shut the door behind me. Get in, get out. No problem. Just walk through. Don’t look around. My armpits were sweaty. I made it across the room, gripped the bathroom door handle.

Then I heard it. The slightest shifting of fabric. I turned. My eyes fumbled to make out shapes in the gloom. There. Subtle movement underneath a large desk. Shit.

“Hello?” I said tentatively.

No answer.

“Are you okay?”