At first, she had been frightened of him, wondering if he was a ghost, or a trick of the light and her imagination. But she had a feeling she knew who the nameless, faceless visitor could be.
She pushed open the door slowly and walked inside the room. She put the thick layers of the Sunday newspaper by the rolling table next to the television.
Her mother was lying on the bed, her hands folded at her stomach. Her fair, blond hair, long and lustrous, was fanned out on the pillow. She was the most beautiful woman Schuyler had ever seen. She had a face like a Renaissance Madonna - serene and peaceful.
Schuyler walked to the chair next to the foot of the bed. She looked around the room again. She peered into the bathroom her mother never used. She pulled back the curtains in front of the window, half expecting to find someone hiding there. Nothing.
Disappointed, Schuyler resumed her spot by the bed.
She opened the Sunday paper. What would she read today? War? Oil crisis? Shootings in the Bronx? An article in the magazine about new, experimental Spanish cuisine? Schuyler decided on the ?Styles? section - the "Weddings and Celebrations." Her mother seemed to enjoy those. Sometimes, when Schuyler read her a particularly interesting ?Vows? column, her toes wriggled.
Schuyler began to read. "Courtney Wallach married Hamilton Fisher Stevens at the Pierre this afternoon. The bride, thirty-one, a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Business School ..." She looked hopefully at her mother. There was no movement from the bed.
Schuyler tried another. "Marjorie Fieldcrest Goldman married Nathan McBride in a ceremony at the Tribeca Rooftop yesterday evening. The bride, twenty-eight, an associate editor at ..."
Still nothing.
Schuyler searched the announcements. She could never predict what her mother would like. At first, she thought it was news from people they knew, the marriages of heirs and heiresses to old New York families. But just as often, her mother sighed upon hearing a moving story of two computer programmers who had met at a bar in Queens.
Her thoughts drifted back to the mysterious visitor. She looked around the room again, and noticed something. There were flowers by the table. A bouquet of white lilies in a crystal vase. Not the cheap carnations they sold downstairs. This was an exquisite arrangement of tall, glorious blossoms. Their intoxicating smell filled the room. It was funny how she hadn't seen them as soon as she walked in. Who would bring flowers to a comatose woman who wouldn't be able to see them? Who had been there? And where had he gone? More important, where had he come from?
Schuyler wondered if she should mention it to her grandmother. She had kept the stranger's visits a secret, worried that Cordelia would do something to keep the stranger away somehow. She didn't think Cordelia would approve of a strange man visiting her daughter.
She turned the page. "Kathryn Elizabeth DeMenil to Nicholas James Hope the Third." She glanced at her mother's placid face. Nothing. Not even a wrinkle on her cheek. A ghost of a smile.
Schuyler took her mother's cold hand in hers and stroked it. Suddenly, tears rolled silently down her cheeks. It had been a long time since the sight of her mother moved her to tears. But now Schuyler wept openly. The man she'd seen through the glass had been crying as well. The quiet room was filled with a deep piercing grief, and Schuyler wept without abandon for all that she had lost.
CHAPTER 18
Monday at school, Oliver gave Schuyler the cold shoulder. He sat next to Dylan in the cafeteria and didn't save Schuyler a seat. She waved to the two of them, but only Dylan waved back. Schuyler ate her sandwich in the library - but the bread tasted stale in her mouth, dry and mealy, and she quickly lost her appetite. It didn't help that even after dancing together on Saturday night, Jack Force was back to acting like nothing ever happened. He sat with his friends, hung out with his sister, and basically acted like his old self. The one who didn't know her, and it hurt.
When school let out, she saw Oliver by the lockers laughing at something Dylan was saying. Dylan gave her a sympathetic glance. "Catch you later, man," Dylan said, patting Oliver on the back. "Later, Sky."
"Bye, Dylan," she said. The three of them - she, Bliss, and Dylan, had gone to get slices at Sofia Fabulous Pizza after the dance. They had looked for Oliver, but he had already left. He would probably never forgive them for doing something without him. More specifically, he would never forgive her. She knew him well enough to understand she had committed a grave betrayal. She was supposed to have followed Oliver up the stairs, but had danced with Jack Force instead. Now he would punish her by taking away his friendship. A friendship she depended on like the sun.
"Hey, Ollie," she said.
Oliver didn't reply. He continued to put his books in his messenger bag without looking at her.
"Ollie, c'mon," she pleaded.
"What?" He shrugged as if he just realized she was standing there.
"What do you mean 'what'? You know what," she said, eyes flashing. Part of her was infuriated with his poor-me act all the time. Like she wasn't even allowed to have any other friends? What kind of friend was that? "You didn't call me all weekend. I thought we were going to go see that movie."
Oliver frowned. "Were we? I don't remember making plans. But then, you know, some people seem to change their plans without telling you about them."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Nothing." He shrugged.
"Are you mad at me because of Jack Force?" she demanded. "Because that is really, really, tr��s lame."
"Do you like, like him or something?" Oliver asked, a stricken look on his face. "That jock loser?"
"He's not a loser!" Schuyler argued. It amazed her how passionately she suddenly felt about Jack Force.
Oliver scowled. He pushed back his cowlick impatiently. "Fine. If that's how you feel, Pod Person." Invasion of the Body Snatchers was one of their favorite films. In the movie, conformist aliens replaced all the interesting people. Pod People was what they called their automaton-like peers, who fell into lock step with everything around them: Marc Jacobs handbags! Japanese-straightened hair! Jack Force!