Frost (24 page)

Chapter 37

G
OING TO MY CLASSES WAS NOT AN OPTION.
David’s completely irrational view of the facts had thrown me for almost as big a loop as Celeste’s revelation. There was only one place I could safely process the information.

I fumbled a round yellow pill into my mouth. I needed clarity. Too much emotion and confusion battled in my brain. I breathed in the closet’s comforting smell, traced my finger over Cubby’s feathers, and tried to think.

Was the power of denial so strong that it could completely prevent David from seeing the truth? Maybe the drive for self-protection trumped logic, rationality. When David talked to Celeste, though, when he heard the paranoia in her voice, he’d have to come to terms with what was really happening. He just needed some time to let it sink in.

And where would that leave us? The loneliness that lay ahead of him made my chest ache. It made me want to tell him that I’d be there, in whatever way he needed. Did he know that? I couldn’t believe how strongly attached I’d grown to him in such a short time.

You know that can only hurt you
.
Once he doesn’t want you.

“No,” I said. “He’s going to need me. He’s not going to have Celeste anymore. He’ll need me.” I rubbed my temples. More and more I’d been getting these deep, throbbing headaches.

Don’t you see? He’s sick, too. He’ll never want you the way he wants her.

“Why do you say that? That’s awful.”

In here is the only place you get the truth.

I’d had enough of the truth these past couple of days. I was exhausted from it all—the revelations, confrontations. And though usually I loved the way I felt in here, right now, I couldn’t handle any more insights into my sometimes ugly subconscious.

It took an enormous amount of energy to push myself up and out into the blinding light of my room. And the minute I was out there, I almost went back in. Somehow the open space of the room was overwhelming. Not contained enough. I needed an activity. Something to occupy me until David got in touch. Something physical—there was no way I could concentrate on homework. The furniture was happy in its arrangement. No space on the walls to hang more pictures. Maybe the garden needed something.

I crossed the room to look outside. The angle of the light coming through the window brought out the layers of dirt that had built up on the pane. Ugh. How had I not noticed this before? I ran a finger down the cold glass. Dirt stuck to the tip.

I got a pile of newspapers from the common room and the Windex from under the bathroom sink. I started at the far right window—just as dirty as the other. I sprayed the cleaner and began wiping with a wadded-up clump of newspaper.

I breathed in and out with the strokes of my arm. Okay. I didn’t need to think about David’s part in this. About his strange reaction. Or what was going to happen to us. No good could come from dwelling on the possibility of losing him, the way I always seemed to do in the closet.

I rubbed circles of streaky liquid round and round the next pane. My wad of newspaper bumped up against the wood frame that had splintered when I’d been hanging the blinds with David. It had been ready to fall apart, that piece of rotten wood. But it took me drilling into it for the large chunk to splinter off. What had happened to Celeste, to make her mind splinter like it had?

I thought back to the beginning of the semester, to the bad things that happened to her right off the bat—the ripped skirt, the broken vase. One possibility, of course, was that she had unknowingly caused these things to happen herself. But maybe she hadn’t. Maybe someone else had done these things, and that had been part of what had instigated Celeste’s paranoia. She thought someone was out to get her because, in a way, someone
was
out to get her. Was it possible that a mental disorder could be set off by something like that? Or had the mental disorder itself caused the things to happen? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I didn’t hear from David until late that afternoon. I was about to lose it, wondering whether he had talked to Celeste yet, when my phone finally flashed his name.

“Can you have dinner at Tonio’s?” he said.

“Tonio’s? Sure, why?”

“I’m hungry.” I thought I heard laughter in the background.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

I was surprised that David was hungry at all, let alone in the mood to go to a romantic, off-campus restaurant. I was even more surprised when I picked him up at his dorm and found Celeste there with him. He slid in the front, Celeste and her crutches in the back.

“Where should I drop you off?” I asked her.

“I’m coming to dinner,” she said. Even in the small reflection in the rearview mirror, I could see that despite the dark bags, her eyes sparkled like they hadn’t before. Her whole expression was entirely different from yesterday’s.

David’s face was more serious than hers, but not nearly as morose as when I’d left him. A disturbing new idea wiggled its way into my brain. Was it possible—at all possible—that this whole thing had been a joke? Or some kind of sick Lazar family test? Well, if it was, there was no question—I was done with both of them.

I got no clues from their conversation on the drive to Tonio’s. Celeste spent the whole time talking about the upcoming student exhibition her photos were going to be in, and soliciting our opinions about what she should wear to the opening. If this wasn’t a joke, had David even talked to her?

At Tonio’s, the maître d’ gave us the polite but tired smile Barcroft students always get and led us to a small, velvet-upholstered booth at the back of the dark restaurant.

Celeste immediately grabbed a breadstick from a ceramic jar. David opened the stiff, gold-embossed cover of his menu.

I opened mine, but the words didn’t coalesce into meaningful phrases. I shut it. “So, why are we here?” I said. “It’s not your birthday, is it? That’s in a couple weeks.” A ludicrous guess; of course this wasn’t a birthday party.

“We wanted somewhere private,” David said.

“Aren’t these booths great?” Celeste ran a hand over the tufted, burgundy velvet. “Old-school glamour. I’d like to have one in my house.”

A waiter in black pants and a white button-down appeared at our table. “My name is Cliff and I’ll be your server this evening. May I take your drink order?”

“Diet Coke, please,” I said, then added, “Actually, just water.” I didn’t need any caffeine.

“Club soda,” Celeste said. “With one maraschino cherry, and a slice of lime.”

“Sam Adams,” David said.

“May I see some ID, sir?” Cliff said.

David looked surprised, then embarrassed. He began patting his pockets. “Oh, sorry, I don’t think I brought . . . That’s okay. I’ll just have a Coke.”

“Why somewhere private?” I said, once we were alone again.

“We have a plan,” David said. “Well, the start of one.”

“Okay . . .”

David placed both palms on the table and leaned forward. “Here’s what we do. We convince the school that Frost House isn’t safe to live in. That way, you all get to move out, no one knowing the real reason you need to.”

“What do you mean, ‘isn’t safe’?” I said. “You’re going to tell them there’s something evil in the house?”

“Of course not,” David said. “We prove that it’s physically unstable. I don’t know, like the roof might collapse or whatever. Maybe we could start a fire or something, just a small one.”

I sat there, looking back and forth between the two of them. Their expressions were anxious, but in an excited, not-nervous way. Kids listening for Santa’s sleigh on the roof.

The waiter placed our drinks on the table. “Would you like to hear this evening’s specials?” he said.

Specials? Who could think about food? I couldn’t even conceive of reading through the menu with David’s words hanging in the air. A fire? Was he kidding?

“I don’t need to hear specials,” I said, just to say something. “I’ll have the fettuccini Alfredo, please.”

“Steak for me,” David said. “Rare.”

“Ooh, me too.” Celeste was almost giddy. “Listen,” she said to the waiter, “do you think the restaurant is going to get new seating anytime soon? Because if they do, I’d be interested in buying one of these booths.”

Cliff stifled a smile. “I don’t think so. I’ll check, though.” He chuckled as he walked away.

“You’re joking, right?” I said to David.

“I know it sounds extreme,” he said. “But think about it.”

“Burning down the haunted house,” I said. “Like in a cheesy horror movie? Are you crazy?” Right away I knew it was a bad choice of words.

“David and I are both crazy,” Celeste said in a woo-woo, exaggeratedly eerie voice. She wiggled her fingers in the air. “And we’re going to make you crazy, too.”

“No, we’re not,” David said. “I don’t necessarily mean a fire. Just something to make the house unlivable. You know all about house construction. What could we do to make it unlivable? Like, a major plumbing leak or something that ruins some stuff.”

“I don’t want it to be unlivable,” I said. “In case you’ve forgotten, I live there!”

“So you’ll move into an empty room somewhere else.” David pulled out a breadstick and snapped it in half.

“No. This is a ridiculous idea.”

“Leena,” David said. “Celeste can’t keep living there. And any other solution involves making her look sick. Unless you want us to make up some story about how you guys are mean to her. We’ll tell the dean she’s too miserable to stay there.”

“No way,” I said. “Absolutely not.” Aside from the fact I’d be mortified for them to do that, this whole plan was predicated on the fact that Celeste would be okay if she moved out. Could David honestly believe that?

“Come on,” David said, cajoling, as if he was trying to convince me to take a breadstick or something equally trivial. “Next year we’ll have a nice place in the city. You can handle living in some other dorm until then. What’s the big deal about you staying there?”

The big deal? He knew how I felt about my room. How could he even ask? And how could they be so casual, so . . . so . . . so goddamn cheery? I stared at my fork. “I don’t want to move out.” My voice was tight.

“It’s a good plan,” Celeste said to me. “We know it’s kind of weird, but not so much if you think about it.”

“It’s kind of impractical, to put it mildly,” I said. “And what about Viv and Abby and Ms. Martin? You’re going to make all of them move out, too? And Kate is supposed to move in next semester. What about her? We’re all supposed to live there.”

“Do you have a better idea?” David said.

I couldn’t believe he was putting me in this position in front of Celeste. He knew what I thought.

“A problem with the wiring,” he said. “Don’t old houses have dangerous electrical problems sometimes?”

“The dangerous wiring isn’t in the house,” I muttered.

“What?” David leaned toward me.

“Nothing. I mean, yes, of course there could be dangerous wiring. But we wouldn’t know.”

“What if we just scorched the wall?” he said. “Not a full-fledged fire. Just enough to make them nervous. You know, a big, scorched area around an outlet. Would that be enough for them to move you?”

With no warning, Celeste stood up, jiggling the table and sloshing our drinks. She lifted her glass. “A toast,” she said.

“What?” I said.

“I can’t even tell you how good this feels,” she said. “Even just knowing that you guys know, and that we’re going to do something about it. I have been so fucking scared and so fucking alone. I would like to toast our new coalition. Formed out of a betrayal, yes,” she said, looking me in the eye, “but formed nonetheless.”

“Celeste,” David said. “Leena did the right thing, telling me. We wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t.” He lifted his Coke. “We should be toasting her.”

“Fine. To Leena,” Celeste said.

Their eyes pinned me against the back of the booth. At that moment, I couldn’t see how not to do what they wanted. I lifted my glass.

Chapter 38

“H
OW CAN
I
DO IT?
” I said. “How can I help Celeste without losing David?” Please
be wise
, I thought.
Please, I need help. I need wisdom.
Cubby’s eyes stared back at me in the light from the camping lantern. I’d taken a pill to calm down, but what I really needed was answers.

You can’t.

I shivered. “I don’t understand how he can be so blind.”

He’s not blind. He’s sick.

“No.” I shook my head. “He just wants her to be okay.”

He wants her to be crazy. He likes it.

No. I knew that he wanted to take care of her, but he would rather he didn’t have to. I knew that. He wasn’t sick.

And now he’s going to take away Frost House.

“No.”

Someone was knocking on the bedroom door. Loudly. My room light was on; I couldn’t pretend to be asleep.

I emerged from the closet, unlocked and opened it.

Celeste stood with a manila envelope in her hand.

“Okay,” she said. “I told you not to tell David. Right?”

I swallowed. “Right.”

“But, I’ve decided, there’s no reason for me to be mad, really, since David is being so great. I actually . . . I want you to have this,” she said, handing me the envelope. “As a kind of thanks. You know, I see that you were really just freaked out. And how can I blame you after the way I was acting at the party? That was too much to expect you to deal with.”

I ran my finger along the sharp edge of the manila flap. I had visions of finding something inside that she could use to blackmail me. “Should I open it?”

“Of course.”

I eased out an eight-by-ten color photograph. In it, a cockroach wearing a tiny white dress and gold wings appeared to be flying in front of what was obviously a painted sky and green mountains—like the flats from a miniature stage set. It was delicate and strangely beautiful.

“You made this?”

She nodded.

“This is what you do with the roaches?”

Celeste leaned forward on her crutches so she could look at the picture. “Well, basically. But this is the only one that’s of an angel. I have a whole bunch of different painted sets that I photograph them in front of. I have so many roaches because I ruin a lot in the process. It’s hard to get it all perfect. I don’t like correcting stuff in Photoshop. I like it to be all . . . real.”

“It’s really strange. In a good way,” I said. I slid it back in the envelope. “I like it. Thanks so much.”

“Sure,” she said. “Well, like I said, I realized you were trying to help. And as it happens, you ended up doing the right thing. David and I will owe you after this is all over. I’m sure he feels that way, too. I’m sure this will, you know, bring you guys closer together. All of us. Like, now it’s the three of us in on it. Right?”

“Sure,” I said. But I must have hesitated just a second too long.

“You still think I’m sick. Don’t you?” she said.

My big toe followed a crack between two floorboards. She wouldn’t hurt me, would she? I didn’t think so. Her violent tendencies were toward herself.

“It’s okay,” she said. “As long as you give me a chance to show that I’m not. You’ll see. It’ll be better for you, too. David’ll see how much he can trust you.” She reached up and brushed something off her cheek. The sleeve of her leopard-print vintage sweater crept up a bit. A bruise I’d never noticed before circled her wrist. “It bothered me a bit,” she said, “when you and David got together. Partly, you know, I already felt lonely because of this . . . this house stuff. But also, I think, as much as I hated how protective he was, I got nervous that I needed him. But now I’m glad you’re, like, in love. I’m sorry if I made it hard. I should’ve realized it didn’t have to be you or me. And that I’m stronger than I thought.”

I lay down on my bed and stared at the cockroach angel in Celeste’s photograph. I pictured that bruise on her tiny wrist, a bizarre bracelet. I couldn’t do what they wanted me to do. But maybe . . . maybe there was a way. A way I could take care of Celeste without losing David. Or Frost House. Because if I lost them, what would I have left?