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“Kostos stays in an apartment in Vothonas, near the airport. He has a job for a house-building company.”
Lena couldn’t control her thoughts. She would have if she could.
Had the baby miscarried, so that Mariana owned his sympathy? Or had it been a hoax, so that Kostos despised her? Had Kostos grown to love his wife? Or hate her? Would there be a different baby, if not the first one? These were the regular thoughts she’d had thousands of times. Now she had new ones to add: Were Kostos and his wife really separating? Or was he temporarily relocating for a new job, and she would soon join him?
Lena would have considered electroshock therapy if it meant getting rid of these thoughts.
“That’s interesting,” she said faintly to the wall. She couldn’t let Valia see how these news bulletins affected her.
Valia launched into her opinions, and Lena stopped listening. She finished up the pots and pans as quickly as possible, made a polite excuse, and rocketed up to her bedroom. She called Tibby and talked about nothing in particular. She cleaned her clean room.
She got into bed with a book and tried, as she had so many other nights, not to think about Kostos.
“He’s a little taller, don’t you think?” Bridget’s question floated up to the rafters a few feet above her head. Some of it made its way down to Diana in the bottom bunk.
“Uh. Yeah, I guess.”
Bridget tapped her toes against the metal rail at the bottom of her bunk. “God, he is cute. In my memory, I didn’t exaggerate that part of it.”
“Bridget?”
It was the deep, slow, irritated voice of Katie across the cabin.
“Yeah?”
“Will you shut up?”
Bridget laughed. She appreciated bluntness. “Okay.”
She was happy. She couldn’t help it. She was happy that Katherine was okay. She was happy that she felt happy instead of miserable at the thought of Eric Richman sleeping in a bed less than one hundred yards away. Bridget tapped her toes some more. She made a rhythm approximating “Walk on the Wild Side.” She tried turning onto her stomach. She cleared her throat. “Can I say one other thing?”
“No,” Katie barked, but her bark belied a certain amusement.
“Please?”
“What is it, Bee?” Diana asked wearily.
She’d had over twenty-four hours to digest the fact that she would be spending the summer with the mythical Eric. She’d seen him twice that day. They’d smiled at each other, though they hadn’t spoken. She was getting the same fizzing feeling she’d had when she’d met him the first time. And that was dangerous, maybe. But she was different now. She felt different.
“I’m not sorry he’s here,” she informed Diana. “I think I might be okay about it.”
LennyK162: Talked to Bee finally. Cannot believe about Eric.
Carmabelle: Cannot either. She said she’s okay, though.
LennyK162: Do we believe her? Do we go to Pennsylvania and drag her home?
Carmabelle: Let’s give it a week.
Today was the day Valia had her doctor’s appointment. Her kidneys had apparently been doing something funky, so she was supposed to get something or other checked once every two weeks at the hospital.
It was their first outing, and Carmen welcomed it. Just leaving the house had to be good. Even if they both got squashed by a bulldozer on their first step down the front walk, it would be preferable to another long afternoon spent in the darkened Kaligaris den.
Besides, today was also the day Carmen got to wear the Traveling Pants, and nothing magical was going to happen sitting inside with Valia close enough to squash it.
They’d only been together for one week, and already Carmen and Valia were in a rut. After madly IMing and yelling at the computer—and at Carmen—for a couple of hours (while also listening to the TV), Valia’s energy would start to fade. Sometime around three o’clock she would change to a soft chair and her head would start to nod and swerve as sleep tried to claim her. This was around the time that Brawn and Beauty came on. Carmen would perch at the edge of her chair, and gingerly, slowly reach for the remote control. Then, waiting long minutes if necessary, she would watch for Valia’s wrinkly lids to shut. Then she would wait even longer. Then…slowly she would shift down the volume and slowly scroll through the channels. Her heart would be in her throat at this point. Once she got to channel four, she would imagine victory at hand, she would yearn for that first look at Ryan Hennessey’s turquoise eyes…and then…
Valia would shoot straight up in her chair and bellow, “Zat is not my show!” and Carmen, in pitiful defeat, would turn back to Valia’s show. And then the cycle would start again.
So Carmen was shamefully grateful to Valia’s misfiring kidneys as she and Valia shut themselves into Carmen’s car. She was deaf to Valia’s ten-minute harangue about how Carmen didn’t hold the steering wheel right.
They were absurdly early for the appointment, thanks to Carmen’s eagerness, so Carmen was the picture of flexibility when Valia insisted they stop at the ice cream shop around the corner from the hospital. Who was Carmen to turn down ice cream?
Valia wanted pistachio. No, she didn’t, she wanted butter pecan. No, that would not be good.
“Vhy do they have the cookies in the ice cream?” she demanded to know.
“Vhat do they mean by this…jimmies?”
“Who vould eat that purple thing?”
Carmen saw the look on the face of the girl behind the counter, and it was familiar. It was a look that she imagined she herself had worn for roughly thirty hours the week before.
Finally, after an excruciating number of questions and unsolicited criticisms, Valia settled on peppermint ice cream, of all things. It was a garish red, and slimy-looking.
Valia took one bite and shoved it toward Carmen. “I hate it. You eat it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“I hate it.” Valia kept pushing it at her.
Carmen was fuming. She hated Valia’s nasty peppermint ice cream too. And furthermore, she hated Valia. Valia was a big, fat baby. Carmen hated babies. She hated old people. She hated everyone in between. She hated everyone.
Except him.
He was a guy—maybe her age or a little older—who walked into the store just as Carmen was dodging the slimy red ice cream.
She didn’t hate him, though at her rate, perhaps she could learn to. He wasn’t Ryan Hennessy or anything, but some quality about him struck her nonetheless. His straight hair was yellowish brown and a little bit unkempt. His eyebrows were almost blond and his freckles made him look kind of jaunty, like he didn’t care about anything too much. His eyes, on the other hand, made him look like he did.
She looked at his face for a moment too long. When she turned her head back, she saw the scoop of ice cream bobbling on Valia’s cone, and it was too late to fix it. Sure enough, the scoop plunged to the ground and skidded a foot or so. Valia, incensed, shouted something at Carmen in Greek and then made a show of striding away. But the peppermint ice cream didn’t just look slimy. Valia’s heel hit the trail of ice cream, and Carmen watched in horror as the old lady went down hard. Carmen’s shout and Valia’s scream mingled and merged in the air.
Almost instantly Carmen had Valia in her arms. Valia was lighter and drier than she would have imagined. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her face was twisted in pain. Carmen could tell that her right leg had crumpled in the wrong direction. When Valia opened her eyes, Carmen saw the blurry tears in them, and she felt awful. Her own eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, Valia,” Carmen murmured, trying to get a strong hold of her under her arms. “I am so sorry.” She heard a little sob escape her own mouth.
At once Carmen saw another pair of arms in the mix. It was the guy she did not yet hate. He was helping her lift Valia from the sticky linoleum.
Now the few other patrons gathered around and the counter girl appeared, bouncing nervously from foot to foot.
Valia moan
ed. “My leg is hurt,” she said. “Don’t move it. Please.”
“Okay,” Carmen said soothingly. “It’s okay.”
“If you’ll just rest your arm over my shoulder I can support your leg,” the guy coaxed her. He got himself in position and nodded to Carmen as if to tell her it was time to lift. She complied.
Valia moaned again, but they had her off the floor.
“Valia, the emergency room is right around the corner. We’ll take you right there, okay?” Her voice couldn’t have been gentler.
Valia nodded. The ferocity had abandoned her features for once, and they settled sort of sweetly into her face, even in spite of her obvious pain.
Ready? the nonhateful guy mouthed to Carmen. Suddenly they were partners.
