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Lena stretched her large feet out in front of her. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I asked myself, if I could erase this whole summer, would I?”
“And what did you say?” Bee asked.
“Until yesterday night, I would have said yes, please, put me back how I was.”
Bridget nodded. “And now?”
“And now, I think, maybe not. Maybe I’ll stay here.”
Lena started crying again. She used to cry roughly three times a year. Now she seemed to cry three times before breakfast. Could that be considered progress?
She leaned into Bee, allowing Bee to support her weight. What a strange reversal it was to collapse and let Bee catch her.
But then, she hadn’t just learned to love this summer—she had also learned how to need.
Let the golden age begin.
—Beck
Bee called Tibby and Carmen from Lena’s, and they appeared there moments later, Carmen wearing her shirt inside out and her mother’s slippers, Tibby with her feet bare. They screamed with joy when they saw each other.
Now, hours later, the sun was slanting sunset pink through the window and they still had not left the room. They had talked long and hard, all four of them lying on Lena’s bed. Carmen knew that none of them wanted to break this mood, this spell. But they were also getting hungry.
Tibby and Lena finally set out on an expedition to forage in the kitchen and bring supplies back upstairs. But less than thirty seconds later the two of them burst back into the room.
“We heard people in the kitchen,” Tibby explained with wide, excited eyes.
“Come down and see,” Lena said. “But be quiet.”
On account of their footwear, Carmen noticed, they were good at being quiet. Tibby stopped at the side of the kitchen door, and they all clustered behind her.
Carmen let out her breath when she saw the three mothers sitting at the round table. Their heads were bent, low and confidential. Christina appeared to be telling a funny story, because both Ari and Alice were laughing. Ari’s hands covered her eyes in a gesture just like Lena made when the laughter was getting out of control.
Carmen also noticed the two wine bottles on the table, one empty and one half-full.
There were so many things to feel, looking at them, Carmen couldn’t sort the powerfully sad from the joyful—nor did they really seem distinct. There was the comfort and familiarity of these women’s poses together that brought back a rush of childhood. There was the fourth chair at the table, empty, where Marly should have been, where perhaps Greta now belonged.
Carmen looked around and saw the same rushing emotions in her friends’ faces. They were each feeling the same things and probably different ones too.
Without speaking they followed Tibby out the front door to the empty lot next to the house. Carmen felt herself smiling. The sight of their mothers as friends struck her as a case of something you hoped for mightily but wouldn’t allow yourself to admit you wanted.
The four of them lay on the grass until the sun finished and the stars began. Carmen wondered at the power of silence to create a stronger bond, even, than thousands and thousands of words.
That night the mood at Gilda’s was both sweet and dark. They held hands and improvised a séance for their dead: Marly, Bailey, Bapi. Tibby threw in Brian’s dad and Lena added Kostos, too. He was somebody she needed to mourn. Bee wanted to remember her grandfather. Tibby also thought about Mimi, though she didn’t say so out loud.
After the dead, they honored love. They opened a bottle of champagne that Tibby had stolen from her parents’ basement stash. Carmen wanted to drink to romantic love, but that got tricky right away. Lena wanted to include Brian, but Tibby refused. Carmen wanted to include Paul, but Lena refused. So they widened it to general love and the number got bigger: Greta, Brian, Paul, Valia, Effie, Krista, Billy. Carmen felt virtuous adding David to the list.
Then they wanted to toast their mothers, too. Bee’s eyes filled during that part. She asked if Marly could be in two categories, and they all agreed. Then she asked if Greta could be in two categories too, and they all agreed again.
For this last part, Tibby brought out a surprise. Carefully she unwrapped the photograph Ari had sent to her mother and placed it on the Traveling Pants in the middle of their circle. They all leaned and squinted to get a good look.
Four young women sat on a brick wall. They all had their arms around each other’s shoulders and waists. They all overlapped their ankles, like they might burst into a cancan. They were laughing. One of them had beautiful blond hair. One had dark wavy hair and dark eyes—her smile was the widest. One had freckles and flyaway hair. The fourth had straight black hair and classic features. It was a picture of friendship, but it wasn’t the Sisterhood. It was their mothers, long ago. Tibby noted with joy that all four of them were wearing jeans.
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
Ann Brashares
