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I hope you'll all be very happy being blond together. May people speak only in inside voices for the rest of your lives.
P.S. Lydia, your wedding dress makes your arms look fat.
Carmen opened the padded envelope and shoved in all her cash. One hundred eighty-seven dollars. She considered putting in the ninety cents in change, but it seemed like something a seven-year-old in an after-school special would do. And besides, it would probably cost more postage to send coins than the coins were worth. That thought stimulated her math-geek brain.
She stapled the envelope closed without including a note and carefully wrote out the address and return address, then hustled out the door to get to the post office before it closed. Who was her mom to complain that she loafed around the house with nothing to do?
On a sweltering afternoon, Lena was lying on her back on the tile floor, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Bridget. Bridget's last letter worried her. Bee followed her heart with such manic abandon sometimes, it scared Lena. Usually Bee sailed along in triumph and glory, but once in a while she crashed on the rocks.
For some reason Lena thought of a dream she'd had. In it, she was a small house with whitewashed knuckles clinging to the side of the cliff. She knew she had to hold on tight, because it was a long drop into the cauldron below. A part of her wanted to release those cramped fingers and just fall, but another part of her warned that you couldn't just fall for the thrill of it.
Grandma was sitting on the sofa, sewing something. Effie was off somewhere. Lena would have bet her paints her sister was making out with the waiter.
For some reason, thinking about Bridget or maybe the dream, or maybe it was the heat, put Lena in a funny, free-associating kind of mood. “Grandma, why does Kostos live with his grandparents?”
Grandma sighed. Then, to Lena's surprise, she started to answer. “It's a sad story, lamb. Are you sure you vant to know it?”
Lena wasn't totally sure. Grandma went on anyway.
“Kostos's parents moved to the United States, like so many young people,” she explained. “He vas born there.”
“Kostos is a U.S. citizen?” Lena asked.
Lena was too hot to turn her head, but she did anyway. Grandma nodded.
“Where did they live?”
“New York City.”
“Oh,” Lena said.
“His parents had Kostos, then another little boy two years later.”
Lena was beginning to guess how sad this story was going to be.
“When Kostos vas three years old, the whole family vas driving to the mountains in the vintertime. There vas a terrible car wreck. Kostos lost both his parents and his baby brother.”
Grandma paused, and Lena felt, even in 115-degree heat, shivery bumps rise over the length of her body.
When Grandma started up again, Lena could hear the emotion in her voice. “They sent little Kostos back here to his grandparents. It vas the best idea at the time.”
Grandma was in a strange mood, Lena observed. She was unusually relaxed, reflective, full of old sorrow. “He grew up here as a Greek boy. And ve all loved him. The whole town of Oia raised him.”
“Hey, Grandma?”
“Yes, lamb?”
This was her moment. She didn't let herself think long enough to chicken out. “You know that Kostos never hurt me. He never touched me or did anything wrong. He is just the boy you think he is.”
Grandma let out a long breath. She put her sewing down and settled herself back on the sofa. “I tink I knew that. After some time passed, I tink I knew that.”
“I'm sorry I didn't say anything before,” Lena said solemnly, filled with equal parts relief at having finally said it and sadness that it had taken her this long.
“In some vay, maybe you did try to tell me,” Grandma noted philosophically.
“Will you tell Bapi what I just said?” Lena asked.
“I tink he already knows.”
Lena's throat now felt painfully tight. She turned over from her back to her side, away from Grandma, and let her eyelids shut to release her tears.
She was sad about what had happened to Kostos. And someplace under that, she was sad that people like Bee and Kostos, who had lost everything, were still open to love, and she, who'd lost nothing, was not.
Bridget moved herself out to the little porch of her cabin. She could look at the bay at least. She had a pen and a pad of paper. She needed to send the Pants off to Carmen, but today was a hard day for writing.
She was sitting there, chewing on her pen cap, when Eric came over. He sat on the railing.
“How's it going?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said.
“You missed the game,” he said. He didn't touch her. He didn't look at her. “It was a good one. Diana tore up the field.”
They were rewinding the clock. He was back to being the benign coach, and she was the irrepressible camper. He was asking her permission to pretend that whatever had happened didn't happen.
She wasn't sure she wanted to give it. “I was tired. Big night last night.”
His face colored. He held out his hands and looked at his palms. “Listen, Bridget.” He seemed to be picking over a very paltry assortment of phrases. “I should have sent you away last night. I shouldn't have followed you when I saw you pass by my door. . . . I was wrong. I take responsibility.”
“It was my choice to come.” How dare he take her power?
“But I'm older than you. I'm the one who . . . I'm the one who would get in serious shit if people found out.”
He still wouldn't look at her. He didn't know what else to say. He wanted to leave. She could see that clearly. “I'm sorry,” he said.
She threw her pen after him. She hated that he'd said that.
Carmen,
Here are the Pants. I'm very mixed up. If I had listened to your advice about good sense, I wouldn't be like this.
So right back at you. Good sense rules. I wish I had some.
Love,
Bee
“Tibby, turn the camera off.”
“Please, Carma? Please?”
“Can you put on the Pants for the interview?” Bailey asked.
Carmen gave her a look of full disdain. “I'm not doing an interview. What are you guys, the Coen brothers?” she snapped.
“Carmen, just be quiet and cooperate for once in your life.” Tibby said it in a way that was irritable but not mean, if that was possible.
You antagonize people, Carmen reminded herself. You will grow up to be old and bitter. You will wear lipstick way outside the lines and shout at children in restaurants.
“Fine,” she said. She changed into the Pants, then sat and studied Bailey as she started to get her camera equipment in order. The girl was dressed almost exactly the same way as Tibby. She was mini-Tibby with a mike and a boom. Her purple undereye circles even matched Tibby's. Carmen briefly wondered why Tibby was hanging around with a twelve-year-old, but whatever. It wasn't Tibby's fault all her friends had gone away.
The room got quiet. Tibby fiddled with the lights. Both moviemakers got deadly serious. She heard Bailey gasbagging into the mike like Dan Rather minus the testicles. “Carmen Lowell is Tibby's beloved friend from when they were . . .”
This was making Carmen uncomfortable. “Um . . . you know, Tibby and I are fighting right now.”
Tibby cut the camera. Bailey looked up in irritation. She batted the fight away with a flick of her wrist. “You love each other. Tibby loves you. It doesn't matter.”
Carmen glared at her in disbelief. “Hello? You're twelve.”
“So? I'm still right,” Bailey shot back.
“Can we get back to work?” Tibby asked.
Since when had Tibby developed the work ethic of a Pilgrim?
“I'm just saying, it feels weird to go on without mentioning that you and I had a huge fight, Tibby,” Carmen said.
“Fine, you mentioned it,” Tibby said.
Most people avoided conflict. Carmen was
beginning to worry that she craved it like an addict. You antagonize people, she reminded herself. She shoved her hands into her pockets, fingering the grains of sand that were caught in the lining there.
“I'm going to ask the questions,” Bailey said. “You just be yourself.”
How had the modern world created such a confident twelve-year-old? Somebody ought to fill her in on that Ophelia syndrome right away. “Fine,” Carmen said. “Am I supposed to look at the camera?”
“If you want to, you can,” Bailey replied.
“Okay.”
“Ready to go?”
