Tina glanced at the portfolio that Weezy had dropped to the floor. Speaking of mediocrity, she thought. Everyone had agreed that Weezy’s work was weak, unformed; at its most interesting it had a grotesque edge that might, with a stronger talent, be developed. Tina thought of a letter Weezy had written her saying, “I have the passion of an artist, but no art other than life.” Life, that was supposed to be Weezy’s great thing. Even their mother had fallen for it, rebuking Tina’s bookishness by saying of Weezy, “Well, at least she’s out in the world.”

Now Weezy was lighting a cigarette and lounging on the velvet chaise. It angered Tina to see her where their mother should have been. No, not anger, she acknowledged to herself, jealousy: because their mother had admired the queerness in Weezy, her independence and refusal to be cast in the mold that formed all the rest of them. And yet as mother and daughter they hadn’t gotten along. Maybe, Tina thought now, because they were too much alike.

“Don’t smoke in here, Weezy,” she said.

“Oh, fuck off, Tina,” Weezy said, looking up with a frown. But she put out the cigarette.

How different they were. Tina remembered what she had told Duke once when they were stoned: “I like words better than people.” And it was true. Words—fat, articulate, latinized, weighty, and scintillating—were her weapons and her skill. Weezy, instead, lazy about words, was very intuitive. She could listen, not say much, and them come out with immediate and true perceptions. In some ways Weezy had a quicker intelligence than Tina’s tough grasp of facts and mechanical learning. The difference was that Weezy stuck to nothing whereas Tina persevered and mastered. Now, through their father, Weezy had been admitted to the Accademia delle Belle Arti. But her main interest was the women’s movement and leftist politics.

Weezy got up from the chaise and went over to the table, where a series of notebooks of various colors and sizes were lined up. She picked one out and flipped through the pages.

“Tina, did you know Mom had all these diaries?”

“When papà said to go through her things, I don’t think he meant those. I bet he doesn’t know about them.”

“Tina, this is when she’s in college: All these snooty, shining girls! They know who they are and where they’re going. One of them is descended from Thomas Edison. I’m the only Italian name here. They’re all saying they’re going to be writers or doctors or go into the Foreign Service. Whoever told me I could do any of that?”

“Poor Mom,” said Tina, “her parents never let her think she could be anybody. They think I’m going to be a teacher but I’m taking awfully long about it; they don’t understand anything about graduate school and my being a scholar.”