Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares [2]
“Now’s the big one, okay, everybody?” It had been a long morning. Carmen knew she was wearing everyone thin. She was irritating herself at this point. But who else looked out for posterity? Huh? “Last one, I swear.”
She arranged the dads and full-grown boys in the back. Even Lena’s dad—not because he was tall (Bee had a good three inches on him) but because Carmen was a generally thoughtful person, if she did think so herself.
Grandmothers and mothers took the next row. Valia, Carmen senior, Tibby’s ancient great-grandma Felicia, who didn’t know where she was, Greta nervously patting her perm. Then there was Ari in her handsome beige suit, Christina constantly looking over her shoulder at her new husband, David, Tibby’s mom with the lipstick on her teeth. And there was Albert’s wife, Lydia, looking eager but also anxious that she might be taking up an extra square inch of space.
Lastly, Carmen ordered the remaining siblings into place. Effie pulled a dire face about having to kneel on a level with Nicky and Katherine. Tibby coaxed Brian from his spot on the sidelines and arranged him in the back row.
And now it was the Septembers’ turn. Sitting in the front, they clutched each other in a mass of hot black polyester, leaving a space in the middle for Carmen. “Okay! Great!” Carmen shouted at them all in encouragement. “Just hold on one second.”
Carmen nearly wrestled Ms. Collings from the dais. Ms. Collings was the teacher who’d sent Carmen out to the hallway the greatest number of times, but she was also the teacher who loved her best.
“We’re all set,” Carmen said. “Here.” She demonstrated to Ms. Collings the camera placement she wanted. For a moment Carmen studied the viewfinder. She saw them all, encompassed in the little frame—her beloved friends, her mom, stepmom, stepdad, actual dad, grandma. Her friends’ moms, dads, families who felt as close as if they were her own. This was her whole life, right here. Her tribe. Everything that mattered.
And this moment. This was it, somehow. All of them celebrating a day and an accomplishment that belonged to the four of them equally. This was the culmination of a shared life.
Carmen threw herself into her pile of friends. She screamed, out of pure emotion, which got them all screaming. She felt the heave of flesh as every layer of their group seemed to sink into the whole more fully—arms wrapped around shoulders and waists, cheeks pressed together, wrinkly and smooth. Then Carmen burst into tears, knowing that in the picture her eyes would look very puffy indeed.
Granted, Tibby was in a mood. All she could see was change. All anybody talked about was change. She didn’t like Bee’s wearing heels for the second day in a row. She felt peevish about Lena’s getting three inches trimmed off her hair. Couldn’t everybody just leave everything alone for a few minutes?
Tibby was a slow adjuster. In preschool, her teachers had said she had trouble with transitions. Tibby preferred looking backward for information rather than forward. As far as she was concerned, she’d take a nursery school report card over a fortune-teller any day of the week. It was the cheapest and best self-analysis around.
Tibby saw Gilda’s through these same eyes. It was changing. Its glory days of the late nineteen eighties were far behind it. It was showing its age. The once-shiny wood floor was scratched and dull. One of the mirror panels was cracked. The mats looked as old as Tibby, and they’d been cleaned much less. Gilda’s was trying to get with the times, offering kickboxing and yoga, according to the big chalkboard, but it didn’t look to Tibby like that was helping much. What if it went out of business? What a horrible thought. Maybe Tibby should buy a subscription of classes here? No, that would be weird, wouldn’t it?
“Tibby,