Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares [37]
Seeing him again this summer answered her question. It was real. She responded to him the same way, even though she was different.
What was it about Eric? He was handsome and talented, yeah. But lots of guys were. She had adored Billy Klein back in Alabama the summer before, and she had even felt attracted to him, but it wasn’t like this. What made you feel that stomach-churning agony for one person and not another? If Bridget were God, she would have made it against the law for you to feel that way about someone without them having to feel it for you right back.
Bridget reached the top of the little mountain. Suddenly the trees fell away, and she could see furrowed hills and steamy valleys on and on. The camp, in which all of this agitation was contained, was small and circular. From this height, it was small enough to put her arms around.
Bridget knew what to do. She couldn’t control her basic response to Eric. But she could control her behavior. She had been tough and single-minded then, and she was now, too. Just as she’d found a way to seduce him back then, she could find a way not to do it now.
She had a weekend at home coming up. She would pull herself together. And when she got back to camp, she would contain herself: She wouldn’t flirt, she wouldn’t tempt, she wouldn’t pine, she wouldn’t grieve. She wouldn’t even yearn. Well, maybe she’d yearn a little, but she’d keep it to herself.
She began the run downhill, fast and just a little bit out of control.
Yes, they would be friends. They would be pals. He would never know what she really felt.
It was going to be a very long summer.
Can I buy you a drink, or should I just give you the money?
—Failed pickup artist
“Come on, Tibby! We’re going!”
Tibby was standing in the front door of her house, watching Bee jump up and down on the lawn and shout at her. Her yellow head radiated light in the darkness.
“Where are we going?” Tibby asked flatly.
“It’s a surprise. It’ll be fun. Come on!”
Tibby walked out onto the summer lawn, feeling the bits of mown grass sticking to her bare feet. “I don’t want a surprise. I don’t want to have fun.”
“That’s exactly why you need some.”
Carmen was at the wheel of her car, honking the horn and waving out the window. Tibby could see Lena in the front passenger seat.
Bee came close and bent her head toward Tibby’s. “Come on, Tib. Katherine is bouncing back like a little Super Ball. You’re allowed to feel okay, you know? I have one night before I go back to Pennsylvania. I’m not spending it without you.”
Tibby ran back to the house to tell her parents she was going. Usually her parents went out on Saturday nights, but since Katherine’s accident they stayed close to home. And besides, since they’d fired Loretta, who was going to cover for them?
Tibby trudged to Carmen’s car without bothering to get shoes. “I don’t want to go,” she announced to the group, once inside the car.
“You don’t even know where we’re going,” Lena pointed out.
“I still don’t want to go.”
Carmen released the break and drove off anyway. “The lucky thing for you, Tibadee, is that your friends don’t listen to you.”
Tibby shook her head humorlessly. “I don’t really see how that’s lucky.”
“Because we love you too much to let you fester in your room for the rest of the summer,” Carmen clarified. Fester was her word of the week.
“Maybe I like to fester,” Tibby said.
“But festering…does not like you.” Carmen nodded decisively, as though this were the last word on the subject.
Tibby sat back and let the comfortable nattering swirl around her. Listening to her friends’ voices felt like hearing a familiar symphony, with one instrument coming in and layering atop another. The way the cadences linked and harmonized made her feel safe.
Until Carmen pulled into the parking lot of the Rockwood pool.
“Why are we here?”
“We’re going swimming,” Bee offered.
“Why don’t we just go to Lenny’s?” Tibby asked.
“Her parents are home. And Valia is asleep,” Carmen explained.
Enough said.