Frost

 In any case, I didn’t need to worry about it right now. I had a presentation in front of two hundred students to get through. I went to the bathroom and turned on the shower in the claw-foot tub. While waiting for the water to heat up, I lifted off Cubby’s head. My first semester at Barcroft, I was embarrassed about a prescription I was taking for a urinary tract infection, so I’d hidden the pills in here. Since then, Cubby had become my quirky portable medicine cabinet.

 I took out the folded piece of paper that lay on top: a list I’d made of the pills’ usage and dosage information. I didn’t keep them in their boxes or bottles, but in tiny plastic baggies, labeled with a Sharpie— Tylenol PM, Sudafed Sinus & Cold, Ativan. . . .

All I needed this morning was one of the round, white antianxiety pills. That should do it. My body’s nervous, physical reactions got in the way when I made presentations. The antianxiety medicine was for emergencies. Not spazzing out in front of the new students definitely qualified.

After showering and brushing my teeth, I went back in the bedroom.

Celeste stood holding her vase of orange tulips. “What was David thinking?” she asked me. The flowers hung limply, leaves a sickly yellow, petals shriveled. The last time I’d noticed, they hadn’t even opened the whole way—nowhere near dying. Across the room, my three were still in the flush of early bloom. They were from the same bunch. How could only hers have died?

“Maybe they ran out of water?” I suggested.

 She shook the vase a little, then dumped it in the trash. A stream of water poured out along with the flowers. “Oh, well,” she said. “An untimely frost, I guess.”

“What?” I thought I’d misunderstood.

 “Romeo and Juliet?” she said. “Juliet’s death. It’s compared to an ‘untimely frost’ that kills flowers in their prime.” She stared at me as if this was supposed to make sense. “This is Frost House, right?” she continued. “Must be in the air.”

 “Frost? ” I repeated.

 Celeste’s gaze shifted to my tulips. “On this side of the room, at least,” she said.

A chill prickled across my neck, even though I didn’t understand what she was trying to say. Obviously, frost wasn’t what had killed those flowers. With anyone else, I would have assumed they were completely kidding.

But something in her expression told me she didn’t quite think it was funny.

 An hour and a half later, I turned over my last page of notes on the podium in front of me. Finally, the end was in sight.

 “So, to sum up,” I said, looking out at the rows of faces, “the peer-counseling program is all about students supporting one another. We know how hard it is to make the transition, to deal with the pressures of school. Don’t feel bad asking for help. And, I promise, we have an amazing group of students working with us. You’d be lucky to talk to any of them.

“Are there any questions before my cohead, Toby, tells you about the training program?”

I hoped my speech hadn’t been too boring. Despite taking the pill, I’d felt too nervous to make eye contact while speaking, so I hadn’t noticed how many of the new students had been surreptitiously (or unsurreptitiously) texting or playing video games.

 “Yes?” I said to a small girl in the front.

“Uh, so . . . I . . .” Her voice was shaky. “No, never mind. Forget it.”

“Sure?” I said. “There are no dumb questions.”

She nodded, and I made a mental note to ask her privately, after the meeting. Maybe it was something she didn’t want to say in front of a room of strangers.

“Anyone else?”

I searched the audience for hands. Then I saw David. He sat in the last row, out of place in the room of mostly freshmen. Our eyes met. Fuck-buddy. The word flashed like a neon sign over his head.

“Okay, so . . .” I ruffled through my speech notes and willed my blush to go away. “I guess that’s it then. Here’s Toby.”

I shielded my face from the strong sun as I stood talking to Dean Shepherd on the path leading from the auditorium to the main quad, keenly aware of the fact that David hadn’t passed by us yet.

“You haven’t mentioned your college visits,” Dean Shepherd said. “How did they go?”

“Okay,” I said. “I don’t have a first choice, yet. Maybe Wesleyan, or Columbia. But they’re both super long shots.” Whenever I talked about colleges, the air I was breathing felt a little thinner. It seemed impossible that I’d choose the right place, even more impossible that the right place would choose me. And most of the money in my college fund had been spent on Barcroft.

“It’s worth a try,” the dean said. “Michael used to teach at Wesleyan. You’ll have to come to dinner soon and meet him.”

“You’re still seeing him?” I said. “That’s great.”

At the edge of my vision, I sensed people approaching. I snuck a look—it was David and some girl—then kept my eyes on the dean as she told me about her boyfriend.

“Hi, David,” she said when he reached us, alone. “Settling in okay?”