The Second Summer of the Sisterhood (10 page)

Carmen watched, semientranced, as David kissed her mother’s hair. Then Porter said something, but Carmen didn’t listen to what it was.

When at last the bill came, David paid it in a way that was decisive but not show-offy. “Next time,” he said to Porter respectfully as Porter fumbled with his wallet.

Gallantly David got up and fetched Christina’s jacket from its hook. Carmen snuck a look to see if he had short legs. He didn’t.

Lena got up from her bed and put on the Lucinda Williams CD Kostos had sent her back in January. Tibby was gone, Bee was gone, Carmen was out on her demented double date. The music made Lena yearn for a feeling she’d had in Santorini and lost. She’d barely had it. Maybe she’d only glimpsed it. She couldn’t name it. It was rough and ragged and dangerous, but soaring and wonderful too.

Lena knew she had spent too much of her life in a state of passive dread, just waiting for something bad to happen. In a life like that, relief was as close as you got to happiness.

Lena wondered about her dread. Where had it come from? What did she fear? Nothing terrible had happened to her. Was it a case of past lives? Otherwise, she hadn’t lived long enough to explain it. Unless she lived in dog years. Did she live in dog years? Did she live at all?

She went to her closet and drew out her worn shoe bag. She spilled the letters on her bed. She tried not to do this too often, especially since she had learned about the girlfriend, but tonight she couldn’t help herself.

She used to read Kostos’s letters so often she had pulled out every possible nuance, every meaning, every drop of emotion. She had sucked them so dry she was surprised they didn’t burst into powder. She remembered the joy when a new letter would arrive—full of potential, unread. She remembered thinking that the multitude of fresh, unfelt feelings made the new envelope sit heavy in her hands.

She perched cross-legged, hypnotically opening them one by one. In the beginning she had often been struck by the formality of Kostos’s writing, constantly reminding her that he wasn’t an American or a teenager. Then it had all fallen away and he was just him.

The first one was from early last September, soon after she’d left him and Santorini for home.

The memories are so close I feel your presence everywhere. And I see forward so clearly and sadly to a time when the memories will be distant. I won’t be able to picture your painting things scattered on the flat rock in Ammoudi or your bare feet soaking up the sunshine on Valia’s garden wall. Now I see them. Soon I will remember them. Long after that I will remember remembering. I don’t want any more hours to pass to separate me from you. Tonight I was packing for London, hating to leave this place where we were together.

The next one, sent later that month, had a postmark from England, where Kostos had moved to study at the London School of Economics.

There are five of us in a three-bedroom flat. Karl from Norway, Yusef from Jordan, and a couple of Brits from up north who’ve barely moved in. London is loud and shiny and thrilling. I’ve waited for it for a long time, and still, it’s startling to be here. Classes begin Tuesday. Last night I had a couple of pints (cupla is the term—no matter how many) with Yusef at a pub on our street. I couldn’t help telling him about you. He understood. He has a girl back home.

The next letter was from October. She remembered her surprise at the Greek postmark. It had been written just after Kostos’s grandfather had his heart attack. Kostos had dutifully gone back home to Santorini. Instead of studying macroeconomics with world-famous professors, he was making boat fittings in the archaic family forge. That was the kind of person Kostos was.

Lena, please don’t worry about me. It was my choice to come back. Really. The LSE isn’t going anywhere. I’ve already received a deferment. It was no trouble finding a guy to take over the flat. I’m not sorry about it. My bapi is recovering quickly now. He sat in the forge with me while I worked today. He claims he’ll be back to full schedule by Christmas and I’ll be back in school for the new year, but I don’t need to rush. I’ll take care of Bapi’s business first.

I went swimming in our olive grove the night I got back. I was delirious thinking of you.

He’d originally written
making love to you,
then crossed it out about a thousand times. But when Lena read the letter from the back in the perfect light, she could read the censored words. And as many times as she read them, their impact never faded. Each word burst like a firework in her brain. Longing. Agony. Bliss. Pain.

Had he made love to this new girlfriend? The thought seared her brain like a hot coal, and she tossed it out as fast as she could.

The next letter she pulled from the pile was from December. The letters from this period still evoked a throb of shame in Lena’s chest. She was only glad she didn’t have possession of her own letters.

Your last letter sounded so distant, Lena. I tried to call you on Monday. Did you get the message? Are you feeling all right? How are your friends? Bee?

I tell myself your spirits were down the day you wrote. You’re fine and we’re fine. I hope it’s true.

Then came fateful January. Whatever courage had bloomed inside her last August had withered in the cold winter. She’d become huddled and impermeable again. She’d written a cowardly letter and he’d responded.

Maybe it’s just too far. The Atlantic Ocean seemed small in September. Now, even the Caldera looms for me like the edge of an uncrossable distance. I have dreams where I swim and swim and I always end up on a different shore of this island. Maybe we’ve been apart too long.

And then she’d broken it off completely, promising herself she would be whole again. But she wasn’t whole again. She was still missing him.

Of course I understand, Lena. I knew this could happen. If I were away in London, working hard in university, it would all feel different to me. Just being here on this island, longing to be somewhere else . . . I will miss you.

For long nights over many months she imagined that he did miss her. Slowly, stopping and rewinding and stopping again, she played rumbling, narcotic, sometimes X-rated scenarios of what might happen when two people who missed each other that much saw each other at last. No matter that Lena was self-conscious, uninformed, and a virgin many times over. A girl could dream.

But now Kostos had a girlfriend. He’d forgotten her. They’d never see each other again.

The dreams weren’t as pleasing when they had no chance of coming true.

Brian was dressed and sitting patiently at her desk when Tibby woke up the next morning.

She was conscious of how her hair stood up when she first got out of bed. She flattened it with both hands.

“Are you hungry?” he asked her companionably.

She remembered about breakfast. She remembered the IHOP and walking down the highway. She meant to tell Brian about the plan and have him come along. She meant to, but she didn’t.

“I have an early class,” she said.

“Oh.” Brian didn’t bother to hide his disappointment. He didn’t play any of those games where you try to act like you care less than you care.

“Could you meet me for lunch?” she asked. “I’ll get sandwiches from the cafeteria and we can eat ’em by the pond.”

He liked that idea. He did his thing in the bathroom while she dressed. They walked down together. She plotted her getaway. Not that it was so tricky. Brian would never suspect her of being the nasty kid she was.

She pointed across the way to the student union building. “They have Dragon Master in the basement.”

“They do?” Brian looked more interested in college than he ever had before.

“Yeah. I’ll meet you there at noon.” She knew Brian could play for hours on a dollar.

She scuttled toward Masters Hall. Alex’s room was on the first floor. That was where they usually met. He was sitting at his computer with his headphones on. Maura was reading one of his hip-hop magazines on the bed. Neither of them looked up or said anything.

Tibby loitered by the door, knowing they would come when they were ready. She was pleased with the way she had learned their code.

Alex was mixing his soundtrack, she guessed. There were piles of CDs on his desk. Mostly homemade things and obscure labels she only pretended she’d ever heard of. He unplugged the earphones so she and Maura could hear the end of it. There was high-pitched, disturbing reverb and a sort of low, grinding sound underneath. She wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be music or not. Alex looked satisfied. Tibby nodded, wanting it to make sense to her.

“Yo, Tomko. Must have caffeine,” he said, getting up and leading them out the door. Tibby wondered if he had stayed up all night.

They were supposed to sign out when they left campus, but Tibby never brought that up anymore.

They walked for a little less than a mile on the shoulder of the road as cars and trucks whizzed by.

She felt a little sad when the waitress, the gray-haired one with the visor, brought her a huge stack of pancakes. Brian loved pancakes as much as anyone.

Alex was talking about the pimply, chess-playing kid in the room next to his, one of his favorite targets for ridicule.

Tibby thought about Brian, with his Dragon Master T-shirt and his thick, smudgy glasses with their heavy gold frames.

She laughed at something Alex said. Her laugh sounded fake to her own ears.

She wondered. Had she not brought Brian because she was worried about how he would seem to Alex and Maura? Or was it because she worried about how she, Tibby, would seem to Brian?

Bee,

I’m not doing so well with the Pants right now, so I figured I’d just go ahead and send them to you.

Anyway, I’m thinking about you all the time. I was so happy you called last night. Finding Greta right away, it just makes me know you are onto something good.

Go easy on the great state of Alabama, Bee, and remember how much we love you.

Tibby

T
he first few days in Greta’s attic were pure manual labor, pulling boxes down from giant stacks and carrying pieces of furniture and loads of books down to the basement.

The morning of the fifth day, the Traveling Pants appeared in the box Bridget had set up at the post office. She was pleased at first, because the rougher work in the attic was about to start, and she needed them. But the anxiety set in when she got back to her room.

She shuffled around the carpet as she opened the package. With her breath held and every loose part of her sucked in, she began to pull them up. She met resistance at the thighs. She had to stop. She couldn’t keep going with them. What if she ripped them? How horrible would that be?

She pulled them off fast and pulled on her shorts, breathing hard.

She didn’t want to read too much into this. It didn’t have to mean anything. So she needed to drop a few pounds. She sat down on the bed and rested her head against the wall and tried very hard not to cry.

She held the Pants. She couldn’t just leave them here and ignore them. Maybe the Pants didn’t actually have to be on your person to work their magic. Right? Maybe?

Numbly, Bridget strode from the room, clutching them. She carried them all the way to Greta’s, where she let herself in the side door, as instructed. Greta was in the kitchen, pricking her finger for blood. Quickly Bridget looked away. She’d suspected already that Greta was diabetic. She’d seen the familiar-looking equipment around. Bridget knew about diabetes, because her mother had developed it in the last few years of her life.

“Good morning, Greta,” she said, keeping her eyes down.

“Morning,” Greta replied. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“No, thanks,” Bridget said.

“Orange juice?”

“No. I’ll take some water up with me, if that’s okay.” She went to the refrigerator to get it herself.

Greta was squinting at the Pants. “Are those yours?” she asked.

Bridget nodded.

“Would you like me to wash ’em for you? A little bleach would clean that whole mess right off them.”

Bridget looked aghast. “No! No, thank you.” She cradled them protectively. “I like them how they are.”

Greta clucked and shook her head. “To each her own,” she muttered.

You have no magic in you,
Bridget thought.

It was hot in the house, and at least fifteen degrees hotter in the attic. Bridget was already soaked with sweat by the time she got up the stairs.

She had left a pile of boxes in the corner that said
MARLY
on them in black marker. This was where it got tricky. It was both the part she wanted and the part she dreaded. She perched the pants on a bookshelf and got down to work. Putting her hands on the first box, Bridget didn’t let herself think too much, she just opened it.