Frost

“Well, I know that you’re a math whiz. And you made that comment about spoons. So I figure you were talking about some type of equation or theory, or something.” I was kind of kidding, but also a little serious. I didn’t know anything about superadvanced math, and I hadn’t come up with any more plausible idea.

“Like, physicists have string theory, and mathematicians have spoon theory?” he said, standing there holding the photo.

“Yeah, exactly.”

David laughed. Hard. “Spoon theory. That’s great.”

“So if that’s not it,” I said, enjoying the goofy heh-hehs of his laughter, “are you going to tell me what you really meant?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, still smiling really wide. “It’s going to sound lame in comparison.”

“The more you delay, the more you’re building it up,” I teased.

“Okay, okay.” He rested the photo on the floor and hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “I took a metalwork class last year and developed a bit of an obsession with spoons.”

Metalwork. “Wait,” I said. “So you actually make spoons?”

He shrugged, as if to say, “See? Lame.”

“Spoons have always annoyed me,” he said. “I could never find the right one for the right job.” He went on to describe how he made them for specific uses. One had a built-in rest, so that it didn’t touch the table after you used it to stir your coffee. One had a small hole in the basin, so you didn’t get a whole lot of milk with your bite of cereal.

“You realize this is kind of weird, right?” I said. I couldn’t decide if it was cool-quirky weird, or just plain strange.

 “I guess,” he said. “It was something . . . concrete to do. You know?”

That I understood. Making something useful, something you could touch, that solved a problem. Like the bookshelves I make to fit in weird-shaped spaces. I’d made the one for this room low and wide, to fit under a section of the windows. Seeing it in its place was incredibly satisfying.

“Is this still an obsession?” I asked. “Are you going to write your college essays about how you want to bring better spoonage to the masses?”

“No,” he said, turning his attention back to hanging the photo.

He didn’t say anything else, so I got my pencil and tape measure and had just begun correcting his measurements on one window when he asked, “Is this a good spot?” He was holding the frame up in the only free wall space, at the end of Celeste’s bed. “And do you mind if I hang it? I wouldn’t want it on my wall if I were you.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “That’s perfect.” Perfect because it wouldn’t be very visible from my side of the room. I didn’t feel so strongly that I’d tell David not to hang it, but I definitely didn’t need “Dead Celeste the Bug Charmer” to be the last thing I saw before falling asleep at night.

 “Can you mark the spot for the nail?” he said.

I stepped off the chair and crossed to where he stood, then had to lean next to him—just touching—to make a dot at the center of the top of the frame. His smell of coffee and warm boy skin filled my lungs and melted through my limbs.

 David suddenly shifted to look behind us.

“What?” I said, stepping back, looking, too.

“Thought I heard someone,” he said. “I think I know why Celeste feels like she’s being watched in here.” He gestured over at my bed, where Cubby sat with her wide owl eyes directed right at us.

 “Oh,” I said, smiling. “Yeah. You’ve got to watch what you do in front of her. She’s all-knowing.”

We went back to our respective tasks. I drilled holes in the first window frame, then got my screwdriver and one of the new brackets.

“Is all this—making bookshelves, carpentry stuff,” David said after finishing hammering, “something you’d do? Like your dad?”

“Not professionally.” I twisted a screw around, around, around. . . . “I love buildings because of him, though. I was always convinced I wanted to be an architect.”

“But?”

“Now I’m thinking I might want to do something that’s more people-oriented. Social work, maybe. Or teaching. Or . . . I got really into my psych class last year, so maybe psychiatry.”

“You’d be a great teacher.”

I looked over at him. The photo was hanging and he’d started measuring windows again. “How would you know?”

“Both my parents are teachers,” he said. “My mom’s a professor. My dad taught middle school. I can spot a good one a mile away. And I saw you give that presentation, remember?”

“Oh, right.” I brushed a loose section of hair behind my ear, almost stabbing myself in the eye with the screwdriver. “Well, the good thing about teaching is that I feel like I can major in lots of things and go into it. But if I want to be an architect or a psychiatrist, it’s more . . . complicated. I feel like I’d have to decide soon.”

 “You’d want to go to med school?” he said.

“So I could write prescriptions. I know therapy helps, too. Obviously, it’s hugely important. But so much of everything is chemical.”