So another letter in her head started to Astra, another explanation, but then what? Talking, talking, talking about herself. Originality was hard to come by on Fifth Avenue, walking north, park side, under the dark overhang of trees in an odd and balmy patch of late October. Noon now, lunch now, and Car on a walk. What could she say to Astra in the moment that would not be wrong? How could she write to Astra about the clean out-of-doors and how rarely happy she was in it?
Fathers
As Dr. Byron had explained, Astra was still growing. The environment for the nasty cells was as nourishing as school. Dr. Byron had assured Mr. Dell that they could talk anytime. Where was Grace to take notes? Anaplastic high-grade fibrosarcoma, a rare connective tissue cancer: What was he to make of these words, he, a lawyer? "Fuck," he said, "Goddamned, mother fuck," and he went on cursing on the street. Mr. Dell was not a man to swear. He moved to hail a cab, then decided he would walk the forty blocks he had to home.
Unattached
Anna Mazur said the teachers' lounge smelled of the movies, and Tim Weeks agreed and asked did she want to take a walk? The day was blue; the trees were in a flap. Fall color, October.
"Davidenja!" Tim Weeks said to one of the cleaning women as he and Anna Mazur passed an open door along the hall on their way out. Then Tim Weeks was smiling and looking only at her again, saying, "That's the only expression I know. I think it means 'good night.'"
Tim Weeks smiled at her; nonetheless, Anna Mazur continued to talk about her brother. His cancer — also rare. "My mother put her hands on his face, and that was the beginning of the end," Anna Mazur said then, "Why am I talking like this on such a beautiful day?"
Siddons
Lisa stood to address them and said that Astra Dell was devoted to dance and was a senior and a survivor — Lisa was not — but that some of the other seniors in Dance Club, Kitty Johnson and Ufia Abiola, were survivors. They had known Astra from the beginning. Alex Decrow and Suki Morton were survivors, too, though they were outside at the red block, smoking. Edie Cohen, who came to Siddons in seventh grade, and Kitty and Ufia sat on the floor, arranging themselves into blown-out, solemn flowers, and sounded assent that something nicer than flowers should be sent. Something done but what?
"I've got some ideas," Lisa said.
I can't believe it: the chorus in the senior lounge, Dance Club members packing up for home. Some stories were told, and one in particular because it had happened to so many of them. Eighth grade, the Shakespeare play with the boys from Alford. Francesca Fratini was Helena — in heels, almost six feet tall, using Will Bliss as a shield — she was very funny, but Francesca was always funny.
Will Bliss was another story. Talk about conceit.
Will Bliss, eighth grade, even then a boy of lovely shape and wavy hair he wore behind his ears. Will Bliss! Preposterous name!
"Everyone had a crush on him!"
"Had?" Alex said. "Speak for yourself!"
Will Bliss and Astra Dell broke up because of Car.
"I don't understand that relationship," Lisa said.
"Astra is loyal."
"Have you seen her senior page?" from one of the Elizabeths.
"She did it already?"
"She said she's always known what she wanted to do," from the other Elizabeth.
"So what did she do?"
"She designed a page where she's looking over her shoulder at rows and rows of postage-stamp-size pictures of everyone she has ever loved. Miss Hodd and her cats and her horse and Car. A lot of teachers. Mr. Weeks."
"That hottie!"
"Gillian Warring wants to marry him."
"He knows how handsome he is."
How many times had Mr. Weeks been seen observing himself in the mirrors of evening windows? How many times seen making a face that he must have thought handsome?
Ufia, who rarely spoke unwisely, said, "Come to school in the dark and go home in it, and both ways take Madison Avenue — a person can't see the merchandise for her face."
Lisa said, "Once Astra told me the longest day of the year made her cry because every day after would be shorter."
"Don't even think it," from Ufia. "Astra Dell is not going to die. So stop crying!"
Girls were picking through the senior lounge and one of them was saying, "You think that's bad?"
"Suki," Alex said. "Did you hear me? I'm going to make this video for Astra. It's going to be funny."
"That'll be hard," Suki said.
"God!" Lisa said when Alex brushed past. "Air yourself out, girl."
The sound of Astra Dell's voice — impossible to call it up — but the inflection learned from her mother, her poor dead mother, that was the thing. Hearing Astra Dell hack around singing some twangy country girl's song, that was what Ufia said she missed, and the girls still in the lounge, all of them, agreed.
"I wish she were here."
A Daughter
"That's what I sent." Lisa's mother, calling from Sucre, was describing for her daughter a bouquet, mostly stargazer lilies, she had sent to Astra Dell. "Her father told me that Astra loved the stargazers."
"I would have done something," Lisa said.
"But you didn't."
"Oh, blank that."
"Watch it."
"I was going to do something."
"Oh."
"I hate you, Mother!"
"Astra Dell can have visitors at any time, you know."
"Whose friend is she, anyway?" Lisa said.
"I'll talk to you—" Mrs. Van de Ven began, but her daughter clicked off, mum on the visit she had made with Miss Wilkes to see Astra.
At the upper-school morning meeting, Miss Brigham had announced that Sarah Saperstein and Ny Song had been named National Merit Finalists; Ufia Abiola was honored by the National Achievement Program that recognizes black students; Karen Sanchez and Julia Alonzo were Scholars in the National Hispanic Recognition Program. Karen and Julia were among the top 2 percent of all students who self-identified as Hispanic on the PSAT. Lisa remembered the numbers and was pretty sure her mother had the news as well; her mother had been at school in the morning giving a parent tour. Her mother knew all about the top 2 percent, which explained her mother sending more flowers to Astra Dell — a sick girl was less a disappointment probably.
Fathers
Wendell Bliss (of the weak heart and well-known son Will) found a cheerful salad — red and yellow peppers cut in cubes like confetti — left by the housekeeper on the counter. There was a lukewarm chicken breast dressed up with parsley and little potatoes that he could reheat in the microwave if he knew where to find it. Stumped again by the serene expanse of stainless steel. Only the hooded restaurant stove with its prominent grillwork over the burners was apparent to him, but Viking was a word that came with men in horned helmets, and Wendell Bliss wouldn't think to touch the stove. He ate his lukewarm food; he ate slowly. After a while Marion Bliss phoned from Florida to check on what had been left him for dinner. He told her, and then he told her about Will and how he had said yes to an advance on the boy's allowance. He told his wife about Astra Dell, too, because he knew she would want to know. His wife knew so many people — they knew so many people — and one of her chief pleasures was rooting out what connected them. She was fond of saying, "Six degrees of separation!" The discovery of parallel experience and pattern was satisfying to his wife, but the unfairness in the allocations of suffering was something to ponder, that was a lozenge to suck on and so fall to sleep.