Frost - Marianna Baer

concept. Then lay back down, not taking her eyes off it, making

sure it didn’t startle her with another sudden noise. Finally, she

drew the sheet over her head again.

“’Night,” I said to her covered figure as I turned off the light

and headed to the bathroom.

“I doubt it,” she said. “Not in here.”

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Chapter 9

I STEADIED MY FEET ON THE CHAIR as I reached up, drill

in hand, and repeated, “Many prokaryotes are able to take up

nonviral DNA molecules,” in an accent like the Terminator’s.

It was Saturday morning after our first week of classes, and I

was multitasking: switching the old, broken shades for new ones

I’d bought at the mall, while listening to my recording of Friday’s

unnervingly complicated lecture by my bio teacher, Mr.

Baumschlager.

Not exactly how I wanted to spend a day without classes, but

it needed to be done. Celeste had had insomnia all week, and

continued to be paranoid that someone could be watching her

through the windows. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t share her

caution—it was true that a person in the backyard could have

seen everything we were doing. To me, though, the garden felt

like an extension of my space.

As for the bio lecture, after struggling in a couple of subjects

at Barcroft, I’d figured out that the more a subject daunted me,

the more trouble I had paying attention in class. Apparently, my

brain left the room when it was confused. Ritalin hadn’t worked,

so—at the suggestion of a tutor—I’d started recording and re-

listening to classes last year, and had made honor roll for the first

time.

“The genomes of eubacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes—”

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A knock came at the door behind me. I turned. David stood

in the doorway, hands in the pockets of his low-riding jeans,

wearing an orange tee that said I LIKE PI on it.

“I expected you to be more muscular,” he said, smiling. “And

male.”

“Herr Baumschlager.” I stepped down from the chair and

moved over to my laptop to pause it. “Yesterday’s bio lecture. I

enjoyed it so much the first time I had to listen again.” I figured I

didn’t need to be embarrassed about my nerdiness in front of a

guy with math humor on his shirt.

“My sister around?” he said. “She called me to help you guys

do something. Hang these blinds, I guess?” He picked one up off

the floor, still rolled and wrapped in plastic.

“Really?” This was my project. I hadn’t asked her to call him.

“She’s not even here. Her wireless connection wasn’t working so

she went to the library.”

“God, she’s such a twerp sometimes.” David shook his head,

like he was sort of annoyed, sort of amused. “Well, since I’m here,

at least let me help. She asked me to hang that photo of hers,

too.”

Usually, I preferred to do projects alone. But I did have a ton

of homework this weekend and was supposed to take Anya to the

park tomorrow. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

We headed down the hall to get parietals.

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Over the past week, I’d run into David around campus and

here in the dorm a few times. Always happily. Aside from the

gorgeous thing, he was friendly and easygoing, and knowing he

was around made me feel like if I ever had a major problem with

Celeste, there was someone sane who could mediate. It was

pretty obvious he was an equal-opportunity flirter, so I wasn’t

convinced that, like Celeste had said, he’d noticed me in

particular. But since it didn’t matter either way, I just enjoyed the

buzz I got from his attention.

Back in the room after getting parietals from Ms. Martin, I

assigned David the duty of measuring for the new brackets, while

I finished up removing the old ones.

When the drill stopped screeching, he asked, “Where’d you

learn how to use power tools?”

“My dad,” I said. “He’s a carpenter, old-house restorer guy.

Big into DIY.”

“My dad’s smart as hell,” David said. “But the only thing he

can hit with a hammer is his thumb.”

“It takes practice.” I wondered if his dad was a

mathematician, like David. Like the man in the movie A Beautiful

Mind . “I’ve been using tools since I was a kid,” I said. “I made that

bookshelf this summer.”

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I turned to point and noticed not only the muscles in David’s

back when he raised his hands, but also what he was doing. “Are

you measuring the front of the molding?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”

“With this type of molding and these brackets, it has to go

inside the frame. See?” I held one up and demonstrated.

“Oh. Right.” He smiled. “Maybe I’ll hang the photo first.”

I took down the last of the old brackets as he got the frame

from her closet. “So, you inherited your dad’s,” I coughed, “ talent

with this stuff. Is he where you got your brain for spoon math,

too?”

“My what?” David said.

“Well, I know that you’re a math whiz. And you made that

comment about spoons. So I figure you were talking about some

type of equation or theory, or something.” I was kind of kidding,

but also a little serious. I didn’t know anything about

superadvanced math, and I hadn’t come up with any more

plausible idea.

“Like, physicists have string theory, and mathematicians have

spoon theory?” he said, standing there holding the photo.

“Yeah, exactly.”

David laughed. Hard. “Spoon theory. That’s great.”

85

“So if that’s not it,” I said, enjoying the goofy heh-hehs of his

laughter, “are you going to tell me what you really meant?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, still smiling really wide. “It’s going

to sound lame in comparison.”

“The more you delay, the more you’re building it up,” I

teased.

“Okay, okay.” He rested the photo on the floor and hooked

his thumbs in his pockets. “I took a metalwork class last year and

developed a bit of an obsession with spoons.”

Metalwork. “Wait,” I said. “So you actually make spoons?”

He shrugged, as if to say, “See? Lame.”

“Spoons have always annoyed me,” he said. “I could never

find the right one for the right job.” He went on to describe how

he made them for specific uses. One had a built-in rest, so that it

didn’t touch the table after you used it to stir your coffee. One

had a small hole in the basin, so you didn’t get a whole lot of milk

with your bite of cereal.

“You realize this is kind of weird, right?” I said. I couldn’t

decide if it was cool-quirky weird, or just plain strange.

“I guess,” he said. “It was something . . . concrete to do. You

know?”

That I understood. Making something useful, something you

could touch, that solved a problem. Like the bookshelves I make

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to fit in weird-shaped spaces. I’d made the one for this room low

and wide, to fit under a section of the windows. Seeing it in its

place was incredibly satisfying.

“Is this still an obsession?” I asked. “Are you going to write

your college essays about how you want to bring better spoonage

to the masses?”

“No,” he said, turning his attention back to hanging the

photo.

He didn’t say anything else, so I got my pencil and tape

measure and had just begun correcting his measurements on one