The Second Summer of the Sisterhood Part 27

"Yeah. Where are you from?"

"Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.," she answered.

"Why'd you come all the way down here?"

"I used to come here when I was a little kid," she explained, wanting him to ask more.

But he didn't ask more. He didn't even listen to the last part of what she said, because at that moment, two girls stopped by on their way down the sidewalk. One was a busty brunette and the other a small blonde wearing very small, very low pants. Bridget recognized the girls from the soccer field. They smiled and flirted with Billy while Bridget retied her shoes.

"Sorry about that," Billy said when they were gone. "I had a crush on that girl for a year."

Bridget felt sad. She remembered when she herself had been the girl boys had crushes on, not the one they talked to about them. "Which one?" she asked.

"Lisa, the blonde," he said. "I'm a sucker for blondes," he added.

Instinctively she touched her skunky hair packed in its bandana. The drinks came.

"So how do you know so much about soccer?" he asked.

"I used to play," she said. She held the straw between her teeth.

"Were you any good?" he asked.

"I was all right," she said around the straw.

He nodded. "You'll be at the game Sat.u.r.day, right?"

She shrugged, just to punish him.

"You gotta be there!" He looked worried. "The whole team will freak if you're not there!"

She smiled, enjoying herself. He didn't have a crush on her, but this wasn't so bad. "Oh, all right."

"Krista's taking her mom to brunch at Roxie's," Carmen explained to her mother over toaster waffles. Both Al and Lydia had arrived the evening before to make peace with Krista and take her home.

Christina smiled. It was a ghost of a smile, really, but downright mirthful compared to her expression of the last few weeks. Roxie's, notable for its clientele of drag queens, stood at the edge of Adams Morgan. Krista had heard about it from Tibby with wide, fascinated eyes. Carmen was actually pretty pleased with her protegee. Krista was going down, but not without a fight.

"Al too?"

"No, it's a mother-daughter day. Krista's going home with them tomorrow."

Her mother nodded thoughtfully. "I like Krista."

"She's sweet. She's all right." Carmen tore off half a waffle and stuffed it in her mouth. "Are you coming tonight?" she asked after she'd chewed and swallowed.

Her mother's face settled back into its look of distant forbearance. "I guess I am."

As every couple had an ident.i.ty in marriage, they also had one in divorce. Carmen's parents practiced "amicable divorce." This meant that when Al and Lydia arranged to have dinner at a restaurant with Carmen, Al was bound to invite Christina to come along to meet his newer-model wife, and Christina was bound to accept.

"You okay about meeting Lydia?"

Christina considered this, sucking on her empty fork. "Yes."

"Yes?" Her mother was stoic. Her mother was brave. Carmen was maybe adopted.

Christina looked like she was about to say more, but she stopped herself. "Yes."

These weeks, they stayed on the surface together. Carmen wanted a million things from her mother, but she was afraid to press. She deserved nothing.

She had certainly eaten and slept, although she couldn't remember exactly what or when.

Tibby had lost track of time and s.p.a.ce and even going to the bathroom. There was a lot of video to go through, especially after she had called Mrs. Graffman and asked for a few tapes from their collection. She needed to be absolutely scrupulous about saving all her original material, and every stage of her edit took deep concentration.

In the course of her work, she'd discovered pretty quickly that the stuff she'd shot for her actual doc.u.mentary last summer was worthless. The beautiful things were hanging around the edges. They were the outtakes and the overhangs-Bailey setting up shots or breaking them down, Bailey's careful tinkering with the boom.

Tibby also loved the parts when Bailey's eye was behind the camera. Bailey had a remarkably patient style. Unlike Tibby, she wasn't in a hurry to muscle everything into the shape of a story. She didn't goad her subjects into saying what she wanted them to say.

The one part that Tibby had purposely filmed that was any good was her interview with Bailey. Bailey sat in the chair by the window, as luminous as an angel, the Traveling Pants bagging at her feet. There was even a shot of lumpy, sleeping Mimi in the mix. Tibby was mesmerized by Bailey's brave, straight-on face, her peeking-out soul, no matter how many times she watched.

Today she was working on the soundtrack. It was easy, really, because she was just going to play Beethoven straight through. But as she listened, the music wasn't having exactly the effect she wanted.

She put her head back. She was dizzy. She'd been up for a lot of hours. The end-of-summer festival was less than four days away.

The quality she loved about the music involved Brian whistling to it. Somehow, in her sleep-deprived mania, this struck her as art. It wasn't Kafka and explosions at Pizza Hut. It was the rise and fall of Brian's whistle.

He made the world to be a gra.s.sy road Before her wandering feet.

-W. B. Yeats

It had been a summer of awkward meals. Carmen sat between Lydia and Krista. Christina sat between Al and Paul.

Carmen so dreaded the long, miserable silences they were sure to endure, she'd actually prepared a few topics for discussion:

Summer movies

Sequels-a good idea or inherently problematic?

Popcorn-what exactly is that b.u.t.tery mess? (Make room for Christina to cite stunning calorie facts.)

Sunscreen (Throw a bone to the mothers.)

SPF-what's it all really mean?

Worst sunburn ever? (Appear to leave up for grabs. Let Al win with oft-told story of sailing in the Bahamas.) Ozone. (Allow all to be in agreement over liking it. Not liking holes in it.)

Air travel-has it gotten worse? (Allow adults to go on and on as needed.)

(If situation grows desperate.) Israel/Palestine.

But strangely, the paper stayed in her pocket. She listened quietly as the conversation made its own brave start: Lydia described Roxie's and surprised Carmen by being able to laugh about it. Lydia laughing made Christina laugh too. It was a small and rosy miracle.

Then Krista told about getting lost for three hours and twenty-two minutes on the D.C. subway. That immediately launched Al into a long, educational summary of the various colors and lines and junctions of the Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., ma.s.s transit system. He even whipped out his map for ill.u.s.tration.

Then somehow or other, that led to the story of how Al and Christina got lost the night they brought brand-new baby Carmen home from the hospital. Carmen knew the story well, and she usually hated hearing it because the punch lines were always Carmen crying or Carmen spitting up. But tonight she listened raptly as her parents traded back and forth narrating the different parts of the story, being funny and amicable. Lydia laughed and winced appreciatively. Al held Lydia's hand on top of the table, to let her know it was okay, he loved her better now.

Al ordered the wine in a funny Italian accent. Krista fiddled with her beads and whispered something nice to her mother. Lydia insisted Christina try a bite of her "divine" corn-and-lobster salad.

Carmen felt flushed and warm with pleasure as she looked around at the animated faces. This was her family, weird as it was. She'd gone from a dysfunctional three to a completely haywire six.

Paul looked at her. It's all good, he seemed to say.

She smiled. And the real bonanza was, she'd gotten Paul in the deal. Paul, who was the kindest, most patient person she knew.

She thought back to last summer, the day she'd met Lydia and Krista and Paul for the first time. She'd been furious at her father. She'd thought it was an ending, but it had turned out to be a beginning.

She looked at her mother, bearing up gracefully. Al and Lydia were a couple; Christina was alone. Christina always bore up gracefully. As a single mother with a full-time job. As a person with a broken heart.

Her mother deserved a beginning too.

At 9:15 the phone rang, and Lena pounced on it. The phone was her worst enemy and her best friend, but she never knew which until she answered it.

"h.e.l.lo?" she said, barely disguising her eagerness.

"Hi."

It was her best friend.