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What Carmen was excited about, in some perverse way, was telling her mother.
Christina was too tired even to express the extent of her confusion. “Why?”
“Because I applied there, and the admissions lady wanted to tell me they were making a special allowance and letting me in.”
Christina tried to sit up a bit. “Nena, I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I’m thinking about going to UM instead of Williams.”
Now Christina sat the whole way up. “Why in the world would you do that?”
“Because maybe I’m not ready to leave home just now. Maybe I want to stay and help out and be part of the baby’s life.” Carmen tossed this off as though she were describing her plans to get a manicure.
“Carmen?” Her mother’s look was satisfying. She was definitely and certainly paying attention to Carmen’s future and nobody else’s at this particular moment.
“What?” Carmen blinked innocently.
Christina inhaled and exhaled yoga style a few times. She settled back onto the cushions and thought awhile before she opened her mouth to talk. “Darling. In my selfish heart, I want nothing more than for you to stay home. I hate the thought of you leaving. I’ll miss you terribly. You know that. I want you to stay with me and David and the baby. In my selfish heart, that is my fantasy.”
Carmen felt tears bulging out of her lids. She’d swung from pure insouciance to tears in under twenty seconds.
Christina’s voice was soft as she continued. “But a good mother doesn’t just obey the wishes of her selfish heart. A good mother does what she believes is the best thing for her child. Sometimes they are the same. This time they are different.”
Carmen pawed at her cheeks with the back of her hand. What kind of tears were these, exactly? Tears of joy? Agony? Fear? Confusion? Maybe a few of each?
“How do you know that?” Carmen’s voice was full and high with emotion. “How do you know they aren’t the same?”
“Because Williams is the right place for a girl as smart and capable as you, nena. You belong there.”
“I belong at home.”
“You’ll always belong at home. Going to Williams doesn’t mean you won’t belong at home.”
“Maybe it will,” Carmen said.
“It won’t.”
Carmen shrugged and wiped her eyes again with the back of her hand. “I feel like it will.”
Lenny,
You sounded so sad on the phone earlier, we thought these might cheer you up. The lady at the candy store said she never knew a person who only liked root beer–flavored jelly beans, and to be honest, the all-brown bag doesn’t look quite as attractive as the tropical fruit mix, for example. But you are you, Lenny, and we love you like that.
XXXXXXXXXXX OOOOOOOOO,
Tib + Carma
Tibby was outside her window. She was looking up at it, clutching the sill with her hands, feeling the emptiness under her feet. Inside was warm yellow light, and outside, where she was, it was dark. She could feel the apple tree somewhere behind her, but she couldn’t see it. Her hands hurt, her arms were lifeless. She wanted to get back into her room so badly. How had she gotten here? Why had she done it? She couldn’t drop down into dark emptiness, but she couldn’t get back inside, either.
“Tibby? Tibby?”
Tibby opened her eyes and took a moment to orient herself. She was slumped in a movie theater chair. The lights were on. The screen in front of her was blank. Margaret was ever so gently waking her.
“Hi, Margaret. Hi. I fell asleep, didn’t I?”
“You did. Don’t worry. Your shift is over. I jis took care of the garbage for you, so that’s all sit.”
Tibby looked at her gratefully. “Thanks so much. I’ll get yours next time, okay?” Groggily she sat up and let the dream ebb away. She didn’t used to fall asleep in movies. But working in a theater could do that to you. Once she’d taken the tickets for the four o’clock show and made sure everyone was in their seats and vacuumed the lobby, she was allowed to watch. That was the whole reason she’d asked for Margaret’s help to get her this job.
But now she’d seen The Actress fourteen times. The first three or four were pretty good. But slowly after that, the suspense drained out of the suspense. The spontaneity of the love affair shriveled to nothing. By the tenth or twelfth time, Tibby could practically see the gears working in the actors’ heads. She could practically see the cheap manipulations of the camera work. By the fourteenth time…well, she fell asleep.
As a lifelong movie lover, it was sad, in a way, for her to watch the magic of the illusion dry up like a piece of macaroni left overnight in Katherine’s booster seat. It made Tibby feel dull and flat. And watching the excitement on the faces of the audience just made her feel worse. She knew that every audience member was taken in by the big swelling climax, with the cellos and violins and gigantic close-ups of earnest, rapturous faces. They felt it was all happening magically and powerfully for them alone. Of course they didn’t consider that they were clutched in the fist of this elaborate fraud. It didn’t matter.
Tibby had gotten accepted to the film program at NYU on the strength of the movie she’d made about Bailey the summer before. She was about to spend four years learning how to make films. She’d thought it was what she wanted more than anything. But now Tibby was beginning to wonder.
She imagined, depressingly, what it must feel like to be a wedding officiator or a doctor who delivered babies. You’d watch these people in the middle of their personal wonders, imagining for themselves a pure, unique once-in-a-lifetime experience. And then an hour or two later you’d watch somebody else do the same thing. What they thought were miracles were your breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
It was sad that what you once thought were marvels on the screen were really manipulations. What you thought was art was just some gimmicky formula.
Bridget discussed it with Diana at night after the campers were in bed. They sat on the edge of the lake, tossing rocks into the still water. Bridget outlined her strategy, which was pretty simple. She’d just avoid Eric. She would stay away from him and throw herself into other things—her team, her training, hanging with Diana, and making new friends. And besides, she got three weekends off, and so would Eric. Chances were, they’d be off on different weekends. It didn’t need to matter so much that she and Eric were working at the same camp. It was a big camp.
At a prebreakfast meeting the next morning, the directors gave out assignments to the staff. Besides coaching, they each were assigned partners with whom they would preside over afternoon activities and chaperone certain meals, evening events, and spec
ial weekend trips.
It was long and somewhat boring and Bridget tuned it out, surreptitiously glancing at more of the pictures Diana had brought—more Michael, her roommates, her soccer team at Cornell—until she heard her name called.
“Vreeland, Bridget. Rafting and kayaking. Two-thirty to five weekdays. And you’ve got Wednesday breakfast, Monday lunch, Thursday dinner, and Sunday night moonlight swim. Weekend trips TBA,” Joe Warshaw read out.
She shrugged happily. It sounded fun. She didn’t know the first thing about rafting or kayaking, but she was a quick learner. And she, more than anyone, loved swimming at night under the stars. Joe was flipping pages on his clipboard. “Vreeland, Bridget, you’ll partner with…” He was scanning for a name. “Richman, Eric.” Joe didn’t even look up when he read it. He went on to the next assignment.
Bridget hoped she was hallucinating. Diana cast her a panicked look. If Bridget was hallucinating, then so was Diana.
It was so outrageous Bridget almost wanted to laugh. Was this somebody’s idea of a joke? Had somebody from Baja phoned ahead to say that Bridget and Eric shared by far the most wrenching history, so be sure to put them together?
She looked up and Eric caught her eye. She was frowning.
“You can change it,” Diana said under her breath. “Talk to Joe after. He likes you. He’ll change it.”
Bridget marched over to Joe after. “Hey. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
The kitchen staff was beginning to set up for breakfast.
“Can I, uh, change partners? Would that be all right?”
“If you give me a good reason.” He seemed to anticipate what she was going to say, because he started back in before she could open her mouth. “And I mean a medical or professional reason. I don’t mean a personal reason. I don’t accept personal reasons.”
