Frost

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 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. . . . 

 “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.” 

 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.”  

“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.”