Frost

Ironically, though, after the initial bumps, the day became surprisingly enjoyable. Mrs. Lazar— Phippy—had plenty of things for me to do around the house while we were waiting for people to come, and David needed help in the kitchen. Once everyone arrived, you’d have thought I’d been coming to Lazar functions since birth. Everyone was nice and funny and easy to talk to. And not one person asked me where I was applying to college. That had to be some sort of record for a high school senior at a social event with adults. Most of the time was spent talking about food.

“This pea-pod thing is amazing! Did you try one, Leena, hon?” David’s aunt Jill said. “Davey’s incredible, isn’t he? And do you know he’s like a genius? He was doing multiplication at two or something. Ask Phippy about it.”

I’d definitely learned that the female members of the family thought I’d snagged quite a catch.

“What about the bruschetta?” her daughter, Meg, said. “God. And where did you get that dress, Leena? It’s really cute.”

“Thanks. Anthropologie.” A sticky warmth embraced my hand. One or another small cousin had grabbed it. Which one was the towhead?

“I show you somefing,” he said. Gabe. That was his name.

“Leena’s having some food now, hon,” Jill said. “Later you can show her.”

“Actually, I show now.” He tugged.

Tiny Gabe had an easier time than I did worming through the clumps of people, most of whom were holding plates and glasses. I tried to keep up, so that he wouldn’t rip my arm out of its socket. “Sorry!” I kept saying as I bumped into most of them. Where was David? I had barely seen him.

“Joan Fontaine,” a white-haired man I’d met earlier said as I pushed by. He tapped my shoulder repeatedly. “That’s it. You look like a young Joan Fontaine. I’m sure someone’s told you that.”

“Nope,” I said. I wasn’t quite sure who Joan Fontaine was. An old actress, I thought. My arm was still moving so I couldn’t even stop to find out.

Gabe pulled me to the bottom of the staircase then let go of my hand and scrambled up the stairs like a spider.

“Gabe,” I said, “let’s stay downstairs.” But by the time I said it he was around the landing and up the next flight. I followed.

At the top of the stairs he pushed open a door into a dim room—curtains drawn, a big bed over to one side covered with a mess of burgundy paisley sheets and comforter. Clothes strewn around. The master bedroom. I’d been shown David’s and Celeste’s rooms, but not this one.

Gabe pushed open another door, put a hand to his mouth, and gave a guilty little smile. A big bathroom stood in front of us. He giggled.

“What did you want to show me?” I said. “We shouldn’t really be in here.” As if he cared.

He pointed. “Dey’ve got a potty.”

“Yes,” I said. “They do have a potty.”

“I wear big-boy underpants.”

“Gabe?” The woman’s voice came from out in the hallway. She stuck her face in. “I thought I saw you racing up here.”

Gabe ran over to her.

“He was just showing me the potty,” I said.

“He’s big on potties,” she said. “Do you have to go, Gabey?”

“No!” Gabe shouted, and ran off down the hall. His mother gave me a quick, tired smile and followed him.

I was reaching to pull the bathroom door closed the way we found it, when it occurred to me that as long as I was here, I might as well pee.

The toilet seat had a disconcerting, squishy plastic cover on it. Instead of making me feel comfortable, it made me think of the other thighs, the other skin, that had pressed on it over the years. The thought made me shiver.

I washed my hands quickly and was about to slip out when I noticed a piece of sundried tomato snagged between my front teeth. Crap. How long had it been there? I leaned forward and picked at it with my pinky nail. Did I have crumbs in my hair, too? As I checked, out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a largish metal bracket on one side of the medicine cabinet. Huh. A lock? I pulled at the mirrored door. Yup. It made sense, if this was Mr. Lazar’s room. My hand automatically reached up and swept across the cabinet’s top. Sure enough, a blip in the surface turned out to be a small key.

I had been expecting something, of course, otherwise the cabinet wouldn’t have been locked, but not what I saw. Rows and rows of little orange-and-white bottles, interspersed with more mundane items, but still filling up the majority of the shelf space.

I began adjusting the bottles to read their labels. They were outdated prescriptions, for almost every psychotropic drug I’d ever heard of: antipsychotics, antianxiety, antidepressives, sleeping pills. . . .