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Although Tibby was the least physical of the group, she wished Bee were sitting next to her. And yet she knew intuitively that Bee was sitting on her bureau for a reason. She didn’t want to be sitting on a low, soft place within easy range of comfort. She also knew that Bee had chosen Tibby for this conversation because as much as Tibby loved her, she would listen without overwhelming her.
“How do you mean?”
“I think about the person I used to be, and she seems so far away. She walked fast, I walk slow. She stayed up late and got up early, I sleep. I feel like if she gets any farther away, I won’t be connected to her at all anymore.”
Tibby’s desire to go closer to Bee was so strong she had to clamp her elbows against her legs to make them stay put. Bee’s arms were wrapped around her body, containing her.
“Do you want … to stay connected to her?” Tibby’s words were slow and quiet, seeming to make their way to Bridget one at a time.
Bee had made every effort to change herself this year. Tibby quietly suspected she knew the reason. Bee couldn’t outrun her troubles, so she’d entered her own version of the witness protection program. Tibby knew how it was to lose someone you loved. And she also knew how tempting it was to cast off that sad, ruined part of yourself like a sweater you’d outgrown.
“Do I want to?” Bee thought about the words carefully. Some people (like Tibby, for instance) tended to listen in a muffled, sheltered way. Bee was the opposite.
“I think I do.” Tears flooded Bee’s eyes, gluing her yellow eyelashes into triangles. Tibby felt tears fill her own eyes.
“You need to find her then,” Tibby said, and her throat ached.
Bee stretched out one arm and left it out there, her palm turned up to the ceiling. Tibby got up without thinking and took the hand. Bee laid her head on Tibby’s shoulder. Tibby felt the softness of Bee’s hair and the moisture from her eyes against her collarbone.
“That’s why I’m going,” Bee said.
Later, when Tibby pulled away from Bee, she wondered about herself. She wasn’t as destructive as Bee. She had never been as dramatic. Rather, she’d slipped carefully, stealthily away from her ghosts.
Late that afternoon, Carmen lay in her bed feeling happy. She’d just returned from Tibby’s, where Bee and Lena had turned up too. They would gather again tonight for the second annual Pants initiation at Gilda’s. Carmen had thought she’d be feeling miserable right around now, feeling sorry that she wasn’t going anywhere. But she often found good-byes easier than expected. She took care of most of the dreading beforehand. And besides, seeing Bee had made her happy. Bee had a plan, and Carmen was glad. Carmen would miss her like crazy, but something inside Bee had shifted for the good.
The summer didn’t look so bad from where she lay. They had drawn straws to determine the route of the Pants, and Carmen would get them first. She had the Pants and a date tomorrow night with one of the best-looking guys in her class. That was fate, wasn’t it? That had to mean something.
All winter she’d tried to imagine what the Pants would bring her this summer, and now, with the convergence of her date and the Pants, she saw the big clue she’d been hoping for. This summer, they’d be the Love Pants.
Carmen sat up when she heard a familiar trill from her computer. It was an instant message from Bee.
Beezy3: Packing. Do you have my purple sock with the heart on the ankle?
Carmabelle: No. Like I’d wear your socks.
Carmen looked from her computer screen down to her feet. To her dismay, her socks were two faintly different shades of purple. She rotated her foot to get a view of her anklebone.
Carmabelle: Ahem. Might possibly have sock.
The door of Gilda’s Aerobics Studio in upper Bethesda had a lock that was laughably easy to pick. But when they got to the top of the stairs, the smell of old sweat was so pervasive Carmen wondered why anyone besides them would choose to be there, never mind take the trouble to break in.
They got right to work, with a feeling of grandness in the air. It was already late. Bee was boarding a bus to Alabama at five thirty in the morning, and Tibby was leaving for Williamston College in the afternoon.
As a matter of tradition, Lena set up the candles and Tibby laid out the Gummi Worms, the deformed cheese puffs, the bottles of juice. Bridget set up the music, but she didn’t turn it on.
All eyes were on the bag in Carmen’s arms. They had each inscribed the Pants and ceremoniously put them away in September after Carmen’s birthday, the last of the four. None of them had seen them since.
There was a hush as Carmen opened the bag. She drew out the moment, proud that she was the one who had found the Pants—though, granted, she was also the one who had almost thrown them away. She let the bag fall to the ground as the Pants seemed to flutter open in slow motion, swirling the air with their memories.
In silent awe, Carmen laid the Pants on the floor, and the girls arranged themselves in a circle around them. Lena unfolded the Manifesto and laid it on top of them. They all knew the rules. They didn’t need to look at them now. They had already diagrammed the route of the Pants, and the logistics were a lot easier this summer.
They held hands.
“This is it,” Carmen breathed. The moment was all around them. She remembered the vow from last summer. They all remembered it. They said it together:
“To honor the Pants and the Sisterhood
And this moment and this summer and the rest of our lives
Together and apart.”
It was midnight, the end of together … and in another way, the beginning of it.
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
—Nelson Mandela
Though the town of Burgess, Alabama, population 12,042, lived large in Bridget’s mind, it didn’t warrant a lot of fanfare as a stop on the Triangle bus line. In fact, Bridget almost slept straight through it. Luckily, when the driver threw the parking brake, it jolted her awake, and she groggily hopped around, grabbing her bags. She raced off the bus so fast she forgot her rain jacket bunched up under the seat.
She walked along the sidewalk to the town’s center, noticing the fine, straight lines between the paving stones. Most sidewalk cracks you saw were fake joints pressed into wet cement, but these were real. Bee stepped on each crack forcefully, defiantly, feeling the sun beating down on her back and a burst of energy in her chest. Finally, she was doing something. She didn’t know what, exactly, but action always suited her better than waiting around.
In a quick survey of downtown, she noticed two churches, a hardware store, a pharmacy, a Laundromat, an ice cream place with tables outside, and what looked like a courthouse. Farther down Market Street she saw a quaint-looking bed-and-breakfast, which she knew would be too expensive, and around the corner from that, on Royal Street, a less quaint Victorian with a weather-beaten red sign that said ROYAL STREET ARMS, and under that, ROOMS FOR RENT.
She walked up the steps and rang the bell. A slight woman in her fifties or so answered the door.
Bridget pointed up to the sign. “I noticed your sign. I’m looking for a room to rent for a couple of weeks.” Or a couple of months.
The woman nodded, studying Bridget carefully. It was her house, Bridget could see. It was big and had probably even been grand once, but it, and she, had obviously fallen on hard times.
They introduced themselves, and the woman, Mrs. Bennett, showed Bridget a bedroom on the second floor at the front of the house. It was simply furnished but big and sunny. It had a ceiling fan and a hot plate and a minifridge.
“This one shares a bathroom and costs seventy-five dollars a week,” she explained.
“I’ll take it,” Bridget said. She would have to finesse the issue of ID by putting down a giant deposit, but she had brought $450 in cash, and hopefully she’d find a job soon.
Mrs. Bennett ticked off the house rules, and Bridget paid up.
