The Accidentals(66)

Way back when Jake was still just a name on an email account, he warned me that New Hampshire winters were no joke. Turns out he’s right about that. I spend the entire month of January shivering. The tile floor in our ancient dormitory bathroom is so cold it hurts my feet. The window seat in our room becomes uninhabitable due to the drafts that blow through the old-fashioned leaded glass windows.

“This is what minus-twenty feels like,” Jake says one morning when we leave the dining hall together after breakfast.

I take a deep breath. “The inside of my nose is freezing.”

“At least you don’t have to walk a mile to the college,” he says, rewrapping the scarf around his neck, leaving only the top half of his face showing. Jake is taking two science courses and an advanced calculus course at Claiborne College this semester, because he’s already taken everything that CPrep has to offer.

With a track record like that, there’s no way he won’t get accepted to the college this spring. But he hates it when I say so, because he’s superstitious.

I stand on my toes to give him a quick kiss on the bridge of his nose. “I’ll see you in English?”

He nods. “Now run before you freeze.”

I trot off to the first class of the day. Sitting down in the music department’s lecture hall, the only thing I’m willing to shed are my gloves. The old radiators under the windows clank to life, but the lecture hall is still cold.

My phone buzzes with a text, and I reach for it with stiffened fingers. It’s from my father.

Hi Rachel. Meet this imbecile for coffee?

“Imbecile” is a good addition to the canon, and I wonder how long it took Frederick to think of that one.

I’ve been getting these clever, begging texts for a while now. He’s managed to use “dejected” and “disaster,” this week too.

I don’t reply to any of them, even though the word “inept” begs to be used right about now.

When he’d hightailed it to California, I’d given myself a well-deserved break from all things Frederick. But now that he’s back in Claiborne, I’ve begun to feel ridiculous. Frederick is the one who had acted childishly—who couldn’t even get through a few days with his parents without blowing up.

Ignoring him while he was a few thousand miles away was one thing. But if I snub him after he’s traveled so far to be near me, that makes me into an immature beast, doesn’t it? It’s the equivalent of slamming my bedroom door and pouting.

By now, an entire month has passed since we’d spoken. He stopped leaving chatty voicemails about two weeks ago. But at least once a day his name lights up as an Incoming Call. And his texts have begun to weaken my resolve.

Even worse, ignoring him makes me increasingly insecure. How long will he hang around before he gives up on me entirely?

From the front of the room, the professor opens his lecture with a discussion of key signatures.

“Now, an accidental is a note in the piece that departs from the stated key signature. But there’s nothing accidental about an accidental, in spite of its name. The use of accidentals adds color and depth to the music, effectively allowing the composer an expanded color palate from which to paint.”

Shrugging off my coat, I begin to take notes. Thank God for school and its many distractions.





The following Thursday, expecting a call from Jake, I answer my phone without checking the caller. “Hello?”

“Hi, Rachel.” Frederick’s words are rough and warm in my ear.

I close my eyes.

Into my silence he asks, “Is my long lost-daughter there?”

Seriously? “Frederick, you did not just say that.”

He snorts. “It’s just gallows humor. I’m in town,” he says, as if I don’t already know that. “And it’s a gorgeous day outside. Come out, we’ll get a cup of coffee.”

I waiver. Refusing to see him is confrontational. And good girls avoid that like the plague. And I have no midday class, so there’s really no reason I can’t go.

“I’m just about to meet…” I almost say Jake’s name, but something holds me back. “I’m having lunch with Aurora. How about one thirty? I’ll meet you in front of the Inn.”

“I’ll be there,” he says.

He comes outside at the appointed time, wearing the hat I gave him for Christmas. He gives me a quick squeeze around the shoulders. “You’ve been busy?”

“Sure,” I say, grumpily. “New classes.” New boyfriend. I’m still not sure he deserves the inside scoop on my life. So I ask him a question instead. “What have you been up to?”

“A few new songs. I keep busy.” We walk down Main Street together, toward the pale winter sun. “What classes are you taking this semester?”

We’re back to safe topics, just like in Orlando. “An English class that’s doing Chaucer. Spanish again. Art history. Music theory.” I just slip that one in at the end, wondering if he’ll notice.

“Really.” He gives me a sideways glance. “I didn’t know that was an interest of yours.”

“I’ll let you know,” I downplay it. “I like music, but I’m wondering if it’s one of those things that gets less beautiful the more you know about it. Like astronomy.” I like stars just fine, but unlike Jake, I don’t need to know that they’re gaseous balls undergoing nuclear fusion.