Chapter One

Books, purses, three empty bottles of Diet Coke, and the remains of a large pizza littered the card table that had been set up near the open window. Outdoors, green May was flourishing. Scented with lilac and wet grass, it was lively with walking traffic on the paths that crisscrossed the quadrangle from the Gothic library, to the glassy, modern science building, to the old redbrick museum, and beyond.

"Commencement. It's more like a conclusion, a funeral."

Startled, the two others turned toward Amanda. This doleful remark did not fit her. She was eager; her bright, blooming face in its frame of wavy, caramel-colored hair was always optimistic; she sparkled. Among these three young women, she was the one who would most attract attention.

True, there were some who would prefer the calm, classic elegance of Cecile. It was she who now said more cheerfully, "It's the beginning of something else, Amanda."

"For you, it is. You must be the only person in the graduating class who's getting married this summer."

"I know. Isn't it ridiculous? I feel like my own grandmother. In her day, for Heaven's sake, you were expected to do just that. 'A ring by spring,' they used to say." Cecile's pink smile made fun of herself. "But we've waited four years for him to get through architecture in New York, and that's long enough. We haven't seen each other since February vacation, when I went east, and I can't wait." With a sigh of contentment, she added, "I'm sure if it weren't for all this, I would be terribly sad about leaving here."

"Ave atque vale," Norma said.

Amanda asked, &quo