Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (20 page)

Effie shrugged blithely. Her happiness made her impervious to guilt. “You’re the one who said Gavin smelled like pork rinds.”

It was true. “But Effie, you don’t even know this guy’s name! Did you call him ‘the waiter’ to his face? Isn’t that kind of tacky?”

“I know his name,” Effie said, undisturbed. “It’s Andreas. He’s seventeen.”

“Seventeen! Effie, you’re fourteen,” Lena pointed out. She sounded, even to herself, like the principal of a very strict school.

“So? Kostos is eighteen.”

Now Lena’s cheeks were just as red. “Well, I didn’t make out with Kostos,” she sputtered.

“That was your fault,” Effie said, and she walked out the door.

Lena threw her book on the floor. She wasn’t actually reading it anyway. She was too miserable, too preoccupied.

Effie was fourteen, and she’d kissed many more boys than Lena had. Lena was supposed to be the pretty one, but Effie was always the one with the boyfriend. Effie would grow up to be the happy old woman with the big family, surrounded by people who loved her, and Lena would be the weird, scrawny maiden aunt who was invited over only because they felt sorry for her.

She took out her drawing stuff and set it up, looking at the view out her window. But when she put her nubby piece of charcoal to her paper, her fingers didn’t make a horizon line. Instead they drew the contour of a cheek. Then a neck. Then an eyebrow. Then a jaw. Then a hint of shadow on that jaw.

Her hand was flying. She was drawing much more loosely than usual. A hairline like . . . that. A nostril like . . . that. An earlobe like . . . She closed her eyes, remembering the exact shape of his earlobe. She seemed to stop breathing. Her heart stopped beating. Rough lines of his shoulders fell off at the bottom of the paper. Now his mouth. The mouth was always the hardest. She closed her eyes. His mouth . . .

When she opened them she imagined she saw the real Kostos standing beneath her window. Then she realized it
was
the real Kostos standing beneath her window. He looked up. She looked down. Could he see her? Could he see her drawing? Oh no.

Her heart started up again with a jolt. It took off in a flat-out sprint. She vaguely wondered whether hibernating frogs’ hearts beat twice as fast in the summertime.

Girls who were friends last night were vultures this morning.

“So what happened?” Ollie wanted to know, landing on Bridget’s bed before her eyes were fully open.

Diana was getting dressed. She came over when she saw Bridget was at least partly awake.

Even Emily and Rosie migrated over. Girls who wouldn’t take risks both loved and hated girls who did.

Bridget sat up. Last night was slow coming back. In sleep she’d gone back to being the yesterday Bridget.

She looked at them, their eyes curious—even hungry.

Bridget had seen too many movies. She hadn’t imagined her encounter with Eric would be . . . personal. She thought it would be a jaunt. An adventure to brag to her friends about. She expected to feel powerful. In the end she didn’t. She felt like she’d scrubbed her heart with SOS pads.

“Come on,” Ollie pressed. “Tell us.”

“Bridget?” It was Diana.

Bridget’s voice was buried deep this morning rather than sharp on her tongue. “N-Nothing,” she managed. “Nothing happened.”

Bridget could see Ollie reappraising the ghosty look in her eyes. So it wasn’t sex; it was disappointment.

Diana’s eyes said she was unsure. Her intuition was telling her something else. But she wasn’t distrustful. She waited until the others were drifting away. She touched Bridget’s shoulder. “You okay, Bee?”

Her kindness made Bridget want to cry. She couldn’t talk about this. Nor could she look at Diana if she wanted to keep it to herself. “I’m tired today,” she told her sleeping bag.

“Do you want me to bring you something from breakfast?”

“No, I’ll come in a few minutes,” she answered.

She was glad when they were all gone. She curled back up and fell asleep.

Later, Sherrie, one of the camp staffers, came to check on her. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked Bridget.

Bridget nodded, but she didn’t emerge from her sleeping bag.

“The Cocos and the Boneheads are playing in the semis in a couple of minutes. Do you want to watch?”

“I’d rather sleep,” Bridget said. “I’m tired today.”

“Okay.” Sherrie turned to go. “I wondered when that energy was going to run out.”

Diana, who returned a couple of hours later, told Bridget that the Cocos had crushed the Boneheads. It would be a Taco/Coco final.

“Are you coming to lunch?” Diana asked. She kept her tone light, but her eyes showed her concern.

“Maybe in a little while,” Bridget answered.

Diana cocked her head. “Come on, Bee, get out of bed. What’s with you?”

Bridget couldn’t begin to explain what was with her. She needed somebody to explain it to her. “I’m tired,” she said. “Sometimes I just need to catch up on sleep. Sometimes I crash for a whole day.”

Diana nodded, as though reassured that this was just another part of the peculiar Bridget canon.

“Can I bring you something? You must be starving.”

Bridget had earned her reputation as a rapacious eater. But she wasn’t hungry. She shook her head.

Diana considered all this. “It’s weird. In almost seven weeks I’ve never seen you under a roof for more than three minutes. I’ve never seen you stay still except when you were asleep. I’ve
never
seen you miss a meal.”

Bridget shrugged. “I contain multitudes,” she said. She thought it was from a poem, but she wasn’t sure. Her father loved poetry. He used to read it to her when she was little. She could sit still better back then.

Dad,

Please accept this money to fix the broken window. I’m sure it’s already fixed, considering Lydia’s house pride and her phobia about un-air-conditioned air, but

Dear Al,

I can’t begin to explain my actions at Lydia’s-I mean yours and Lydia’s house. When I got to Charleston, I never imagined that you would have

Dear Dad and Lydia,

I apologize to both of you for my irrational behavior. I know it’s all my fault, but if you would have listened to ONE THING I had to say, I might not have

Dear Dad’s new family,

I hope you’ll all be very happy being blond together. May people speak only in inside voices for the rest of your lives.

P.S. Lydia, your wedding dress makes your arms look fat.

Carmen opened the padded envelope and shoved in all her cash. One hundred eighty-seven dollars. She considered putting in the ninety cents in change, but it seemed like something a seven-year-old in an after-school special would do. And besides, it would probably cost more postage to send coins than the coins were worth. That thought stimulated her math-geek brain.

She stapled the envelope closed without including a note and carefully wrote out the address and return address, then hustled out the door to get to the post office before it closed. Who was her mom to complain that she loafed around the house with nothing to do?

On a sweltering afternoon, Lena was lying on her back on the tile floor, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Bridget. Bridget’s last letter worried her. Bee followed her heart with such manic abandon sometimes, it scared Lena. Usually Bee sailed along in triumph and glory, but once in a while she crashed on the rocks.

For some reason Lena thought of a dream she’d had. In it, she was a small house with whitewashed knuckles clinging to the side of the cliff. She knew she had to hold on tight, because it was a long drop into the cauldron below. A part of her wanted to release those cramped fingers and just fall, but another part of her warned that you couldn’t just fall for the thrill of it.

Grandma was sitting on the sofa, sewing something. Effie was off somewhere. Lena would have bet her paints her sister was making out with the waiter.

For some reason, thinking about Bridget or maybe the dream, or maybe it was the heat, put Lena in a funny, free-associating kind of mood. “Grandma, why does Kostos live with his grandparents?”

Grandma sighed. Then, to Lena’s surprise, she started to answer. “It’s a sad story, lamb. Are you sure you vant to know it?”

Lena wasn’t totally sure. Grandma went on anyway.

“Kostos’s parents moved to the United States, like so many young people,” she explained. “He vas born there.”

“Kostos is a U.S. citizen?” Lena asked.

Lena was too hot to turn her head, but she did anyway. Grandma nodded.

“Where did they live?”

“New York City.”

“Oh,” Lena said.

“His parents had Kostos, then another little boy two years later.”

Lena was beginning to guess how sad this story was going to be.

“When Kostos vas three years old, the whole family vas driving to the mountains in the vintertime. There vas a terrible car wreck. Kostos lost both his parents and his baby brother.”

Grandma paused, and Lena felt, even in 115-degree heat, shivery bumps rise over the length of her body.

When Grandma started up again, Lena could hear the emotion in her voice. “They sent little Kostos back here to his grandparents. It vas the best idea at the time.”

Grandma was in a strange mood, Lena observed. She was unusually relaxed, reflective, full of old sorrow. “He grew up here as a Greek boy. And ve all loved him. The whole town of Oia raised him.”

“Hey, Grandma?”

“Yes, lamb?”

This was her moment. She didn’t let herself think long enough to chicken out. “You know that Kostos never hurt me. He never touched me or did anything wrong. He is just the boy you think he is.”

Grandma let out a long breath. She put her sewing down and settled herself back on the sofa. “I tink I knew that. After some time passed, I tink I knew that.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before,” Lena said solemnly, filled with equal parts relief at having finally said it and sadness that it had taken her this long.

“In some vay, maybe you did try to tell me,” Grandma noted philosophically.

“Will you tell Bapi what I just said?” Lena asked.

“I tink he already knows.”

Lena’s throat now felt painfully tight. She turned over from her back to her side, away from Grandma, and let her eyelids shut to release her tears.

She was sad about what had happened to Kostos. And someplace under that, she was sad that people like Bee and Kostos, who had lost everything, were still open to love, and she, who’d lost nothing, was not.

B
ridget moved herself out to the little porch of her cabin. She could look at the bay at least. She had a pen and a pad of paper. She needed to send the Pants off to Carmen, but today was a hard day for writing.

She was sitting there, chewing on her pen cap, when Eric came over. He sat on the railing.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said.

“You missed the game,” he said. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t look at her. “It was a good one. Diana tore up the field.”

They were rewinding the clock. He was back to being the benign coach, and she was the irrepressible camper. He was asking her permission to pretend that whatever had happened didn’t happen.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to give it. “I was tired. Big night last night.”

His face colored. He held out his hands and looked at his palms. “Listen, Bridget.” He seemed to be picking over a very paltry assortment of phrases. “I should have sent you away last night. I shouldn’t have followed you when I saw you pass by my door. . . . I was wrong. I take responsibility.”

“It was my choice to come.” How dare he take her power?

“But I’m older than you. I’m the one who . . . I’m the one who would get in serious shit if people found out.”

He still wouldn’t look at her. He didn’t know what else to say. He wanted to leave. She could see that clearly. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She threw her pen after him. She hated that he’d said that.

Carmen,

Here are the Pants. I’m very mixed up. If I had listened to your advice about good sense, I wouldn’t be like this.

So right back at you. Good sense rules. I wish I had some.

Love,
Bee

“Tibby, turn the camera off.”

“Please, Carma? Please?”

“Can you put on the Pants for the interview?” Bailey asked.

Carmen gave her a look of full disdain. “I’m not doing an interview. What are you guys, the Coen brothers?” she snapped.

“Carmen, just be quiet and cooperate for once in your life.” Tibby said it in a way that was irritable but not mean, if that was possible.

You antagonize people,
Carmen reminded herself.
You will grow up to be old
and bitter. You will wear lipstick way outside the lines and shout at children in restaurants.