Gradually it came about, Monica scarcely knew how, that everyone at the Glenkill Academy knew of her friendship with Sheila Trask. Sheila Trask the painter, Sheila Trask the widow of Morton Flaxman, Sheila Trask who owns—is it Edgemont?—that enormous old house on the Poor Farm Road? If they wondered how, or why, Monica Jensen had been taken up by Sheila Trask, and taken up with such zest (was she an artist herself? had she an interest in art?) they made no inquiries, at least to Monica: their questions were solely about Sheila Trask.

What is she like, what is she really like?—is she as eccentric as everyone says? And what does Edgemont look like on the inside?

And why does she drive that beaten-up old station wagon—?

And why, for God’s sake, does she dress the way she does—!

Monica made no attempt to disguise her irritation, even with her older colleagues. She told them that Sheila Trask was a “complex” person. And “very private.” Trembling with anger, she composed a dignified little speech which, one day in the faculty dining room, she delivered to Brian Farley himself: “Sheila loathes the fact that people here gossip about her, people who know nothing about her—who’ve never set foot in Edgemont.”

Monica would not have minded—she would in fact have felt it a challenge—if they had made inquiries about Sheila’s art: what sort of thing was she working on now, did she belong to any “school” or “style,” how did Monica respond to it—? But no one, with the exception of Jill Starkie (who “expressed her religious awe of her Maker” by doing watercolors of barns and covered bridges) mentioned the work at all. If they spoke of Sheila Trask in any professional sense it was only to speak of Morton Flaxman, who had been one of the “big names” in the area for years. He had sold work to museums and collections all over the world, he’d been written about in national magazines, been given awards, declined awards, accepted commissions, declined commissions, been mentioned alongside Moore, Calder, Lipchitz, David Smith. . . . He had been controversial in his time; he had been outspoken. There was even an early piece of his, a figure of sorts in stone, aluminum, and bronze, displayed proudly in front of the school library: Solstice was its enigmatic name.

Flaxman had been given the imprimatur of a publicized fame, but his wife, his widow, though said to have a decent reputation in the world of art, was an untabulated quantity.

It was rumored that she might have to declare bankruptcy—the entire estate was going to be seized for taxes.

It was rumored that she was making a fortune—and not a small fortune—selling her husband’s work.

It was rumored that she would remarry—a much younger man.