Christine Schutt - All Souls

The perverse part was that in that moment Anna loved him.

They shared a taxi home from the hospital, although Anna insisted she get off at Eighty-second and Third so that Tim Weeks could cross at Eighty-sixth. She didn't need a door-to-door escort.

"Do you get the picture?" Anna, on the phone to her mother, was relating the afternoon visit to Astra Dell with Tim Weeks.

"He is vain, but who wouldn't be with a face like his?" Anna had already told her mother that she liked him, that she liked Tim Weeks a lot, but what had started in October was the same in its intensity in January. Then Anna told her mother about the moment on the street when the pretty girl had passed them. How all of his attention was taken up by this approaching woman and his ambition to win her heart. What did this say about Tim Weeks?

Her mother asked, "Do you do anything else besides visit the sick girl?"

CHF

Off the phone, Car sock-slid around the kitchen island and out the door into the hallway, past the dining room, the living room, the library, veering to the carpeted hall that leafed into walk-in closets and the central bloom of Daddy's bedroom.

Car did not look into the bedroom but turned around and kicked up the carpet and slid on the hallway floor back to the kitchen, around the island, over the icy marble, out. She repeated this tour of the apartment until the kitchen clock chimed six, although her watch read six thirty. She was out of breath, but she took up the phone again, and when Astra answered, Car said, "I'm too fucked up to visit. I hope you know that."

Siddons

The learning specialist was there to help girls in the upper school, especially ninth-grade girls, organize themselves for exams, although even she admitted many of the girls already had good habits. Many had a plan. Double sessions with tutors, stockpiled Post-its, organized notebooks. Some rented the movie for the first time (or again); some bought the book on tape. CliffsNotes were shared, although they had been pronounced as nutritious as bread someone else has chewed and spit out. In fact, CliffsNotes really weren't read much. Most girls arduously reread. Their books glowed in the dark with pink and yellow marked passages. Some books seemed entirely painted. Fat with use and notes and flagged with Post-its, the books were as homely as gummed toys.

"I'm contemplating dropping out," overheard in a Folio meeting, Car Forestal presiding.

"Don't worry. A B here translates into an A anywhere else. The colleges know this."

"Phew," Suki said to this news. "Like I'm really relieved."

CHF

"Nobody wakes up in the morning trying to burn. Believe me, Dad, that's not my ambition."

A Daughter

Lisa had never been to Queens before, but she asked directions and found the street and proceeded through the door, up the elevator, and down the hall toward an escalating smell of onion. She knocked at the door and opened herself to Miss Wilkes's embrace, to the fuzzy, unwashed, brown disarray of Miss Wilkes in her oniony apartment. Miss Wilkes — Janet — cleared a space and then she hovered. "I haven't had company since Marie," she said. "Just Taffy," and Janet pointed to a large caramel-colored mound of fur making little m's of sound, whiskers twitching.

"I'm allergic."

Janet moved between Lisa and the cat. "Oh dear, this whole place is cat!"

"It's only if I get close."

"Oh god," Janet said, and she brushed at her own clothes, but the caramel flecks of Taffy adhered. They could go somewhere else, but they had come to want privacy and for the first time had it. Lisa took Janet's hand and let herself be led into a back bedroom where one of the windows fronted brick. The buildings were close; the view was scary. The lumpish bed was covered in something coarse and maroon colored that Janet threw aside. "Scootch under," Janet said. Under the blanket then, under the cold sheet, against the warm, white shape, which did not smell like the usual Janet but a powdery, unexpected softness.

The truth was everything that happened did not feel good, although Lisa said she was only cold. It was cold outside. It was January. "But go on," Lisa said, and she let herself be held. She held still and said to the woman holding her, "Go on," even though some of what they were doing Lisa was shy of. "I think I may only be experimenting, Miss Wilkes," Lisa said, and the sound of the teacher title, Miss Wilkes, had the intended effect, turned the bedroom inside out, and they were both in school again, Lisa as the student.

"Yes," Janet said. "I understand," and after a while, "This is probably not something we should continue."

"Do you mean that?"

"I do."

This, this, no one else was doing this, this what Lisa was doing, which was experimenting, living, getting ready for college, ugly as it was in the ways it involved another's body.

"I don't think I've ever loved anyone," Lisa said. "Isn't that shocking?"

CHF

Miss Hodd said "Bedtime Story" was one of Car's best poems, and Car sent it to Astra because Astra would know what it was about.

A Daughter

Lisa Van de Ven e-mailed Josh that she had done it and discovered this kind of love was not what she was after. Josh was the only one of her friends to know what she was up to because, as she had told him, "to tell this tale would serve as an opportunity for some people I know to belittle and ridicule me, and I am the one who does this to others."

Mothers

Mrs. Van de Ven volunteered without anyone's asking. She had found the most reputable wig shop and taken Mr. Dell there, saying that one good feature was the range of styles they offered. Colors, yes, too, although nothing to match Astra Dell's red hair; her hair was not to be found in a shop. Carroty colors, moon yellows, silvers, whites in a schoolgirl style — long, straight, and banged — were available, and Mrs. Van de Ven held up the most orange model and asked Mr. Dell what he thought.

"Are you kidding?"

He thought he should buy his daughter earrings. Why try to hide the badge of her illness? The startled blue of her lashless eyes, the shadows of eyebrows — bald, bony, easily crushed — why bother with disguise or risk the horror of seeing her in a shifting wig, except that Mrs. Van de Ven seemed to think Astra might feel better about herself and her appearance in the "Cindy" wig. She held out the dummy head for him to touch the hair.

"See how lifelike?"

Mrs. Van de Ven didn't think he should pay for the more expensive human hair; the synthetic felt real, and, besides, the wig was temporary. "If you touched her scalp, I'm sure you'd feel stubble already."

Not stubble. He would feel the plates of bone. "I can't do this right now, Lettie."

"David."

"I've seen the wigs. I have to think about it. I have to speak to Astra."

"Then I'll buy it for her, David."

"Lettie, please."

Mrs. Van de Ven moved toward the counter with the "Cindy" wig, explaining to the saleswoman that this was the wig she wanted. At the same time, Mr. Dell held out his credit card. He said to the saleswoman, "I'm paying for this, please."

"David."

"I can't let you."

"And why ever not?"

He addressed the saleswoman, saying, "I'm paying," and the saleswoman looked at him and then at Mrs. Van de Ven, and when Mr. Dell held out his card, the saleswoman accepted it despite Mrs. Van de Ven's saying, "No, no, no. This is my treat. I'm the one who's insisting you get it. Give Astra a choice." She repeated this protest while the mechanics of the transaction went on between Mr. Dell and the saleswoman.

"Just sign here, please."

Mr. Dell also signed for the lunch that followed with Mrs. Van de Ven.