Only her small, bare feet, preternaturally pale in black rubber thongs, toes polished, gave away the recently sick part of Astra Dell. The rest of her — in a bush jacket, black jeans, and kerchief — looked armed, alert, and steady. Her red hair was boy-short and spiked, seeming darker, but was it the same color? Astra Dell come back as from up country was how it seemed to Anna Mazur, looking at the girl, happy to see her come to school, and just for the book fair. That was what Astra Dell said. She was on her way to the hospital but stopped at school to find a book to read. This part of getting well took up a lot of hours of every week. How could Astra smile at that, but she did and held up Anna Karenina, saying, "I'm thinking it's time for the Russians," and smiled. She read, "'All happy families are alike,'" and didn't bother to finish the sentence; she knew it was famous. "Yes." She said yes to most of Anna's questions: better, every day better, school, some of school manageable, and summer school and then. "I don't know," Astra Dell said. "I'm not sure. And you've had a good year, Miss Mazur?"
Yes, she had had a good year, but some of the best moments were due to Astra Dell's being sick, and she blushed when she talked to the girl, as if Astra Dell already knew how she had brought them together, Tim Weeks and Anna Mazur, but now Astra Dell was an outpatient and — however uneasily — on the mend at home. "And I won't visit her at home," Tim had said. He had said, "I'm actually a very shy person despite appearances. I'm fine around kids, but adults baffle me. I have nothing to say to the girl's father except how fucking sorry I am." In fact, Tim Weeks had been uncomfortable in the hospital, too; he had used the word obscene to describe what was happening: "I don't like to look at her" — his words—"and I don't feel comfortable not looking at her. It's obscene what's happening on that floor." His vehemence had frightened her, and he had apologized for it. He had said, "Look, I don't want to put myself in a situation where I have to experience death or loss."
"Yes," Anna Mazur said to Astra Dell, "I've had a pretty good year. I like my eighth-grade class." This she said loud enough for her nearby eighth-grade book browsers to hear. "They're very bookish," Anna said, and at that moment in the timely fashion she had about her, Gillian Warring came forward with a question.
"Do you think I'd like this?" she asked her teacher.
"Lolita is not what you think it's going to be," Anna Mazur began.
Siddons
"Nothing is," Lisa Van de Ven answered, "nothing is interesting to me or feels useful at all." She was taking three APs and she didn't know why she bothered: Their real purpose was over; she was in college. "When will I ever need to know how to use the antiderivative of a polynomial function to find the area between the curve, the x-axis, and the given bounds?"
Miss Wilkes asked Lisa if she had seen this: And she showed Lisa a painting of a sliver of a face in profile, the slight neck surmounted by the weight of an enormous turban, a bright red towel so carefully painted the fluffy part was visible. Astra Dell's self-portrait. "You could reach out and touch that towel, couldn't you?" Miss Wilkes said. Miss Wilkes looked at the painting with the same wonder she had felt when that poor sick girl — she still looked sick or fatal, didn't she? — when Astra Dell had brought it in. Done at home. Hardly a face, and what little of it there was, was very pale — eyelashes and eyebrows as if done in pencil. The uncertainty expressed in pencil; pencil, so evidently perishable. The towel was in acrylics.
"I could never in a million years paint like that. Do you remember my own self-portrait last year?"
Miss Wilkes remembered.
"I couldn't get my nose right." The nose, the mouth — even the eyes were off — weren't they? Didn't Miss Wilkes think so?
Miss Wilkes thought Lisa Van de Ven was tiresome. "The proportions were off a little, I remember." Miss Wilkes said, "Next time." Next time look at the person you address — meet her eye. Good god, how could this girl have hurt her, but she had — Lisa Van de Ven had made Miss Wilkes's school year unbearably hard for months; she, too, had rubbed her back against the towering wall of why bother, and even now she wished the month of May — her favorite month! — were over. She was uncomfortable in Lisa Van de Ven's company, confused, sad, embarrassed. Miss Wilkes had compromised herself to be in this girl's company, and now when she wanted it least, Lisa Van de Ven sought her out! Left notes in her mailbox asking to meet.
CHF
"Places you don't think about on the body hurt," Astra Dell said. "More than hurt, ached. My nostrils dried up and the insides cracked and it hurt to breathe; the tips of my fingers felt swollen; my feet burned. You talk about fever. There was no relief, and I have a low tolerance for pain. I wanted to die. I played the awful game, the one where the people I love are sacrificed so I can live." Astra Dell said, "When I had that allergic reaction and my fever spiked to 107, I was delirious. Then I wasn't asking for anything — my body was clacking on its own — no help from me. I was along for the ride. My father told me. He was there the whole time. He said I was laughing, which is how hard it hurt."
Astra played with the hair-thin pretty silver bracelet Car had given her. "I love this bracelet you gave me," she said. "You know how I love jewelry, but this is the only thing I can wear now. All my other jewels, my rings and bracelets, are too heavy, and they get hot and press against my skin, but this bracelet. I could be wearing a feather. It tickles."
Car said, "How are you feeling now?"
"Tired, relieved. No more dosing after yesterday." Astra said, "I have the weekend to rest and then I am coming back to school." Astra said, "I miss it."
Car asked if Astra wanted some healthful snack, but she did not. Astra said, "The receptor cells in my mouth have been confused by the treatment. Most of what I eat tastes like metal. This is a side effect that passes quickly, I'm told. I want to enjoy food again. Does that surprise you?"
What surprised Car, and she felt it on the walk home, was her own appetite. The expensive coffee shop with its seacoast cottage interior was just down the block, and they made the most astonishing chocolate chip cookies. The glass case of cupcakes and scones, muffins, cranberry-blueberry-walnut muffins, studded nutty crusts, and burst berries. The famous mini-cupcakes, yellow cake with a twisted cap of buttercream frosting, a circus of sprinkles on top. Oh, she was hungry. She was hungry and she could eat, and Astra wanted to eat and Car wouldn't let herself eat, though she could eat whatever food pleased her and it would not taste like a penny, a penny or a key or a mouthful of nails. By the time she reached the expensive coffee shop, she had come up with a long list of metal objects. She was sucking on a doorknob when her turn came to order, and the word that came out was coffee. "With skim milk, please." Belt buckle, cuff links, clippers, and cutlery. The easiest way to get the figure you want is to be sick.
Alex and Suki
"Psychosexual," Suki said. "Psychosexual. I just like to say the word."
"It sounds sexy," Alex said. "Say Psychosexual five times fast," and she tried to do it herself but sissed out.
Suki said, "I am not doing very well in my classes. I am not going to finish in style, as Miss Brigham says." Suki said, "I want to goof off more than ever."
Marlene
Marlene would like to explain to Astra Dell why she had taken some of Astra's letters from Car. How she had wanted to know what it felt like to be Car Forestal. Once home, each letter shriveled like a trick every time — just a hankie from a hat, who cared? Nothing was changed; Marlene was still herself. She read one of the filched letters again. It was not loving. People make the most impact on the lives of others by being absent. Not so true. Her father had left her mother. Marlene was at school when he packed the yellow cardboard suitcase her mother remembered him carrying. Marlene's father had left her mother a hundred years ago. His name was Bob. As far as she was concerned, her father was just a stupid name that didn't send money. Marlene's grandmother, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Ted, her cousins Wendy and Steven, all relatives on her mother's side, were coming to Marlene's graduation. In the drawing for pews, Marlene had drawn seats from the middle of the church. Astra Dell was also in the middle of the church. Car Forestal was in the front.