Julia seemed to sense the change in mood, but she didn’t want to let go. “Butter or jam? Butter and jam!”
Even now, even amid deepest doubt, confusion and misery, Carmen didn’t want to let Julia down. Too ingrained was her idea of how friendship was. “No. Thanks,” she said. “I’m just really tired.”
“Are you sure? They are hot. They won’t be hot in the morning.”
Julia made it hard not to take what she offered. “No, thanks,” Carmen said again.
Julia’s face got a pinched look. “No problem,” she said. “I’ll just leave them on your desk.”
“Thanks,” said Carmen, dully. She picked herself out of bed, brushed her teeth, put on a sleeping shirt, and crawled back into bed. “Do you mind if I turn off the light?”
Julia grabbed a book from the floor. “I’m going to read for a while,” she said.
Carmen tried to sleep, but she couldn’t. Her despair was so big that she couldn’t think of a way to feel better.
And then she remembered a way.
Under Julia’s suspicious frown, Carmen took her script from the end of her bed and crept out into the hallway. She sat under the good light and tried to reacquaint herself with the lost girl.
When Tibby woke up, she lay in her old bed for a while and let the waking world come back to her slowly. And she realized her breath had an echo. That was kind of funny, to be breathing in twos.
Then she realized that the second breathing was not hers. She opened her eyes and saw Lena’s face where she lay across the end of Tibby’s bed. Lena’s small, patient face, made with more precision, more fineness than ordinary faces. Most people would tap you and wake you up, but Lena was happy to just wait while Tibby slept.
“Hey,” said Tibby. She wondered at how she could love one Kaligaris sister so much and really hate the other one.
Lena smiled. She seemed pretty satisfied with lying there in the sunshine.
“When do you go back?” Tibby asked, crooking her elbow and propping her head on her hand.
“I’m going to stay here for a few days. What about you?”
“I think Bee and I are going to take a train tomorrow night.”
They were quiet for a while, but companionably so.
“I think you should get back together with Brian,” Lena said finally.
Tibby felt as if she could see the words floating down like feathers freed from her comforter. “I can’t, though.”
“Why not?”
“It wouldn’t be fair,” Tibby said, earnestly hoping that Lena would not agree with her.
“It wouldn’t be fair to whom?”
“Well, to Effie, I guess.”
Lena studied Tibby’s face thoughtfully. She seemed to want to project her thoughts from her eyes as much as her mouth. “I don’t think you should worry so much about Effie.”
“How can I not? She asked my permission and I gave it.”
Lena looked sad. “Yes. I know. And Effie’s my sister. And I don’t want to side with you over her. It’s not like I haven’t thought about all this.”
“I know, Lenny,” Tibby said apologetically.
“I’ve waited to say anything, because I don’t want to hurt Effie.”
Tibby nodded. She’d worn her anger at Effie like a skin, protective and irritable. Now Tibby felt herself molting, slipping out of it not in bits, but as a piece. And like a molted skin, once disembodied, it sat dry and weightless beside her. It had captured her completely, and yet it didn’t belong to her.
“Effie is strong, you know? She bounces.”
I don’t bounce, Tibby acknowledged to herself.
“She loves Brian. But she loves him in the Effie way. It’s like she’s going in circles a hundred miles an hour and he’s practically standing still. She only sees him when she laps him, but still she thinks they’re together.”
Tibby laughed in spite of herself.
“Brian wants to cooperate, but it’s not right for him.”
Tibby marveled at Lena’s perfect recapitulation.
Lena resettled her body so she was sitting cross-legged directly across from Tibby and holding her close with her eyes.
“Here’s one thing I know,” Lena said.
Tibby sat up too. Lena picked the important things carefully.
“There are some people who fall in love over and over.”
Tibby nodded, understanding the particular melancholy as it revealed itself on Lena’s face.
“And there are others who can only seem to do it once.”
Tibby felt tears in her eyes just like she saw in Lena’s. She knew Lena was talking about her and Brian. And she was also talking about herself.
Bridget coaxed Perry into going on a bike ride with her. She’d gone to some lengths to borrow Carmen’s stepdad’s bicycle and helmet, but she’d tried to pass it off to Perry as the lightest of impulses.
“What do you say? We’ll just go down to Rock Creek Park and back.”
He looked doubtful.
“Please?”
She got on her old bike, not giving him too much chance to think. She was happy when he reluctantly followed. Perry had never been athletic, but he used to love riding his bike.
It was a beautiful late-summer day, not nearly as hot as it could have been. The traffic was blessedly light, as though the cars had purposely stayed away, knowing it was a fragile situation.
By the time they’d made it to the park, Perry was riding right up next to her, coasting along.
She stopped inside the entrance as promised. “Do you want to turn around?” she asked.
He shrugged. “We can keep going,” he said, making her feel happy.
They biked for an hour more before they stopped at a cart and bought ice cream bars. Perry had money and wanted to pay. They sat on the grass by the creek and ate them.
There was so much she wanted to say to him. She wanted to get him to talk about their mother and about things he remembered. But she knew she had to go slow. It would be too easy to scare him away.
Before they got back on their bikes, she put her arm around him and squeezed his shoulders. How long had it been since anyone had touched him? He was a little stiff, a little uncomfortable. It probably wasn’t what he wanted, but she felt in her heart it was something he needed.
On the way home they stopped at the pet store on Wisconsin Avenue. Perry had always loved animals, but he’d never been allowed to have anything but newts, because their mother was allergic to animals with fur.
They held hamsters first, and then an obese guinea pig. Perry held a baby white mouse with utmost care. Next they each picked up a rabbit. Perry’s tried to climb down the front of his shirt and it made him laugh.
Soon after they got home from the pet store, Bridget’s cell phone started ringing. With a galloping heart she recognized Eric’s cell number. He didn’t have service in Mexico, did he?
“Hello?”
“Bee?”
“Eric?”
“It’s me,” he said sweetly. “Where are you?”
It had been so long since she’d heard his voice she thought she might cry.
“I’m in D.C. Where are you?”
“I’m in New York.”
“You are in New York?” she screamed joyfully. She couldn’t help herself. New York wasn’t right here, but it was a lot closer than Baja. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine. I really want to see you.” He said it tenderly.
“I really want to see you.” Whatever had happened this summer, the way she felt now, she could not doubt that she loved him.
“What time is it?” he asked.
She walked in view of the kitchen clock. “Almost noon.”
“I’ll be there in time for dinner.”
“Here?”
“There. You better give me your address again.”
“You’re coming here?” She was screaming again.
“How else am I going to see you?”
“
I don’t know!” she shouted giddily.
“I can’t wait until tomorrow,” he said.
Carmen dressed that morning under the watchful eye of Julia. She forced herself to wear lipstick, even though she didn’t feel up to it. Sometimes you could trick yourself.