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Diana and Grace had begun spending time together outside of classes. For a drink; for a tea in one or the other’s studio; sometimes they were seen walking around campus together. Other students in the Fine Arts program registered this immediately, their jealousy hanging like a funk in the Den. Anna, a printmaker, stirred up gossip in the studios, starting conversations with other students at the cleanup sinks or on the deck outside the building: I’m sorry, but I just think it’s gross the way she kisses up to Grace. And other students would, for their own reasons – jockeying for their own position at the Den, attempting to appeal to Anna, to fit in – contribute to the chatter. Of all those who whispered that it was unseemly, that it was unfair or unprofessional of Grace, there was not o
