Authors: Marianna Baer
“And, you know, that wasn’t—”
“Don’t even worry,” I said. “I doodle all the time. Totally random stuff.”
“Because I respect the moratorium,” he said. “So I wouldn’t ever, you know, ask you to compromise that. Even in my fantasies.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, smiling, because the way he said it was insinuating just the opposite.
“The seriousness of the moratorium must be respected,” he went on. “Celeste wasn’t aware of it, I guess.”
“I guess not,” I said. And I closed my eyes and hugged the pillow tighter, and dared to think that something good—something very good—might have come from rooming with Celeste Lazar.
My favorite part of books and movies is almost always the “before.” The beginning, before whatever upends the characters’ lives has happened—
before she knows he’s a vampire, before the spaceship arrives
. . . And for me, the next week or so had that same sort of feeling. I knew, almost for sure, that something was going to happen with me and David. I wasn’t sure when—maybe not immediately; I hadn’t shed my stress about how much work lay ahead of me this semester. But still, the air was filled with the thrill of possibility.
Every time we talked—not about anything serious, just the usual conversations about classes and homework and stuff—there seemed to be a little more physical contact. But nothing to push us over that line. Nothing that meant I actually had to deal with the complications of the situation. Just . . . the beautiful before.
And as for what had happened with Celeste’s photo, well, Kate had reassured me as much as anyone could have. Not that I forgot about it, of course. I was vigilant about locking the windows and doors whenever I left. But I’d pretty much decided that her theory was correct: Celeste had thrown the photo herself, and had been too embarrassed to let me know. And all I could do was sit tight and wait for the semester to be over.
“B
UT HOW DO YOU MANAGE EVERYTHING?
” I said to Marika, my co-counselor. “I mean, how do you have time for all your work, plus this, plus soccer, college stuff, and a girlfriend? It seems . . . impossible.”
I’d decided to take advantage of a lull in activity at the peer-counseling office and had been asking Marika’s opinion about my “friend’s” dilemma—to get involved in a relationship or not— while she practiced yoga poses on the carpet.
“I don’t know,” Marika said as she balanced in tree, arms stretched over her head. “I don’t really think about it. It all just happens.” She looked at me as if I might have a brain deficiency. “You do realize a lot of people have relationships while living full and productive lives?”
“But what would you do if Susanna dumped you, right before midterms or something?”
The door to the office flew open. Abby breezed in and dropped her bag on the floor. “I need help.” She placed the back of her hand on her forehead in a swoon.
“I’ll take this one,” I said.
Abby followed me into one of the two small, private rooms adjoining the main one.
“I have to warn you,” I said as we settled into the plush purple armchairs, “I may not be qualified to treat mental disturbances as deep as yours.”
“That’s understandable,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you the plan for New York.” She kicked off her shoes and drew her legs up. “You still have an honor-roll day left, right?”
I nodded. “Two.” Barcroft has the ironic policy of awarding honor-roll students with two days the next semester that they can officially take off of classes.
“Cool. So, we’re going to beat the traffic by driving down on Thursday night,” Abby said. “We’ll have an extra day in the city. And the best thing is that Viv’s mom got us tickets to the new play where Nate Warren does this whole scene naked, on Friday night, so this way we could be there in time for that. Nate Warren naked, in the same room as us! Can you believe it? I am so psyched.
Beyond
psyched. It’ll be the best trip ever. Can I have a Life Saver?”
I fished a pack out of my pocket and handed it to her. “The thing is,” I said, “I’m supposed to drive David and Celeste, and David obviously doesn’t have honor-roll days—he wasn’t even here last semester. I don’t know about Celeste.”
“So?” Abby said. “They can find another way down. We’re giving them a free place to stay, isn’t that enough? I mean, why are they even coming? Don’t they know Viv was just being polite?”
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“What’s there to think about?” Abby said. “I’m not going to let your perverse sense of obligation get in the way of you having a good time.
Nate Warren
, Leen!” She had stood up and was mock-shaking me by the shoulders. “Nay-kid!”
Her face was so serious that I had to laugh. “Okay, okay. I’ll let them find another way.”
Days went by, though, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell David or Celeste. I didn’t know why not driving them felt like such a big deal. It wasn’t. But at the same time, I worried that they’d take it as a definite statement about not wanting them there. Abby wanted me to make that statement, obviously. She didn’t know what was going on with me and David. My own fault, for being too chicken to tell her.
The dilemma wrapped itself up into a constant knot in my gut. I needed to get it over with. Finally, one day I ran into Celeste on my way home from dinner and steeled myself to do it. But the whole way back to the dorm she was talking excitedly about a guest artist who had come to her portfolio class and had loved her work, and I couldn’t get a word in at all.
When we entered Frost House the loud clangs of the radiator filled the common room.
“Thank God the heat is finally on,” Celeste said.
“Yeah,” I said, “I spoke to maintenance about it. The way to do it is talk to them in person, instead of just submitting a work order.”
We reached the bedroom. I fumbled in my pocket for my room key.
Just tell her.
“Celeste . . .” I turned the key and pushed open the door. “I don’t want—”
I froze. Scattered debris covered an area of the bedroom floor stretching from Celeste’s closet more than halfway across the room. “What the hell?” I flipped on the overhead light. Twigs, twine, dried grass, dirty ribbons. Nests. Or what used to be nests. I took a few careful steps. The closet door was wide open. Inside, a cardboard box on the high shelf lay with its top facing front, flaps agape. More remnants from the nests were below the box, caught among Celeste’s dresses and skirts.
Celeste hadn’t moved from the doorway. Her face was pale, mouth small.
“The box must have tipped over,” I said. My heart hammered.
“And this happened how?”
“Maybe by accident,” I said. “The box tipped when you were getting something? But didn’t spill until—”
“By accident?” She looked at me. “How can you say that? Don’t you see?”
“What?”
She pointed at the floor. “Can’t you see what it says?”
I surveyed the scraggly mess. Then it came together, into two big letters.
GO.
A
SHUDDER BEGAN AT MY NECK
and spread throughout my limbs. I shook my head a little, forced myself to see it as just a jumble, a jumble that somewhat resembled the letters. It was a random mess. It had to be.
“That’s not on purpose,” I said. “You’re seeing what you want to see.”
“What I want to see?” Celeste said in a tone of disbelief.
“Well, what you’re scared to see. Why would someone do that?” I asked. “Who would want you to go?”
She stared at the floor. “I don’t know.”
“Like finding shapes in clouds,” I said. “You can see what you look for.” I squatted down and began filling my cupped palm with thin twigs and bits of twine. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll be careful.”
“What does it matter now?” Celeste’s voice was tight. “Do you know how long this all took me?”
“Collecting the nests?”
She nodded. Her chin trembled. “And then I wove other materials into them. It’s a whole project.”
I picked up a narrow purple ribbon, a length of unspooled cassette tape . . .
“Who would
do
this?” she said.
“The door was locked.”
“It wasn’t an accident, Leena. I know what I saw.”
I swallowed. “David and I are the only other people who have keys.”
“It wasn’t David.”
“I know. I didn’t mean that. I meant that I think there’s another explanation.” I sat back on my heels. “Maybe the house has mice or rats. In the closet.” I didn’t know why I was even saying this. Mice or rats hadn’t thrown the photo the other day. Should I have told her about that? Should I tell her about it now? It would upset her even more, but maybe she needed to know.
Celeste collapsed on her bed and held her head in her hands, then began rocking back and forth.
I looked down again, picked up a fragile clump of materials that had stayed together and set it aside. “Some of this might be salvageable,” I said hopefully.
The squeaking of bedsprings stopped, and Celeste let out a cry. “I can’t take this anymore! I can’t! What do you think I should do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I hate it here!” She flung her arms out. “I hate this room. I have to talk to Dean Shepherd, tell her I need to move.”
Defensiveness flared inside me. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the room,” I said. “If someone is doing this to you, they’d do it wherever you lived.”
She was quiet. I knew I’d sounded mean. “Another dorm wouldn’t have all these windows,” she said.
“What does that have to do with it?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
“These things that are happening have nothing to do with the room,” I said again. “If you really think this is someone, then the best thing to do is ignore it. Don’t give them the satisfaction of caring. Right?”
She wiped her cheek and leaned forward to pick up a clump of nest. “How can I not care? I worked so hard on this, Leena. This is
me
. Why would someone punish me like this? It doesn’t even matter if the mess said some stupid thing or not. They ruined my work.”
She was crying for real. I stood up from the floor, sat next to her, and put an arm around her shoulders. “Hey,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“I can trust you, right?” she asked, her voice shaky and thin. “You’d tell me if you knew who was doing this, right? I just, I’m so sick of it. And I’m . . . scared. You know. It’s all so mean. Like someone
really
hates me. More than Ann—Abby, I think.”
It’s all so mean.
“We’re just talking about the vase and this, right?” I said.
“That rip in the skirt, too,” she said. “You said you didn’t do it.” She looked out the window. “I can feel them watching, you know? Waiting till we’re gone so they can do this stuff. David and you are the only people I trust. And I can’t even tell David how upset I am, because he’ll worry.”
“You still feel like someone’s watching you?” I said, a heavy dread descending on me.
“Sometimes,” Celeste continued as if she hadn’t even heard me, “when I open the closet . . .” She motioned toward it with her head and spoke quietly. “Sometimes I feel like whoever it is is in there. I have to look through all the clothes, you know, to make sure no one is hiding. But it’s like I
feel
them.”
My stomach constricted. I had sat in the closet a couple more times recently, just for a little while when I needed to clear my head. And although I’d never done it while she was in the room, it was as if she’d sensed I’d been in there.
“Celeste,” I said, “you realize that you sound a little . . . irrational? No one’s watching you.”
“So, what?” she said. “You think I’m . . . what, imagining it? Don’t tell me I’m making it up. This stuff is real, this stuff that’s happened to me.”
“Honestly?” I said. “I think that you had a hard summer, dealing with your boyfriend. And a hard year, with your dad. I think that some weird, bad stuff has happened to you in this room. And it’s freaked you out.”
Celeste’s eyes rolled up and she stared at the ceiling, as if trying not to cry again.
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” I said.
“A therapist? They’d just stick me on some medication. Don’t . . . don’t tell anyone I have these feelings, okay? Not the dorm, or David. Okay? Please. It’s really important.”
She gripped one of my hands in both of hers. They felt cold, bony.
“I just think it would be good if you talked to someone,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “With a father like mine, people—everyone—they’re just waiting for me to crack up. And I can’t do anything without everyone thinking I tried to kill myself or whatever. And I’ve done stupid stuff in the past, and now it’s like, if they . . . you know . . . I don’t get the benefit of the doubt. Please, Leena.
Please
. It’s not like I’m making up these feelings from nowhere. This stuff happened.”
I remembered the horrible feeling after I’d tried to hurt myself in eighth grade, when my parents would stare at me with these expressions like they were worried I was going to crack into a thousand pieces at any moment.
“Please, Leena,” she said. “I’m not crazy. I’m not.” Her voice was stronger. “Promise you won’t tell.”
“Okay,” I said. “I promise. But you have to promise to let me know if it doesn’t get better. Okay?”
We agreed.
Later, as I was about to turn off my bedside lamp, Celeste came into the room wearing the Moroccan caftan she slept in. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to bed while I was still awake. As if reading my mind, she said, “Maybe I’ll be able to sleep. Now that the heat is on.” I didn’t point out that she hadn’t been able to sleep when the weather was warm either.
She lingered at her mirror, smoothing cream on her face, brushing her hair. Finally, she turned off her light and headed toward her bed. On the way, she paused in front of the slightly open closet door. After a second, she kept walking. She sat down on the comforter, laid her crutches on the floor, glanced at the closet again, stood up, closed the door.
This didn’t bode well.
“Do you want something mild to help? Just tonight?” I said.
“No, thanks.”
When the lights had been off for a minute, she said, “You . . . you know I was speaking . . .
metaphorically
, before. Right, Leena? I don’t really think someone’s in the closet. I was just trying to describe what it’s like, to feel like someone wants to hurt you. You know that, right? I don’t really think someone’s in here or whatever.”
I hesitated. “Sure,” I said. “I know what you meant.”
Sleep came easily for me, as it always did in that room, even though I was picturing those scattered nests, telling myself they’d been in a random pattern. It was deep, as well, so I had no idea how long Celeste had been shouting when I woke up.
“Get off! Get off of me!”
Without my glasses and in the darkish room, I panicked—someone was on Celeste’s bed! “Hey,” I cried. “Stop!” But as I leapt up and hurried across the floor, I realized it was her arms thrashing underneath the covers, not another body. I turned on the light.
“Celeste.” I placed a hand on her shoulder. “Wake up.”
She sat straight up. “I’m awake,” she said. Her face shone white and glistened with sweat.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You were having a nightmare.”
“No, I wasn’t,” she said. “I wasn’t. Someone was here.” She turned her head back and forth, searching. “I was awake.”
“You’re okay, Celeste.” I sat down and moved my hand to her back. “No one was here except me. It was a bad dream.”
She shook her head. Her pupils were huge, swallowing up her irises. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t. Someone was here. Someone’s always here.”
“Shh,” I said. “No one was here. It’s okay. You’re just upset, from before.”
“Before?”
“The conversation we had, earlier.”
We sat in silence for a moment, my hand absorbing the tremors from her body.
“Are you okay to go back to sleep?” I finally said. “I swear, no one was in here except me.”
She gathered her quilt around her shoulders. “Can you hand me my crutches?” she said.
I did. She stood up and made her way out of the room. With her stooped posture, the blanket around her shoulders, and the sunken, haunted look in her face . . . well, I wondered if, when I’d promised not to tell anyone about her fears, I’d made a promise I shouldn’t keep.
The next day, I couldn’t get that image of her out of my mind. As my teachers talked on, I kept hearing her voice—so much fear in it. I didn’t know what to do. Before last night, I’d settled into thinking that Celeste was doing the things herself because I couldn’t imagine who else would have. But yesterday her surprise—her horror—had seemed so genuine. Nothing made sense.
The first time I saw her was in the afternoon. She was sitting on the main quad underneath the statue of Samuel Barcroft, listening to music and writing or drawing in her sketchpad. Part of me wanted to head in the opposite direction, pretend I didn’t see her. But I had to deal with this sometime.
I walked up and waited for her to take out her earbuds.
“So,” I said, sitting next to her on the base of the statue. The granite pressed cold and hard underneath me. “How do you feel?”
She shrugged. Rhinestone-studded sunglasses hid her eyes. “Okay,” she said. “Sorry for all the commotion last night. God, David couldn’t believe it when I told him the cat did that to my nests.”
Wait, what? “The cat?” I said.
“Oh, right. I didn’t tell you yet.” Her voice was breezy and crisp as the autumn air, as if this was all perfectly normal. “I realized this morning it must have been Leo. I’m sure he smelled the materials and jumped up there. Batted them around the room.”
“But . . . he doesn’t ever leave Ms. Martin’s apartment, does he?” I said, totally confused. “And the bedroom door is always locked.”
“He must get out sometimes,” she said. “I think I’ve seen him. And the door’s open when we’re in the bathroom, or the common room.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay. So, you don’t think it said—”
“Leena.” She moved the sunglasses onto the top of her head and stared at me, her eyes slightly bloodshot and somehow bluer than ever. “It was the cat.”
In that moment as we sat there looking at each other, I knew she was asking me not to fight her on this. To agree to say it was the cat. I didn’t know, though, whether she had done it herself, and this was her way of saying that she’d screwed up and let’s just move on. Or whether she really did want to believe what she was telling me. Either way, I knew she was saying that she didn’t want me to worry about her.
Looking back, maybe I should have fought her on it. But I know why I didn’t: She was giving me exactly what I wanted. I wanted to put all of the anxiety behind us. To know that there was nothing wrong with Celeste except her usual melodramatic tendencies. To know that I didn’t have to worry about what was going to happen the next time I opened the door to our room. I wanted it to be a sanctuary again.
“You’re probably right,” I said. “The cat.”