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“Hi. Hi.” Bridget waved to two girls lugging their stuff into the cabin. They had tan, muscular soccer-player legs.
Bridget followed them into the cabin. Almost all the beds were claimed. “You want to go swimming?” she asked. Bridget wasn't afraid of strangers. Often she liked them better than people she knew.
“I've got to unpack,” one of the girls said.
“I think we're supposed to go to dinner in a couple of minutes,” the other one said.
“Okay,” Bridget said easily. “I'm Bridget, by the way. See you later,” she called over her shoulder.
She changed into her bathing suit in an outside shower and ventured out onto the sand. The air felt the exact temperature of her skin. The water held all the colors of the sunset. Fading sun rays touched her shoulders as they disappeared behind the hills. She dove in and stayed under a long time.
I'm happy to be here, Bridget thought. Her mind flicked for a split second to Lena and the Traveling Pants—to how she couldn't wait to get ahold of them and live her own story in them.
A little while later, when she arrived at dinner, she was thrilled to see long tables set up on the big, simple deck off the side of the cafeteria building, instead of crammed in under the low ceiling inside. A wig of dense magenta bougainvillea drooped from the roof and crept along the railings. It seemed crazy to spend even a minute indoors here.
Tonight she sat with the rest of cabin four. There were a total of six cabins, which she quickly calculated to mean eighty-four girls, all of whom were serious athletes. You couldn't come here if you weren't. She would know, and possibly even care about, these girls by the end, but tonight they were hard to keep track of. She was pretty sure the one with the dark, shoulder-length hair was Emily. The girl with the frizzy blond hair across from her was Olivia, called Ollie. Next to Ollie was an African American girl with hair down to the middle of her back, named Diana.
Over seafood tacos, huge mounds of rice and beans, and lemonade that tasted as though it was made from powder, Connie stood at a makeshift podium and talked about her years on the U.S. Women's Olympic Team. Spread among the tables were various coaches and trainers.
Back in her cabin, Bridget crawled into her sleeping bag and stared at the crack of moonlight reaching through two planks of wood in the ceiling. Suddenly it occurred to her: She was in Baja. Why should she grasp for a crack of the sky when she could have the whole thing? She got up and bunched her sleeping bag and pillow under her arm.
“Anybody want to sleep on the beach?” she asked the group.
There was a pause and scattered discussion.
“Are we allowed to?” Emily asked.
“I never heard that we weren't,” Bridget answered. It wasn't crucial to her plans that anyone follow her, but it was also fine when two others did—Diana and another girl named Jo.
They set up their sleeping bags at the edge of the wide beach. Who knew how high the tide came? The gentle sound of the surf beat away on the beach. The stars spread out above them, glorious.
Bridget was so joyful, so full, it was hard to make herself lie down in the sleeping bag. She heard herself sigh at the pulsing sky spread out above her. “I love this.”
Jo dug deeper into her sleeping bag. “It is unbelievable.”
For a while the three of them watched the sky in silence.
Diana raised her head and propped it on her elbow. “I don't know if I can fall asleep. It's so . . . obliterating, you know? The feeling of insignificance. Your mind wanders out there and just keeps on going.”
Bridget laughed appreciatively. At that moment, Diana reminded her of Carmen in the nicest way, full of philosophy and psychochatter. “Honestly?” Bridget said. “That idea never occurred to me.”
Planes are so clean. Carmen liked that. She liked the orderly, corporate smell and the sheer number of wrappers in her snack basket.
She admired the snack itself, the miniature apple. Exactly the right size, shape, and color. Kind of fake, but reassuring at the same time. She tucked it into her bag. She'd save a little order for later.
She'd never been to her dad's apartment—he'd always come to see her instead. But she'd imagined it. Her dad wasn't a slob, but he didn't have that second X chromosome either. There wouldn't be curtains in the windows or dust ruffles on the beds or baking soda in the fridge. There would be a few dust creatures roaming the floor. Maybe not right in the middle of the room, but over by the sofa probably. (There would be a sofa, wouldn't there?) She hoped she would be sleeping on cotton sheets. Knowing her dad, he might have the polyester blend kind. Carmen had polyester issues. She couldn't help it.
Maybe between tennis games and John Woo movies, and whatever things they found to do on a Saturday afternoon, she could take him to Bed Bath & Beyond and get some matching towels and a real teakettle. He would complain about it, but she would make it fun, and afterward he would appreciate her for it. She imagined that maybe he would be sad at the end of the summer and investigate the local high school and ask her, seriously, whether she could ever feel at home in South Carolina.
Carmen glanced down at the row of bumps on her forearm that were making the fine, dark hairs stand up.
She hadn't seen her dad since Christmas. Christmas was always their time. Since the year she was seven and her parents split up, her dad had come every year and stayed at the Embassy Suites in Friendship Heights for four days, and they hung out. They'd go to movies, run on the canal, and return the hilarious Christmas presents she got from his sisters.
Often there were other nights, maybe three or four during the year, when he would come up to D.C. on business. She knew he took almost any excuse to get up to the Washington area. They always had dinner at a restaurant she picked. She tried to choose places he would like. She always checked his face carefully as he studied the menu and then as he took his first bite. She hardly tasted her own food.
She felt the grinding sound under the plane. Either an engine was falling off, or the wheels were unfolding for landing. It was too cloudy to gauge how close they were to the ground. She pressed her forehead to the cold plastic window. She squinted, wishing for a break in the clouds. She wanted to see the ocean. She wanted to figure out which way was north. She wanted the big picture before she landed.
“Please put your tray in its upright and locked position,” a flight attendant chirped to the man sitting next to her in the aisle seat; then she grabbed the remains of Carmen's snack basket. The man next to Carmen was heavy and mostly bald and kept pushing his pleather briefcase into Carmen's shin.
On planes, Bridget always sat next to adorable college guys who asked for her number before they landed. Carmen always got the middle seat between men with fat fingers, class rings, and sales reports.
“Flight attendants, please take your seats,” the captain said over the P.A. system. Carmen felt a thrill in the bottom of her stomach. She uncrossed her legs, putting both feet on the ground. She made the sign of the cross like her mother always did at takeoffs and landings. She felt like kind of a faker, but was this really a moment to break superstitions?
Tibby,
You are with me, even though you aren't. I love everything about this trip but being apart and knowing you're sad about being home. I don't feel right being happy knowing that. I feel so weird without you guys. Without you here being Tibby, I'm being a little bit Tibby-doing it badly compared to you, though.
Infinite X's and O's,
Carma
