Frost - Marianna Baer

here. To break up your little party. So I don’t see why we can’t

just live and let live.”

Abby sputtered. “We can! You’re the one who accused me of

doing this.”

“Okay!” I said. “Enough!” I dumped my bag on my bed and

turned to Celeste. “If Abby says she didn’t do it, she didn’t do it.” I

turned to Abby. “David wouldn’t have done it.” Then to all of

them, “Do you guys realize how lucky we are? Instead of being in

some big, impersonal dorm, we have this beautiful little house.

But if you guys are going to act like this, it’s just . . . well, it’s going

to suck. Am I right?”

I made eye contact with each of them. They nodded

unenthusiastically.

“Good,” I said. Even though I was annoyed, I didn’t want to

leave it on this note. “And did you all get my message about what

I’m going to cook for the first Sunday dinner? Did it sound okay?”

More nodding. I seemed to be inspiring a lot of that tonight.

“I love your lasagna,” Viv said.

105

“Okay. Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I have a

butt load of homework that I haven’t even started.”

After Viv and Abby disappeared upstairs, I squatted and

collected the shards; reaching the floor was tricky for Celeste with

her cast. No matter how the vase had broken, I didn’t blame her

for being upset. But couldn’t she have accepted Abby’s

explanation of what happened? It was as if she was trying to

make things more difficult here. I handed her the pieces in a

plastic bag and, after a mumbled thanks, she headed across the

hall to the little room. I swept up the flowers and dumped them in

the trash.

When I finally stretched out on the bed, exhausted, my head

sank into the pillow so heavily I thought I might never be able to

lift it up. For a few moments, I let the room work its magic,

tempting me into falling asleep right then, without even taking

my clothes off. But I was already stressed out enough by my

classes. No way could I afford to skip a night of homework. I had a

good three hours or so ahead of me. I dragged myself up and

started getting stuff out of my bag. As I rooted around the bottom

for a pen, my hand came across something I didn’t recognize. I

pulled it out, and saw the envelope that David had given me a few

weeks ago. Damn.

I knocked on the door to our little study room and then went

in.

106

Celeste sat reading A Room of One’s Own . (God, if only . . .)

The pieces of the vase were spread out in front of her on her

desk. She looked up at me.

“I know it was your grandmother’s,” I said. “Do you want me

to try to fix it? I have Gorilla Glue.”

“It’s in way too many pieces.” She put down her book. “It

was in the middle of the room, Leena. Not right near the dresser,

where it would have fallen.”

“Maybe it bounced once, before it broke.” I’d seen mugs and

glasses do that, instead of smashing at first impact.

She picked up one of the larger shards and ran her finger

around the uneven edge.

“I want to keep our rooms locked,” she said. “From now on.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks. Locking the door in such a

small house seemed so aggressively unfriendly. Viv and Abby and

I had always gone in and out of one another’s rooms, borrowing

clothes, books, whatever. . . .

“I know you’re upset,” I said. “But I wish you’d trust me

about Abby.”

Celeste was quiet for a moment as she pressed the shard

into her fingertip, turning the flesh white. “There’s something

else,” she finally said. “The other day, when I was taking a bath,

there was this . . . knocking.”

107

“On the door?” I said.

“No.” She shook her head. “I thought so, at first. I thought it

was you, so I said I’d be out in a bit. But the knocking didn’t stop.

Then I realized it was on the wall—not the door. The wall

between the bathroom and my closet. Like this.” She rapped the

desk three times. Waited a second. Rapped four times, then once.

An erratic rhythm.

My heart began thumping a little harder, as if responding to

her loud beats on the wood. “What was it?” I asked. “A noise in a

pipe?”

“No,” she said. “Someone was doing it. On purpose.”

“What? Who?” Was she saying Abby had done this?

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “It takes me forever to get out

of the tub with my cast. I finally hauled my ass out and made it

over there, and whoever had been there was gone.”

“I don’t understand. Why would someone do that?”

“To mess with me. Freak me out.”

Okay, she was freaking me out. “Who would want to mess

with you?”

“I just told you, I don’t know.” Her jaw tightened. “I knew

you wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t even want to tell you. But now,

with the vase . . . I’m sure it’s the same person. That’s why I want

to lock the doors.”

108

I tried to think clearly about the best way to approach this

before answering. “I’m fine about locking the doors,” I said. “If it’ll

make you feel better, that’s not a problem. But I still don’t think

there’s any need to. I think the vase broke by accident. And since

nothing happened while you were in the tub, I’m assuming . . . I

don’t know . . . that it was some other noise you heard. Have you

lived in an old house before?”

“Not really.”

“Strange noises happen all the time,” I explained. “You’ll get

used to it.”

She pursed her lips. “But it sounded so . . . purposeful.”

“If someone really did want to mess with you,” I said, “that

would be a pretty weird way of doing it. Right? I mean, if I were

trying to freak someone out, I’d replace their toothpaste with

Preparation H, or fill their shoes with peanut butter or

something.”

“Fill their shoes with peanut butter?” Celeste said. “You’d be

a crappy freaker-outer.”

I laughed, a release of nerves mostly. “You know what I

mean. I wouldn’t be knocking on a wall. Or breaking a vase, for

that matter.”

She placed the shard she’d been holding back on her desk.

“Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”

109

“I’m sure I am.”

Feeling like I’d talked her off the ledge, I started out of the

room. The minute I was in the hall, though, I remembered why I’d

gone over to begin with. It took bulldozer force to make myself

turn back around. “Celeste?” I held out the small white envelope.

“David gave this to me at the beginning of school, and I totally

forgot to give it to you. I hope I didn’t screw anything up.”

She handed it back without opening it. “You should keep it,”

she said.

“Me? I don’t even know what it is.”

“The key to his room. Which makes more sense, for his sister

to have it, or his girlfriend?”

For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. David had a

girlfriend?

Then I clued in to her implication. “I’m not his girlfriend,” I

said.

“I see you guys together all the time,” she said. “I don’t mind.

I want you to get together. I told you that right on the first day.

Why else do you think I had him come over to help you hang

those shades the other week?”

Oh my God. “You did that on purpose?”

She smirked. “Just moving things along.”