Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood (18 page)

Now he really looked scared. But not unwilling. “Okay.”

“Would it be all right if I drew a picture of you? It would take around an hour or an hour and a half. Just a sketch of you from here up.” She indicated at her collarbone, lest he run from her house in panic. “You see, I’m making a portfolio of drawings of people, because I’m trying to win this scholarship to RISD. Otherwise, I can’t go to art school, and I really want to. Do you think that would be okay?” She had never said so much to him all at one time.

He nodded. “I’d like that,” he said.

She had an idea. “Maybe we’ll go outside.”

He followed her out to the backyard. She didn’t picture him on a lounge chair by the pool or anything. She surveyed the possibilities. There was a tree stump in the far corner, by the fence. It had been a giant, beautiful oak that had grown old and gotten a disease, so her parents had had it cut down before it got the chance to fall on their house. It was strong and sturdy, suitable for Paul. She steered him to it, then ran to fetch herself a chair and her drawing board.

“You ready?” she asked.

He sat squarely. The stump was the perfect height for him. Lena’s feet would have been dangling, but his rested solidly on the soil. He put his hands on his knees. This could have looked stiff for another person, but for Paul it looked right. She noticed he wore a large gold class ring on the pinky of his left hand. It was the one thing that didn’t fit.

She backed up a bit. She wanted to draw more of him. “Do you mind if I do a three-quarters?”

“That’s fine,” he said.

She clipped her paper to her board. He watched her carefully. This caused her to clip her knuckle. It hurt, so she sucked on it for a second. She put her hair back in a ponytail. She poised the charcoal over her paper.

“Should I look at you?” he asked.

“Um. Yes,” she said. Paul was always remarkably direct in his gaze, so this felt right for him. On the other hand, she felt the pressure building as their eyes met for long moments. She didn’t feel about Paul the way she did about other people.

The lines of Paul’s face gave the impression of being straight and square. Strong, square jaw; square forehead; squared-off cheekbones. But when she looked harder and longer, she saw many unexpectedly round things. His eyes, for instance. They were large and circular, innocent and almost childlike. But at the outside corners she saw he had faint, fanning creases, proto–laugh lines that she suspected didn’t come from laughing. And at the inside corners, the thin skin where his eyes met his nose was blue and slightly bruised-looking.

His mouth was surprisingly full and curvaceous. It was a lovely mouth. She lost herself in the very tiny up-and-down lines at each corner that separated his lips from his cheeks. You wouldn’t expect such a sensitive mouth on so large and strong a person. She felt a little manic, looking at it boldly and for a long time. And then she felt guilty for taking advantage of this drawing opportunity in such a way.

She drew his shoulders and arms in big, loose gestures. When she got to his hands, she tightened up a little.

Her hand hesitated over the ring. She made herself open her mouth. “Can I ask you about the ring?” she said.

The fingers on his other hand instantly enclosed it. He looked down. It was the first time he’d broken the pose, even minutely, in almost forty minutes. “Sorry,” he said, realizing this.

“That’s okay. Don’t worry,” she said in a rush. She suddenly felt protective of him. “You can take a break. You deserve one.”

“No. That’s okay.” He was looking down now. His neck arched gracefully and sadly. The tilt of his neck spoke so eloquently that her fingers itched to start another drawing.

It was a miracle how when you looked hard enough, when you really sought out information, there was so much to see, even in a person’s tiniest gesture. There was so much feeling, such a dazzling array of things that your words, at least Lena’s words, could never say. There were thousands of images and memories and ideas, if you just let them come. There was the whole history of human experience somewhere contained in each of the bits, the most universal in the most specific, if you could only see it. It was like poetry. Well, she had never really found poetry in poetry, to be truthful. But she imagined this was what poetry might be like for someone who understood it and loved it.

Either it was like poetry or it was like getting really, really stoned.

The ring was off and Paul had it cradled in his palm now. He looked at her again. “This is my father’s. He went to Penn, too, so he wants me to have it.”

Lena stared at him solemnly. She wondered if the swelling compassion she felt for him was finding its way out of her eyes. “He’s sick. Carmen told me.”

Paul nodded.

“I’m so sorry.”

He was still nodding, slowing it down. “It’s rough. You know?”

“I do,” she said with feeling. “I mean, I don’t. I do and I don’t. I don’t exactly, but I feel like I do. My bapi—my grandfather died last summer.” Suddenly she felt a horror at her words. “Not that it’s like that!” she practically shouted. “Not that that is what is going to happen!” Lena really hated herself sometimes.

Paul’s expression was undeservedly kind. It was all sweet forgiveness. And even gratitude to top it off. “I know you do, Lena. I can tell you understand.”

They just stared at each other, but for the first time the silence didn’t feel shamefully insufficient. It felt okay.

“Do you want to take a break?” she asked him again.

“Okay,” he agreed this time.

The stump was big enough for two. She sat next to him cross-legged. She leaned into him a little, and he let her. The sun shone down on them benevolently.

The corners of her drawing, where she left it in the grass, flapped gently in the breeze.

She wanted to finish it, but she didn’t feel rushed. She realized she’d begun the drawing so she could tell Paul she was sorry.

Jiggle it a little it’ll open.
—Pinky and the Brain
via Roger Miller

I
t was another day in the rut.

Valia had used up most of her energy IMing her friends back home. It was the one time of the day she looked alive. Now they sat in the darkened den, Carmen preparing to wage another war of attrition, with the TV as the prize.

She hadn’t gotten her Ryan Hennessey fix in days. She tried to picture him. For some reason she couldn’t picture him. She stood up. “Valia, we’re festering. We have to get out of here.”

“Ve do?”

“We do. It’s a beautiful day. We need a walk.”

Valia looked sleepy and cranky. “I’m vatching a show. I don’t vant to valk.”

“Please?” Carmen suddenly felt so desperate she didn’t care about their standoff of sullenness. Let Valia win this round. “I’ll do all the work. You just sit in your chair.”

Valia considered. She liked being pled with. She liked her obvious power over Carmen. She shrugged. “It’s too hot.”

“It’s not so hot today. Please?”

Valia wouldn’t give Carmen the satisfaction of saying yes outright, but she looked at her wheelchair with resignation.

Carmen took the opening. Gently she heaved Valia’s skinny body into her wheelchair. “Okay.” Carmen checked for her keys and her money and wheeled Valia right out the door.

The sky was perfectly blue. Though it was August, the swampy deep-summer haze had momentarily lifted. It was so good to be out. Carmen walked aimlessly, letting her mind wander. She tried to look at the world through Valia’s eyes, to imagine how each suburban vista looked through the eyes of an old woman who had spent her life on an Aegean island. Not so good, obviously. But when Carmen looked up and saw the sky, she knew it was the same sky. She wondered if Valia saw this lovely, azure sky and knew it was her same sky.

For some reason, a picture pushed into Carmen’s mind of a restaurant she’d been to with her mom a few times. She didn’t remember the name of it, but she knew exactly where it was. She pointed them in the direction of it and walked. She felt hungry all of a sudden.

At the restaurant, Carmen was pleased to see they still had tables with large white umbrellas set up outside. Red geraniums flowed from wooden boxes along the whitewashed walls of the little terrace. Carmen had never been to Greece, but she imagined that if you just looked at a small patch of the wall or looked up at the white umbrella against the sky, maybe it would look a little like this.

She set Valia up at a table. There were no other diners.

“Vhy are ve here?” Valia demanded.

“I need a rest and I’m also kind of hungry. Do you mind?”

Valia looked annoyed but martyred. “Does it matter if I mind?”

“I’ll be right back,” Carmen promised.

They didn’t have waiter service at the café tables, so she went to order from the counter inside. It was after lunch and before dinner, so the place was pretty deserted. She felt a bit illicit as she studied the menu. It wasn’t Greek food precisely, but it was Mediterranean. She recognized a lot of the dishes from things she’d had at Lena’s house. She knew the Kaligarises weren’t cooking that stuff at the moment. Lena explained that her dad thought it made Valia homesick. He tried to steer her away from everything that might make her homesick. He didn’t want Valia cooking, even though it was what she had done her whole life.

Carmen ordered stuffed grape leaves and something hot that strongly resembled spanakopita. She ordered an eggplant dish, a Greek salad, a few squares of baklava, and two large lemonades. She paid up and carried it all to the table, setting all the dishes between her and Valia. “I bought us a snack. I hope that’s okay.”

Valia gazed at it all disdainfully.

Carmen put a steaming spinach pastry on a little paper plate and handed it to Valia with a fork. “Here, try some.”

Valia just sat there with it, smelling it, completely still.

Immediately, Carmen regretted her impulse, just as she ended up regretting almost all of her impulses.

Valia didn’t want to be here. She was going to hate the inauthentic food. She could already hear Valia’s litany of complaints.

You call this food?

Vhat is the green mess? This is not spinach.

As the moments passed, Carmen felt worse and worse. Why did she have such stupid ideas? More than that, why did she actually carry them out?

Valia held the plate up close to her face. She looked like she was going to take a bite, and then she stopped. Carmen watched in wonderment as Valia put it down on the table and bent her head.

Valia just sat like that with her head bent for many long moments, and then Carmen saw the tears. Lines of tears bumped down Valia’s wrinkly face. Carmen felt her own throat constricting. She watched as Valia’s face slowly collapsed into pure sorrow.

Carmen was up and out of her chair. Without thinking, she went to Valia and put her arms around the old lady.

Valia was stiff in Carmen’s arms. Carmen waited to be pushed away, or for some other signal of Valia not wanting to be hugged anymore, especially not by Carmen.

But instead, Valia’s head got heavier as it sank into Carmen’s neck. Carmen felt the soft, saggy skin against her collarbone. She hugged a little harder. She felt Valia’s tears, damp on her neck. She realized, sort of distantly, that Valia’s hand had made its way to her wrist.

How sad it was, Carmen thought, that you acted awful when you were desperately sad and hurt and wanted to be loved. How tragic then, the way everyone avoided you and tiptoed around you when you really needed them. Carmen knew this vicious predicament as well as anyone in the world. How bitter it felt when you acted badly to everyone and ended up hating yourself the most.

Carmen tenderly patted Valia’s hair, surprised that for once that it wasn’t she who was acting awful. It wasn’t Carmen who was being needy, but rather feeling needed.

She thought about Mr. Kaligaris and all of his theories about protecting his mother. Yes, smelling Greek food made Valia sad. He was right about that. And being held by another human seemed to make her sad too. But sometimes, Carmen knew, being sad was what you had to do.

“I vant to go home,” Valia croaked into Carmen’s ear.

“I know,” Carmen whispered back, and she understood that Valia wasn’t talking about 1303 Highland Street, Bethesda, Maryland.

“Have fun with Michael.” Bridget lifted her eyebrows suggestively. “But not too much fun.”

As she helped Diana put her duffel bag into her car, Bridget felt a strange rolling sensation under her eyeballs. Her head was aching and she was tired. She was happy for Diana that she was going back to Philadelphia to spend the weekend with her boyfriend, and she was sorry for herself that she was staying here.

She decided against stopping in the dining hall. Friday night dinner was one of the better meals, involving an ice cream sundae buffet where she was always happy to return for seconds and thirds. But tonight she wasn’t hungry. “I gotta go to bed,” she muttered to herself, trudging through the parking lot and past the equipment sheds.

The camp felt strangely empty. It was middle weekend, so the vast majority of campers went home. Only about a quarter of the staff remained to keep an eye on things.

As she pulled off her clothes and crawled under her covers, Bridget was grateful that her cabin was quiet for once. She bundled herself up as tight as she could. It was at least eighty degrees outside; why was she so cold? The tighter she bundled, the colder she felt. She was shaking. Her teeth were chattering. The more she focused on it and tried to stop, the more they chattered and clacked. Her cheeks burned.

She was getting a fever, she concluded. She meant to do something about this. Maybe she could steal a couple of Advil from Katie. She kept imagining herself doing this, without actually doing it. She passed, gradually, into a state between awake and asleep. She imagined getting another blanket. She imagined drinking a glass of water. She could not figure out whether she was doing it or not. She puzzled and tortured her brain trying to figure out what was and wasn’t real. She must have drifted like that for a long time, because it was dark when she was startled by the presence of somebody next to her.