The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Read online

  Carmen trudged downstairs and took her place at the elaborately set table. Multiple forks were fine at a restaurant, but in somebody’s own dining room? There were matching white covered dishes that turned out to contain all kinds of homemade food. Lamb chops, roasted potatoes, sautéed zucchini and red peppers, carrot salad, warm bread. Carmen jumped when she felt Krista’s hand reaching for hers. She yanked it away without thinking.

  Krista’s cheeks flushed. “Sorry,” she murmured. “We hold hands for grace.”

  She looked at her father. He was happily holding Paul’s hand on one side and reaching for hers on the other. That’s what they do. What do we do? she felt like asking her father. Aren’t we supposed to be a family too? She submitted to hand-holding and an unfamiliar grace. Her father was the one who’d refused to convert to Catholicism to please Carmen’s maternal grandparents. Now he was Mr. Grace?

  Carmen thought forlornly of her mom. She and her mom said grace now, but they hadn’t when her dad still lived with them.

  She stared at Lydia. What kind of power did this woman have?

  “Lydia, this is fabulous,” her father said.

  “It’s great,” Krista chimed in.

  Carmen felt her father’s eyes on her. She was supposed to say something. She just sat there and chewed.

  Paul was quiet. He looked at Carmen, then looked down.

  Rain slapped against the window. Silverware scraped and teeth chewed.

  “Well, Carmen,” Krista ventured. “You don’t look at all like I was imagining?”

  Carmen swallowed a big bite without chewing. This didn’t help. She cleared her throat. “You mean, I look Puerto Rican?” She leveled Krista with a stare.

  Krista tittered and then backtracked. “No, I just meant . . . you know . . . you have, like, dark eyes and dark wavy hair?”

  And dark skin and a big butt? Carmen felt like adding. “Right,” Carmen said. “I look Puerto Rican, like my mother. My mother is Puerto Rican. As in Hispanic. My dad might not have mentioned that.”

  Krista’s voice grew so quiet, Carmen wasn’t even sure she was still talking. “I’m not sure if he . . .” Krista trailed off till she was just mouthing words at her plate.

  “Carmen has my height and my talent for math,” her dad piped up. It was lame, but Carmen appreciated it anyway.

  Lydia nodded earnestly. Paul still didn’t say anything.

  “So, Carmen.” Lydia placed her fork on her plate. “Your father tells me you are a wonderful tennis player.”

  Carmen’s mouth happened to be completely full at that moment. It seemed to take about five long minutes to chew and swallow. “I’m okay,” was the big payoff to all that chewing.

  Carmen knew she was being stingy with her little answers. She could have expanded or asked a question back. But she was angry. She was so angry she didn’t understand herself. She didn’t want Lydia’s food to taste good. She didn’t want her dad to enjoy it so much. She didn’t want Krista to look like a little doll in her lavender cardigan. She wanted Paul to actually say something and not just sit there thinking she was a stupid lunatic. She hated these people. She didn’t want to be here. Suddenly she felt dizzy. She felt panic cramping her stomach. Her heart was knocking around unsteadily.

  She stood up. “Can I call Mom?” she asked her dad.

  “Of course,” he said, getting up too. “Why don’t you use the phone in the guest room?”

  She left the table without another word and ran upstairs.

  “Mamaaa,” she sobbed into the phone a minute later. Every day since the end of school, she’d pushed her mother away little by little, anticipating her summer with her dad. Now she needed her mother, and she needed her mother to forget about all those times.

  “What is it, baby?”

  “Daddy’s getting married. He’s got a whole family now. He’s got a wife and two blond kids and this fancy house. What am I doing here?”

  “Oh, Carmen. My gosh. He’s getting married, is he? Who is she?”

  Her mom couldn’t help letting a little of her own curiosity creep through her concern.

  “Yes. In August. Her name is Lydia.”

  “Lydia who?”

  “I don’t even know.” Carmen cast herself upon the floral bedspread.

  Her mother sighed. “What are the kids like?”

  “I don’t know. Blond. Quiet.”

  “How old?”

  Carmen didn’t feel like answering questions. She felt like getting babied and pitied. “Teenagers. The boy is older than me. I really don’t know exactly.”

  “Well, he should have told you before you went down there.”

  Carmen could detect the edge of anger in her mother’s voice. But she didn’t want to deal with it right now.

  “It’s fine, Mom. He said he wanted to tell me in person. It’s just . . . I don’t even feel like being here anymore.”

  “Oh, honey, you’re disappointed not to have your daddy to yourself.”

  When it was put like that, Carmen couldn’t find the appropriate space for her indignation.

  “It’s not that,” she wailed. “They’re so . . .”

  “What?”

  “I don’t like them.” Carmen’s anger made her inarticulate.

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t. They don’t like me either.”

  “How can you tell?” her mom asked.

  “I just can,” Carmen said sullenly, loathing herself for being such a baby.

  “Are you mad at these strangers, or are you mad at your dad?”

  “I’m not mad at Dad,” Carmen said quickly without taking even a moment to consider it. It wasn’t his fault he’d fallen for a woman with zombies for children and a guest room straight out of a Holiday Inn.

  She said good-bye to her mother and promised to call the next day. Then she rolled over and cried for reasons she didn’t quite understand.

  Some sane part of her brain told her she should feel happy for her dad. He’d met a woman he loved enough to marry. He had this whole life now. It was obviously what he wanted. She knew she should want for him what he wanted for himself.

  But still she hated them. And so she hated herself for hating them.

  Slowly Bridget waded into the warm water. A thousand triggerfish darted around her ankles.

  “I want Eric,” she told Diana, who was on team four. “Will you trade places with me?” It wasn’t the first time she’d proposed this.

  Diana laughed at her. “Do you think they’d notice?”

  “He’s leading a run at five,” Emily said.

  Bridget looked at her watch. “Shit, that’s in five minutes.”

  “You’re not seriously going to go,” Diana said.

  Bridget was already out of the water. “Yeah, I am.”

  “It’s six miles,” Emily said.

  The truth was Bridget hadn’t run even one mile in over two months. “Where are they meeting up?”

  “By the equipment shed,” Emily said, wading deeper into the water.

  “See you all,” Bridget called over her shoulder.

  In the cabin, she yanked on a pair of shorts over her bikini bottoms and traded her top for a sports bra. She pulled on socks and her running shoes. It was too hot to worry about whether running in just the bra was acceptable.

  The group had already started off. Bridget had to chase them down a dirt path. She should have taken a minute to stretch.

  There were about fifteen of them. Bridget hung back for the first mile or so until she found her stride. Her legs were long, and she carried no extra weight. It made her a naturally good runner, even when she was out of practice.

  She pulled up with the middle of the pack. Eric noticed her. She pulled up closer to him. “Hi. I’m Bridget,” she said.

  “Bridget?” He let her catch up with him.

  “Most people call me Bee, though.”

  “Bee? As in bumble?”

  She nodded and smiled.

  “I’m Eric,�
�� he offered.

  “I know,” she said.

  He turned to face the group. “We’re doing seven-minute miles today. I’m assuming we have serious runners in this group. If you get tired, just fall back to your own pace. I don’t expect everybody to finish with me.”

  Jesus. Seven-minute miles. The path led uphill. She kicked up dust from the dry ground. Over the hills the land flattened out again. They ran along a riverbed, which carried just a trickle in the dry season.

  She was sweating, but her breathing was in check. She stayed up with Eric. “I hear you’re from L.A.,” she said. Some people liked to talk when they ran. Some people hated it. She was interested to test out which type he was.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  She had just cast him as a type two when he opened his mouth again. “I’ve spent a lot of time here, though.”

  “Here in Baja?” she asked.

  “Yeah. My mom is Mexican. She’s from Mulegé.”

  “Really?” Bridget asked, genuinely interested. That explained his looks. “Just a few miles south of here, right?”

  “Right,” he agreed. “What about you?”

  “I’m from Washington, D.C. My dad is from Amsterdam.”

  “Wow. So you know the whole foreign-parent syndrome.”

  She laughed, pleased at how this was going. “I do.”

  “What about your mom?” And here, without warning, she’d come directly to a second test. This was one she usually saved for much further down the road if she could.

  “My mom . . .” Is? Was? She was still indecisive about tense when it came to this. “My mom . . . was from Alabama. She died.” Bridget had spent four years saying her mother “passed away,” but then the term started to really annoy her. It didn’t fit with what had happened.

  He turned his head and looked at her straight on. “I’m so sad for you.”

  She felt the sweat dry up on her skin. It was a disarmingly honest thing to say. She looked away. At least he hadn’t said, “I’m sorry.” She suddenly felt exposed in her running bra.

  With most guys she managed to forestall this issue indefinitely. She’d gone out with guys for months at a time and not had this conversation. It was strange that with Eric it had come up in the first two minutes. Carmen would take that as a sign of something, but then Carmen was always looking for signs. Bridget never did.

  “You go to Columbia now?” she asked, leaving her discomfort on the path behind them.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “It’s a strange school for an athlete,” he said. “Sports aren’t exactly a big emphasis there.”

  “Right.”

  “But it’s got a great soccer program, and the academics are obviously good. That was a big deal to my mom.”

  “Makes sense,” she said. His profile was awfully nice.

  He was picking up the pace now. She took that as a challenge. She always enjoyed a challenge.

  She glanced back to see that the group had thinned a lot. She kept with him stride for stride. She loved the feeling of strain in her muscles, the exhilaration that came with mounting exhaustion.

  “How old are you?” he asked her point-blank.

  She was hoping to finesse this issue. She knew she was among the youngest girls here. “Sixteen,” she answered. She would be soon. It wasn’t a crime to round up, was it? “What about you?”

  “Nineteen,” he answered.

  That wasn’t such a big difference. Particularly if she were sixteen.

  “Are you thinking about colleges yet?” he asked.

  “Maybe University of Virginia,” she said. She actually had no idea. The truth was, the coach at UVA had already commented on Bridget to her high school coach. Bridget knew she didn’t have to worry much about college, even if her grades weren’t that spectacular.

  “Great school,” he said.

  Now she was pushing the pace. She was feeling good, and the excitement of being this close to Eric was energizing her muscles. They circled back around to finish the run up the beach.

  “You must be pretty serious about running,” he said to her.

  She laughed. “I haven’t run in months.” And with that, she accelerated to a near sprint. The rest of the group had fallen far behind. She was curious to see whether Eric would stick to his preset pace or abandon it to keep up with her.

  She felt his elbow brush hers. She smiled. “Race ya.”

  They sprinted the half mile up the beach. There was so much adrenaline filling Bridget’s veins, she could have flown the distance.

  She collapsed on the sand. He collapsed too. “I think we set a record,” he said.

  She spread out her arms, happy. “I’ve always been goal oriented.” Bridget rolled around in the sand until she was covered like a sugar doughnut. He watched her, laughing.

  The rest of the group would catch up in a couple of minutes. She stood and kicked off her shoes and socks. She looked right at him when she pulled off her shorts, revealing her bikini bottoms; then she yanked the elastic out of her hair. Yellow clumps stuck to her sweaty shoulders and back.

  He looked away.

  “Let’s swim,” she said.

  His face was serious now. He didn’t move.

  She didn’t wait for him. She waded in several yards and then dove under. When she came up, she saw that he had stripped off his soaked T-shirt. She didn’t pretend not to stare.

  Eric dove in after her, just as she prayed he would. He swam past where she was and surfaced a few yards away.

  Bridget raised her arms in the air for no reason. She jumped up and down in the water, unable to contain her energy. “This is the best place in the world.”

  He laughed again, his serious face gone.

  She dove under the surface and plummeted to the sandy bottom. Slowly she passed his feet. Without thinking, she reached out her hand and touched his ankle with her finger, light as a triggerfish.

  When Lena arrived in the kitchen the next morning for breakfast, only her grandfather was awake. “Kalemera,” she said.

  He nodded and blinked in acknowledgment. She sat down across from him at the small kitchen table. He pointed the box of Rice Krispies at her. She happened to love Rice Krispies. “Efcharisto,” she thanked him, about reaching the limits of her Greek. Grandma had left out bowls and spoons. Bapi handed her the milk.

  They chewed. She looked at him, and he looked into his bowl. Was he annoyed because she was there? Did he like to eat breakfast alone? Was he very disappointed that she couldn’t speak Greek?

  He poured himself another bowl of cereal. Bapi was kind of wiry, but he clearly had a good appetite. It was funny. As she looked at Bapi, she recognized some of her own features. The nose, for instance. Almost everybody else in the family had the famous Kaligaris nose—her father, her aunt, Effie. The big, prominent nose gave character to all who wore it. Of course, her mother had a different nose—a Patmos nose—but even that was sufficiently distinctive.

  Lena’s nose was small, delicate, characterless. She’d always wondered where she’d gotten it, but now she saw it right in the middle of Bapi’s face. Did that mean that she had the true Kaligaris nose? Since she was small she’d secretly wished she had the big family nose. Now that she saw where she got hers, she liked it a little better.

  She made herself stop looking at Bapi. She was no doubt making him uncomfortable. She should definitely say something. It was probably very awkward for her to sit here and not be saying anything.

  “I’m going to make a painting this morning,” she said. She gestured like she was painting.

  He seemed to snap out of his cereal reverie. She knew that feeling so well. He raised his eyebrows and nodded. Whether he understood a word, she couldn’t tell.

  “I was thinking I’d walk down to Ammoudi. Are there stairs all the way down?”

  Bapi considered and nodded. She could tell he wanted to get back to his contemplation of the cereal box. Was he tired of her? Was she annoy
ing him?

  “Okay, well, I’ll see you later. Have a good day, Bapi. Andio.”

  She walked upstairs and packed up her painting things with the oddest feeling that she was Effie and she’d just eaten breakfast with herself.

  She put on the Pants with a wrinkly white linen shirt. She slung her backpack, containing her palette, her foldable easel, and her panels, over her shoulder.

  Just as she reached the stairs, Kostos arrived at the front door, delivering a platter of freshly baked pastries from his grandmother. Grandma hugged him and kissed him and thanked him in such fast Greek that Lena couldn’t make out a single word.

  Grandma spotted Lena and got that look in her eye. Quickly she invited Kostos inside.

  Lena wished Effie were awake. She made for the door.

  “Lena, sit down. Have a pastry,” Grandma ordered.

  “I’m going painting. I need to get started before the sun gets too high and the shadows disappear,” Lena claimed. It wasn’t technically true, because she was starting a new painting today, which meant the shadows could be any which way.

  Kostos migrated toward the front door himself. “I have to get to work, Valia. I’m late already.”

  Grandma happily settled for the idea that at least the two would have to walk together outside. Grandma winked at Lena as she followed Kostos out the door. “He’s a nice boy,” she stage-whispered to Lena. It was Grandma’s constant refrain.

  “You love to paint,” Kostos observed once out in the sunshine.

  “I do,” Lena said. “Especially here.” She wasn’t sure why she offered that last gratuitous bit.

  “I know it’s beautiful here,” Kostos said thoughtfully, looking out over the glittering water. “But I can hardly see it. These are the only views I know.”

  Lena felt the desire for a real conversation coming on. She was interested in what he said. Then she thought of her grandmother, probably watching them through the window.

  “Which way are you walking?” Lena asked. It was a slightly mean trick she was setting up.