Frost - Marianna Baer

“Well, keep your eyes straight ahead. Trust me.”

I did, but couldn’t help asking, “What is it? A body?”

“You don’t want something horrible to be the thing you

remember from this weekend, do you?” he said.

“As opposed to remembering my own personal disasters?” I

said. “God, we’re at a total standstill again.”

“Hey. Look at me for a sec.” He rested a hand on my

shoulder. “I’m sorry about this mess,” he said. “I’m really, really

sorry for my sister’s part in it. I am. But about what you said

before—Celeste is not always the center of attention. At least not

the center of my attention. Understand?”

I nodded.

“And this might turn out to have been a pretty important

weekend,” he said. “So you should work on remembering the

good parts.”

“Important?”

“No?” he said. “Nothing that happened strikes you as

important? Nothing’s changed?” His gaze lingered on my lips.

I glanced at the road, looked back at David. “Maybe you

should refresh my memory.”

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He moved his hand to the back of my head and eased me

forward into a long, soft kiss. This time, instead of adding to my

worries, the heat and intensity obliterated them. In that moment

I knew, despite any self-sabotaging nervousness, this was what I

wanted.

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Chapter 26

THROUGH THE WINDOWS of Dean Shepherd’s cozy, shingle-

style house, I could see people gathered in her living room—

standing in clusters, eating, drinking, laughing. . . . I ran my fingers

through my hair, tucked it behind my ears, and rang the bell.

The dean answered the door holding a glass of red wine.

“Leena,” she said. “I was beginning to worry about you.”

I wanted to tell her how nice she looked in her silk, kimono-

style dress. I wanted to tell her David and I had finally gotten

together. I wanted to be one of the people invited to the party,

not the student interrupting it.

We had to pass through the living room to get to her home

office. The smell of onions and garlic cooking poured from the

kitchen. The Cinnabon I’d eaten for dinner sat like a brick in my

stomach. I said hello to Mrs. Fleissner, an English teacher, and Mr.

Prince, a theater teacher, self-conscious about my too-long-in-a-

car appearance. I didn’t know the other guests by name, but I

could feel everyone looking at me with curiosity. Had the

happenings in Frost House been fodder for their party

conversation? Hard to say, since I didn’t even know what the

happenings were.

Dean Shepherd shut the office door behind us. Stacks of

paper filled every surface. She took a messy pile off a chair and

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asked me to sit, then placed her glass of wine on a bookshelf, as if

she’d be too tempted to down it during our conversation.

“So,” she said, sitting. “Have you been back to the dorm

yet?”

Was that a trick question? “No.” I said. “Well, I dropped

David off there to see his sister. But I didn’t go in. You told me to

come straight here.”

She folded her hands together on the desk. “I know I was

vague on the phone. I didn’t want to get into it until I saw you in

person.”

“It sounded serious.”

“When I went to look for Celeste, the dorm was a wreck.”

“A wreck?”

“Your section of the house. It looked like a tornado had hit it.

Clothes everywhere. Boxes in the middle of the hallway.”

“Did someone break in?” I asked, suddenly a bit panicked. I’d

left my laptop there, my only valuable jewelry—

“No,” the dean said. “Celeste did it. She was moving all of her

stuff into the tiny room with your desks, and your stuff into the

room with the windows.”

“She was what?”

“Moving your things, so you’ll have separate rooms.”

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“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. “That’s weird. We’ve never

talked about doing that. She did all of this on crutches?”

“That’s what she’d called the maintenance worker about—to

help her. But there were other things. I noticed some dried blood

drops on the floor. Honestly, the whole place looked like a crime

scene.” Her pointed stare made me feel like I was the suspected

criminal.

“What did Celeste say?”

“She was very cagey. She said she was moving rooms

because she didn’t like being in a bedroom with so many

windows. Apparently, the blood was from a cut she got while

moving the stuff.”

“I guess I’m not surprised she wanted to change the room

setup,” I said. “She hates that bedroom.”

The dean’s eyebrows drew together. “There must be

something else going on here, Leena. Why would she have left

your trip like that, without telling you?”

“I haven’t spoken to her, so I don’t know,” I said. “The only

thing I can imagine is that . . .” Peals of laugher filtered in from

the next room. I waited until they stopped. “David and I are kind

of, well . . . you know. Involved.”

“You are? Since when?”

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“It’s pretty recent. Anyway, maybe it has something to do

with that. Maybe she felt out of place or uncomfortable.”

Dean Shepherd rested her forearms on the desk and leaned

in. “I don’t want to miss a warning sign that something more

serious is going on. Given Celeste’s family situation, and her

accident over the summer, I can’t just ignore what seems like

troubling behavior. You’re sure there’s nothing else I need to

know?”

I hated not to tell the whole truth, but I wanted to talk to

Celeste, to find out what this was really about. And talk to David,

too. If something were wrong, he’d expect me to tell him first.

Like a kid, I crossed my fingers under the desk. “Well, like I

said, she’s never been comfortable in our bedroom. She can’t

sleep in it. She has nightmares. I don’t know her well enough to

know if it’s really the room, or if she’d have this trouble

anywhere. I’m pretty sure the main problem is me and David,

though. They’re really close, you know.”

“I know,” Dean Shepherd said, sitting back in her chair again.

“Okay, well, I’ll trust you to let me know if you notice anything

else, Leena. Although, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that you’ve

seriously compromised my trust by lying about your chaperones

this weekend.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said, relieved that I seemed to have

weathered the storm. The meeting hadn’t been nearly as bad as

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the scenarios I’d imagined—Celeste telling the dean she’d been

persecuted all semester. “Being seniors, you know, it just didn’t

seem like that big a deal. Over the summer our parents leave us

alone all the time.”

“The rules at Barcroft apply just as much to seniors as they

do to underclassmen. You know that.”

“I know.” Blah, blah, blah . . . I supposed she had to say all of

this.

“I haven’t checked, but I believe this is the first strike against

everyone involved. Luckily. So, you’ll meet with the disciplinary

committee, but it won’t lead to anything as serious as expulsion.”

Her words hit me like a slap. “The disciplinary committee?” I

said. “Really?”

“Of course. What did you think?”

What did I think? I thought she’d write it off as a stupid, but

harmless, mistake.

I thought I was special.