Frost - Marianna Baer

Maybe, I thought as I stared at the sunburned back of Whip’s

neck, maybe the difference between me and him was how

ingrained I felt here. My parents had just gotten a divorce when I

arrived in ninth grade. And although they liked to say it was

amicable—neither of them had cheated and they’d used a

mediator instead of lawyers—it had hit our lives like a wrecking

ball. I’d had to build a new life; Barcroft was the foundation. Of

course I was worried about leaving.

“Leena Thomas,” I said when I reached the guy handing out

manila envelopes. I took mine and slid out the multicolored

sheets of paper. My housing assignment form had a note in

familiar, flowing handwriting: Hello, L! Please call or stop by and

see me ASAP. Looking forward, NS.

14

NS—Nancy Shepherd: Dean of Students, faculty advisor to

the peer-counseling program I’d started, my mentor. I’d been

looking forward to seeing her, too. I wanted to hear about her

summer camping trip, which had involved an encounter with a

“feroshus beer,” according to my postcard from her seven-year-

old daughter, who I babysat during the school year.

Now, though, instead of asking about that (Budweiser?

Corona?), I had to start the semester by bothering her about

Celeste.

Shaking off the thought, I slipped my registration papers

back in the envelope, stood up straighter, and searched the

crowd for Abby’s walnut-brown curls. A shriek rattled my

eardrums.

“Leena-bo-beena!” Vivian Parker-White loped toward me, all

long limbs and flowery skirt and skin tanned from weeks in

Greece.

“I’ve missed you!” I said, my smile buried in a rain-wet mass

of coconut shampoo smell as we hugged.

“No,” she said, “I’ve missed you!” I squeezed even tighter,

trying to make up for months of only virtual communication.

Boarding school had spoiled me—I was used to having my friends

around me all the time.

As Viv and I broke away from our hug, Abby materialized

next to us. She bounced up and down. “Can we show now, since

15

we’re all together? We don’t have to wait till we’re back at the

dorm, do we?”

“I almost forgot,” I said. “Here, though?” A couple of

sophomore boys stood right next to us. One of them grinned

when our eyes met, as if he knew I was considering unbuttoning

my cutoffs.

“No chance,” Viv said. “Mine’s not for public viewing.”

“Come on.” Abby grabbed our hands. She pulled us through

the registration room, into a black granite hallway, and down a

set of polished concrete stairs, chattering about her horrible class

schedule and the “Green Beret disaster.”

“It’s not a disaster,” I said, wishing she hadn’t mentioned it.

I’d go see the dean in a bit. Now, I just wanted to enjoy this

moment, wanted to see if my guesses were right—an Aries

symbol for Viv, and a butterfly for Abby. At the end of last

semester, we’d made a pact to get tattoos over the summer and

had forbidden further discussion about it until the moment of

revelation.

Abby pushed open the door to the girls’ bathroom.

“Who goes first?” Viv asked.

“Me,” Abby said.

Doing a mock striptease move, she lowered the right strap of

her tank top. Two hollow-eyed faces stared up from her shoulder

16

blade. A comedy/tragedy drama-mask thing. One face smiling,

one frowning, the expressions exaggerated almost to the point of

dementia.

“Ooh, I love it,” I said. “Really well drawn.”

“Exdese,” Viv agreed, using the dorky word for excellent

we’d made up freshman year. “And very appropriate, of course.”

“It’ll be even more appropriate if you become bipolar,” I

pointed out.

“Ha, ha.” Abby flicked me on the arm. “Who’s next?”

Viv turned around and lifted up her skirt. Smack in the

middle of the left cheek of her thong-clad butt was a heraldic

crest: black and red, with fleur-de-lis designs around a knight’s

helmet and a stag’s head.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s . . . amazing. It’s so elaborate.”

“Oh my God,” Abby said. “It’s the Parker family crest! Isn’t it?

The one you showed me online?”

Viv turned back around. “Yup. Isn’t it funky? It’s thanks to

Orin.”

“Your astrologer—sorry, your advisor,” I corrected myself,

“told you to get your family crest tattooed on your butt?”

“No, of course not,” Viv said. “He told me I should

incorporate my family history into my identity.”

17

Abby covered her mouth; a snort escaped her nose.

“It’s an important part of my being,” Viv added.

I made the mistake of looking into Abby’s glimmering brown

eyes, and we lost it.

I shook with laughter until my cheek muscles ached. It was

perfect. The Parker-Whites are a bizarre hybrid of old money

aristocracy (Parker) and new-age bohemianism (White). Their

psychic “advisor” is practically a full-time employee.

Eventually, the bathroom filled with wheezes and deep

breaths as Abby and I struggled to compose ourselves. Viv waited,

arms crossed.

She leaned back against a sink. “Laugh all you want. But Orin

said something else, too. Something not so good.”

“What?” I said, bracing myself for another absurdity.

Before she could continue, the bathroom door swished open

and three of our dorm-mates from junior year bustled in.

“I heard about your new roommate, Leena,” Jessica Liu said

as the other two went into stalls. “That should be entertaining.”

“You heard? How?” I didn’t like that. Other people knowing

made it seem more like a done deal.

18

“My brother went to school with her brother. They were on

the phone yesterday and her brother asked to talk to me. He

wanted to make sure she wasn’t rooming with some psycho.”

“Hah!” Abby said. “That’s rich.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked Jess.

“The truth. That Celeste was in serious danger.”

“Thanks.” I gave her a sarcastic smile. “Anyway, I’m not sure

if it’s going to work out for her to live with us. Dean Shepherd

wants to meet. Speaking of which . . .” I checked my watch. “She

won’t be in her office much longer. I should get going.”

“Leen, we’re not done!” Abby said.

“We’ll finish later, okay?” I gripped the chilly metal door

handle. “I need to deal with this.”

19

Chapter 3

ALTHOUGH THE RAIN HAD STOPPED, the humid air still

clung to me like a full-body sweater as I hurried past the stately

brick buildings of the main quad on my way to Irving Hall. Barcroft

is one of the oldest boarding schools in the country, and while the

newer buildings are flashy and modern, the central campus is

quintessential New England prep school.

Marcia, the dean’s assistant, said I’d have to wait a few

minutes. I sat on a leather chair and rearranged the legs of my

cutoffs to separate my clammy skin from the slick surface, then

took out my packet and thumbed through my registration

materials. Black type floated into abstract designs as I silently

rehearsed my conversation with the dean.

Until now, I hadn’t given much thought to the fact that it

would have been her decision to move Celeste to Frost House.

But sitting here, I couldn’t understand it, given how well Dean

Shepherd knew the situation. How well she knew me.

After answering a posting on the job board freshman year,

I’d started babysitting her daughter on Sunday afternoons while

the dean was with her husband, who was in hospice with terminal

cancer. We kept the arrangement after he died, as well.

Sometimes I stayed to help with dinner and ended up eating with

her and Anya. I think she was happy to have someone to distract

her from stuff with her husband, and I loved listening to her talk

20

about books and music and places she’d lived and traveled.

Growing up as an only child, I’d spent a lot of time with my

parents and their friends; she reminded me of one of them.

Probably some kids at Barcroft thought I was a suck-up,

hanging out with the Dean of Students. But I didn’t ask her for any

special treatment. Until Frost House, of course.

I called her the day I discovered it last fall. “I saw the most

amazing house all hidden in the bushes,” I said, words rushing

out. “And I peeked in the windows and I think it might be a dorm.

Is it? Because it would be the most perfect place to live for senior

year. All quiet and separate, kind of like living off campus, away

from the frenzy. And if it is a dorm, how many—”

“Slow down,” she’d said. “Describe it for me.”

“Off Highland Street, by the playing fields. White clapboard,

Victorian.”

I could have described it down to the fish-scale pattern of

the shingles on the roof. My father restores old houses and my

mother is a realtor, so I grew up learning all about colonials and

Victorians, gables and lintels and cornices. From the moment I

saw the little house, I’d felt a weirdly intense desire to live there.

As if it was the answer to a question I didn’t even know I’d been

asking. I’d wandered around all four sides, appreciating its

architectural quirks and fantasizing: warm evenings hanging out

on the porch; reading, curled up in a window seat. . . .

21

“Off Highland Street?” the dean had said. “That’s Frost

House. A four-student dorm. Reserved for senior boys.”

“Boys? ” I hadn’t considered that possibility.

My reluctant acceptance of this news lasted less than

twenty-four hours, during which I kept going back to Frost House

in my mind. The next day, I couldn’t resist an urge—a pull—to

visit again in person. As I stood there, staring up like I was lovesick

for one of the guys inside, I struggled with what to do. I wanted to

call the dean back, wanted to see if there was any chance it might

be switched to a girls’ dorm for the next year. But it seemed like

such a big favor. While I debated, a slender column of smoke rose

from the chimney and curled into the blue sky. A working

fireplace? In a dorm? I took my phone out of my bag and called.

I told her honestly how worried I was about the stress of

senior year, and how much difference living in a small dorm

would make. I told her that boys didn’t appreciate window seats

and wraparound porches. She laughed.

“Even if we could switch it to a girls’ dorm,” the dean said,

“you’d still have to go through the housing lottery. There’s no

guarantee you’d be the girls who get to live there.”

“I know,” I said, watching the smoke from the chimney dance

away. “But if it’s a boys’ dorm, we won’t even have a chance.”

“Well,” she said after a moment. “It is only a matter of four

students. Let’s see what we can do.”

22

And now she’d moved Celeste in, without even telling me?

I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the blue

paper that listed my class schedule: Molecular Biology, Gender

Relations in America, Calculus—

“Leena?” The dean’s voice made me look up. She was

standing in the door to her office, smiling warmly.

“Welcome back,” she said, beckoning me to her. “Come on

in.”

Dean Shepherd closed the office door behind us and drew

me into a hug. “It’s wonderful to see you,” she said. “You look

healthy, rested, all those good things.”

“Thanks. You too.” Her ash-blond hair had been cut pixie-

short, bringing out her bright hazel irises.

She patted the chair next to her desk. “How was your

summer? You survived the twins?”

“Barely,” I said, sitting. I was indescribably thankful my stint

at all-day babysitting for five-year-old twin boys was over. “But it

paid really well. So thanks again for recommending me. How’s

Anya?”

“Great. She can’t wait to see you.” The dean’s smile lingered,

but not in her eyes. “I want to talk more about everything later,

Leena. There’s another reason I wanted to see you now. Not to

catch up.”

23

“I know.”

“Oh.” She nodded once. “I’m so sorry you didn’t hear it from

me first. I left a message with your father for you to call me

yesterday, when we made the decision.”

“He must have forgotten,” I said, unsurprised. It did make

me feel a little better to know she’d tried to get in touch with me,

though.

“It’s my fault,” she said. “I should have called again. Celeste

is just one of the crises I’ve had to deal with this week.”

“I feel bad for her, of course,” I said. “But, the thing is, it’s

only me, Viv, and Abby in Frost House, and I’m wondering if she

might feel uncomfortable, living with a group of friends. Not that

we wouldn’t be nice to her. Just . . . it might be awkward. Do you

know if . . . if there might be another first-floor room open

somewhere?”

From the slightest intake of her lips, I could tell this wasn’t

what the dean wanted to hear. A pang of guilt twitched in my gut.

“Maybe one of the dorms in the middle of campus,” I added.

“More convenient.”

“There were a couple of other rooms we could have moved

her to,” she said. “But I talked it over with faculty who know

Celeste, and we all felt that Frost House was the best option.”

“Really? Can I ask why?” There were other rooms—that was

good news.

24

She placed her palms together and interlocked her fingers.

“Between us, there’s been some difficulty with Celeste’s family

over the past year. We think it’s best if she’s in a small, quiet

dorm. More like a home.”

With Celeste there, it wasn’t a home anymore. Homes are

for families, not strangers. And our family was set—Viv, the

caretaking mother; me, the problem-solving, fix-it father; Abby,