Autobiography of Us by Sloss Aria Beth

Author:Sloss, Aria Beth [Sloss, Aria Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780805094558
Amazon: 0805094555
Goodreads: 15794107
Publisher: Henry Holt
Published: 2013-02-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

GRADUATION day dawned hot and humid. I stood on the platform with the other summa students, one row down from Holly Stevens, needle-thin in a dress that hung off her like a sail. Alex and the others stood together in a cluster on the opposite side, Betsy catching my eye at one point and giving a little wave, though I’m sorry to say I pretended not to see. I was so desperate to step down off the platform I could hardly stand still, the sun too hot, the muslin sticking to my back. I found my parents standing off to one side after the ceremony, the lawn jammed with families and the faculty still lined up in front of the platform in their robes, the waiters making their way through with trays of champagne.

“To the graduate,” my father said formally, raising his glass. “The second Madden graduate in a long line of Madden graduates.”

“Isn’t this nice?” My mother looked around, smiling at no one in particular.

“It’s nice to have it over with.”

“Hush, you,” she said reproachfully. Her hair gleamed in its chignon, her ears—as usual—left bare; her only jewelry was the thin gold of her wedding band. I thought for the thousandth time how much prettier she was than all the other mothers, how elegant she looked in her plain navy shift next to all of them decked out in their jewels. “It’s a beautiful day. Let’s enjoy it, shall we?” She turned her appealing look on me, then my father. “Shall we just have a moment where we simply enjoy—oh, look.” She nodded. “Doesn’t Alexandra look nice!”

I watched as she made her way toward the stage. “She’s making a speech?”

“Special Performance.”

“What?”

“It says right here.” My father pointed at the program. Sure enough: Special Performance, it read. Alexandra Carrington, ’66.

“I ran into Eleanor earlier. Mentioned she hadn’t seen me at the club.” Mother put a hand to her hair, smoothing back the strays. “She said it had been ages now.”

“She’s speaking to you again?”

She gave me a little smile. “Looks like it.”

“Here goes.” My father gestured at the stage and I stood up very straight, as though preparing to salute.

* * *

But I haven’t even told you yet what it was like to hear her sing. The best I can say is that it was like being told a secret, the thrill of it vaguely illicit. There was a small, precise tension to each note, the sense of something live contained within each phrase; on the few occasions I’d heard her sing, I felt her voice run through me as though that live thing had been released. It was unusual in those days to be a girl who sang in public like that, just her and a microphone; it was the sort of thing only a certain kind of woman did. Common, we would have said, had it been anyone but Alex, and even so, the whole performance carried an element of the daring. She might as well have

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