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He was taken aback by her directness. He glanced across at her and groaned. “Look, I'm . . . flattered. I'm honored. Who wouldn't be?”
Bridget clenched her jaws. Flattered and honored weren't the words she wanted to hear. Anyway, she didn't believe them.
He picked up the pace so they were a little farther ahead. “Bridget, you are beautiful. You are amazing and talented and just . . . just . . . irrepressible.” His voice was softer now. He met her eyes. “It's not like I haven't noticed. Trust me, I have.”
She felt hopeful now.
“But I'm a coach and you're . . . sixteen.”
“So what?” she said.
“First of all it would be wrong, and second, it's completely against the rules.”
Bridget tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Those aren't rules I care about.”
Eric's face had closed off again. “I don't have a choice about them.”
Though breakfast with Bapi had become a routine, it hadn't lost its awkwardness. Especially after what had happened.
This morning her Rice Krispies violently snapped, crackled, and popped while Bapi ate quiet Cheerios.
She studied him, searching for her moment. She tried to catch his gray-green eyes, similar in color to hers. She wanted to look sincere and repentant, but her noisy cereal was messing up the effect. The sight of the clumpy little stitches in his wrinkled skin gave her a pang of shame at the bottom of her stomach.
“Bapi, I . . .”
He looked up. His face was concerned.
“Well, I just . . .” Her voice was practically shaking. What was she thinking? Bapi didn't even speak English.
Bapi nodded and put his hand over hers. It was a sweet gesture. It meant love and protection, but it also meant, We don't have to talk about it.
She wished Effie weren't such a snoozer in the morning. Lena had been too tired and confused to come clean to Effie last night, and her grandparents hadn't discussed it at all. Effie had asked about the bandage on his cheek, but Bapi had shrugged it off, muttering in Greek. Now Lena wanted to tell her sister the whole story and at least get the patented Effie reality check, even if it was punishing. After that she'd tell Grandma, and then Grandma could explain it to Bapi. That would work better. But Effie was still asleep.
Upstairs after breakfast, Lena packed up her painting supplies. Routine always helped an unsettled mind. She peered out her window at the time Kostos usually passed by to stop at the café up the street, before turning back downhill to the forge, but this morning he didn't. Of course he didn't.
Leaving the house, she decided to walk downhill today. Sunlight pulsing off the white walls beat into her eyes, casting clear light into her brain and illuminating its dusty, disregarded corners.
She walked toward Kostos's house. Because of the curve of the sidewalk, his house was positioned in such a way that if you happened to trip and roll, and the door to his house happened to be open, you could end up in his living room.
She walked by slowly. No sign of activity. Heading farther down the cliffside, she sent herself in the direction she believed the forge to be. Maybe she would pass him. Maybe she could talk to him or at least communicate by her facial expression that she knew things had gotten powerfully out of hand.
She didn't see him. She kept walking. Halfheartedly, she set up her easel just under her favorite church. She got out her charcoal, ready to scratch out the bones of the bell tower. Her hand hesitated as her mind raced around.
She put the charcoal away. Today, for a change, she didn't feel like spending quality time with Lena. She packed up the rest of her things and headed back uphill. Maybe she would pass by Kostos this time. Maybe she would go shopping with Effie, as Effie was always wanting to do, and buy one of those dumb olive-wood tourist bowls.
Maybe she would find a way to tell her grandmother what had really happened.
Well, she told herself on the bright side, Kostos wouldn't be bothering her anymore. But that side didn't seem so bright just now.
Carma,
We went hiking across this volcano field. Tres Virgenes, it's called. Quattro Virgenes and it could have been us. I swear I could smell the smoke, even though our guide said the volcanoes were inactive since last century.
Then we hiked down south through these canyons to look at ancient Indian rock art. First there were these hunting scenes, and then there was one big painting after another of these huge penises. Diana and I were laughing so hard we just sat on the ground. The coaches who came with us tried to shuttle us along. It was hilarious. I wish you could have been there.
Oh, the crazy pleasures of Baja.
Love,
Bee
“Barbara, you know my daughter, Krista,” Lydia said to the dressmaker on Tuesday afternoon.
Krista smiled delightfully.
Lydia gestured toward Carmen. “And this is my . . .” She paused. Carmen knew Lydia was working herself up to say stepdaughter, like Al called Krista, but she backed down. “This is Carmen.”
“Lydia's my stepmother,” Carmen clarified, just to be obnoxious.
Barbara wore her blond hair in a perfect bell-shaped bob. Her teeth, when she smiled, were a wall of white. Big and fake, Carmen concluded.
Barbara stared at Carmen. Carmen's hair was in a messy wad at the back. Her red tank top was soaked with sweat. “This is Albert's daughter?” she asked with obvious surprise, looking to Lydia instead of Carmen for verification.
“This is Albert's daughter,” Carmen answered for herself.
Barbara wanted to backtrack. After all, Albert was paying the bills. “It's just that you . . . you must take after your mother,” she said, as though that were diplomatic.
“I do,” Carmen confirmed. “My mother is Puerto Rican. She speaks with an accent. She says a rosary.”
Nobody seemed to pick up on her sauciness. The invisible girl.
“She has her father's aptitude for math,” Lydia argued faintly, as though in her heart she didn't believe Carmen was related to Albert at all.
Carmen felt like smacking her.
“Well, let's get on with the fitting,” Barbara suggested, setting an armful of plastic garment bags down on Lydia's bed. Lydia and Albert's bed. “Krista, let's try yours first.”
“Oh, oh, can we look at Mama's first?” Krista begged. She literally pressed her hands together wistfully.
Carmen disappeared into an upholstered chair by the wall as Lydia proudly donned what looked to be at least seventy yards of shiny white fabric. Carmen thought it was frankly embarrassing for a woman over forty with two teenage children to wear a big puffy white thing at her wedding. The bodice was fitted, and the cap sleeves showed a whole lot of over-forty arm.
“Mama, you are gorgeous. You are a vision. I'm going to cry,” Krista gushed without actually crying.
Carmen realized she was tapping her foot against the glassy wood floor, and she made herself stop.
Next, sweet, miniature, pale Krista tried on a pink-purple taffeta gown. Carmen could only pray her dress would not be identical to this one.
Krista's had to be taken in a little at the waist. “Oooh,” said Krista, laughing, as Barbara cinched and pinned. The dress was heinous, but on colorless, curveless Krista it worked as well as it could.
