“It’s not like it’s a gift I’m giving you. You did it yourself.”
“You helped.”
“I hope so. You’ve done more and better than I imagined.”
“I’m getting there. I’m really beginning to think so.”
“You are. I can see it. I can feel it.”
Lena smiled at the thought of all the seeing and feeling that went on in this room. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Annik said.
“I’ve been wondering for a long time. I feel like I should probably just ask.”
Annik nodded encouragingly, almost like she knew what Lena was going to say.
“Why are you in a wheelchair?”
Annik clapped her on the back in her Incredible Hulk way. “God, I thought you’d never ask me.”
Win was waiting outside her apartment building with the car running. Carmen had never imagined there would be a boy with whom she would want to go to Target to shop for school stuff. It was yet another project they had together, more light-hearted than some.
Carmen burst through the front door to collect her shopping list and her debit card. She’d forgotten to bring them when a bunch of them had met for breakfast—Tibby, Brian, Lena, Effie, and Win—at the Tastee Diner a couple of hours before.
Carmen slowed to a pause in the living room. She was struck by how different the apartment felt to her in these days since Win, since the baby. The walls felt closer in and yet the floor seemed slightly farther away. It was quiet. For once the air conditioners were mute. The tiniest hint of autumn blew in the open window. Maybe that was why the air felt new to her.
She was in a hurry; she had things to do. This apartment waited for her nonetheless. It always waited.
She knew that when she turned the corner of the hallway she would find her mother in her room with the baby. And there she was. She and baby Ryan were curled up in the bed.
They spent their mornings nursing and sleeping. Carmen often visited them in her free moments, kissing the baby’s fists and swaddling him like a burrito before he kicked his way out again. Now Christina was sleeping, and Ryan was starting to wriggle. Carmen put her hand on his miniature back, admiring the efforts of her small brother.
She felt so different about him than she had expected. He was hers, and she ached at his fragility and his temper and the shape of his ears, already just like hers. But she also respected that he was Christina and David’s.
She had expected, before he was born, that he would be part of her old world, vying for her space and all that she claimed. But he wasn’t. He belonged to the new world. They both did, together.
Bridget’s victory wasn’t so sweet. Well, except for her players. It was sweet for them. They strode around the camp like superheroes for the rest of the week, clucking and retelling the major points of the game (there weren’t many). She was happy for them. She had grown to love them.
She’d had a blessed, one-day return home to Bethesda, and seeing her friends made her feel like life made sense again. When she came back to camp, she hung out with Diana and slept and ate, building up her strength again. She knew she could withstand her injured heart, but it took work, and in some moments, a lot of faith.
She realized she wasn’t completely finished with Eric. She could keep her sadness to herself and wonder forever what had really happened. Two summers before, she had been mute. She had taken it all upon herself and let it churn and spoil inside of her. But she didn’t feel like doing that anymore.
She waited until the camp was mostly quiet and went searching for him in his cabin. It brought back memories of a certain other experience long ago, fetching him from his bed. That time she went in after him. This time she was prim as a pilgrim. She knocked politely and waited.
He came to the door and opened it. Did he look slightly afraid of her, or did she imagine that?
“Would you mind taking a walk with me?” she asked. She was going to say something to reassure him that she wouldn’t jump him or anything, but was that really necessary? Hadn’t she proven her good intentions? Hadn’t they earned her anything? Or could you never live something like that down? Could a girl ever really repair her reputation in the ways that counted?
He nodded. He disappeared for a few seconds and returned wearing a T-shirt and shoes along with his shorts.
They just walked for a while. She had her hair bunched up in an elastic. She wore a beat-up football jersey over the Pants. She’d tried wearing shoes for a week, but now she was back to bare feet. She’d decided she could accept a splinter every now and then as the cost of foot freedom.
Without thinking they wandered down toward the lake and ambled onto the dock. She sat down and he sat next to her. If they had a place, this was it.
The moon was full, and bright enough to make shadows of them on the quiet water. She liked their watery selves.
“I’m just going to talk for a while and you listen. Okay?” Why had she added the okay? She didn’t mean to ask him for permission.
He nodded.
“I may talk about stuff you don’t like,” she warned him.
He nodded again. He looked tired, she realized. Even in this frail light she could see the bluish half-circles under his eyes. He looked as though he hadn’t shaved in a while.
“I thought we became friends this summer,” she said. “I didn’t know if it would be possible after what we did—I did—two summers ago, but then it happened. I was happy. I loved being your friend. I admit I may have had some other thoughts too, but they didn’t matter to me nearly as much as being your friend. I was happy to be close to you on any terms.” Bridget needed to be honest tonight. That was the reason she was here.
He looked down, fiddling with the worn leather watchband around his wrist.
“I wasn’t trying to be your girlfriend. I know you have one. I accept that. I didn’t want to get in the way of it. I am happy for you if you are happy with her. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard for me, but I meant it…I mean, I mean it. I wanted you to trust me.”
Still looking down, he appeared to nod.
“And we spent time together and we did stuff and we had fun. At least, I had fun. And I thought you had fun.” Her voice was getting a little wobbly, but she pushed ahead. “And then when I got sick you took care of me. You took care of me as nicely as anyone ever did in my life. Even if our whole lives pass and we don’t see each other or talk to each other again, I will never forget it.” She paused so that the tears wouldn’t drown her words. She wanted to keep them in her eyes if she possibly could.
“I trusted you. I thought you cared about me. Not like a girlfriend. I’m not talking about that. I trusted you to be my friend. And then you just disappeared. I couldn’t figure out what happened. I felt so close to you and then you were gone. You made me believe in you and then you let me down. Is that how it is with you? Do you let people get close just so you can disappoint them?” She brushed the tears out of her eyes before they could fall.
Eric was looking up now, his eyes serious and shiny like hers. “Bee. No. That’s not how it is with me.”
Her chin quivered, though she wished it would not. “Then how is it?”
He sat up a bit straighter. He studied his knuckles. He opened his hands and shut them again. “I’m just going to talk for a while, and you listen, okay?”
“Okay.”
“The reason I don’t like to talk about what happened two summers ago is because I hate myself for it. I’m not saying you didn’t do your part; you did. But I could have resisted. That would have been the right thing to do. But I didn’t because I wanted the same thing you wanted, and that was wrong. You think it was just you, but I wanted it just as much. You should know that.”
She could hardly move. She watched his face and listened.
“The reason I disappeared after you got sick is because I needed to go to New York and it couldn’t wait. I drove up there and saw Kaya because I needed to tell her that I couldn’t
be with her anymore.”
Bridget sucked in a little breath.
He looked sad. “I thought I loved her. Two months ago, I told her I loved her. I couldn’t let that stand. It seemed wrong.”
Bridget wanted terribly to ask him questions, but she also wanted to do her fair share of being quiet. She pressed her lips shut.
He opened his hands and put them together like he was going to pray. “And the reason it was wrong is because I knew I couldn’t really love her if I felt something so much bigger for somebody else.”
Bridget was frozen. She was scared to think through what he meant in case he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.
“And the reason I’ve been mostly staying out of sight is because when I’m near you my thoughts don’t go straight. I need to get them straightened out before I do anything else stupid.”
Bridget grabbed a look at him. Hope was filling her chest even as she tried to push it back out.
“When I was in New York, all I wanted was to rush back to you. But what would that mean? That I dumped Kaya so I could be with you? That I was a guy who’d forget a girl he thought he loved in five hours or less?” He was shaking his head. “And anyway, I didn’t want you to feel responsible for breaking us up. I know you weren’t pulling for that. All summer you were selfless enough to respect the thing with Kaya, and I wasn’t. That sucks. I didn’t feel like I deserved to come running back to you. I felt ashamed.”
Bridget couldn’t follow all these thoughts at once. She couldn’t figure out which way they led.
“There is one thing I feel sure of, and I know it is right. All these days I keep coming back to this one thing. We spent that night together, me holding you, and I felt something stronger than I ever felt for anybody else, and stronger than I even thought it was possible to feel. It blew me away. On theory alone, that made me know I couldn’t be with Kaya anymore.”
He shook his head again. He looked sort of disgusted with himself, but tempted to laugh too. “I’ve been wanting to be rational, to believe my decision about Kaya is theoretical and not just driven by my insane, out-of-my-head attraction for you.”
“Is it…,” she asked breathlessly, “…theoretical?”
He looked at her face very closely. “Not at all.”
You guys!
6-½ days! Ahhhhhhh! Yahhhhhhhh! Wahhhhhhhh!
Carma
The letter came to Lena postmarked from Providence, Rhode Island, at almost the last moment it could have before the end-of-the-summer beach trip. Lena’s heart throbbed as she opened it, but she knew it wouldn’t determine her fate, even if the answer was no.
Because Annik was right. She was an artist. She would find her way no matter who said what. Her fate didn’t belong to anyone else anymore.
The letter didn’t say no; it said yes. Lena closed her eyes and allowed the pleasure to seep through her. She was strict with herself about feeling joy, but this moment she had earned.
She went into the kitchen and literally sat on the letter, thinking about it for a long time. She would go and she could go. She didn’t need her parents’ money and she didn’t need their permission. She thought about that, too. She didn’t need it, but she wanted it. That’s what she realized.
She put on a neat navy skirt and a pretty linen blouse. She brushed her hair smooth and put pearl earrings in her ears. She borrowed her mother’s car to drive to her father’s office.
Mrs. Jeffords, her father’s secretary, sent Lena in without announcing her.
Her father looked surprised to see her in the doorway. Indeed, he was so surprised, he appeared genuinely happy at the sight of her, like he’d forgotten everything that had happened in the preceding two months and returned instinctively to his old tenderness.
“Come in,” he urged, standing up.
She was still holding the letter when she sat down across from him. “I heard from art school about the scholarship,” she said.
“You got it,” he said evenly.
“How did you know?” she asked.
He looked placid, almost philosophical. “Because I saw your drawings. When I saw them I knew you would get it.”
This was one of the less direct compliments she had ever received. If it even was one.
“Daddy, I don’t want to upset or disappoint you. But I really do want to go. I want you and Mom to want it with me.”
He sighed. He put his elbow on his desk and rested his cheek in his palm in a boyish way. “Lena, I’m afraid I’m the one who’s upset and disappointed you.”
She didn’t hurry up and nod, but she wasn’t going to argue, either.
“You should go to art school. You proved it to me with those drawings just as you proved it to the scholarship people.”
She kept her expression in check. She didn’t trust him yet. “So it’s okay with you, then?”
He thought about this for a while. “I’m honored that you’re asking me when you earned the right not to have to.”
Her chest ached. “I want to ask you,” she said. “It matters to me what you say.”
“The answer is yes.”
“Thanks.”
She got up to go.
“Lena?”
“Yes?”
“When I began to realize, with your mother’s help, the depth of my recent mistakes”—he cleared his throat—“I felt proud of you for not going along with them.”
“You didn’t make it easy,” she told him honestly.
God help me, Rena dear, I am coming home. George has finally seen the sense in it. Effie will fly home with me in one week. Please make arrangements with Pina, if you can spare her, to air out my house?
Dearest Valia, I cry as I read this. How happy we will be to have you home where you belong!
I have tried in my way to be free.
—Leonard Cohen
“Hi, Dad.”
“Carmen? Hi, bun! How are you?”
She felt slightly sheepish, but she couldn’t let this wait any longer. “I’m fine.”
“How’s the baby?”
“He’s great. He kicks like a black belt.”
Albert laughed appreciatively, even though it was the baby of his ex-wife and her new husband they were talking about.
“How’s your mom?” He asked it in a genuine way.
“She’s great, too. She says it’s all coming back to her, even eighteen years later.”
“I’m sure it is,” her dad said a little wistfully.
“So, Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
He waited patiently, though she sort of wished he would interrupt.
“Do you think…um…” She pulled her heavy hair off of her sweaty neck. “Do you think Williams might consider taking me back again?”
“Do you think you want to go there?”
Carmen didn’t want to seem like she was making her decisions rashly, so she didn’t belt out her answer, but rather, paused. “I do.”
“What about Maryland?”
Carmen chewed her lip. “I was thinking I might board there, you know, get the college experience and still be close to home. But then I realized I really, really want to go to Williams. Do you think they’ll take me back? God, I mean, what are the chances they would keep a spot?” Her voice ended squeaky and she didn’t sound calm anymore.
“I’ll tell you what,” her dad said. “Let me call.”
Carmen made attempts to clean her room while she waited. In truth, she did that spasmodic, surface rearranging, like putting the random AA battery into her sock drawer to get it out of sight, that would only make the job bigger when she got down to real cleaning.
Less than ten minutes later, the phone rang. She pounced at half a ring. So much for calm.
“Hi?”
“Hi.” It was her dad again.
“Did you talk to them?” she blurted out.
“I did. And Williams College says you’re good to go.”
“They’l
l take me?”
“Yep.”
“Just like that?”
“Yep.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Seriously?” Carmen was afraid to let herself be happy quite so soon.
“I’m happy for you, bun,” her dad said. “I can hear in your voice that it’s really what you want.”
“It’s really what I want,” she echoed.
She shook her head, feeling the nerves sizzle and zing all over her body. “I can’t believe it’s that easy.”
He didn’t respond. “You better start packing,” he said instead. “And you have fun at the beach with your friends this weekend.”
“I will. Thanks.”
After she told him she loved him and hung up the phone, she got another sneaking suspicion. Could this have been a case of parental collusion again? Maybe even deceitful parental intervention?
Had her dad ever called Williams and told them she wasn’t coming? Had he ever gotten his deposit back? Was this another case of her parents knowing her better than she knew herself?
It was really annoying, in a way. But then, it was good to be loved.
Carmabelle: Will you pack the green tube top, so I can be extremely tricky and steal it the first minute you turn away?
Tibberon: Sure. But how am I going to figure out who took it?
Carmabelle: I’m excited.
Tibberon: I’m excited too.
For three long days, Bridget left Eric alone so his thoughts would go straight. And at the end of the third day, just when she thought she couldn’t stand it anymore, his head, thoughts and all, appeared by her bed, where she lay.
“Would you mind taking a walk with me?” he whispered.
She jumped out of bed. She followed him out of her cabin in her T-shirt and boxers. Suddenly she remembered something Carmen had said in the beginning of the summer. “Can you wait for me for one second?”
She left him outside and went back into the cabin. She found her white halter dress from the senior party still balled up in the bottom of her duffel bag. She hadn’t thought she would be wearing it. She shed her clothes and pulled the dress over her head. Luckily, the silky material didn’t hold its wrinkles.