Frost

“If you ladies want to get out of the suburbs, I’ll be at my parents’ on the Upper East Side. You’re welcome to come visit,” Whip said. “I can send a car.”

“You’re such a snob,” Viv said.

“And what would it take to get you out to Brooklyn?” Celeste poked Whip on the shoulder. Her touch lingered.

I sensed movement from my right and when I looked over, David was standing and reaching for his jacket. “I just realized I’ve got something to do,” he said. “Sorry. I totally forgot.”

In amazingly quick time, he was out the door.

Chapter 14

AN HOUR OR SO LATER, dinner was over, Viv and Cameron had banished me from the cleanup stage, and the vodka in my head wasn’t helping me decipher what had happened. I couldn’t sort out who had been mad or offended and why, and what repercussions there might be, if any, not to mention what the hell was going on with Celeste and Whip. Or Celeste and David. And the trip to New York! God.

I paced around my bedroom, picking things up and putting them down. When I walked by Celeste’s closet, I touched the doorknob. The next time, I let my hand rest on it, curving around the beveled glass. My hand turned and I heard the click of the latch and felt the door moving toward me as my arm pulled back. A shudder went through me as the air crept out.

Stepping away for a moment, I peeked into the hall to make sure that Celeste and Whip were in the little room with the door shut. Then I closed the door to the bedroom and locked it from the inside. Following an impulse, I grabbed Cubby off the windowsill.

I left the closet door open a crack so I’d have some light and so I’d be able to hear any movement from the hallway. I sat on the floor and shifted myself into the corner, partially covered by Celeste’s clothes, leaving a space for the wedge of light to stream through. I leaned my head against the wall and breathed in the cool, musty air.

I held Cubby up and looked in her eyes, which were catching just a bit of the light. “That was quite a dinner party, didn’t you think?” I said to her.

How on earth would I know? I said to myself in Cubby’s accent. I wasn’t even there.

“Oh, right,” I whispered. “It got kind of messy. Boys, you know.”

Boys, yes. They can be dangerous.

“But cute,” I said.

All the same, you need to be careful.

I ran my finger over her feathers, up and down the scalloped ridges.

“It’s not like you have to worry,” I said. “You’re all nice and safe back here.”

I’m not the one who isn’t safe.

I didn’t like the voice she used when she said that. Of course, it was my voice. But at the same time, somehow, it wasn’t.

The bird tweet ringtone of Celeste’s phone disrupted whatever tipsy weirdness I was indulging in. I quickly pushed myself up and out of the closet, brushing the clothes back into place and shutting the door securely behind me.

Her cell lay on her dresser. David’s name flashed on the screen. I touched the glittery blue case and thought of him on the other end, pictured him shifting from foot  to foot, the way he did, hoping the call would be answered. The tweets stopped.

I put Cubby back on the sill, her eyes facing the window. For once, I didn’t feel like having her watching over me. Then I sat on my bed with my head in my hands. After a minute I stood, picked up Celeste’s phone, and returned the call.

He answered right away. “Are you done with that jerk, or what?”

“Oh, hi, David . . . it’s Leena. Not Celeste. Her phone was right here so . . .”

“Oh. Hey. What’s up?”

“Not much. I just wanted to see if everything was okay. You left kind of suddenly.”

“Sorry about that. Just something I forgot to do.” He paused. “Is Celeste still with that guy?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Do you think I should come back over?”

“Come over and . . . ?”

“I don’t know. Distract her.”

“I think she’s okay. You missed dessert. Cupcakes.” I checked the time. Still fairly early. “I could bring one over to you there. If you wanted.”

There was silence on the other end. “Okay,” he finally said. “Sure, if you feel like getting out.”

I glanced over at the door to Celeste’s closet. What had I been doing in there? “Yeah,” I said, “I definitely need to get out.”

When I got to Prescott Hall, I phoned from downstairs for David to meet me to get parietals. He didn’t answer. I sat on one of the scratchy, yellow ochre couches in the lounge and called a couple more times, feeling progressively more idiotic about the foil-wrapped cupcake in my hands and the nervousness that had wriggled in my stomach on the way over. Obviously, we’d had a misunderstanding. Or had he changed his mind and was now just ignoring me?