The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

by Ann Brashares

  Lena was starting to get nervous about where this was going.

  “He wanted me to go up and see him.”

  Lena ground her back teeth. She felt sorry for her one-year-old self.

  “I agonized for three days. And then I went. I made an excuse to your father, left you with Tina and Carmen, and got on the train.”

  “Oh, no,” Lena muttered.

  “Your father still doesn’t know about it, and I’d strongly prefer that you not tell him.”

  Lena nodded, feeling both the intoxication of knowing something about your mother that your father didn’t even know and also the deep revulsion of it.

  “I remember walking toward him in Central Park, touching that awful pearl ring I’d brought in my coat pocket. Honestly, in that moment, I did not know how the rest of my life was going to go.”

  Lena closed her eyes.

  “The three hours we spent walking in the park were possibly the most valuable three hours I have ever spent.”

  Lena didn’t want to hear this.

  “Because I left there and I came home to you and Daddy, and I knew from then on that I loved your father for being your father and I no longer loved Eugene.”

  Lena felt her heart begin to lift. “So nothing . . . happened.”

  “I did kiss him. That was it.”

  “Oh,” said Lena, almost disbelieving she was having this conversation with her mother.

  “I was so happy to be home that evening. I’ll never forget the feeling.” Her mother’s voice took on an amused and almost conspiratorial tone. “I believe Daddy and I made Effie that very night.”

  Lena was starting to need to go back to being the daughter again.

  “And you more or less know the rest.”

  This struck Lena all of a sudden. It made a kind of cosmic sense that her conception and babyhood had been spent in an atmosphere of worry and distrust, and Effie had cruised in on a wave of perfect happiness. It made a sick kind of sense.

  “So that was the end of Eugene,” Lena said.

  “It wasn’t quite as easy as that. He called me a half-dozen times over the next few years. He was usually drunk. Your father really loathes that man.” Ari rolled her eyes at the memory. “That’s why Tina and Alice and—” Lena knew her mother had been about to say Marly, but she’d stopped herself. “That’s why my close friends knew about Eugene. I would dread those calls and the fights they provoked with your father. I still don’t mention his name around Daddy. That’s partly why I reacted the way I did when you brought him up.”

  Lena nodded. “But Daddy shouldn’t worry, should he?”

  “Oh, no.” Ari shook her head emphatically. “Your father is a magnificent man and a fine father. Eugene is a fool. I look back at that heartbreak, and I feel like it was the best thing that could have happened.”

  Ari looked significantly at her daughter. “And that, my love, is what I want you to remember.”

  Tibberon: Talked to Lenny late. Awful, unbelievable shit. Have you talked to her yet?

  Carmabelle: Just talked to her. Cannot even think. Poor, poor Lenny. What can we do? Stay there. I’m coming over.

  Bridget knew it was time to get home. Now that she knew what was going on with Lena, she needed to be with her. On her last day in Burgess she lay with Greta on the back porch. They munched on ice cubes and talked about future home-improvement projects instead of saying good-bye.

  And yet three o’clock still rolled around, and it was still time for Bridget to go.

  Greta was being careful. She didn’t want to start the crying.

  Bridget was never careful, so she said what she was thinking. “You know what, Grandma, if I didn’t have three friends I loved, I would stay here with you. This feels like home now.”

  Greta started tearing up right on schedule. Bridget did too.

  “I’ll miss you, honey. I really will.”

  Bridget nodded. She hugged Greta maybe too hard.

  “And you’ll bring your brother when you come at Christmas, you promise me?”

  “I promise you,” Bridget said faithfully.

  “Remember,” Grandma said in her ear when at last she let her go, “I’ll always be here loving you.”

  After she gathered her things, Bridget turned around on the sidewalk to look at the house one last time. It had seemed so plain when she’d arrived, but it looked beautiful to her now. She could make out the shape of Greta standing inside the darkened front window. Her grandmother was crying hard, and she didn’t want Bridget to see.

  She loved this house. She loved Greta. She loved Greta for her bingo on Monday and her TV on Friday and her lunch at twelve o’clock every single day.

  Maybe Bridget didn’t have much of a home with her dad and Perry. But she had made herself a home here.

  Lenny,

  You’re still in Greece, so I know you won’t get this letter for a while, but I need to do something. I need to feel like I’m with you in some way.

  I’m so sorry about Bapi. I cried for you this morning when I heard. You’ve always been steady, Len, and so good to messed-up me. I wish I could take care of you, for once.

  All my love,

  Bee

  Two important things happened on Lena’s fourth and last day in Greece. The first thing was that Grandma gave Lena Bapi’s hideous white tasseled shoes, and amazingly, they fit Lena’s giant feet. Grandma looked aghast, like she hadn’t actually meant for Lena to put them on, but Lena was very pleased.

  “I vas going to put them in the casket, but I thought you might like them, lamb.”

  “I do, Grandma. Thank you. I love them.”

  The second thing was that as night fell, Lena sat on the little wall outside her grandma’s house and made a painting for Bapi. She had the idea she would bury it with him.

  It was the full moon hanging over the smooth Caldera that inspired her. She set out her paints and her panel and started uniting various blobs of paint into swirly night colors. She’d never made a painting in the dark before, and she probably never would again, because it was basically impossible.

  But she managed to capture two glowing moons, the one in the sky and its twin in the water. They looked the same, and in her painting, they were the same.

  As she was shoving around the mess of oils on her palette, she saw that Kostos had come to stand behind her and watch her work.

  He watched very patiently for a man who had just ruined both their lives.

  “Moony night,” he said to no one in particular, after he’d studied it for a long time.

  It was funny, because that was just what she’d thought to call it, but fear of hubris had made her back down. She couldn’t connect anything of hers to Van Gogh, especially not to the painting of his she loved best of all. She thought about her mother and Eugene and wondered whether she would ever be able to think Kostos was a fool. She kind of doubted it.

  “Bapi will love it,” he said.

  Okay, she doubted it even more.

  She willed herself not to cry again, and even more, willed her nose not to start flowing. She knew this was the last time she would see him maybe ever. She turned around and stood up to get a long, thirsty look at his face, to soak it in.

  The night before, she had felt stifled and hostile and numb, but now, for whatever reason, she didn’t.

  “Good-bye,” she said.

  She realized he was drinking in the look of her just as thirstily. Her eyes, her hair, her mouth, her neck, her breasts, her paint-spattered pants, Bapi’s white shoes. It would have been entirely inappropriate if this had been hello and not good-bye. Maybe it was inappropriate even so.

  “The things you said to me last night,” she began.

  He nodded.

  She cleared her throat. “Same here.”

  She had to hand it to herself. She couldn’t have found a less poetic way of putting it.

  He nodded again.

  “I’ll never forget you.” She thought about that. “Well, hopefull
y, I’ll forget you a little.” She scuffed the toe of Bapi’s shoe. “Otherwise it will be awfully hard going.”

  His eyes were full now. The corners of his mouth quivered downward.

  She put her palette and her brush down on the wall. She rose up onto her very tiptoes, put her hands on his shoulders for balance, and kissed him on the cheek. No matter the placement, she kissed him like a lover and not like a friend. But maybe it could pass. He held her in his arms, harder and closer than he should have. He didn’t want to let her go.

  A while after Kostos left, Effie appeared. She had her Walkman on, and she looked suspiciously disheveled.

  “You sure cry a lot more than you used to,” Effie pointed out.

  Lena could almost have laughed. “And you found the waiter, didn’t you?”

  Effie shrugged coyly. Of course Effie could take up last summer’s love interest as though no time had passed. Effie could revel in a robust make-out session and when it was time to leave, she could bid her crush good-bye, no worse for wear.

  Lena studied her sister in amazement. Effie was bobbing her head around to some dumb song coming through her earphones.

  Different people were good at different things, Lena mused. Lena was good at writing thank-you notes, for instance, and Effie was good at being happy.

  Bridget had wanted to carry her bags the quarter mile to the bus station, but when Billy suddenly appeared next to her on the sidewalk and took the two heavy ones, she wasn’t mad.

  “I wish you weren’t going,” he said.

  “They need me at home,” she said. “We’ll see each other around, though.”

  She looked at Billy standing there in the bus station, holding her bags, wishing she weren’t going. He liked her, she felt sure. She watched him for signs of physical yearning. She wanted that, didn’t she? She liked herself enough again to feel like she deserved it.

  But she wondered. Did she really want that? Hadn’t she had enough boys look at her that way? Would she partly hate him if he changed the way he liked her because she was pretty and blond?

  Anyway, he wasn’t looking at her like that. He was looking at her like she was Bee, who he’d known since he was six. He was looking at her the way he looked at her when she screamed at him on the soccer field. Wasn’t he?

  He touched the soft underpart of her wrist.

  Or was he?

  She’d thought the Bee she’d been when she was six and the Bee she was now were a world apart, separated by her tragedies. She’d thought the Bee who was his friend and the Bee who was his potential crush were different and opposite girls. Now she wasn’t sure what she thought.

  But when he kissed her full on her lips, he sent a tingle from her hair to her toenails, and she knew she liked it.

  In a flash of wonderment she saw firm, continuous ground under her feet, stretching from back then to right now and on and on as far as her eyes could take her.

  It was a pretty weird idea, actually. But Carmen had always liked things that went around and came around. Her mother was out with David being happily ever after. Carmen had done her penance, spending her days worrying about Lena and watching her mother be joyful. She’d had a lot of time to devote to it too, since the Morgans were spending these last two weeks of the summer at the beach.

  Porter had left a couple of messages the week before inviting her to some jock party in Chevy Chase. So Carmen figured maybe now that she’d gotten herself straightened out about her mom, she could start to like him for real.

  He sounded surprised when she called him and asked him out on such late notice. But he did say yes and offer to take her to Dizzy’s Grill, so that meant he didn’t completely hate her. Or maybe he did hate her and was sneakily planning to present her with the bill at the end of the night. Carmen made a mental note to stick an extra twenty in her wallet.

  She put on the Traveling Pants for the first time since the fateful night when Christina had fallen in love with David and Carmen had not fallen in love with Porter. Tonight, who knew? With the Pants, this night might very well be fateful too.

  She was just plucking a stray eyebrow hair when the phone rang.

  According to caller ID, she was being called by a pay phone at Union Station.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s Paul.”

  She was pretty sure Paul was supposed to be on his way from Charleston, where he’d been hanging out at home for two weeks, back to school in Philadelphia.

  “Hi. What are you doing?”

  “Missing my train.”

  “Oh, no. What happened?”

  “I got lost on the subway.”

  Carmen let out a hooting laugh. “You didn’t!”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “I got a ride with a friend as far as D.C., and then I did miss my train.”

  “Oh.”

  Carmen considered what this meant. This meant Paul had nowhere to stay tonight and she would need to look after him.

  “Uhhh.” She tapped the phone, thinking. “Meet me at Dizzy’s Grill on Wisconsin and Woodley. Just whenever you get there. Have you eaten?”

  “No.”

  “Good. See you there.” Poor Porter. This was going to be a strange date, what with the extra guy and all.

  Carmen had finally gotten her tweezers around the offending hair for the second time when the phone rang again.

  “Jeez!” she shouted, throwing the tweezers at the wall.

  This call came from Lena’s house. Was Lena home? Carmen snatched the phone from its holder.

  “Lena!”

  “No, it’s Effie.” Effie was whispering.

  “You’re home?”

  “Yeah, like an hour ago.”

  “How’s Lena?”

  Carmen could feel her heart beating in her temples. Lena was home. Lena would need her. Well, that was that. She hoped Paul and Porter would enjoy each other’s company.

  Effie paused. “Mmmmm. Can’t tell.”

  “Is she walking? Is she talking?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yes walking, no talking.”

  “Oh. I’ll come right over.”

  “No, you need to take her out.”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah,” Effie said. “That’s what she needs.”

  “Ooookay. You sure about that?” Effie was a boss and Carmen was a boss. They didn’t always mix.

  “Yes. Half her room is covered with letters. The other half with pictures. That’s how it is. We left in a hurry. You need to take her out and distract her, and I need to put all that stuff away. Like down the garbage disposal. Ha ha.”

  Carmen was silent. Effie never cared if nobody else laughed at her jokes.

  “Did you talk to Tibby?” Carmen asked.

  “Not home.”

  “Okay, Ef. I’ll be over to pick her up in fifteen minutes.” Carmen smacked the phone down.

  She shook her head as she raced around her room, stuffing her things into her purse. She would just have to bring Lena to Dizzy’s Grill also. That was the only thing to do.

  And anyway, crazy Carmen’s date with two guys at the same time would be nothing if not distracting.

  A long time afterward, Carmen tried to replay every nuance of that strange meeting. She wanted to pinpoint exactly when it happened. How it happened. Why it happened. Whether it happened.

  Carmen was wearing the Pants. She was holding hands with Lena. Lena was wearing soft flannel drawstring pants and a shirt. From three feet away it looked like a regular white T-shirt, straight and simple. But if you got closer, it had this very small ruffle running along the neckline. It had struck Carmen right away. The T-shirt was classic Lena, but the ruffle was not.

  Lena looked particularly thin. She was thin from torment, but Carmen couldn’t help envy it anyway. Lena’s eyes were large and light-filled and seemed to be focused on some vague middle distance, not here, not there. She blinked and looked around the r
estaurant like a newborn. Her skin seemed tender and raw, and her eyes seemed as if they were new to seeing. And Carmen felt bad dragging her into this bustling, smoky, overstimulating scene. It was no place for a newborn.

  Carmen sat Lena down at the front of the restaurant, the waiting part. She strode into the dining room, and found Porter and Paul each waiting for her at his own table. First she went to Porter. He stood up and smiled upon seeing her.

  “Hi.” He kissed her on the lips, but she was too distracted to analyze it.

  “Hey, listen. This night has gotten sort of complicated.” She grimaced apologetically. “My friend—well, my stepbrother actually—missed his train tonight and he has nowhere to go so I invited him to come along.” Tentatively she touched her jaw. “Is that okay?”

  He gave her a look that said, Does it matter if it’s okay?

  “And also.” Carmen rushed right along. “My friend Lena? You know her. She got back from Greece tonight and she’s kind of . . . well, a disaster, actually,” Carmen said, lowering her voice, “and I can’t leave her alone, so she’s here too.” Carmen raised her shoulders plaintively. “Sorry.”

  Porter nodded. Carmen figured there wasn’t much she could do at this point to surprise or disappoint him.

  By this time, Paul had spotted her. She went to him. “Hi. Come on over.”

  He followed.

  “Porter, this is Paul. Paul, this is Porter,” she said when they were within earshot.

  “Hey.” Porter raised one hand like an Indian chief.

  She seemed to be arranging a lot of people’s lives this evening. She pointed to the table where Porter had been sitting. “We can all fit here, right?”

  Porter shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Okay. Sit. I’ll go get Lena.”

  Paul was looking a little shell-shocked. He wasn’t very social. He was probably wishing he’d stayed on a bench at Union Station.

  On a chair at the front, Lena was watching her hands as the world spun around her. “Len?”

  She looked up.

  “Sorry to drag you around tonight, but we’re having dinner with two guys you don’t know.” What was the use of sugar-coating it? If Lena was going to mutiny, now was the time.