Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares [59]
“I do,” she said with feeling. “I mean, I don’t. I do and I don’t. I don’t exactly, but I feel like I do. My bapi—my grandfather died last summer.” Suddenly she felt a horror at her words. “Not that it’s like that!” she practically shouted. “Not that that is what is going to happen!” Lena really hated herself sometimes.
Paul’s expression was undeservedly kind. It was all sweet forgiveness. And even gratitude to top it off. “I know you do, Lena. I can tell you understand.”
They just stared at each other, but for the first time the silence didn’t feel shamefully insufficient. It felt okay.
“Do you want to take a break?” she asked him again.
“Okay,” he agreed this time.
The stump was big enough for two. She sat next to him cross-legged. She leaned into him a little, and he let her. The sun shone down on them benevolently.
The corners of her drawing, where she left it in the grass, flapped gently in the breeze.
She wanted to finish it, but she didn’t feel rushed. She realized she’d begun the drawing so she could tell Paul she was sorry.
Jiggle it a little it’ll open.
—Pinky and the Brain
via Roger Miller
It was another day in the rut.
Valia had used up most of her energy IMing her friends back home. It was the one time of the day she looked alive. Now they sat in the darkened den, Carmen preparing to wage another war of attrition, with the TV as the prize.
She hadn’t gotten her Ryan Hennessey fix in days. She tried to picture him. For some reason she couldn’t picture him. She stood up. “Valia, we’re festering. We have to get out of here.”
“Ve do?”
“We do. It’s a beautiful day. We need a walk.”
Valia looked sleepy and cranky. “I’m vatching a show. I don’t vant to valk.”
“Please?” Carmen suddenly felt so desperate she didn’t care about their standoff of sullenness. Let Valia win this round. “I’ll do all the work. You just sit in your chair.”
Valia considered. She liked being pled with. She liked her obvious power over Carmen. She shrugged. “It’s too hot.”
“It’s not so hot today. Please?”
Valia wouldn’t give Carmen the satisfaction of saying yes outright, but she looked at her wheelchair with resignation.
Carmen took the opening. Gently she heaved Valia’s skinny body into her wheelchair. “Okay.” Carmen checked for her keys and her money and wheeled Valia right out the door.
The sky was perfectly blue. Though it was August, the swampy deep-summer haze had momentarily lifted. It was so good to be out. Carmen walked aimlessly, letting her mind wander. She tried to look at the world through Valia’s eyes, to imagine how each suburban vista looked through the eyes of an old woman who had spent her life on an Aegean island. Not so good, obviously. But when Carmen looked up and saw the sky, she knew it was the same sky. She wondered if Valia saw this lovely, azure sky and knew it was her same sky.
For some reason, a picture pushed into Carmen’s mind of a restaurant she’d been to with her mom a few times. She didn’t remember the name of it, but she knew exactly where it was. She pointed them in the direction of it and walked. She felt hungry all of a sudden.
At the restaurant, Carmen was pleased to see they still had tables with large white umbrellas set up outside. Red geraniums flowed from wooden boxes along the whitewashed walls of the little terrace. Carmen had never been to Greece, but she imagined that if you just looked at a small patch of the wall or looked up at the white umbrella against the sky, maybe it would look a little like this.
She set Valia up at a table. There were no other diners.
“Vhy are ve here?” Valia demanded.
“I need a rest and I’m also kind of hungry. Do you mind?”
Valia looked annoyed but martyred. “Does it matter if I mind?”
“I’ll be right back,” Carmen promised.
They didn’t have waiter service at the café tables, so she went to order from the counter inside. It was after lunch and before dinner, so the place was pretty deserted. She felt a bit illicit as she studied the menu. It wasn’t Greek food precisely, but it was Mediterranean.