Frost - Marianna Baer

was about to turn back to my notes when I remembered. “Hey.

Don’t you notice anything?”

It took her a moment. “The shades, you mean?”

“Yeah. What do you think?”

“They look okay,” she said. “But can’t people see right

through them? They’re just paper.”

“No,” I said. “Maybe at most someone could see fuzzy

silhouettes.”

I went back to studying as Celeste got up and began putting

together an outfit to wear to the open-mic thing. When she’d

finally settled on a dark red dress with black net tights, I noticed

her looking around at the windows. I thought I saw her shiver

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slightly, before she grabbed her crutches and her clothes and

headed to change in the bathroom.

That night was only one week into the semester. I don’t think

I ever saw her undress in the bedroom again.

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Chapter 10

THE SHADES DIDN’T DO A VERY GOOD job of helping

Celeste sleep, either. With the windows open, they flapped and

crackled in the wind. Or so she said. With the windows closed, the

air in the room was stagnant and stifling. Also, moonlight filtered

in through the rice paper. So, despite my best efforts, after three

or so weeks at school, Celeste hadn’t gotten a good night of sleep

yet, and I heard about it. Often.

Every time someone came to me for peer counseling and had

complaints about their roommate—which was a lot of what us

counselors dealt with at the beginning of the year—I wished I

could offer my own stories, so we could commiserate.

During one of my sessions, a redheaded freshman was

especially upset. She sat in the chair across from mine, crying,

trying to explain to me all of the ways in which she was unhappy.

“Is the roommate situation what’s bothering you the most?”

I asked when she seemed to have finished her initial, somewhat

rambling explanation.

“Uh-huh.” She blew her nose into the tissue I’d given her.

“Are people ever allowed to switch?”

“Only in extraordinary circumstances,” I said. “Having a

roommate is like living with your sister. She might not be your

best friend, but you have to make it work.”

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“But I liked living with my sister,” the girl said in a tone

verging on a whine. “I wish I still were.”

“Why did you come to Barcroft?” I asked. Maybe this wasn’t

so much about her actual roommate.

“My dad wanted me to. He went here. I . . . I guess I didn’t

really not want to come. But I would’ve rather stayed with them. I

want to be home .” She crossed her arms and stared out the

window. Beyond our reflections in the glass, the new addition to

the library glowed in the night, like an enormous, geometric ice

sculpture. I could see two people inside gazing back in our

direction. For a moment, I thought one was David.

Since spending that morning together installing the shades,

he and I had started hanging out a bit—walking to classes, sitting

on the steps before the bell, sometimes having a meal at

Commons. He’d left a series of notes in my mailbox: The

Principles of Spoon Theory. I smiled, thinking of them, forgetting

for a moment the girl was waiting for me to say something.

“Well, look at it this way,” I said. “You have to change your

frame of mind so that from now on, Barcroft is home. When you

go visit your parents, you need to think of it that way—as visiting.

Otherwise when you’re here, you’ll always feel like you’re away ,

which is kind of an ungrounded way to feel. Right?”

She nodded and sniffled. I offered her the tissue box again.

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“So, if you went into Boston next weekend and met

someone, and they asked where you lived, you’d say, ‘Barcroft,’

you know? Instead of . . . ?”

“Greenwich.”

“Right. Greenwich. So, to feel like you’re in a comfortable,

happy home, you need to develop a better relationship with your

roommate. Should we write down some ways you might like to

talk to her?”

Another nod.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll get this all worked out.”

At nine thirty, I locked the door to the counseling offices

behind me and headed to the dorm, enjoying the unmistakable

crispness of Massachusetts fall that had blown in this week. I’d

looked for Frost House’s working fireplace this afternoon,

thinking we could start using it soon, and had been surprised to

find that it was all bricked up and obviously had been for years.

What had I seen that day last fall, when I was deciding whether or

not to call the dean? Not smoke from the chimney, sadly.

But fireplace or no, I did still have that lovely, deep, claw-

foot tub. As I walked up the porch steps, trying to convince myself

that I could concentrate on my homework in a bubble bath, my

phone rang. Abby.

“Are you on your way back here?” she said.

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“Opening the door now.”

“Good,” she said, and hung up.

No one was in the common room; somehow, though, the air

still snapped with tension, like it was warning me to be on my

guard. Voices echoed from down the hall.

Celeste, Abby, and Viv stood in my bedroom, in various

postures of hostility—arms crossed or on hips, chins thrust out,

feet planted wide. Shards of familiar glossy white-and-green

ceramic lay on the floor at their feet, with dried Chinese lantern

flowers scattered among the pieces. My stomach plummeted.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Celeste is accusing me of breaking her vase,” Abby said.

“Why? What happened?” I asked Celeste.

“She doesn’t know,” Abby answered before Celeste could

speak.

“Jesus.” Celeste briefly raised her eyes to the ceiling then

looked at me. “I came back from the studio and found Annie

standing here with the vase in pieces on the floor. Now she’s

trying to say David did it? What am I, stupid?”

“I guess so,” Abby said. “Because it’s Abby. Not Annie.”

“Okay, Abby, but you were in here?” I said. For an ugly

moment, I remembered the rip in Celeste’s skirt and Abby’s

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comments about hoping Celeste would move out. . . . But no,

there was no way she’d do something this mean.

Abby held her hands up in front of her. “It was broken when I

got here. I swear. I was just borrowing the hoodie.” She was

wearing a navy-blue sweatshirt of mine that she loved.

“Abby did tell me she was going down to borrow the

hoodie,” Viv added. “And I didn’t hear the sound of something

breaking.”

“David is here all the time,” Abby said. “Bringing her laundry

and stuff.”

“Why the hell—” Celeste began.

“I know David’s around a lot,” I said, “but I’m sure he

wouldn’t have knocked it over and just left it on the floor. And it’s

not like he’s here when Celeste isn’t.”

“So what are you saying?” Abby asked.

“Nothing.” I tried to keep my voice even. “Just that accusing

David isn’t helping.”

“Well, I didn’t do it,” she huffed.

“Then who did?” Celeste said.

“We’ve got some strong cross breezes in here,” I said,

glancing around at the windows, many of which were open.

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“You’re always complaining about them, Celeste. Maybe the vase

tipped on its own.”

“Right.” She used the tip of a crutch to send one of the dried

flowers skittering across the room. “You know, I didn’t ask to live