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Gingerly, glacially she moved her foot. She held her breath until, through her sleeping bag, she could feel, ever so lightly with her big toe, the shape of his heel. She prayed he wouldn’t notice or stir. He didn’t. He slept.
She withdrew her foot, feeling sorry.
She would have given anything for him to want her again. But she would have given even more for him to trust her.
Don’t ask me any questions right now. I’m grumpy and I’ll probably make fun of you.
—Effie Kaligaris
Tibby was standing at the front of the theater, waiting for the one o’clock show to end. She’d stopped watching the movies altogether. These days she preferred to stand by the front windows and look out. One afternoon the box office lady was sick, and Tibby got to take over in the tiny room. That was fun—safe, contained, predictable.
Tibby wondered, once again, about the wisdom of her career choice. She wondered if maybe NYU had any openings in accounting. Or maybe they offered a program for future tollbooth attendants. Or cashiers. She pictured herself enjoying a career in one of those liquor stores in bad neighborhoods where you sat behind a thick sheet of bulletproof Plexiglas and people paid for their stuff through a slot in the window. That sounded about right.
She spotted a little group across the street, and she experienced that split second of objectivity when you see someone you know before you realize you know them. The tall one, of course, was Brian. Tibby constantly had to relearn what he looked like now. When he had been the lowliest of dorks, his unkempt hair—longish, unbrushed, needing a cut—had played a role in the vicious circle that had been Brian’s appearance. Now it looked conspicuously cool, neglected in exactly the right manner. She bought his clothes for him at Old Navy a couple times a year, so there were no pitfalls there. He had learned to like taking showers of his own accord. That helped too.
The little figure with the giant, lolling, hockey-player head was Katherine, of course. Every time Tibby saw that hockey helmet, she felt her guts constrict. Her facial muscles pulled into a grimace, even when she fought against it. The sight of it made her feel angry and it made her want to cry.
Nicky was holding Katherine’s other hand. Even he had become more protective of her.
They crossed the street and approached the doors of the theater. Katherine caught sight of Tibby in the plate-glass windows. She waved so fervently her helmet slid to the side, the chinstrap bending her ear in half. Tibby opened the doors for them.
“We’re going to see a movie at your theater!” Katherine shouted.
Tibby straightened the helmet. She was always doing that.
“Hey, look.” Katherine pointed to her head.
“What?” Tibby said.
“Stickers!” Katherine was exultant. “Nicky helped me do it.”
The hockey helmet was indeed plastered with stickers, every superhero and cartoon character in the history of cheap merchandising.
“Wow. Nice,” Tibby said.
“Now I might never want to take it off,” Katherine declared triumphantly.
Tibby felt her breath catch. There was some torture in this she couldn’t even identify. God bless, Katherine. How could she be how she was? How could Tibby be so different? Why was she so pained when Katherine really was okay? Tibby wasn’t the one who fell out the window. Her concern for Katherine had become a waste; Katherine didn’t need it. Who was it really for?
Forgetting about what had happened for a moment, Tibby looked instinctively at Brian. And Brian touched her tenderly on the hand, enveloping her in a look of support that didn’t have anything to do with whether he wanted to kiss her or not.
Carmen had saved Win’s telephone message and replayed it fourteen times in one hour. So why was she in the hospital—the very place where he worked—hunkered over a book in a corner, wearing sunglasses and a hat? It was Wednesday afternoon and Valia had her usual physical therapy session. Carmen knew where to find Win. Win might even be looking for her.
Instead, she picked the most remote spot she could find, which happened to be a deserted hallway in labor and delivery. It was nice and quiet for a while, but suddenly there was a virtual gaggle of pregnant women waddling toward her. She bent her head and tried to read a few more pages, but she was distracted. So much for her solitude. There was nowhere to run in this place.
All the women and their spouses were piling into a room. Carmen was imagining what it could mean—a big, wild rave for the pregnant folks?—when something began to dawn on her. She looked at her watch.
For the most part, she meanly ignored anything her mother said that contained the words labor, birth, pregnancy, or baby. But vaguely in the back of her mind she knew her mom and David were coming to a childbirth class at this very hospital.
Could it be? Could it?
Oh, man.
She tried to get back into her book, but she couldn’t. For pages and pages, Jane Austen’s elegant banter went into her eyes and stopped short of her brain. Carmen was curious now. Once she framed a question, it was so hard for her not to answer it. She put her book in her bag and walked down the hall. She stopped at the room where the pregnant women had gone. It had a frosted glass window, fairly convenient for snooping. She saw the couples sitting on the floor. The men had their legs spread out with their rotund wives between them. It looked pretty peculiar, frankly. The teacher stood behind a table at the front.
Carmen had come to the conclusion that her mother wasn’t, in fact, part of this strange class when she peered farther in to the back and saw the familiar angle of dark hair. Christina was easy to miss because even with her big round belly, she seemed to be shrinking against the wall.
Everybody was a couple and Christina was alone. Why was that? The current exercise involved the men massaging their wives’ shoulders, and Christina just sat there.
Where was David? Carmen watched in puzzlement until Christina reached up her arms to massage her own shoulders. That was all Carmen needed. The ache in her chest caught her by surprise and propelled her straight through the door and into the room.
“Can I help you?” the instructor asked her.
“Hold on just a sec,” Carmen said. She went to her mother. “What’s going on? Where’s David?”
Christina’s eyes were pinkish. “There was a big emergency on his case. He had to fly to St. Louis,” she whispered. To her immense credit, there was lots of sadness in the way she said it, but no blame. “What are you doing here, nena?”
“Valia has physical therapy,” Carmen explained.
Christina nodded.
The instructor appeared in front of them. “Are you registered for this class…?” she asked Carmen. She didn’t say it in a snotty way, but she obviously preferred complete order.
Carmen looked from the instructor to her mother and back again. She pointed to her mother. “I’m her partner.”
The instructor looked surprised. Politically, it was her responsibility to be open to all kinds of couples. “Fine. That’s fine. We’re starting with some labor massage techniques. Just follow the rest of the class to get started.”
Carmen situated her mother between her knees and began massaging her tense shoulders. Carmen had strong hands. She felt like she was good at this. She heard a little hitch in her mother’s breathing, and she knew Christina was crying.
But she knew Christina was crying because she was happy, and that gave Carmen her own feeling of happiness unlike anything she’d felt in a long time.
Hey, you beautiful girls!
My dad just sent me a pile of stuff from Brown.
My roommate’s name is Aisha Lennox. Doesn’t that sound cool?
I’m gonna live with her. We’re gonna know her. How weird is that?
Bee
Lena thought the drawing of Effie would be the easy one. She didn’t dread it. She didn’t overprepare. She sauntered in. Lena was not a saunterer, and for good reason, she decided. She always ended up regretting it.
“Where do
you want to be?” Lena asked. “Your room? Your bed? Someplace else?”
“Um.” Effie was painting her toenails. “Can you just do it here?” She was sitting on the floor in front of the TV in the den. Some reality show was blaring. Effie had her chin resting on her knee and was giving full attention to her toenail, as though it were one of the more demanding things she’d ever grappled with.
“I guess,” Lena said. “Do you mind if I turn the TV off?”
“Leave it on,” Effie said. “I won’t watch.”
Lena didn’t question this. She had an instinct that bossing your model around was no way to get her to loosen up. No matter how stupid she was being.
