“The door was definitely locked,” I said. “And only me, Celeste, and David have keys.”
“David has a key?” she said, leaning forward. “You don’t think he—”
“No!” I said immediately. “Not to mention, he was with me.” A thought—David’s lateness to meet me at his dorm—flickered through my mind. But I forced it out. There was absolutely no way.
“Okay.” Kate sat back again. “So, about telling the dean or whoever. I don’t think you should. They wouldn’t investigate; all they’d do is ask Celeste who doesn’t like her. And we know the answer to that.”
“Abby.”
“Right. Now—”
“Kate, you don’t think there’s any chance she’d have done this stuff, do you?” I asked in a quieter voice. I knew the answer, just needed to hear her say it.
“Abby?” She screwed up her face, annoyed. “Please. I can’t believe you’d even ask me that. Now, let’s take option two, which, from all you told me, is much more likely.”
Option two: Celeste threw the photo herself.
Kate continued, “If that’s the case, you’ve actually done all you can do. You already asked her what happened to the photo. If she did it herself and pretended not to know about it, maybe she was just embarrassed. In any case, there’s some reason she didn’t want to tell you, so …” She shrugged. “What else can you do?”
I sat for a moment and processed what Kate had said. Basically, she was saying that no matter what happened to the photo, I should let it go.
“But … I feel like I should be doing something,” I said. “Take some sort of action. I don’t want to feel like there’s all this bad stuff going on in my room and I’m just sitting here all la-di-da.”
Kate stared down at her mandala for a minute. “Well, you can’t keep Celeste out. But you could lock the windows, too, I guess. With the doors and the windows locked, if it’s someone else, they won’t be able to get in.”
I nodded. Lock the windows. I could do that.
“You knew she’d be like this,” Kate added. “You told me right from the beginning, it’s always something. So maybe you need to just let her have her little dramas. You’re not your sister’s keeper. Or David’s sister’s keeper. Sit tight and ignore it as much as possible until I come flying home to you.”
“You have no idea how much I wish for that day,” I said.
We talked for a little while about other stuff, and then Kate had to go. Before she logged off, she said, “Oh, and Leena? Would you just jump David’s bones already?”
She was gone before I could respond.
On Mondays, I had a free period after Calculus and would help carry Celeste’s books to Rel-Phil. That afternoon, as we walked across the quad, the sky was blue and the air was knife-pleat crisp. Barcroft looked like a picture in a prep-school catalogue, students everywhere, lounging on the expansive lawn, playing Frisbee, taking their time getting to their next classes.
I felt so much better after talking to Kate. She was so logical and unflappable. I was going to take precautions—locking the windows and doors—but otherwise, it was out of my hands. I still felt angry that it was happening in my home, but at least I didn’t feel the weight of solving everything.
“Good day for KSM,” Celeste said. Kill, Screw, or Marry. Whenever we saw a group of three people—sitting together, walking together, whatever—we each had to pick one to kill, one to sleep with, and one to marry.
“Okay,” I said.
Students sat in clusters all over the wide marble steps of the chapel as we walked past. We’d just KSM’ed a group of freshmen when a new threesome sat down: Simone Dzama, Mr. Bartholomew, an English teacher, and David. My heart did a nervous jump at the sight of him; my body had a flashback to how it had felt on the roof.
“Exempt,” I said immediately.
“No one’s exempt,” she said. “You know the rules.”
“Come on, Celeste.”
“Don’t be so uptight.” She stopped walking. “I’ll even go first. It’s an easy one. Kill Simone, marry Mr. Bart, screw David.”
I looked at her with a grimace.
“What?” she said. “I’m not going to kill or marry my own brother.”
She was trying to shock me. I should have been used to it by now. “Okay,” I said, “Kill Mr. Bart, sleep with Simone, marry David.”
“If that’s your plan, you better hurry up.” Celeste gestured with her chin toward the steps. “You’ll be out of luck on both counts.”
Simone had a hand on David’s shoulder and was laughing, her long legs—with striped knee socks and bare thighs—stretched out in front of her. David stared, apparently mesmerized. A lump settled in my stomach.
“So, what’s up with you and Whip?” I asked, turning away. Because of the distraction of her burn and the photo, I’d never asked her last night.
“He looks surprisingly good in body paint,” she said, “if that’s what you mean.”
“So, you had fun?”
“Jesus, Leena.” Celeste glared at me. “David’s obviously already using you to do his dirty work.”
My face flushed. “He worries about you.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s the goddamn problem.” She turned toward the steps and called, “Hey! David!” He looked in our direction and she beckoned him over. Crap. What was she planning?
David said something to Simone then grabbed his bag and walked over.
“What’s up?” he said.
“You guys are annoying me,” Celeste said, gesturing at the two of us. “That’s what’s up. All this delay. illy-dally, twiddle-twoddle. It’s annoying.”
The flush in my cheeks flared hotter. “Celeste—”
“No. Wait a minute.” She reached into her bag I was holding, brought out a bunch of papers, and began shuffling through them. “I don’t know what the holdup is, but … here. A catalyst.” She separated out a sheet of white paper. David reached for it but she hid it behind her back and turned to me. “The other day, David brought me papers he’d picked up for me at the office,” she said. “But a couple of his own things were mixed in the pile.” Now she held out the sheet for us to see.
The syllabus for David’s English class.
“So?” I said.
Celeste turned the paper over.
On the back, David had done a bunch of doodles: a remarkably realistic eye, a glass of water, a cartoon cat … My immediate thought was, Wow. David can draw. A split second later, though, my brain made sense of the largest doodle on the page. An elaborate graphic version of a name—in black ballpoint pen, a name turned into an almost Celtic twisty-turny hedge of intertwined, swooping strokes.
Leena.
My breath stopped.
David grabbed the paper from Celeste. “What the hell?” he said, shoving it in his bag. “Who cares?”
“Yeah,” I said, recovering enough to jump to his defense. “So he doodles. Big deal.”
Celeste snorted. “Anyone who has ever been in love knows the primal urge to doodle the loved one’s name.”
“You’re unbelievable,” David said, shaking his head. “I’m outta here.”
“It’s just a name on a piece of paper,” I added, to assure him I wasn’t making a big deal out of it.
David walked away without looking again at either one of us.
“I’m doing this for your own good,” she called after him. “Don’t you want to actually live life, instead of just thinking about it? Instead of focusing on everyone else?”
David didn’t turn around, just held up a hand giving Celeste the finger. People on the path had stopped and were staring.