AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It took her two and a half hours (one and a half spent getting lost), but the look on Loretta’s face when she saw Tibby made it worth it. Even if Tibby spent twenty-four hours getting lost on the way home.
“¡Tibby! ¡M’ija! ¿Cómo estás? ¡Dios te bendiga! ¡Ay, mira que hermosa estás! Cuéntame, ¿cómo te va?” Loretta exploded in Spanish.
Not only did Loretta not appear to harbor any resentment; she hugged Tibby like a long-lost daughter. Loretta’s eyes filled with tears as she planted several kisses on Tibby’s face.
Tibby was still blinking in surprise when Loretta pulled her into the small house and introduced her to various family members as though they knew all about her. Loretta gestured to the pale woman on the couch in her bathrobe. “She no get up. She have”—Loretta pounded her chest in demonstration—“infection.”
That was Loretta’s sister, Tibby realized. It made Tibby feel even worse.
Tibby sat at the dining room table with Loretta, who kept patting her hand and asking exactly how Katherine was doing.
“She’s getting better so fast. She’s great. She misses you, though,” Tibby added quickly. Tibby then presented Loretta a picture of beaming Katherine in her hockey helmet, which Loretta promptly kissed. Loretta wanted to know all about Nicky, and she even wanted to be sure that certain leftovers were not spoiling in the fridge. Loretta cried a lot, both out of sadness and joy, and said many things in Spanish, which Tibby could not understand.
The thing Tibby could understand was that Loretta truly loved Katherine. She loved Nicky. She even loved Tibby, for God knew what reason. How could Tibby’s parents fire someone who loved their kids this much? It was wrong.
Loretta insisted that Tibby stay for dinner, so Tibby accepted. Then Loretta and her niece and another sister buzzed around in the kitchen for the next hour preparing a feast, while Tibby sat on the sofa with the sick sister, watching a TV show. Tibby was handed a big glass of orange soda and banned from helping in the kitchen.
Tibby watched the actors motoring away in Spanish and let her mind go. She was moved by Loretta’s capacity to love, even when her employment had ended in such a bitter way. Loretta didn’t seem concerned that the whole thing was so unfair, that Tibby’s parents had lashed out vindictively.
Some people spent their lives wallowing in resentments, and other people, like Loretta, let ill fortune wash right over them.
When the table was revealed to Tibby with a great flourish, she saw how proud Loretta was. In honor of Tibby, Loretta and her niece and sister had made steak.
Tibby tried to keep the look of alarm off her face. She was moved by this gesture. Clearly this wasn’t the kind of household where they ate steak every night. And so Tibby chewed the meat with as much vigor as was possible for a girl who had been a vegetarian since she was nine.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.
—John Keats
“Let’s call her…Good Carmen,” Carmen said.
It was Saturday and they had spent most of the morning at the farmers’ market. Now Lena and Tibby were both lying on the deck in back of Tibby’s house, chins on hands, nodding.
“This guy who works at the hospital, you see, keeps running into this girl, this Good Carmen.” Carmen sat up in her lounge chair and crossed her legs Indian style. She breathed in the pineapple smell of Lena’s sunscreen. “Good Carmen is taking care of Valia. She’s being stoic and selfless. She’s taking care of Katherine. She’s doing it all out of the goodness of her heart. The problem is that this guy thinks Good Carmen is me.”
“Is he cute?” Tibby asked.
Carmen narrowed her eyes. “Tibby, have you been listening to anything I’m saying?”
“All of it. I just need a little context. What’s his name? What’s he like? How much do you care what he thinks?”
Carmen considered. “Well. Hmmm.” Truthfully, even thinking about him was fun. Talking about him was jubilation. “Is he cute, you ask? I mean, he’s no Ryan Hennessey, of course—”
“No, he’s not,” Tibby shot back. “He’s real, for one.”
“Yes. He is real. He does have that going for him. And yes, he is cute.” She couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
“He’s really cute,” Lena said. “I can tell. Look at you.”
“What’s his name?” Tibby asked.
“Win.” She realized she said it in the same slightly argumentative tone he did. She was already taking his side.
“Win?” they both asked.
“Yeah. Short for Winthrop. What can he do? He didn’t name himself.”
“I like it,” Lena stated.
Tibby studied Carmen for a long minute. “Oh, my God. Carma Carmeena Carmabelle. You like this guy, don’t you?”
Carmen was blushing.
“This is amazing. This is new,” Tibby continued. “You do like him.”
“But he doesn’t like me. That’s the problem. He is a good person. He’s premed. He volunteers at the hospital all day long. He likes Good Carmen.”
“So why not set him straight?” Lena asked.
“Because he won’t like me anymore.”
“Why don’t you try it?”
“Because I’m scared to. I don’t want to ruin it for him. I’d rather he have his idealized version of me than introduce him to the real thing. I like the way he thinks of me—I mean Good Carmen.”
Lena lifted her sunglasses. She was resolute. “Carmen, that’s just sad. Be yourself. If he doesn’t like you for yourself, then he ain’t worth it.”
“Hallelujah,” said Tibby.
Carmen studied them suspiciously. “What’s with you two?”
Bridget sat with her clipboard on her lap at the side of the soccer field, chewing on a piece of grass. She didn’t even bother to lace up her cleats these days. She went around barefoot. She even played barefoot. It was unorthodox, she knew, but who really cared?
Eric was pacing a few yards away. He was watching his team doing dribbling exercises. She didn’t get that screaming feeling in her cells quite so much now when she saw him. She was getting used to him.
“Blye at forward,” she said to no one in particular. She’d put Lundgren, the Swede, on defense. He was versatile. The European kids always had the best fundamentals. Naughton, her special favorite, she put in the goal. He was completely uncoordinated, but he had a weird, seemingly dumb magnetism for the ball. At the moment she had her team carrying out an elaborate pattern of sprints. She wanted to get her roster in order before they got back.
Suddenly her clipboard was in shadow. “Away. No spying,” she ordered without looking up.
Eric stepped back about one foot. “You’re crazy to put Naughton in the goal.”
“I’m crazy to put him anywhere. No spying. No peeking. No Peking. No Beijing.”
“It’s friendly advice.”
“All friendly till we beat you soundly.”
“Ooooh. I’m scared.”
She looked up at him finally. He pretended he was going to step on her feet. She put her hand over her eyes, squinting in the sun. She smiled at him, and a nice thought passed through her mind. I think we’re really friends.
Eric had joined her and Diana for dinner the past two nights. At first Diana seemed alarmed, but she got used to him. You could get used to almost anything. They spent three hours sitting at a table in the cafeteria discussing the relative merits of each of their teams like the three big soccer dorks they were.
Bridget and Eric hung out now even when they didn’t have to. He joined her for her evening runs sometimes. They ate their lunch on the field together (except Mondays, when they pretended to chaperone in the dining hall) and talked strategy. They didn’t make a big deal of it or anything.
She could do this. She could. It wasn’t that hard. She loved him, maybe so, but she also loved being with him. She could be happy with just that. She didn’t need any more.
Finally, finally, at last
the strange air of their encounter was dissipating. Her new relationship with him had almost entirely eclipsed the old one. She felt like she could trust herself with him now.
Bridget watched her breathless team streaming back toward her across the field. She stood waiting for them like a proud mama. Naughton was the first one in her face. She frankly suspected he’d cheated a corner or two, because he wasn’t all that fast. “Hey, Naughty, how’d you do?”
“Good.” He was trying to catch his breath.
“You all get water,” she ordered the group. “Then we’ll get to work.”
Naughton continued to hang around her, not quite balanced on his bumpy knees, while the others got water. He was always asking her stuff. He was her project, and he knew it. “You running tonight?” he asked her.
“Probably. Maybe a short one.”
“Can I come?”
