MAUDE SMILED AS she made the tiny, brightly colored pictures. The suitable-for-framing Bay Farm diplomas were designed on the model of illuminated manuscripts. They were hand-lettered, by seniors selected for their abilities with the flat-ended nibs of calligraphy pens. After the lettering was stroked onto sheets of buff parchment and proofread by other members of the diploma committee, they were passed to the illustrators, also on the committee. With the lettered parchments the illustrators got lists, communally compiled, of each graduate’s propensities and preferences. These were supposed to be iconic qualities. No faculty member invaded this committee, so a particular coolie, for instance, was shown reading The Doors of Perception and with an ashtray among his books, as if smoking and drugs were officially acceptable. And this might be executed by a sweet-natured senior who favored smock dresses, had smiles for everyone, never did drugs or smoked, and generally had a disengaged air, beneath her frizzy hair, that suggested beatitude.
The committee members, chosen for their talents, had dispensation from other non-course school activities from April onward, until the fifty or so diplomas were complete. Like the girl who had to spin thread out of nettles, they accepted an implicit vow of silence for the duration. You were not allowed to reveal what iconic qualities had been named for illustration. You were not allowed to reveal who was illustrating whose diploma.
Maude would have been on this committee. She would have had Weesie’s diploma to do, and Weesie would have had hers: it was regarded as a plus if you had inside information, a possibly deeper sense of what mattered to the recipient. In March, Maude wrote to the school, asking if she could be an illustrator. She expected to be turned down. What a privilege, to be part of something Bay Farm. Instead, a parchment arrived in a big envelope, lettered Louise Agatha Herrick.
Weesie wouldn’t know Maude had done it until it was handed to her by the headmaster on the dais in the refectory in June. She would have been sent from the meeting while this decision was made.
Maude drew, colored, and dreamed wishfully. When she was done, she put the leathery sheet back in the big cardboard envelope, pasted on a label, addressed it to the committee, sent it off, and waited.
It is a misfortune to place your love in an institution. With what, what organ, is an institution going to love you back? Here she was, big sophisticated artworld person—who consorted with famous artists, who slept with one; who was in her second year of college!—wanting nothing more than to be handed a parchment lettered by her friends, with less than professional little pictures on it, and hear her name called, in alphabetical sequence with the others in her former class. It was for this she found herself still waiting, as if she’d had the other years ’68–69, ’69–70. As if it were possible. She didn’t get over things, but she would if she heard Maude Pugh between Francie Perkins and Ellie Raines in the roll call of graduates. She imagined she would. She imagined her love requited. Her divided lifeline would come together.