Siddons
The two Elizabeths, yearbook coeditors, told Alex that so far this year's photographs of clubs and sports were clearer than in other years, and what the two Elizabeths had wanted all along were really, really clear pictures and fewer of them on a page. "We don't want another ugly yearbook."
Alex said the book was going to be ugly no matter what they did. "If you'd just let me take candids."
"I don't think you hear what we're saying, Alex."
"Why, what are you saying?"
The two Elizabeths, sturdy students, knew enough not to argue with Alex.
"I don't have to get up too close for group shots," Alex said. "The fat people are always easy to identify."
"Don't we know it," said the two Elizabeths, as alike and plump as pears.
Alex and Suki
"Yearbook ads are the best part of yearbooks, don't you think?" Suki and Alex were sitting on the stoop composing their ad to each other, a full-page good-bye. It was a matter of design. There wasn't any text.
"We've already said everything."
Astra Dell took out an ad for Car, a modest quarter-page ad with a modest photo of two girls in front of a modest house. The girls are arm in arm in bathing suits. More text is on the page than photo. A long quotation from Virginia Woolf.
How then, she had asked herself, did one know one
thing or another thing about people, sealed as they
were? Only like a bee, drawn by some sweetness or
sharpness in the air intangible to touch or taste, one
haunted the dome-shaped hive, ranged the wastes
of the air over the countries of the world alone, and
then haunted the hives with their murmurs and
their stirrings; the hives, which were people.
***
Quirky the college counselor told Alex, "I'm going to mention your senior page in my letter to RISD. It's terrific." Ufia, looking on, agreed.
On a white page, pleasing margins, was a dark cube made up of two pictures of Alex. The pictures were arranged so the little and the big versions of Alex looked to each other; everything converged in a satisfying cube reminiscent of a Rubik's Cube. One version of the two Alexes had been printed in some tricky way and looked silvered.
"Looks modern," Ufia said. She read the quotation. "Serious," she said.
"It was going to be Nirvana," Alex said. "I was going to have 'I think I'm dumb, or maybe just happy,' but then Suki showed me the Toni Morrison."
Lisa looked at Kitty Johnson's senior page and pronounced it as good as Alex's page. Better for its simplicity. A mirror image of herself in a deeply shadowed modest profile. Lisa said she looked like Grace Kelly, which pleased Kitty because she did look like her — white blond pretty — and because Grace Kelly was one of Kitty's crushes. She and Edie were also obsessed with Jackie O. They had made Kitty's mother pull over to the side of the road in the country when the radio announced Jackie Kennedy Onassis had died. Edie and Kitty got out of the car and ran into a field and shouted and cried until Mrs. Johnson threatened to drive away. Kitty bought up all the magazines from the time.
Kitty's yearbook picture had blue shadows and a quality like pearl.
"I guess it says it all about each of us, yes," Ufia said, standing just behind. Ufia saw everything; she was the ultimate layout editor.
After the table of contents came the dedication. This year to Miss Hodd. Then a picture of the staff section and explanation of the theme. This year detectives. Alex in the picture is wearing dark glasses; Ufia, a beret. The background — a brownstone stoop, a bare tree — looked rained on. They carried umbrellas. "With perseverance and craftiness, we've uncovered every mystery and solved every problem we encountered along the way at Siddons." Next page a double spread of baby pictures with clues to each baby's identity; then a "Remember When" section. The two Elizabeths, already fleshy, smiling in a tropical setting at a booth eating ice cream; Kitty as Amelia Earhart on Famous Women's Day; then the in-crowd again, Alex, Suki, Car, Astra, Kitty — the five of them seated on the edge of the stage, legs identically crossed, hair identically swooped to one side, long, side parted. Only the tights and tops are different. Astra is the smallest. A steeple of pictures had girls in twos, in school uniform, in party dress, and in costume.
"Who's the sexy six-year-old with the cigarette holder?"
"Alex?"
First-grade or second-grade class picture, all the girls with two hairstyles: pulled back or side parted. Ufia's is the only black face then; her hair is elaborately, tightly braided. The sisters and the cousins and the aunts in straw hats: Gilbert and Sullivan, seventh grade.
Alex took a half page and Suki took the other half to congratulate each other on surviving without Will Bliss and, it seemed, without parents. Where were their mothers and fathers? Only Mrs. Morton's arms appeared in one of Suki's ads holding out a cake with one enormous candle erupting from the middle. Under the photograph Suki had captioned: "Everywhere phallic!" Arrows, a small map of upper Park Avenue, pictures of the entranceway to 1088. A smudged head of what might have been a boy. More arrows. "The minute she walked in, Minta had her glow" — from Suki again. Alex's message is "Smootchies." Even in black and white, the evening dress-up pictures from this year seemed lit up, two sticks in spangled tubes, Suki and Alex, bright as beads.
Numbers
Siddons
"Eighty-eight days of school until graduation!" This announcement, made by Suki and Alex at morning meeting, was greeted with a barbaric yawp from the class of 1997. So that was exciting, and after morning meeting the rumor that Astra Dell had been given an orange wig was confirmed by Marlene Kovack of all people.
Alex asked Ny Song if she had considered Astra Dell in picking the commencement speaker. Was it a good idea really to have a cancer specialist?
Ny Song said she had thought of Astra. She thought that to have Dr. Saperstein (because Verlyn Klinkenborg was unable to attend) would show people how the class has always confronted reality.
"Oh please," Suki said.
"His career is inspiring." Ny did not look at Suki but continued to address Alex. "We haven't forgotten Astra."
"How could we? We're reminded all the time," Krystle said.
Alex said to Ny, "If we're trying to show people how we confront reality, Dr. Saperstein should be Cum Laude speaker, not commencement." Alex smiled. "Cum Laude is reality; then you find out who is smart in the class. And you, Krystle, are not in the group."
"You say awful things, Alex."
"I just say what everyone else is thinking, Ny."
Suki exhaled through her nose to get the smoke out fast. "You dope," she said in a smoker's tired voice, a deep voice that sounded much like her mother's. "Think of it: Saperstein, Abiola, and Song. Should I go on? Car's a sick A-type, and Kitty… you don't get as many migraines as Kitty Johnson does for no reason. We've got a nerdy class. Saperstein, as she will happily tell you, got an eight hundred in math."
"I hate that girl."
"Don't forget Lisa Van de Ven…"
Siddons
The January Math Challenge had three parts:
Part I: Express as many of the perfect squares less than
1,000 as the sums of two or more consecutive
integers as possible. Example: 9 = 4 + 5
Part II: The sequence 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 consists of all positive integers that are not perfect squares. What is the 500th term of the sequence?