The Second Summer of the Sisterhood Part 31

She washed her hair vigorously, four times in a row, watching the last of the faint brown dye go down the drain. Then she put on her running shoes.

The air was a little cooler than usual, and her breath settled into an easy rhythm right away. Her body felt light and wonderful, as if she'd cast off a very heavy, very dark blanket.

The river was still extra full from the day and night of storms. Her feet slipped a little on the muddy parts of the path, but she slowed down without breaking her stride. She could have run a million miles today, but she decided to turn back once she was five miles out. The trees were so lush and thick they drooped heavily over the river's edge. Big-leafed magnolias towered to the sky. A thick coat of moss seemed to cover every boulder and rock.

"Hey!"

"Hey!" the voice shouted out a second time before she realized it was directed at her.

She slowed down and made a half turn.

It was Billy. He was waving to her from farther up the gra.s.sy bank. It made sense. She could see his house from here if she stood on her tiptoes.

He came toward her. He looked confused by her appearance.

She touched her head, remembering she hadn't covered it. What was the point anymore?

"You look ... different," he said, eyeing her carefully. "Did you dye your hair?"

"No, I ... kind of ... undyed it."

He looked surprised.

"I mean, this is how it usually is."

There was something stirring in his eyes. He was grasping for something.

"You do know me, Billy," she said.

"I do, don't I?"

"My name isn't Gilda."

"No."

"No."

He was racking his brain, she could tell he was.

"It's not Mia Hamm, either."

He laughed. He studied her a little longer. "You're Bee," he said finally.

"I am," she said.

He smiled, amazed, happy, bewildered. "Thank G.o.d there aren't two girls in Burgess who can kick my a.s.s all over the soccer field."

"Just one," she said.

He pointed to his forehead. "I knew I knew you."

"I knew I knew you."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't going under an alias, was I?"

"No. Besides, you look exactly the same."

"You look ..." He considered her. "The same too," he decided.

"Funny how that is," she said, feeling giddy.

They started walking together along the river.

He was grabbing looks at her as they went. "Why were you using the fake name?" he asked finally.

It was a reasonable question. She wasn't sure what the answer was anymore. "My mom died, did you know that?" So it wasn't an answer, but it was information she wanted him to have.

He nodded. "We had a memorial service for her here. I remember thinking maybe you would come."

"I didn't know about it. Or I would've."

He nodded again. She was leaving open a lot of questions, she knew, but people didn't press you when your mother was dead.

"I thought about you a lot," he said. She knew by his eyes that he meant it. "I felt sorry a lot. About your mom, I mean."

"I know," she said quickly.

He touched her hand lightly as they walked. They had only ever talked about soccer before this, and yet he was able to be serious with her now, to absorb who and what she was.

"I wanted to come here and see this place again," she explained after some silence. "I wanted to see Greta and find out about my mom, but I ... I didn't want any ... commitments. I guess."

He seemed to find this rational, although she couldn't be sure.

"I don't feel that way anymore," she added.

She liked how carefully he looked at her, but she was ready to change gears now.

"So how'd y'all fare against Decatur?" she asked. Now that she was herself again, it was funny to hear her voice relaxing into the old accent.

"We lost."

"Oh. Too bad. I figured you got rained out Sat.u.r.day."

"We played Sunday," he said. "Lost three-one. The guys say it's because you weren't there."

Bridget smiled. She liked that idea.

"I told them I'd ask you to be our coach, officially."

"How about I'll do it unofficially?"

He settled for that. "No more missing games, Coach," he said. "And you've got to come to practice, too. We've got the final tournament next weekend."

"I promise," she said.

At the end of the path, they aimed themselves in their different directions. Billy grabbed her hand as she was walking away. He squeezed it once, not hard, and let it go.

"Glad you're back, Bee."

Tibby had to leave the dorm. It had been three days since she'd seen the sunlight, and she'd eaten every flake and grain from every miniature cereal box she'd pilfered from the cafeteria-dry, after she'd run out of milk. She didn't need to shower, necessarily, or do her laundry, or comb her hair, but she did need to eat.

She was wandering through the lobby of her dorm, arguing with herself about a couple of her edits, when she plowed straight into Brian.

"Brian!" she shouted when she realized it was indeed him and not her tricky imagination.

He smiled. He got close enough to hug her and then lost his nerve, so she reached out and hugged him.

"I'm so, so glad to see you," she said.

"I got your messages," he said.

She winced slightly.

"All of them," he added.

"Sorry about that."

"No problem."

Happily she studied his face. "Hey. Where are your gla.s.ses?" And as the question left her lips, she realized that Carmen had a point. If Tibby forced herself to be objective, she could see that Brian looked perfectly presentable. She had a terrible thought. "You didn't get contacts, did you?" What if Brian, of all people, had suddenly turned vain? What would that mean for the world?

Brian looked at her as if she were crazy. "No. They broke." He shrugged. "I can't see."

Tibby laughed. She was so relieved that he was her friend again.

"Can you come to the cafeteria with me? I'll sneak you in?"

"Sure," he said.

At the entrance to the building, Tibby saw Maura. Some cowardly part of herself wanted to hide, to pretend she hadn't actually seen her. They hadn't spoken in over a week. Tibby felt certain Alex had told her all about Tibby's harangue.

Maura was decked out in a leather skirt. Tibby was still wearing her plaid pajama bottoms. Her tank top was splotched with ink. Brian glanced at Tibby cautiously. Maura looked down, obviously preferring the charade where they acted as though they hadn't seen each other.

Tibby spat in the face of her cowardly self. "Hey, Maura," she said. "I didn't properly introduce you to my friend Brian. Maura, this is Brian. Did I mention that he's my friend?"

Maura looked cornered. She glanced around at the people streaming through the lobby. She didn't want to be seen talking to the girl wearing pajamas. Tibby found herself wis.h.i.+ng, perversely, that Brian looked as much like a doofus as she did, rather than perfectly presentable.

Maura acknowledged them with a tight, unpleasant smile and sidestepped Tibby to get to the elevators.

Later, in the cafeteria, Tibby wanted to introduce Brian to everyone she knew, but unfortunately, that came down to Vanessa. Vanessa agreed to sit at their table and promised to show Brian her animals when they got back to the dorm.

"He's cute," Vanessa whispered to Tibby as Brian went to get them orange juice.

The first letter took eight days to come, and Lena knew by the feel of it in her hands that it wasn't going to make her happy. It was light and thin, and Kostos's normally expansive handwriting looked oddly compressed.

Dearest Lena,

It is hard for me to write you with this message. I am in a situation here that is troubling me. I want to wait to explain it to you until I know how it will be resolved. I'm sorry for the suspense. I know it isn't easy on you.

Please bear with me for a bit longer.

Kostos

Under his cold sign-off he'd written something else at a different time, she guessed, because the ink had dried a slightly different color, and the writing was much looser, almost drunken.

I love you, Lena, he had scrawled at the bottom. I couldn't stop if I tried.

She studied it, feeling a strange sense of detachment. What could it be? She'd spent so many hours trying to calculate and guess, and she hadn't come up with one hypothesis that made any sense.

He said he loved her. Though she generally did a poor job of holding and trusting that notion, she did believe him. But why did he say he couldn't stop if he tried? It sounded like he was trying. Why was he trying? What could possibly have come up that made him want to stop loving her?