‘Two Hundred Degrees of Frost’

You mean in ten or fifteen years? By then we’ll hardly know each other, we’ll meet as strangers.—lieutenant alexei fedotik

On the afternoon of Friday the thirteenth, Marianne and I sat on her queen-size bed; I watched as she clicked through her latest set of photos. We were trying to create a hamburger-themed photo album on facebook, but instead we kept glancing at the window facing the road. Marianne had checked her image in the mirror a thousand times. Not a hair was out of place, nor was a mascara-coated lash clumped. Downstairs on the main floor, Marianne’s mother’s high heels made even staccato taps as she paced.

Around five in the evening, we heard the awful roar of a poor muffler round the corner from 700 East. Marianne leapt off the bed and stared out the side of her white magnolia-lace curtains. I peered around the other end and saw a long low-rider with new silver paint and New Mexico plates inch down the street and pause in front of our condo. Marianne crossed her fingers and muttered a prayer: “Please let that not be him, please let that not be him.” The hideous car pulled past our condo and parallel-parked one house down. Marianne, who could still see the car from her vantage point, gasped and ground her teeth shortly after I heard a car door slam.

“Ugh,” snorted Marianne, “I’ll bet he thinks he’s some sorta pimp.”

The doorbell rang. Our nice heavy door opened and closed. “Annie,” Sister Andersen called up the stairs, “your brother’s here!”

Marianne slammed the side of her head against the wall and growled. I took her arm in mine and guided her out of the sanctuary of her room. At the end of the tiled entryway Karen Andersen smiled thinly, awkward and excited and delicate all at once. Next to her stood a more-masculine copy of Marianne—same curly blond hair, same jade eyes, same angular features. Of course, Christian did not soften his sharp cheek- and jawbones with masterfully applied makeup like Marianne did, but the similarities in their defiant expressions as they stared at each other took my breath away. He was about five inches taller than Marianne, which put his height a little over six feet. A silver chain rested in the hollows below his Adam’s apple, a little bling to confirm Marianne’s suspicions about his aspirations. I forgave him for the necklace—he was from Albuquerque, after all. The rest of his clothing—threadbare jeans, less-than-white t-shirt, and scuffed leather motorcycle jacket—looked out of place in our spotless white entryway.

All four of us fidgeted in silence by the door, sizing each other up, and then everyone moved at once. Karen fluttered her tiny hands; Marianne crossed her arms and slouched against the embossed white wallpaper; Chris stepped towards her with his arms out, only to let them flop back to his sides again when she glared; I bit off a hangnail.

Chris coughed in Marianne’s direction, “Annie.”

She nodded, “Chris.”

My head about to burst with inaction, I leaned forward and stuck out a stiff arm, “You probably don’t remember me—”

“Bekah Cardim,” he smiled, avoiding eye contact, and shook my hand, “you’ve . . . grown.” His thin fingers felt like cold steel.

I withdrew my hand and crossed my arms over my chest. Oh, I am an idiot, I thought. We’re not at church!

“We’re going out,” Marianne announced and pulled me out the door. “We’ve got to do damage control,” she hissed in my ear when we reached her jeep.

* * * *

“So Bishop Ramirez told me a new guy just moved into our ward.” Marianne leaned across the table at Café Rio and lowered her voice. Her spellbound audience of seven known gossips leaned in to hear her over the general Friday-night din. I sucked up too much horchata, and my straw made a loud bloop noise. Marianne glowered at me.

“Ooooh,” squealed MicKayLah Smith, a (from Rancho Cucamonga, California; sophomore majoring in therapeutic recreation). “Is he cute?”

Marianne slapped the table. “Well, he’s a little sketchy.”

A collective gasp from the gossips made Derek look up from his table by the window to stare at Marianne; his ardent fans preened and babbled on without him.

The gossips leaned in farther; their chests were flat on the pink table.

“I met him briefly—’cause I’m cochair of the friendship committee—and he’s a real weirdo, okay? He started throwing things at the wall near my head, thinking it was funny that I freaked out.”

“Threw things like what?” Nicholette picked at her salad (no beans, no sauce, no rice, no meat).

“Just weird stuff in my living room—a paperweight, a folded-up fan, my framed picture of the Manti temple—”

MicKayLah’s overplucked eyebrows rose into her foundation-caked forehead, “Really?” I nearly choked on a forkful of lime-cilantro rice.

Marianne pressed her palm tragically to her chest. “I was so scared. The bishop apologized a thousand times; he said the guy has ‘a rage problem.’ I just don’t know what to do, because I guess if you say anything to this kid, he might just go ballistic, but I’m supposed to befriend him.”

MicKayLah patted Marianne’s hand, “Well, it’s not your fault that talking to the guy is dangerous. I know you’d be nice to him if you could.”

Nicholette rolled her eyes. “What’s this guy’s name?” she demanded.

The mistress of ceremonies at Chris’s social funeral chewed and swallowed a piece of chicken nonchalantly. “Christian James Miles Jr.”

“Sounds like a serial killer name,” Nicholette offered.

Marianne smiled. “Who wants to see 27 Dresses?”

* * * *

Christian was busy washing our dishes when Marianne and I returned from the dollar theater a little past midnight. “Karen—I mean, Mom—went back to her hotel,” he called. Marianne and I hurried past the kitchen entrance and entered our respective rooms—mine and Graça’s on the main floor, and Marianne’s upstairs. I slipped into a well-worn nightgown that was my mother’s before she grew too fat for it and slipped between my sheets. An evening of slander did not deserve a heavenly rest like this.

Indeed, I woke from an ocean dream to a loud crash below me. I blinked as cold sweat erupted between my breasts—Mom’s killed Dad, I thought. My sleepy brain remembered I was 350 miles away from my parents as low moans began from where the crash emanated. Someone was hurt downstairs! Quickly as possible in the wee hours, I recalled that I knew something about first aid and CPR; I rushed down to the basement to help.

The gritty concrete floor froze to my bare toes as I raced around dusty furnishings to Chris’s bedroom door. Inside, I barely missed cutting my feet on the shattered remains of a milk-glass lamp. Harsh orange streetlights peered into the bare, sunken window. Despite the industrial carpeting and painted walls, the room was an ascetic’s cave. Through the sodium glow, I could just make out Chris’s thrashing form on a bed in the corner. I rushed over and pinned his rather narrow shoulders to the mattress, begging him to wake. With a jolt, he did: throwing me off him, grabbing my arms, and sitting up with a yell, “gabriel!” The eyes that stared past me burned yellow in the streetlight.

My concern for Chris’s safety morphed into concern for my own. The steely grip on my shoulders tightened to the point that I began to imagine every bone in my arms snapping like a twig. Silver gleamed from the chain around Chris’s neck, and his lightly tanned skin was bare as far as I could see above the grey sheets. I tried to say his name, but my mouth was scared shut. I reached out and touched the down on his chest.

The hands on my shoulders instantly relaxed, slid down my arms, and examined my stubby fingers. Chris let out a long breath. “Bekah?”

I made a small sound in the back of my throat.

Chris massaged his head; his curls shook. “¿Qué pasó?” he asked, less sleepy now.

Quite suddenly, I realized that I was sitting on my best best friend’s hated twin brother’s bed in the middle of the night wearing a thin nightgown and no bra. I tried not to think about what Chris might not be wearing under that sheet. “Y—you broke a lamp,” I crossed my arms and scooted back.

He shifted the covers up to his waist and squinted at the scattered glass in the near-darkness. “You came all the way down here to tell me that I broke a lamp?” I couldn’t see his smirk, but I heard it.

A small anger bubble burst in my brain—maybe I was tired, or maybe I just hated him for singlehandedly turning my best best friend into a basket case. I jumped off the bed and half-shouted at the presumptuous pimp from Albuquerque, “You were practically seizing!”

“Bad dream,” he shrugged.

“Marianne’s right; you are seriously messed up. Good luck fitting in in Provo—you’re gonna need it!” Ignoring a small piece of glass stuck in my foot, I stomped out of the cave and back up to my room. I pulled out the lamp shard—it was in a callus, so there was not blood—but it was still hours before I fell back to sleep.