The Second Summer of the Sisterhood (26 page)

F
riday night Bridget ran almost seven miles, all the way to the bend in the river where Billy’s old house sat. Maybe he still lived there.

Her body was changing, she could feel it. She wasn’t totally back to normal, but she was most of the way there. Her legs and her stomach were getting muscular and strong again. Her hair was blond again. Running by herself, she took off her baseball cap, which felt like a relief. She let her hair breathe in the warm evening air.

She stopped by Greta’s to pick up her ball and went straight to the soccer field. It had become a ritual for her, kicking around by herself at night in the three patches of light.

“Gilda!”

She turned around and saw Billy coming toward her. He was probably on his way to a party where all the girls enjoyed crushes from all the boys.

“Hi,” she said, out of breath, glad she’d remembered to put her baseball cap back on her head.

“I thought you didn’t play anymore.”

“I started again.”

“Oh.” He looked at her. He looked at the ball. He loved soccer as much as she did. “You want to play?”

She smiled. “Sure.”

There was nothing like a handsome opponent to get Bridget’s adrenaline pumping. She found her pace, keeping the ball in front of her. She zagged left, one-touched it, then shot. She heard Billy’s moan of disbelief behind her. “Lucky shot,” he said, and they started again.

It was as though she were back on the Honey Bees again. Bridget had always had an exploding capacity to be as good as she wanted to be, and tonight it enabled her to get around Billy five times in a row.

Panting, he sat down in the middle of the field. He put his hands over his face. “What the hell!” he bellowed into the night air.

Bridget tried not to look smug. She sat down next to him. “You’re wearing jeans. Don’t take it too hard.”

He lowered his hands and stared at her. He had the spooked look back from a few weeks ago. He squinted at her. “Who are you?”

She shrugged. “What do you mean?”

“Are you, like, Mia Hamm in disguise or something?”

She smiled and shook her head.

“I’m the best guy on our team!” he shouted at her in frustration.

She shrugged again. What could she say? She had a long career of pruning boys’ egos on the soccer field.

“You remind me of this girl I used to know,” he mused, more to the grass than to her.

“Yeah?”

“Her name was Bee, and she was my best friend till I was seven. She used to kick my ass also. So I should be okay with this.”

His eyes were animated and sweet. She liked that he was a good sport under his pride. She wanted to tell him who she was. She was sick of the whole game. She was sick of stuffing her hair into a baseball cap.

She noticed he was looking at her legs. She might not be a beauty, but she knew her legs were getting nice again. They were toned and tan from running for five weeks straight, not to mention her nightly soccer workout. He didn’t look spooked and he didn’t look grateful. In fact, he looked a bit awkward. He cleared his throat. “I, uh, better get going. You’ll be there tomorrow at five, right? It’s the second-to-last game before the tournament, you know.”

She was going to slap his shoulder, but the gesture didn’t come off pal-ish as she’d meant. She sort of brushed it instead. Her fingers tingled where she’d touched him. He looked at his shoulder and back at her. Now he looked confused.

“I’ll be there,” she promised.

When she let herself quietly in the door, she saw the flickering blue light of the television in the living room. She tiptoed in to say good night to Greta, but she was already asleep in the armchair, her head lolling. In front of her was perched a tray on a stand with the remnants of her dinner. Friday was her TV night. It made Bridget sad to look at her. Her life was so small, and so simple, and so completely unremarkable. Could Bridget ever fit into a life that small?

And then she couldn’t help thinking of Marly. Marly’s life had never been small or simple. With Marly, you woke up to a different world every day. Every hour had been remarkable, good or bad. Did living big mean ending up like her?

Standing there in the living room, where Marly had preened with a thousand dates and Greta snoozed in front of the television, Bridget wondered whether it came down to the claustrophobic choice between dying beautiful or living ugly.

Tibberon:
Lenny, I’m happy for you and Kostos. But please don’t tell me you did it. Can’t handle that right now.

Lennyk162:
Didn’t, Tib. Don’t be scared. But I can’t lie. I wanted to. It may be soon.

It was late. Carmen had spent all afternoon and evening at Lena’s. Her head was full of love and passion—Lena’s love and passion—and it was thrilling but threatening, too. It was one more thing to separate them from their common childhood.

By the time Carmen got home, her thoughts stretched out, forward and backward, in a full and sentimental way. It made her miss her mother and yearn for her, even though Christina was lying in the next room.

Carmen pulled on a sleeping T-shirt and brushed her teeth, and then she crawled into her mother’s bed. It was still, even when they were at odds, the softest place in the universe. Christina rolled over and propped her head on her elbow. Usually on nights like this, she would rub Carmen’s back, but tonight Carmen didn’t wriggle in quite that close. She didn’t deserve it yet.

“Mama?”

“Yes?”

Carmen sniffed a little. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay.” Christina had probably known this was coming sometime.

“Remember the Sunday when you were still with David and you thought he didn’t call all day?”

Christina thought back. “Yes,” she said.

“Well, he did call. I rewound his message and a new one recorded over it by mistake. I should have told you the truth, but I didn’t.”

From the look on Christina’s face, there was anger, but it wasn’t right up close. “That was a shabby thing to do, Carmen.”

“I know it was, and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry for the awful things I said. I’m sorry I made you so unhappy.”

Christina nodded.

“I’m sorry I ruined it for you and David. I wish I hadn’t.” Carmen’s eyes filled up. “I don’t know why I did it.”

Christina still didn’t say anything. She had a knack for waiting out Carmen’s lies.

“Okay, I do know why I did it. I was scared it would be the end of you and me.”

Her mother reached over and touched her hair. “You made mistakes. But you aren’t the only one,” Christina said slowly. “I did too. I let it go too fast. I got carried away.” Christina’s eyes were fixed tightly and intently on Carmen’s face. “But listen to me,
nena
. There could never be an end of you and me.”

Carmen felt a tear dribble down her elbow and soak into the mattress. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Have you wanted to meet a David for a long time? This whole time of just being us, have you been lonely?”

“Oh, no. No.” She petted Carmen’s head like she had when Carmen was a child. “I’ve been so happy being your mother.”

Carmen felt her chin quivering. “Really?”

“More than anything else.”

“Oh.” Carmen smiled shakily. “I’ve been happy being your daughter.”

They both rolled onto their backs and looked up at the ceiling.

“Mama, what do you want?”

Christina thought for a while. “Falling in love is a wonderful feeling. But it was scary how it took me over. I don’t know if I want that.”

“Hmmm . . .” Carmen considered the cracks in the plaster molding.

“What about you, sweet? What do you want?”

“Well.” Carmen lifted her arms in the air and locked her elbows. She examined her hands up there. “Let’s see. I want you to leave me alone, but not ignore me. I want you to miss me when I go away to college, but not be sad. I want you to stay exactly the same, but not be lonely or alone. I want to do the leaving, and not have you ever leave me. That’s not really fair, is it?”

Christina shrugged. “You’re the daughter. I’m the mother. It’s not meant to be fair.” She laughed. “I don’t recall you changing any diapers.”

Carmen laughed too.

“Oh, and one other thing.” Carmen rolled back onto her side, facing her mom. “I want you to be happy.”

She let her words sink down upon them. After a while she wriggled in close enough for her mom to rub her back.

Bee,

I send you the Pants full of love and strangeness. I’m living in another world here. I know you’ll understand, Bee, because you live here too. I don’t just mean doing major things with a guy, although I understand a lot more about that now. I mean putting yourself out there in the way of overwhelming happiness and knowing you’re also putting yourself in the way of terrible harm. I’m scared to be this happy. I’m scared to be this extreme.

But you are here with me, Bee. I always wished I were as brave as you.

Love,
Lena

If the missing and wanting had been hard before, it was nearly unbearable now. It felt to Lena like the multitude of her thoughts and dreams and fantasies about Kostos weighed down the hours and made them go extra slowly.

She was living outside herself, living for when they could be together. That was what she had wanted so badly to avoid. But Lena realized now, maybe that was just how much love cost.

When he’d called her on Monday, she had literally caressed the phone. She would rather have listened to him breathe for an hour than hang up.

When he’d called Tuesday, she had giggled for an hour and a half, causing herself to wonder whether the real Lena was perhaps locked up in a closet somewhere with duct tape binding her mouth.

He hadn’t called Wednesday, and when he called on Friday, he didn’t sound right. His voice had a flatness she hardly recognized. “I’m afraid I may not be able to come this weekend.”

She felt suddenly dizzy. “Why not?”

“I—I may have to go back.”

“To go back where?”

“To Greece,” he said.

She gasped. “Is your bapi okay?”

He was silent for a minute. “Yes, I think he’s fine.”

“Then why? What?” She was too intense. She was hurling herself at him like a cat on a cockroach. She wished she could hold back.

“Some other business at home that came up,” he said slowly. “I’ll explain it when I know what’s going on.” He didn’t want her to ask any more.

“Is it bad? Will everything be okay?”

“I hope so.”

Her brain was fervently concocting possible explanations that wouldn’t be devastating to her.

“I have to hang up,” he said. “I wish I didn’t.”

Don’t go!
she wanted to scream at him.

“I love you, Lena.”

“Bye,” she said inevitably.

He couldn’t go back to Greece! She would die! When would she ever see him again? The one thing getting her through up to now had been the thought that she only had to wait until Friday.

She hated this. The uncertainty. The powerlessness. She felt as though he had blown a gaping hole in the expected path of her life. The sidewalk now ended just a few yards ahead.

Effie stood in the doorway of her room. She had on her running shoes. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Lena shook her head. She closed her eyes hard to keep the tears inside.

Effie appeared at her side. “What is it?”

Lena shrugged. She gathered up her voice from somewhere near her ankles. “I think that being loved by Kostos is even harder than not being loved by him.”

“Your grandchildren used to come visit here, didn’t they?” Bridget asked Grandma from under her hat at breakfast.

Grandma chewed her toast. “Oh, yes. Every summer until they were almost seven. And I used to go up north to see them for six weeks every winter until they were five.”

“Why did you stop?” Bridget asked tentatively.

“Because Marly asked me not to come.”

“Why, do you think?”

Greta sighed. “Things were starting to go downhill by then. I don’t think she wanted anybody looking too closely at her life, especially not me. I had too many opinions about the children, and neither she nor Franz wanted to hear them.”

Bridget nodded. “That’s sad.”

“Oh, honey.” Greta swayed in her seat. “You can’t know how sad. Marly loved her children, but she had a hard time. She used to go to bed after she fixed them lunch, and by the time they were eight or nine, I suspect she went back to sleep after breakfast. She’d get overwhelmed halfway through sorting the laundry and leave it on the machine for days until Franz got around to it.”

Bridget pressed her palm to her cheek. The kitchen darkened as the sky outside grew overcast. She remembered her mother lying in bed through the afternoons and evenings. She remembered her mother getting upset and frustrated by the buckles of Bridget’s sandals or the tangles in her hair. Bridget had learned to be careful about spills and recycle her clothes, because they took a long time to come back from the wash.

“Why did . . . they stop coming? The kids, I mean.”

Grandma rested her elbows on the table heavily. “To tell you honestly, I think it was because I was having bitter disagreements with Franz. I knew Marly was in trouble, and I worried about her all the time. Franz didn’t want to see the things I was seeing. I told him Marly needed the help of a doctor, and he said no. I told him Marly needed medication, and he disagreed. I think he was mad at me, so he took the kids away. He told me to stop calling. To leave Marly alone. I couldn’t do it.”

Bridget noticed that Greta’s lips quivered. She patted her old lady hands fixedly.

“And I was right to worry. I was right to, because—”

Bridget stood up so fast she almost knocked her chair backward. “I’ve got to do something upstairs. Sorry, Greta. I just remembered. I better go.”

She went up the steps without looking back. In the attic the first thing she saw was the box, the one she’d been putting off. In her dreams she was Pandora. She imagined that the box was a yawning black hole between her and her childhood, and that once she opened its flaps, she would fall into it and die.