Frost - Marianna Baer

if it was going to change back before my eyes.

237

When I was sufficiently sure it wasn’t going to, I dressed and

followed the smell of bacon downstairs, into the kitchen.

Viv stood at the marble countertop island, cracking an egg

into a bowl. At the table, Abby sat hunched over a mug of coffee

and Cameron leaned back in his chair, reading the paper.

“Morning, sunshine,” Viv said. “Eggs? Veggie bacon? Home

fries?”

“Mmm.” I got myself some grapefruit juice from the fridge

then sat down next to Abby. “Hungover?” I said to her.

She nodded. “A little. Need food.”

“Hey,” I said, “have either of your guys’ tatts faded or bled?”

“Nope,” Abby said.

Viv turned from the stove. “Cam? You see my butt more than

I do.”

“Looks good to me, baby,” he said.

I swirled the juice around in my glass. “Mine looks like hell.”

“Go back to the place,” Abby said. “They can fix some stuff.”

“I will. Where’s Celeste? Did she eat already?”

“Haven’t seen her or David,” Viv said.

“David’s getting up.” I tried to keep any suspicious notes out

of my voice.

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I wasn’t successful. All eyes turned toward me.

“And you know this how?” Viv asked.

I would have lied, but my smile and blush told the story. “We

just, you know, hung out.”

Abby rested her head on the table. “Why do I always have to

be right? Why, why, why?”

“So where’s Celeste?” I said. “She’s not in the bedroom.”

Viv ate a bite of eggs off her spatula then recommenced

using it to stir. “Yesterday she asked me if she could take some

pictures around the house. Maybe she’s doing that.”

Honestly, at that point, her absence just seemed like a gift,

one I wasn’t going to question too strenuously. Especially not

after David came into the room, fresh from a shower and looking

ten times hotter than I’d thought before, if that was possible. I

was sure I could get used to that fooling-around stuff. I was just

nervous I’d do something wrong, probably. Push the wrong

button, pull the wrong lever. It had been a long time since I’d

been with a guy, after all. And I’d never felt as excited about

anyone as I was about David. That was probably it:

overexcitement.

Viv served us breakfast and we passed around the best

sections of the Sunday New York Times . David’s foot found mine

under the table. I skimmed through the real-estate section,

fantasizing.

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I was happy to ignore Celeste’s absence for as long as

possible. After a bit, though, David got antsy. He called her cell

and it went straight to voice mail. For once, I wished he wasn’t

such a caring and thoughtful brother.

“Maybe she went to the park?” Cameron said.

“In this weather?” I said, then turned to Viv. “Is Annika

around? Maybe she’s seen her.”

“Nope. Saturday night and Sunday she has off.”

David and I decided to look through the house. It didn’t take

us long to figure out she wasn’t here—unless she was hiding,

which, I hoped, was beyond even Celeste. The whole thing was

giving me a flashback to the bar last night. Maybe we were going

to find her sitting in an alley behind the house, smoking with

Whip.

“What should we do?” I asked David, annoyed that this was

how we were spending our morning. “Walk around the

neighborhood and look in cafés and stuff?”

“I think we should wait for her here,” he said. “If we go out

and she comes back, she won’t be able to get in the house.”

I went to my bedroom to grab a sweater. As I did, I checked

around to see if I could tell what type of clothes Celeste had

worn, in case that told us anything. I quickly realized I should have

thought to check earlier.

240

Everything was gone.

All she’d left was a piece of paper folded over one of the

hangers in the closet with a scrawled note: Back to Barcroft.

Sorry, took the dress with me.

“She’s what?” David said, placing his glass of orange juice

down without taking a sip.

“Gone,” I said in disbelief. “Back to school.”

“What? Why?” Viv said, collecting dishes to be washed. “She

seemed okay last night. Was she upset or something?”

“I have no idea.” I thudded down in a chair.

David picked up his cell, sent a message. Called, left a voice

mail telling her to call back immediately.

“Do you think she took the train?” I said. “Or bus? I mean,

what a hassle with her bag, and her cast. What do you think we

should do?”

“She’s a big girl,” Abby said, looking at us over the top of the

Style section. “Can’t we assume she knows what she’s doing?”

No one said anything. The last thing I wanted was to spend

another minute worrying about her, but it was just so strange.

“Since it’s bad weather,” Abby continued, “I think we should

go to that movie. It starts in twenty-five minutes. But the

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theater’s a quick walk, right, Viv?” She folded up the newspaper

with loud snapping noises.

“Yeah. Ten minutes,” Viv said.

“And we can go to that museum you read about after,” Abby

said.

I looked at David, could read in his face right away that he

didn’t feel right going out without hearing from his sister. I didn’t

think I’d be able to concentrate on a movie either.

“You guys go,” I said. “David and I will stay here. We can

meet you later at the museum, okay?”

Abby pushed her chair back and stood up. “Whatever. Hope

you have fun.”

Despite the fact that it was the afternoon after our first kiss

and first night together, our time alone was not at all cozy or

romantic. We spent most of it staring at David’s phone. I

attempted the Times crossword puzzle but had trouble

concentrating well enough to make a dent in the clues.

I was trying to remember who wrote the short story “The

Lottery,” seven letters, when the phone finally rang. But it wasn’t

David’s; it was mine. And it wasn’t Celeste.

“Leena?” Dean Shepherd said. “Sorry to bother you.”

“That’s okay,” I said, surprised. “What’s up?”

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“Sorry if there’s noise around me,” she said. “I’m in the

parking lot at Whole Foods—dinner party tonight. But I just got a

strange message. Apparently, a maintenance worker was called

over to Frost House to help a student with something. And since

no students are supposed to be there . . .”

A maintenance worker? “Uh, I guess that’s something to do

with Celeste,” I said.

“Celeste?”

“You know how we all came to New York, to Viv’s house?” I

said. “Well, Celeste has sort of, well, she left early.”

“What?” A car honked near her as she spoke. “Why?”

I ran my finger along the side of the place mat, feeling

David’s eyes on me. The only possibility we’d come up with was

that Celeste was having some overblown reaction to us getting

together. I couldn’t exactly tell that to the dean. “It’s kind of a

misunderstanding,” I said. “I’m not quite sure why. She left early

this morning.”

“And came all the way back to Barcroft? Alone? On

crutches?”

“I guess.” It sounded so ridiculous. I didn’t blame the dean

for being confused.

“Did Viv’s parents take her to the train station, or