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Annik looked impatient. Not mad or dismissive, but definitely impatient. “Do you want to go to art school or stay home?”
“I want to go to art school. I can’t stay home.”
“Then figure out how to do it.” Annik put her hand, briefly, on Lena’s elbow. “Lena, I think you could do something good. I think you have talent, possibly a lot of it, and I don’t say that lightly. I want you try. I can see it’s what you love. But I can’t fight for you. You have to fight for yourself.”
“I do?”
Annik gave Lena an encouraging half smile. “You do. You’ve got to take up some space, girl.”
So the first strategy wasn’t going to work. Not only was Bridget not going to avoid Eric, she was going to see him constantly. Somebody up there was having a sick laugh at her expense.
Bridget took a long run on her break after lunch and tried to formulate plan B.
She and Eric weren’t going to be strangers, so they were going to have to be friends. She could do that. She could treat him like a regular guy. Couldn’t she?
She could try to forget that he was her first and her only. She could put aside the disastrous effect their brief fling had on her life. She could ignore—she could try really hard to ignore—the mighty attraction she felt to him. She could make herself accept that he did not feel that same attraction for her.
Bridget was breathing hard now, running up a steep hill, curving round and round. The forest cosseted her on either side.
The truth was, she had never felt so overwhelmingly drawn to anyone. In the two years since they’d seen each other, she had questioned this particular magnetism Eric had for her. Was it real? Or was she so caught up in a mania of her own making that summer in Baja that she had imagined it?
Seeing him again this summer answered her question. It was real. She responded to him the same way, even though she was different.
What was it about Eric? He was handsome and talented, yeah. But lots of guys were. She had adored Billy Klein back in Alabama the summer before, and she had even felt attracted to him, but it wasn’t like this. What made you feel that stomach-churning agony for one person and not another? If Bridget were God, she would have made it against the law for you to feel that way about someone without them having to feel it for you right back.
Bridget reached the top of the little mountain. Suddenly the trees fell away, and she could see furrowed hills and steamy valleys on and on. The camp, in which all of this agitation was contained, was small and circular. From this height, it was small enough to put her arms around.
Bridget knew what to do. She couldn’t control her basic response to Eric. But she could control her behavior. She had been tough and single-minded then, and she was now, too. Just as she’d found a way to seduce him back then, she could find a way not to do it now.
She had a weekend at home coming up. She would pull herself together. And when she got back to camp, she would contain herself: She wouldn’t flirt, she wouldn’t tempt, she wouldn’t pine, she wouldn’t grieve. She wouldn’t even yearn. Well, maybe she’d yearn a little, but she’d keep it to herself.
She began the run downhill, fast and just a little bit out of control.
Yes, they would be friends. They would be pals. He would never know what she really felt.
It was going to be a very long summer.
Can I buy you a drink, or should I just give you the money?
—Failed pickup artist
“Come on, Tibby! We’re going!”
Tibby was standing in the front door of her house, watching Bee jump up and down on the lawn and shout at her. Her yellow head radiated light in the darkness.
“Where are we going?” Tibby asked flatly.
“It’s a surprise. It’ll be fun. Come on!”
Tibby walked out onto the summer lawn, feeling the bits of mown grass sticking to her bare feet. “I don’t want a surprise. I don’t want to have fun.”
“That’s exactly why you need some.”
Carmen was at the wheel of her car, honking the horn and waving out the window. Tibby could see Lena in the front passenger seat.
Bee came close and bent her head toward Tibby’s. “Come on, Tib. Katherine is bouncing back like a little Super Ball. You’re allowed to feel okay, you know? I have one night before I go back to Pennsylvania. I’m not spending it without you.”
Tibby ran back to the house to tell her parents she was going. Usually her parents went out on Saturday nights, but since Katherine’s accident they stayed close to home. And besides, since they’d fired Loretta, who was going to cover for them?
Tibby trudged to Carmen’s car without bothering to get shoes. “I don’t want to go,” she announced to the group, once inside the car.
“You don’t even know where we’re going,” Lena pointed out.
“I still don’t want to go.”
Carmen released the break and drove off anyway. “The lucky thing for you, Tibadee, is that your friends don’t listen to you.”
Tibby shook her head humorlessly. “I don’t really see how that’s lucky.”
“Because we love you too much to let you fester in your room for the rest of the summer,” Carmen clarified. Fester was her word of the week.
“Maybe I like to fester,” Tibby said.
“But festering…does not like you.” Carmen nodded decisively, as though this were the last word on the subject.
Tibby sat back and let the comfortable nattering swirl around her. Listening to her friends’ voices felt like hearing a familiar symphony, with one instrument coming in and layering atop another. The way the cadences linked and harmonized made her feel safe.
Until Carmen pulled into the parking lot of the Rockwood pool.
“Why are we here?”
“We’re going swimming,” Bee offered.
“Why don’t we just go to Lenny’s?” Tibby asked.
“Her parents are home. And Valia is asleep,” Carmen explained.
Enough said. No sane person wanted to wake up Valia, and her bedroom window faced the back of the house.
“Well, this pool is closed.” Tibby felt sour as she said it.
“Just come on, okay?” Bee said.
Tibby followed them over the bridge of the piddling creek that used to seem to her like a roaring waterway connecting parts unknown. It was probably just for sewage. She followed them up the endless steep stairs that used to seem to her like the stairway to heaven. They approached the locked gates, then fanned out to the sides.
Tibby was starting to get an even worse feeling about this.
“This is the place!” Bee called out, pointing up at the one part of the fence not spangled by razor wire. Bee was already climbing by the time they’d gathered at the foot of it. “Up and over,” she called gaily, making it look as simple as mounting a bike.
“I’m not coming,” Tibby said.
“Why not?” Carmen and Lena both turned to look at her.
This was the kind of stunt she would normally have gone along with. But the thought of climbing the fence made Tibby feel almost physically sick. She couldn’t explain all the reasons, but she knew she wasn’t doing it.
“I just don’t feel like it,” she said.
Bee paused on the other side of the fence. They were all obviously disappointed that they couldn’t get Tibby excited about their plan. Bee reversed her climb. Now Tibby felt bad.
“But you guys go ahead,” she said, trying to lighten her voice. “Seriously, go. I don’t mind. Besides, you need someone to stand guard here…you know, like, just in case.” It sounded pitiful to Tibby’s own ears.
“I wish you’d come. It won’t be as fun without you,” Lena said.
“Next time,” Tibby answered, feeling like a big loser.
So there she sat, slumped against the side of the fence—the outside, the wrong side—pretending she was standing guard, while she listened to her frie
nds strip down to their underwear and splash into the water. They were more subdued than they would have been if Tibby had gone along. But still, they were willing to play.
“Carma, I will pay you back, I swear.”
Carmen rolled her eyes. “Shut up. Why are you saying that? We don’t pay each other back. We’re not keeping score.”
Tibby actually paused from her insane flurry of activity to look appreciatively at Carmen. “So I won’t pay you back.”
“Thank God.” Carmen took a tube of cherry-flavored Blistex from the mess of stuff on Tibby’s dresser and put some on. “Eleventh floor, right?”
“Yeah, check in at reception. Ask for Dr. Barnes. There’s a little kids’ lounge in case you have to wait.”
“No problemo. It’s my home away from home.” Carmen held up Tibby’s soft charcoal T-shirt and considered stealing it.
“Katherine’s going to be very happy about this.”
Carmen returned the shirt to the mess. “And it’s good practice for me, right?” Her voice had turned sober.
Tibby sensed her mood and touched her wrist. “I think you already got it down, Carma.”
Carmen led the way to the foot of the stairs, where Katherine was waiting eagerly, her yellow backpack strapped over both shoulders, her hockey helmet tipped at a slightly rakish angle.
“Ya ready, baby?”
Katherine stood up on her kitchen chair, and with no regard for her cast put her arms up in a point like a diver. She jumped to Carmen.
Tibby helped her load Katherine into the baby seat they’d fastened into Carmen’s car, and hopped into the copilot seat. First Carmen dropped Tibby off at work, and then she drove to the hospital. As they parked, Carmen enjoyed the good spirits of Katherine, chirping away from the backseat, never complaining once about her driving, in contrast to, say, Valia.
As they whooshed through the automatic doors into the giant lobby, Carmen lifted Katherine into her arms. Sweetly, Katherine clung to her like a koala, her hockey helmet wobbling just under Carmen’s chin.
