Sublime

Moody, who loved art, was watching Pearl and wishing – not for the first time – that he were a photographer, so that he could capture the way the light from the frosted-glass gallery ceiling hit her upturned face and made it glow.

A sister had been omitted from the text.

Pearl had understood the hierarchy: her mother’s real work was her art, and whatever paid the bills existed only to make that art possible.

“Oh, it’s you.” Mrs. Wexler always seemed surprised to see her other daughter, so unlike golden-haired, angel-faced Angela.

Grace Macaulay, then: seventeen, small and plump, with skin that went brown by the end of May. Her hair was black and oily, and had the hot consoling scent of an animal in summer. She disliked books, and was by nature a thief if she found a thing to be beautiful, but not hers. She didn’t know she couldn’t sing. She was inclined to be cross.